Stunning Beauty Chronicles, part 2nd (WHoOG)

This session was short-ish and ended on a kind of cliffhanger.

Last session, we went to visit the village where agents of Da Su Su had found the letter from Yu San Lin (the late auntie whose intimate friendship with one of the killers of Da Su Su's father brought this to us).

It was a short and uneventful trip, followed by an equally short and uneventful investigation: I gave some pocket money to kids. They brought us to a widow who was giving rooms. She gave us rooms and lodging for something like 12 spades - I was generous, yes.

Then I left her to my wife's devices, and retired for an afternoon sleep. When I reappeared, she knew everything she needed, and was livid with anger about us travelling here. A fake trace like any other, and faker than most.

I went to speak with the local kids (who earned more spades than their parents this day). My wife went to visit the ruins of the house of Yu San Lin's relatives (she had married into the Yu clan).

What we were able to establish:

-No foreigners other than the usual traders had visited the village for almost 10 months. Da Su Su's "agent" had "acquired" the letter less than a month ago. Even before that, no martial artists apart from soldiers marching with the regular army...

Conclusion: this letter wasn't found where they thought it was found.

-The relatives of Yu San Lin had all perished in a fire of their house...20 years ago, almost. Da Su Su's father has been murdered, and his sword stolen (the sword she suspected us having, because of Yu San Lin!) merely 15 years ago. Yu San Lin herself had died soon after his death.

Conclusion: this letter was, in all likelihood, a fake. I suggested she has probably been lead astray because she seems exactly the kind to use torture...and people are prone to give you something in order to avoid or stop the pain.

That's when we decided to call Da Su Su by a lapdog's name. She is, in our opinion, just as stupid as lapdogs tend to be! (And we also agree that she needs to be taught a lesson).

After dinner, we went in the forest to give some training in kung-fu to the chief of our security. I had decided to make her a disciple, remember?

After that? Sex, sleep, travelling back. On the way, I wrote a report.

"Dear (lapdog name)..."

Stop! Tear that sheet. Start anew!

"Respected Da Su Su,

As your representative, I am glad to inform you of the work we have performed at your behalf.

We went to the village where the letter has been found. We established that it couldn't possibly have been found where and when your agents claimed it was:

-Yu San Lin's relatives have died in a fire years before your respectable father met his untimely demise; and

-There have been no foreigners visiting for almost 10 months approximately (refer to the schedule of manoeuvring of general Dai Xiao Fen, whose soldiers were the last to visit).

With all due respect, we'd like to meet the agent who procured the letter, and ask him some questions ourselves. It seems your agents haven't asked the right questions.

In the meantime, accept my assurances that we continue to watch over your best interests, and are looking for your father's murderers!

Yu"

Of course, when we went to meet her, she appreciated our diligence...and was kinda unhappy with the agent (one of the four silent guys in wedding dresses) who had procured the letter from a local fence. 

Only one problem: he had also killed the fence. Because he was unsure he's telling him everything.

Da Su Su: "Then why did you tell me it's a truthful information?"

Stupid Man In Wedding Dress: "I didn't! I showed you the letter, and you announced it's a trace we must follow, so we obeyed!"

And he added, quote, "you seemed so eager for new traces, and we haven't had any for a while!"

While this conversation was going on, I was scribbling notes. When it concluded, I showed them to Da Su Su.

-Your agents are incompetent when it comes to uprooting enemies. They might be good fighters, but if investigation was fighting, they'd be novices.

-Killing people that bring you information should be forbidden. If anything, they should be left alive in case it turns out to be misinformation. Even better, the questioning should be left to your hired specialists from the Yu family, i.e. me and my wife.

-Lack of patience leads to hastiness, and hastiness leads to chasing mirrages.

Then we went to check the dead fence. We actually knew the man (but his body wasn't found, so we didn't exactly know him to be dead. I should ask about the body). Thus, we knew his favourite abode.

We went there, and by the time-honoured method (read: buying drinks and giving tips) got to know who he has been talking with lately.

The list included the servants of a couple magistrates, a couple traders, and one of the Yu clan servants, the old Ye.

We went to talk with Old Ye. He had brought him two letters from the fifth brother of the head of the Yu clan - Bantering Peacock!

Same Bantering Peacock whose personal servant we'd found spying on us and miss Yu Bijun fighting Da Su Su.

My wife: "I'm going to talk with uncle Two-Timing Cockerel!  (The clan's head) That letter he had brought? One of them was totally the fake, and the other, instructions what to talk!"

I decided to let her accuse him. Worst case scenario, she'd have accused him unjustly, and he would have no trouble denying it (and then I'd have arguments the next time I want her to show restraint).

