Anathema: an Exalted game IC

(At the moment, I'm putting up setting info as I get it ready, just in the interest of giving people ideas)

A Brief Unhistory of Time

Stolen in its entirety from Irked here.

Once upon a time there was the Wyld. And the Wyld was formless and mad, ever-shifting and impossible. Within it, there dwelt the Fair Folk- eddies in the infinite currents of possibility who gained that most elusive of random traits: self-awareness. But they were still quite mad, and they liked it that way.

Into all of this came the Primordials: strange, Cthonic beings from goodness-knows-where intent on pursuing their own incomprehensible goals. To make things easier on themselves, the Primordials created an island of stability in the chaos of the Wyld. They called this island Creation. To manage it, they made the gods, cosmically powerful beings who were still little more than tools to the Primordials. With Creation under the guidance of the gods, the Primordials retreated to their heavenly palace-city of Yu-Shon to play at their Games of Divinity.

These were the bad old days: the time when man was ruled by the reptilian Dragon-Kings and one never knew when an elder deity might use your village as a testing ground for its new fanged tentacle abominations. And eventually, the gods got tired of cleaning up after their cosmic masters, and decided to stage a little coup. Mankind happily signed on, because fewer fanged tentacle abominations is good for everyone.

The problem, of course, was that this meant they needed to get rid of the Primordials.

One of the Primordials- a weak, sickly being who went by the name Autochthon, the Great Maker- grew tired of his brothers annihilating his creations for kicks and giggles. He gave the gods a fantastic gift: shards of Exaltation, which could turn human mortals into champions capable of defeating even the Primordials. Thus were born the Solar, Lunar, Sidereal, and Dragon-Blooded Exalted- and after an interminably long war, they defeated their makers and forced the survivors to surrender. Those Primordials who lived became the Yozis, demons imprisoned within the world-sized body of their general, Malfeas. Those who had been killed became something worse- nihilistic undead entities known as the Neverborn. The Neverborn laid a terrible curse on the Exalted, dooming them to go mad and destroy the very world they'd won.

The Exalted, of course, knew nothing of this, and so the Solars forged a great empire in the years following their victory. For perhaps two thousand years, the world experienced a Golden Age of harmony and impossible wonders.

Then the Great Curse manifested.

The Solars went mad. The Sidereals, always avid astrologers and beginning to suffer the effects of their own Curse, saw only one certain way of saving Creation. Enlisting the less powerful but more numerous Dragon-Blooded to their cause, they murdered the Solars and bound their Exaltations within a great Jade Prison to prevent their return. The Lunars, shocked and overwhelmed by the betrayal, were driven to the outer fringes of Creation, there to slowly succumb to the Wyld's lunatic call.

The Sidereals had saved Creation... and it very nearly cost them the world. The Dragon-Blooded had no hope of maintaining the Solars' wondrous civilization, and for a millenia, the fractured Dragon-Blood Shogunate managed to do little more than squander the weapons of their former masters in petty wars. The Sidereals, meanwhile, quietly wrote their own existence out of the history books.

Unbeknownst to all of them, the Neverborn had begun to move. From the vengeful ghosts of the murdered Solars, they drew thirteen spirits and granted them power to match that they'd wielded in life. These "Deathlords," in turn, unleashed a plague called the Great Contagion, which killed nine of every ten living beings in Creation. As things seemed darkest, the ravenous hordes of the Fair Folk breached the walls of the worlds and began a vast, all-consuming drive to finally eliminate the hated world of order.

They very nearly succeeded.

As the Dragon-Blooded legions fell back in disarray, a single unit breached the defenses of a long-abandoned Solar War Manse on the Blessed Isle. At the cost of her companions' lives, the commander of this unit reactivated the manse and annihilated the Fair Folk armies. She declared herself Empress and, backed by the Immaculate Order and its secret Sidereal advisers, reunited the world under an iron rule. For eight hundred years, the Scarlet Empress and her Dragon-Blooded children were revered as demigods; the Solars and Lunars, meanwhile, were remembered only as Anathema. The Sidereals, of course, were not remembered at all.

