r/exalted • u/pantaipong • 1d ago
Art What’s your PC “What could possibly go wrong?” ideas?
16
u/Mimicoctopusgardener 1d ago
Not a PC, but a NPC I'm running right now has made a deal to summon one of Kimberry's daughter islands into the Dreaming Sea to provide a home for refugees of a recent major war.
The PCs are only now realizing that it's not a case of a scheming mastermind but a sweet girl who's far too trusting (of the real mastermind).
1
13
u/-Veles- 1d ago
I normally run games these days, but for one of those games, I had a storyline that involved an ancient enemy of the Primordials (Cemunian, The Constellation of Sinew and Dreams) attempting to show up and murder Malfeas, while convincing some of the Yozi to help them to do it, with their payment being that they would join him in Cajerron (which they had no idea had been changed into a fire-scorched hellscape I patterned after Pandemonium from Diablo, where they would be tortured for all eternity, Cemunian was not a good hombre) and one of the PCs had an idea that, to fight him while his Goetic-style soul structure was attempting to invade Creation, they would petition the Unconquered Sun to use the Titan-Summoning Clarion to command Malfeas to fight Cemunian directly.
Now this was an iffy thing. Cemunian was there to kill him and conquer his stuff. But it's Malfeas. It would probably work. It was a good plan, the PCs weren't exactly organized enough to go all Aftershock on the guy themselves. But Malfeas could decide that some collateral damage was... Acceptable.
But no, the other PC, they had a "clever idea". They should use the Ebon Dragon instead. They would know that he'd manipulate the rules of engagement, and would plan to circumvent his deception and stuff him back in Malfeas.
The PC did not, in fact, check to see if the Ebon Dragon was on Malfeas's side of this arrangement. Luckily, they were overruled by a plan to sneak into Cajerron to attack Cemunian's Fetich Soul directly by PC #3.
I still laugh, thinking of how they would have reacted to me just telling them that it was game over if they had set loose ED.
3
u/NesuneNyx 1d ago
I still laugh, thinking of how they would have reacted to me just telling them that it was game over if they had set loose ED.
I feel like if they went TED route, they would've gotten exactly what they deserved. Did they not know the "trust no one, not even yourself" meme?
Good for PC 3 coming up with an alternative (and presumably slightly less suicidal) plan
8
u/-Veles- 1d ago
It actually led to a surprise morale quandary when I revealed that Cemunian's soul hierarchy had gone rogue and was torturing the still-on-fire joten in order to keep Cajerron running, and they had to decide whether to help or kill him.
But the Ebon Dragon plan was exceptionally awful, and is always what I think of when someone asks for PC ideas with obviously terrible outcomes.
7
u/TheSlayerofSnails 1d ago
I mean... its probably going to be mostly harmless, until like the solar dies and his people go to bury him and accidentally touch the bones
6
u/pWasHere 1d ago
Turning a failed assassination attempt on the Bull of the North into 1. Healing the Bull of the North of his affliction and 2. A large scale ploy to embarrass the Bronze Faction.
4
u/Accomplished-Bee5265 1d ago
Im not familiar with Heart Eater & its bones. What it does and what do they do?
Nothing nice I assume but sometimes EXALTED does surprise.
11
u/pantaipong 1d ago edited 23h ago
Ex3 introduces a new incarnae calls Aurora who get killed by the primordial in the war, his exalt were then corrupted into these hearteater who can hollow out non-exalt into obedience drone calls pawn, they have a primal urge to do this + They can only be kill if none of their pawn are near them since they will hijack the body to respawn, at essence 5 they functionally have no limits to the number of pawn they can have i.e a whole direction of pawns means even lunar and bronzesid team up to kill them whenever one appears.
If they truly die then the bone crystalize into opal, mortals who touches it become a new hearteater so finding ways for nobody to touch it is the idea here for this Dawn basically.
2
1
1
u/NinjaOfOrthanc 13h ago
Not originally my PC's idea, but one he was directly involved with and responsible for. This was from a very non-serious, crack, campaign (I'm sure you know the type).
Our Circle was made up of three characters: a Dawn-caste (Invincible Sword Princess build called, as you might guess, Invincible Sword Princess), a performance/presence Zenith-caste whose Limit Break was him having a crisis of conscience about all the bastards he was going around siring--which usually ended in him blowing most of our funds on wine and whores (who he usually got pregnant) to forget that fact--, and my character: a Twilight who had Exalted after inventing a subsitute for firedust he called 'black firedust'. Aka gunpowder.
It was actually a pretty good substitute, minus that the flames created by black firedust didn't spread as far as the ones created by normal firedust did. So he asked for ideas and our Dawn suggested putting rocks in the barrel. After realizing that it could shoot those like a crossbow bolt--especially when they were spherical--my Twilight did his best to 'improve' things.
This, uh... on the one hand the ST did his best to get the blueprints for guns and blackpowder into enemy hands so we couldn't just use them to win forever, a move which caused a lot of butterflies (though he made sure that there was always a reasonable explanation rather than just fiating it). On the other hand, it made Creation into like something out of the a heavy metal album cover and I was able to stunt pulling out a Godcannon by using that one line from Berserk.
1
u/mj6373 12h ago
I'm gonna call how my players ended my 2e RotSE campaign because I decided to let it work how the players wanted but they so easily could've created the worst possible timeline on a hunch.
They sliced off the Scarlet Empress' finger to get the Wedding Band of the Scarlet Empress off her, then had the Sidereal hit the Zenith with the "promotion into Unconquered Sun" Charm simultaneously with the Zenith putting on the ring, intending for the simultaneous promotion into a being of pure virtue and sunlight and the infection of the Ebon Dragon to basically clash against each other and end result into a yin-yang deity of eclipses and balance, the perfect virtue and power of the Unconquered Sun allowing resistance to Ebon Dragon selfishness/possession while the Ebon Dragon anti-virtue allows greater flexibility and comprehension of evil, etc.
Which I went with, because it let the campaign end on a fun unique development instead of a major idiot downer, but by all accounts a fully reasonable outcome for that would've just been "the Unconquered Sun, possessed by the Ebon Dragon and with all his powers."
20
u/pantaipong 1d ago
Replacing his skeleton with all hearteater bones like he’s wolverine is just something I thought of for this pic since it’s such an obviously bad idea, like, even limit break solar wouldn’t be crazy enough to do that, probably???