Besides, her method of investigation is "accuse them, and see how they react"...seems to work so far (for her).

We got there. Two-Timing Cockerel didn't like the accusations.

"Well, he had also sent his servant to spy on us!", she reminded him (see Part 1).

"What?"

"Didn't the servant come to you?", I inquired. "I sent him with orders, and a threat..."

"Nobody came!"

As it turned out, the servant couldn't be found anywhere.

"Obvously Bantering Peacock has killed him!", she said.

Two-Timing Cockerel felt let down.

"Can't believe a family member would betray us like that...", he sighed.

"Then the right thing according to Dehua philosophy (Setting-analogue of Confucianism) is to accuse him, and let him defend himself!", I countered. "Family ties demand it. The family is strong while united, so letting it stand would achieve nothing but make us suspect him more and more, the lingering suspicion growing stronger, even if he is indeed innocent! And if he is, he deserves a chance to defend himself! Of course, if he is guilty, he deserves punishment, and the family would only be stronger for uncovering him..."
"Yes, but this...there are two kinds of death that are the worse: to be slain by an unworthy foe, or by a family member!"
"Two kinds of..." is the speech formula that has lead to him being the Two-Timing Cockerel. And he was thinking of punishment, I supposed.
"I can avoid both", I assured him. "If he is guilty, we'll just tell Da Su Su he has mislead her. She's neither an unworthy foe - her Qi was strong enough to withstand my best shot - nor a family member!"

Two-Timing Cockerel relented and summoned Bantering Peacock. And then we had to stop the session.

Stunning Beauty Chronicles (WHoOG)

It was a while since I've got to play wuxia. So I roped my wife into running it for me and a very close friend with which we can play often.
I pitched the other player the idea of both of us being from the Silken Robe society. She agreed, and so our party, named Stunning Beauty Team, was conceived.
(We also have stunning fists and kicks, and in the backstory, she'd married my character after nursing him back to health, because he was as beauiful as her. He has been the student of a travelling master, but his master ordered him to run after we were both ambushed and my character was hurt).

So now, we're running the bordello of the Silken Robe Society, named The House of Silken Robes. Most of the money is for the clan, of course. And I'm quite the good choice for director: my character has an imbalance that requires him to have regular sex...and he's studying for the Imperial Exams.
Two sessions elapsed already, and we're close to getting to 2nd Qi level (that's usually doable in 2 sessions, but our XP gains were hampered by not getting into a single fight in the first session).

The game began with a party on our workplace. It was going great until a serving maid entered, bloodied, and lost conscience. We chased towards the upper floor to find the culprits and explore the traces. My wife, being better at Qin Gong, chased them - and I surveyed.
I'd lost a working girl, a client - a magistrate, at that - and a guard (not from the clan). The assassin, which my wife didn't manage to get, had written with blood "Give The Sword Back!" (The hieroglyphe was Jian; I asked).
The chief of my secuity almost committed suicide because of the shame - she's more uptight even than me - but I managed to dissuade her. She might be good material to train in kung-fu!
On top of that, someone had attacked the clan compound, too! Well, the birds alerted the clan, and there were no casualties that mattered, but the attacker lost 3 men. They had their faces slashed repeatedly until they were unrecognizable...what do you ask, "do you know the owner of this scar tissue"?

A long session of searching for clues ensued. At the end, we knew the following:
-Someone had recently set a prize for returning a sword lost 15 years ago, when a respected master had been assassinated. That was "soon after me and my wife were born", although he'd been a friend of our clan.
-There was a rumour the jian was in our clan, due to some members being in a liaison - guess what kind, we're the Silken Robes! - with one of the killers.
-The late master's daughter, Da Su Su, has recently reappeared.

I went to the Two-Timing Cockerel - my wife is his brother's daughter - and asked him to check the veracity of the rumours. He spoke to everyone personally, because he didn't want me to lie from the name of the clan he heads, even unknowingly.
Results: everybody claimed they'd neither done one of the 5 killers (in the last 15 years or so, after the murder), nor did anyone own the sword. Who would lie to the clan's head?
And thus we were sure in our righteousness when we went to meet the daughter of the assassinated master (also known as the Relentless Corpse Queen, though we didn't know that nickname - former students of her father said she's been doing stuff they disapproved of, but I assumed they meant she'd stopped).