Then one day the Empress disappeared- and at virtually the same moment, the Deathlords made their second play. They forced open the Jade Prison and released the Solar shards. One hundred shards they snatched from the cage and twisted into the dark Abyssal Exalted; fifty others were given to the Yozis for whatever vile purposes they could imagine. One hundred and fifty Solar souls escaped, however- and they were reborn in a sudden tide of magnificence that the Scarlet Empire and its Anathema-slaying Wyld Hunt could not hope to stop.

This is the true history of the world.

Now, what of that do you know?

Everyone knows about the Scarlet Empress and the Dragon-Blooded- and if you weren't taught to worship them, you were at least told to give them healthy respect. Your newfound status as an Anathema may have changed that.

Everyone "knows" the story of the Anathema- that they were mad demon-worshippers who slaughtered innocents without mercy until they were put down by the heroic Dragon-Blooded. They may not be aware of the finer details of caste and type, but every citizen on the Blessed Isle or in the Threshold has heard enough to know that they're vile abominations who must be killed. This is less true as you move away from the Realm, but even there people probably have a healthy suspicion. No one knows about the Jade Prison. No one knows about the Sidereals except a very small elite in the Scarlet Empire.

Everyone knows that the Deathlords exist and that they have dark servants popularly referred to as deathknights. No one knows that the Abyssals are former Solars.

Everyone knows about gods, ghosts, spirits, and elementals, because pretty much everyone interacts with at least one of those at some point in their lives.

Pretty much everyone knows at least that the Yozis (and their numberless demonic component souls) exist. Pretty much no one knows much about the Neverborn or the Primordials.

No one knows about the Great Curse. Even Solars who experience it find the sensation completely natural, and even First-Age Lunars who knew the old Solars never attributed any method to their madness.

Everyone knows the Solars once more-or-less ruled the world. Most people don't know that this was a pretty good deal for a long while.

Everyone knows that the Fair Folk exist and that they can't abide the touch of iron.

And obviously these are subjective- someone with more Lore or Occult will know more, and someone raised in a barbarian tribe might know less of the Realm's history. But that's the basics- hope it helps.

Creation
Creation is a flat world in the middle of the great Chaos known as the Wyld. It is divided up by its patron elements: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Wood. In the center is the Elemental Pole of Earth, and around it is the Blessed Isle. Here resides the Realm, in addition to its various territorial holdings around Creation. The Isle itself is roughly the size of Russia. It is bordered by the Inland Sea, which separates it from the Creation's main landmass on three sides. On its other side, there is the West. The West is a region of sea, dotted by islands and archipelagoes. It is Creation's least populous region, but also its largest. Its element is Water. The climate is mostly tropical, except where it adjoins the North. The Northern edge of creation is home to the Elemental Pole of Air. The North is cold, starting as pine forests and segueing into tundra. To the East is the vast forest that eventually joins the Elemental Pole of Wood. In the portion nearer the inland sea is the Scavenger Lands, which hold a number of ruins that attract many foolhardy or brave adventurers. Farther east, there is rainforest. To the South, there is a desert that is home to the Elemental Pole of Fire. Bedouin-like peoples and rich trade cities dot the portion of the desert that lies nearest the sea.

This game will be set in the West.

The Coral Archipelago
The Coral Archipelago is a chain of rocky islands in the mid-northern portion of the West, far towards the Bordermarches. The archipelago proper consists of twenty or so large-ish islands, but the larger region includes several hundred smaller islands and atolls. The government of Coral endorses many pirates under marque and reprisal. Their culture is largely based on rising in individual prestige and power, which tends to breed a society of shrewd merchants.

The Island of Tang
The island of Tang is a smallish atoll in the Coral Archipelago, one of many such islands that vies for the attention of pirates on shore leave. Gambling, prostitution, and general bread and circuses are the town's primary industries. After that, farming the native coconuts, hogs, and ironwood are the industries that keep Tang fed. The law enforcement there is informal and lax; so long as you don't go burning down the whole town, you're good. That's the general attraction for pirate types: they can be as unruly as they please, within reason.

Tang is only large enough to support one town, which is appropriately named Tang City. The city is situated on a well-protected harbor, which is ringed by small walls of land. There is a secondary harbor on the other side of the island, where a few fishing boats are kept, but few people ever go there.