There was three of us, including the daughter of the Two-Timing Cockerel Yu Bijun, her niece (my wife), and my character. So, of course, we spoke with the Bijun and decided we'd open with accusations, and she could go "softer and more reasonable, given that they're youngsters" later.
Thus my opening line was great. Imagine the picture: In front of us, a blue-eyed woman of exquisite beauty, alabaster skin (Da Su Su, who doesn't grow old) and four expressionless guards - with them dressed in wedding clothes.
"Greetings, lady. Do we interrupt something?", I pointed to them. "We could come later if it's a wedding..."
Who'd expect the Silken Robes to judge someone else for marrying four men...just like our leaders?
"You interrupt nothing", she answered.
But then, it went downhill. Da Su Su didn't even deny being behind the attacks, but then showed us a letter that supposedly proved that a long-dead woman from our clan had been the lover of one of the killers (still in hiding).
The avenging daughter didn't know the woman is dead, but then claimed that she holds us responsible for it still. And she wanted us to help her locate him, or suffer the responsibility.
We, on the other hand, told her the clan leader had inquired personally and found no proof, and then asked her to pay for the damages.
Avenging Daughter took that as disagreement, and asked her to prove our innocence. After I pointed out that proving a negative assertion is pointless, she called us insolent puppies.
At the word "puppies" my wife jumped over her, kicked her in the kidneys with Kick of the Swan, and continued kicking the heads and groins of all of them. Though only one of them, and the beautiful daughter, showed having felt it.
Yes, she made all her rolls. And she didn't even suffer Imbalance from this, since she got a Total Success on the first attack.
Me? I made a couple gestures and violet-purple light enveloped my palms. I Iron Bodied away the staff strike of the sect leader, too.
All five enemies tried to smash or slash my wife, so she began dancing on their weapons (and kicked the daughter in the face in the process). Weapon Stride is a nice counter. It also saved her again after the woman with the staff tried to really hurt her...but our superior - the daughter of the clan's chief - suffered a devastating attack, despite her Drunken Dodges.
One of the men slashed me so fast my Iron Body didn't save me from the strike which would have killed a normal man. Another's Ox-Tail Dao I bumped away with my Iron Body technique. Yes, I was gearing for the Heart-Smashing Strike, if you were wondering.
I suffered two Wounds from a single Ferocious Strike with a Total Success on the attack and a Total Success on the damage roll. The motherfucker!
The daughter suffered FOUR wounds (!) from a single attack of the beautiful woman...but managed to avoid the poison part of the attack.
The next moment, I swung my hand, and smashed it in her ribs. It cracked no worse than her own staff strike. Though she didn't seem nearly as preoccupied as Yu Bijun had been!
I also dealth 4 Wounds, due to a Total Success on the damage. But Da Su Su had 10 Wounds remaining!
"Do you like it rough, dear?", I asked Da Su Su, always mindful of keeping such a beauty happy. 
At the same moment, my wife jumped up and crawled up a tree, disappearing among the leaves.
"And do you feel her stare between your shoulder blades?", I added, smiling.
"You're good for a puppy. If only you were behaving more like a professional...", she answered.
"YOU are talking to me about professionalism?", I asked. "I haven't seen any from you. We came to deal fairly and squarely with you!"
"You attacked me!"
"You had attacked us based on erroneous information, for something that's happened 15 years ago, and the perpetrator of which has been dead over a decade. Even then we were willing to negotiate - but you refused to make us a professional offer!"
"What do you want?"
"Us? We'd be willing to help you - but not for free, since we don't feel responsible. You can pay for our help, for the damage caused to our business, two lost servants included, and to our reputation - included problems with the law incured by your attack - and the wounds suffered by clan members. Then we'd help...but much as we respected your father, your vendetta doesn't interest us, in itself, not after 15 years!"
"Tell me a sum!"
I made some quick calculations and asked for, I think, 5 Gold Taels in damages, 1 silver tael per month for me, another for my wife - we'd need to hire and appoint replacements to take care of our business. While I was explaining where the money would go, she answered.
"Money is not an issue".
And Da Su Su took off one of her golden necklaces - with green jade, by the Yellow Emperor - and threw it in my feet.
"Let me know how long I've hired you for."
Then she turned and left with her silent guards. None of them had said a word.
Meanwhile, my wife spotted a man - and captured him with Qin Gong - who turned out to be a servant from our clan's compound. A personal servant of the fifth brother of the Two-Timing Cockerel, Bantering Peacock!
He claimed first being here to gather mushrooms, then (after I asked my wife whether she's in the mood to kick somebody) admitted that he's here to check whether our superior - the possible future Clan's Head - is alright.
"I am alright", she said.
I shook my head and ordered the man to present himself directly to the Two-Timing Cockerel, and repeat exactly what he said to us. I also took a flock of his hair.
"You stray from my instructions, I give that to a witch I know. You'd be lucky if your balls simply fall off and regrow on the sides of your nose!"
He seemed to have understood.

We went back, too. An hour later, I was unharmed, due to my Nei Gong, and only felt horny - but luckily, my wife kinda shared that feeling. Yu Bijun offered to join us, but my wife was sulking due to not being able to really harm the beautiful, insolent clan leader, so I declined politely (she's being her usual, too-self-confidant-for-her-own-good, self - so I knew she'd feel frustrated).
It helps when the PCs have got similar Flaws.


After we found a jeweler, it turned out the necklace was worth 22 GOLDEN Taels. That's 220 Silver, or 220 000 Strings of Spades.
We sent "gifts" to families (5 Silver Taels to the dead courtesan's family, and as much to the guard's family, 2 GOLDEN taels - 20 silver - to the dead magistrate's family) and the local magistrate (20 more Silver Taels), purchased another courtesan's contract (12 Silver Taels), paid to boost the morale of usual clients (8 Silver Taels for a few nights of debauchery on lower prices), and realised we've been hired for...75 months each, barring major expenses.
We hired three supervisors to replace us (100 Strings each, or 0,3 Silver Taels, out of the monthly sum). After that, we asked where the letter has been found. It turned out to have been hidden with some relatives of one of the culprits we had to uncover, in some village.
We hired a palanquin, took the head of the bordello security (I need to appoint another, but I've decided to teach her Kung-Fu!) and Yu Bijun - who had offered to join us on the trip...and off we went, to the village!
That's where the session ended!

How many sub-genres are there? And are all of them even necessary?

I tried to answer one of those "pick one game for each genre" polls.

The problem was, I tried to answer honestly. So, knowing that most games that do well at representing a sub-genre actually suck at representing other sub-genres within the same genre (case in point: DCC is great for S&S, but trying to run a high fantasy campaign with it might require...dropping some rules, at least), I tried to answer by sub-genres.

Then I realised that by answering honestly, I'd created such a huge list (shown below - though I wouldn't blame you if you haven't read it) that it totally defeated the point, with the point AFAICT being "tell us which games you would return to time and time again". (If you have 50+ games, you can afford to switch between them, so even if a system starts grating at you after a while, it doesn't matter. You can just switch to something entirely different for a change, then revisit it after a significant pause.)

So I went to thinking: do we really need such a huge number of sub-genres?
Furthermore, I was thinking, different authors writing in the same sub-genre feel really different. Sometimes, their own works in entirely different genres might well feel closer than another work that shares a sub-genre.

Should I just go to my old system of "genre classification"? It only allowed for, like, 5 genres: Detectives (no matter anything else, if it's about a crime, it's listed here), Martial Arts stories (happily lumping swashbuckling and wuxia together), Fantasy (anything with magic), Historical (including present-day, as long as there's no magic), Sci-fi (anything in the future and/or speculating about advances in technology - so I used to happily lump together Asimov's "Foundation" and "Blood music"). Then I specified the "flavour" by adding the author's name.
So, Blood Music would be "Greg Bear SF", while the Foundation series would be "Isaak Asimov's SF". LotR would be "Tolkien's fantasy", while "Earthsea" would be "Ms. Ursula's fantasy", and Amber would be "Zelazni's fantasy". Always worked for me and my friends...
I'm now trying to remember why I gave up on it.

Still haven't found an answer to any of the above questions.
(If you care to know: At the end, I just shrugged and posted "I pick my own homebrew, since I can adapt it for everything". Of course I can, it's my homebrew. Switching it to emulate another system's qualities wouldn't even be a houserule - more like an update and going from edition 0,755 to 0,756...so while technically it's true, it was also a not really helpful answer.
Though, to be fair, I should have posted "Traveller 5, some other edition of Traveller, Mythras, Pocket Universe, BoL and my own homebrew" instead. Ah well, live and learn!)


The huge list that prompted my considerations:
4 colours Supers: 4 Colours. Doh!
Gritty supers: Wild Talents
Hard SF: 2300 AD
Ecologist Science Fi- Blue Planet
Space Opera: Traveller 5
Post-humanist SF: Eclipse Phase or Transhuman Space, leaning towards the latter
Cyberpunk: Cyberpunk 2020
Neo-Cyberpunk: Fates Worse Than Death with BtEoM supplement
High Fantasy: Godbound with Scarlet Heroes for the mortal level.
Romantic Fantasy: FUDGE with the HeartQuest Shoujo supplement.
OSR Dungeon Crawl: DCC, doh!
Non-OSR Dungeon Crawl: 13th Age
Victorian Gritty Fantasy: Backswords and Buckles
Fantasy Africa: Solomon Kane
Movies-inspired Swords and Sorcery: BoL, latest edition
Novels-inspired S&S: Mythras
Exalted Fantasy: I said Godbound already, let's give Ex3 a chance
Ancient World Fantasy: Mythras
Swords and Sandals: Zenobia with 43 AD and Warband (seeing as how they are variants of the same system, I treat themas supplements).
Swords and Planet: Pocket Universe, with Bethorm as a setting supplement
Gritty Novels-inspired Swashbuckling: Flashing Blades with the High Seas supplement
Funny Film-inspired Swashbuckling: Honor+Intrigue
Fencing Pirates: Le Pavilion Noir (with the fencing supplement, of course).
Anthropomorphic Fantasy: Ironclaw, with the Jadeclaw and Bone and Ivory supplements, and Usagi Yojimbo as a supplement for the Japan- analogue.
Fantasy in space: Hellas
Arthurian Fantasy: Pendragon 5.1
Mythic England:
Post Apocalyptic Fantasy: Earth Dawn 2e from FASA...the edition choice is just "because I already own it".
Mecha, Monks and Ninja: TBZ, of course.
Espionage: Night's Black Agents
Techno thrillers: Millennium's End
Steampunk: Jadepunk
High-Powered Wuxia: LotW
High-Powered Wuxia with focus on finding legendary weapons: Weapons of the Gods
Low-Powered Wuxia: Qin with all the supplements
Kungfupian, preferably generational: Tianxia
Wuxia with Xian xia: Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate
John Woo movies, with or without talking apes: Feng Shui 2
Fighting Games emulation: Fight! The Fighting Game RPG
Shonen: Fight, but with the Shonen supplement
Boxing/MMA Stories: Contenders
General Martial arts stories: My own homebrew started as a way to do this, and find it does so nicely already.
Urban Fantasy: Witchcraft
Vampires-focused UrbanFantasy: Vampire City
Summoners-focused Urban Fantasy: Sorcerer
Dragons-Focused Urban Fantasy: Fireborn
Historical games: Mythras or my own homebrew
Pulp: Savage Worlds with Thrilling Tales
Noir: A Dirty World
Whodunit Detective Stories: Fear Itself
Medieval Whodunit: Maelstrom Domesday
Heist Stories: Skulduggery RPG
Western: My own homebrew makes it equally easy to play gun duels, as presented in the fiction  (and unlike how they probably worked),or the way they probably happened
Slice-of-Life Anime emulation: OVA2e
Dimension Hopping Reality Bending Adventure: Amber
Time Travel: my own homebrew. I don't think it's good enough yet, but I can adjust it - and no game I know does a much better job, so I'd rather trust myself.
Slaughter Horror: Snuff: The Downloads of Death
Mythos Horror: toss if a coin between CoC 7 and Delta Green
Mystic Horror with Mad Wizards: Unknown Armies 3e
Fairy tales: My own homebrew or Mythras
Trade Empires in Ancient Rome: Worlds Apart
Trade Empires With Flying Ships: Volant


Yes, I know. That's a huge number of systems. That's what bothered me, too: do we really need that much?
My feeling is that the answer should be a resounding "no". But how do we change that?

Binding Books for Tekumel/Create Your Own Yozi

Here's a system-agnostic way to create your own demons for Tekumel. Because someone pointed out that The Book of Ebon Bindings only has Change demons, and not Stability demons...
And I thought of a series of interlinked random tables.

Step one: Pick Stasis/Stability or Enthropy/Change. Or toss a coin. If you have Stasis, add "a" to the number of the tables. Enthropy means you add a "b". 

Step two,optional: Do you want to decide a god in advance or not? If yes, roll on table 1. 

1a: Roll 1d10, or 2d10 pick higher/lower.

1. Hruu
2. Wuru
3. Vimuhla
4. Chiteng
5. Ksarul
6. Gruganu
7. Sarku
8. Durritlámish
9. Dlamelish
10. Hriháyal

1b: Roll 1d10, or 2d10 pick higher/lower.

1. Hnalla
2. Dra
3. Karakan
4. Chegarra
5. Thumis
6. Ketengku
7. Belkhanu
8. Qon
9. Avanthe
10. Dilinala

Or, you know...just decide whether you want a Cohort or a main god/dess, and roll 1d5 on table 1C (c for Common, it applies to both stability and change).

1-Authority and Rulership (the "boss" of the pantheon)

2-War and Violence

3-Wisdom, especially occult

4-Death and Afterlife

5-Sex and Family

Either way, if you have chosen a god or goddess already, when you'd roll the other tables, only pick results that "fit". A courtesan might not be the best option for Sarku (or at least I prefer not to imagine it).

Step 3: Pick the basics of your demon. Roll on table 2. 

2a - roll 1d24 or a 1d100

1. Warrior (1-5)
2. Scholar (6-10)
3. Priest (11-13)
4. Maiden (14-15)
5. Slave (16)
6. Pe Choi or other "friendly" race (17)
7. Unfriendly race or extraterrestrial menace (18)
8. Grazing beast (19-23)
9. Predator (24-26)
10. Earthly predator (27)
11. Earthly vegetarian beast, likely horned and/or of great mass (28)
12. Marsupial (29)
13. Bird with great speed or strength (30-33)
14. Bird of prey (34-38)
15. Lizard-analogue (39-40)
16. Frog-analogue (41-42)
17. Invertebrate considered useful (ex: eatable mollusque, a scarab that must eat the body of the deceased in order to guarantee the ascension of the soul 43-45)
18. Colony-based Insect (46-50)
19. Construct, humanoid (51-54)
20. Plant (55-60)
21. Fungi (61-62)
22. Animated item (63-69)
23. Geographic location (a big boulder, a forest 70-75)
24. Roll twice and combine (ignore this result if you roll it again, 76-100).

Table 2b. Roll 1d66 (2d6 of different colour, giving you a result between 11 and 66).

1. Roll once more 2
2. Roll twice more
3. Roll 3 times more
4. Warrior, probably berserk-like or mounted
5. Scholar, likely mad or extremely methodic
6. Priest
7. Courtesan
8. Vacchan
9. Slave
10. Dark-clad Assassin
11. Non-human Tekumelian race
12. Enraged, stampeding grazing beast
13. Stalking predator
14. Corpse-eating beast
15. Bird of prey
16. Carrion-eating bird
17. Snake-analogue
18. Lizard-analogue
19. Frog-analogue
20. Horned beast
21. Fish
22. Worm
23. Other invertebrate, likely considered harmful
24. Carnivorous plant
25. Fungi
26. Algae or jellyfish
27. Spider
28. Scorpion
29. Poisonous or corpse-eating insect
30. Construct, non-human looking
31. Undead
32. Animated item, likely not man-made: Stone, sand, diamond
33. Incarnation of a disaster (hurricane)
34. Animated geographic feature (forest)
35. A hive, swarm or pack with one mind
36. Ethereal presence

Now combine all results you got, if you have more than one, and go to the next step. 

Step 4: Roll on table 3. 

Add an elemental condition to your demon. This is a guideline-only and the "element" doesn't need to be presented! 

A Wind demon might be fully material, but flying...or it might be the wind itself (the scourging wind, for Change demons). It might be watery, or command water (salty water, for Change demons). 

Table 3a (I let it to you to guess which die to roll...or you can roll 1d100).

1. None 1-44
2. Light 45-52
3. Air 53-60
4. Water 61-68
5. Earth 69-76
6. Gold 77-84
7. Steel 85-92
8. Shadow 93-100

Table 3b. Roll 1d20 or 1d100...seriously, you don't need me to write that out!

1. None
2. Fire
3. Wind
4. Water
5. Earth
6. Gold
7. Steel
8. Brass
9. Darkness
10. Beast
11. Poison
12. Smoke
13. Blood
14. Acid
15. Salts
16. Thunder
17. Electricity
18. Shadow
19. Void
20. Flesh

Step 5:  Combine them into a narrative description that fits.

Step 6: Consider which god or goddess said demon is most likely to serve (note: a "slave" demon likely has no free will and you might want to roll on Table 1).

Step 7: Decide what said demon's goals, needs and wants, dislikes, hates and quirks are. Demons often reflect the identity of the god/dess they serve.

Step 8: Decide on a binding ritual. The type and element should help you, but it should be costly, require precision and sacrifice - or it doesn't count...

Also remember, no demon works for free. The personality should help you devise a suitable payment.

So, how does it work?

Well, you start with Step 1, and pick a pantheon. Let's say you got Stability.

Then you roll 100, double, and get "maiden" and "plant" on the results. You roll "gold".

Your demon is a plant girl, walking on feet of greenery, that leaves golden nuggets in her footsteps. I decide she's an Avanthe demon that aims to preserve the crops and reward the good farmers.

Too bad you need to boil gold in a pot of ironwood and pour it on a still-living flower so you get the golden flower. You need to arrange enough of those to make a nice arrangement, while reciting the magical formula.

If you fail to do a nice one, the demon appears, but smashes the arrangement and takes the caster away for uses best left unmentioned.

Oh, and you know why this has the Exalted tag? It also works for demons of the 2nd and 3rd circle, or even new Yozis!

Have fun!

A.

What does Exalted 3e combat system model? Why, real life, of course!

It has been brought to my attention that many people can't get over the conceptual hurdle of Exalted 3e's combat system having two kind of attacks. "Why", they say, "is this attack withering, and this one decisive? They're both, you know, slashes".
The answer is, because the enemy is not static. And the enemy wasn't equally prepared to meet both.

Let's start with basics, and I'm talking about real life here.
There are two major kinds of fights, ambushes (and suckerpunching, and stabbing someone while he's trying to get his sword out of a scabbard, and prison yard rushes where only one side has a shiv, and hunting herbivores that are running in the other direction, and IEDs, and carpet-bombing infantry), and duels (shieldwalls and "monkey dancing" included on equal rights here). These are symmetric and asymmetric combat, and I leave it to you to put any other situation into one of these two. Guideline: if your enemy can retaliate, it's not asymmetric combat...yet.

The thing about ambushes is that they make it safe. You just need to get into position. The trick is getting into this position with a weapon ready to strike. Then the enemy is hurt without getting to strike back. That's why they're "dishonourable": they avoid the hardest part of the duel - you getting around the threat that the enemy represents to your bodily integrity.
The thing about duels is that they're easy to win, but hard to survive. If you don't take away the enemy's options to attack, at least for a split second, he might do the same thing that happens in lots of punch-outs, where the participants are exchanging blows.
You don't want that to happen to you, ever, not if you're assuming weapons are going to be used. That's why duels were notorious for double-kills.

That's also why many combat systems, fencing included, are teaching you to attack when the enemy can't retaliate. To do that, you have to grasp or create such a moment, and be in position with a weapon ready to strike. Sounds familiar?
It should. The essence of surviving a duel is in turning it into an ambush for a split second, or however long it takes you to deliver the injury (with a sword, that's "for an instant", usually). That's the essence of fencing, and grappling, and a few other styles I can name.
It's not "charge and hope for the best". It's like fencing, where you get into a position where the enemy has at least one "window" open, and can't close it in time, then getting your stab through said "window"...you have to just manoeuvre him into opening.
Or for a possibly more familiar example, it's like Gracie Ju-Jutsu: get positional advantage, then apply submission, or just pound away. But you need the positional advantage first, and then it's an ambush until and unless he dislodges you. But you're likely to get at least one attempt for a submission.

Back to Exalted 3e
The above model is what the Exalted 3e system models, in my view. Of if it's not meant to (although I suspect it is), it emulates it so well, that it almost doesn't matter.
Now, if your enemy is an extra: there is no need for withering attacks, just take care of him at once. No, that's not realistic, but since when are "extras" rules realistic?
First, a withering attack puts your enemy on the defensive and gives you first strike next round. Keep in mind: "attack" here is anything that gives you advantage. It might be a defence.
Then, you use the openings you just created, and deliver your best shot.
You better hope that's enough. If it's not, and he isn't well and truly on the defensive, he might use you moment of weakness.
That's something that Withering attacks, Initiative crash and Decisive attacks are modelling very well (coupled with Crash attacks as "attacking in single time).
And there's nothing "meta" about the way it goes (other than the fact that "withering attacks" would be better named as "creating advantage"... But really, they couldn't use "create advantage", or the Fate guys would laugh so hard Internet would stop watching pr0n for a second and turn to see what's going on.
And as we all know, Internet stopping to watch pr0n would have nothing short of disastrous results!)

Is that just me that sees it this way? Well, no. I happened to exchange personal messages with at least one other martial artist that sees Exalted 3e the same way. His nickname and other details would remain undisclosed, but that's less important.
The thing is, when you show Exalted 3e's combat system to people trained a certain way, they often react the same way: "Hey, nice!"
When you show it to people without such training, it's often "I can't visualize it". Some of them tend to "get it" after a demonstration.
Thus, I decided to mention how I'm seeing Exalted 3e. I know that was a problem in my group...until we made a demonstration for those that didn't "get it" immediately.

Hope that helps you, too. If not, hope this post at least made you think - about martial arts, or about Exalted 3e, or about both!

-A

Exalted 3e: First sessions went on, first impressions are mostly positive!

First, I must admit: despite being a KS backer, I didn't expect the system to be as good as it is.
Still, I decided to give it a honest shot, and pitched a one-shot on Halloween. As of now, three days later, we're waiting for the third session - which should be before the end of the week.
So much for the system delivering a fun game. It works. So far, it works without major flaws.

So, what are the most fun things about it?
First, social combat. Making persuasion depend on what the person being persuaded believes in, is a [B][I]very[/I][/B] big step forward. Well, I think the difference between Minor and Defining intimacy is underrated...but that's a matter of fine-tuning. At least for a change, all of my players will pay attention to what their characters believe in.

Second, physical combat. This time around, it does feel like something that has the back and forth of a real fight with weapons. Fun fact: both players in my group that practice historical fencing thought the system is quite logical and intuitive. The players that don't practice anything had trouble imagining what a Withering attack is, and how it differs from a Decisive attack.
That is, until we explained and demonstrated. "This is a withering attack against an extra from a battlegroup. This is an withering attack against someone who knows not only what end of the sword to grip, but also how to stick the pointy end in you. This is a decisive attack against the same person".
Seems to work.

The themes it encourages, however? Those are great!
We started in Grieve, where people go looking for immortality...with a catch. Of course, we started on the first day of Calibration: can't get closer to Halloween!
First actually interesting thing for the day, finding a soulless body!
Find the sorceress that did it. Release the souls she had gathered by, well, being a Zenith that can see spirits. Then beat on her until she decides she's outmatched...despite being a Dawn caste.
By this time, everything but our Night is flaming iconic...so we run to preserve our identities. On the way, you meet a thousands-years-old ghost...or at least one that claims to be one. They didn't bother to check.
Talking with the Dawn. The lack of empathy was disturbing, and she seems to love Mara. Oh, great!
The Dawn is, however, willing to negotiate, so a Bargain was accepted: she shall not kill people while in Grieve, nor steal their souls. The Zenith didn't like that, at all.
Negotiations concluded, the new Dawn left.
The next day, they find some guy who was kicked into pulp by his own friends. He had fought some chick whose appearance is curiously familiar...and his friends beated him for being a bully. And let's not forget, she didn't kill anybody, so by their deal, she is in the right!
It also helped that he himself believed having assaulted the poor, weak, innocent thing. And they managed to not just nurse him back to health: on this night the word "overheal" was crafted.
(Yes, all of the above was driven by mechanical effects from the book).

Let's see now whether they would be able to help a Dragon-Blooded recover a missing token of one of his late relatives. Namely, it's said relative's leg that was ignobly stolen...and they say the guy who stole it has a very dangerous, protective girlfriend. Maybe they'd get to learn what are these mysterious Sea Children Exalts?
But that's for next session. Don't tell my players yet!

Granted, the BP/XP split is still there, and the rules could be clearer. I houseruled the XP to be linear for anything but Merits, and any not-quite-clear rules work the way that makes sense to me (with possibly changing my mind). Seems to be solving all the issues so far!

LotW: How to make learning Legends of the Wulin and managing new characters easy!

Anyway, I've been thinking quite a bit about some systems that I like, but lots of people find complicated (well, most of those that find them complicated still like them). As a matter of fact, I'm running Legends of the Wulin now, and it fits the description. But it seems hard to internalise for many people.
Now, that might be due to the different assumptions of the system. After all, most systems expect you to tell what you're doing, and then the character makes it happen, you roll to see how successful it is.
LotW is different. It assumes that in a fight you do whatever you have an opening for, and you roll to see what openings you've got. Well, it's more complicated than that, and much more flexible... but I already said it's complicated, right:)?

Or, I thought, it might be that most people do better with a visual aid. The abacus was invented for a reason.
However, there's no visual aid to help LotW players! (A glaring omission, if you ask me... as long as it's not mandatory, I'd like it. Explain the rules assuming no aid is being used, then present the aid).
So, what visual aid would I do? Why, something like the Warhammer 3, of course:D! (Well, I've never played Warhammer 3, but it's my impression that it works like that).

So, what's the biggest issue? Resource tracking. There are three kinds of resource in LotW that you manage on round-to-round basis, Joss, Dice, and Chi!
With that in mind, let's imagine what a visual aid should hold.

First, you have an area where you put your Lake dice.
Second, another Lake area, in case you need to roll more than once (say, like being attacked by two persons).
Third, you have an area for chits or chips in 8 different colours (usually one, but basically never more than 3 are in use together). There you put chits, representing your Chi points. If you want to get fancy, label them Enlightened, Normal, Corrupt, Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, Fire (with Normal having the most space).
Last but not least, you have an area for your River dice, and a dice cup for spare dice (you need to keep your Lake dice constant, even after you take from them to fill your River - this fits with the concept of opportunities used and unused). You might have a sliding ruler on the side to remind you what actions are possible, since you can't Wash after you Flood.
We can add a place where you keep a stack of cards, too. If you're putting your Internal techniques on cards, you can "play" them, and then put them back to that place.

And that's all! But it would help the learning curve immensely, I suspect.
Now, can you make an app like that? Sure you can, and it would help even more! But let's not get fancy.