Other than the pirates and various seamen looking for a good time, Tang doesn't get a lot of outside contact. Technically, it's part of the larger Coral Protectorate (although the Protectorate itself would deny this), but there aren't a lot of people who would care much if it simply fell into the ocean. The primary reason for this, aside from Tang's nigh-indistinguishability from any of the other dozens of such islands, is it's proximity to Skullstone. Tang is on the very edge of what could be considered the boundary between the Coral and Skullstone, which some feel is a risky position. Others are too oblivious to care.

Skullstone Archipelago
Skullstone is one of the three Archipelagos that sit right next to each other in the northern portion of the West, along with Wavecrest and Coral. What makes Skullstone important is that in the chaos during the Great Contagion, the sheer quantity of deaths in the area turned Skullstone into a shadowland - a grey area between Creation and the Underworld. In the daytime, Skullstone is in Creation as much as anyplace else. At night, however, it joins the Underworld, where zombies and ghosts walk among the living. Little is known about what goes on here, save that the land is ruled by someone known as the Silver Prince, who may or may not be mortal. Also, the Anathema pirate Moray Darktide is rumored to be on the Silver Prince's payroll, but nobody's seen much of Moray recently. That is to say, he's been completely under the radar for about a month.

If you want to work with me while I build you a sheet, let me know, and we can Skype or AIM, preferably via audio chat.


Otherwise, please fill out the questionnaire. I will do my best to pull off everything, although I might make some changes in order to better accommodate your concept.

Before Exaltation:

Name: (names come in two basic types in Exalted: Realm Names, which sound vaguely Chinese, and Threshold names, which are kind of nuts, or something else entirely. Typical examples of Threshold names would include "Obsidian Frost," "Blazing Blade," etc.)
Occupation: (if you're going for a mental-based character, then I might
Brief bio: (a few sentences will suffice)
Rank in descending order of importance: Physical Prowess, Social Skills, Mental Aptitude
If your character is warlike, what would he fight with? (You can pick a specific weapon, or you can choose between the four weapon categories: Melee [swords, hammers, spears, etc.], Martial Arts [bare hands, esoteric weapons like fighting chains, sais, nunchuks, and even stranger], Thrown [chakram, boomerangs, slings, etc.], or Archery [bows and firewands])

After Exaltation:
What is your character's role: (think bruiser, thinker, talker, etc.)
If you didn't choose a combat ability before, choose one now. It is expected that all Lunars have at least some idea of how to defend themselves. (barehanded and seven-section staves are often the best weapons for Lunars, for reasons to be shown later)
How focused do you want to be in your chosen area of specialty?
How does your character intend to change the world? (this will become your epic motivation)
Which virtue defines your character the most? The least?*
What is your character's totem animal? (This is the creature your character has the most affinity with, his/her warform and Tell are based on; can't be larger than a bear, and it must be an actual creature.)

*The four virtues are these:
Temperance: Self-control, willingness to abide by the rules
Conviction: Dedication to chosen goals
Compassion: Sympathy for the plight of your fellow man
Valor: Bravery in the face of adversity


Your sheet, explained:

Open up your sheet. The first thing you'll see is a bunch of dots. Like, a crap-ton of dots. Some of them will be filled in. The number dots that are filled in for any given trait represent your rating in said trait. I recommend you print your sheet out so you can write on it.

Exalted works on a five-point scale. * is subpar. ** is average. *** is noteworthy. **** is truly gifted. ***** is the maximum human achievement. The exception is willpower, in which case multiply the scale by two.

The first set of dots is a set of three columns. These are your Attributes. They represent the innate features of your character as a person. The first column is the physical attributes. They're pretty self-explanatory.
The next column is your social attributes. Charisma represents persuasiveness while telling the truth. Manipulation is the same thing for when lying. Appearance is your physical appeal and the way you hold yourself.
The last column is your mental attributes. Perception is how observant you are. Intelligence is exactly what it says on the tin. Wits is your ability to think quickly.


Beyond that is your Abilities. These are your trained skills. You've already had a breakdown of the combat abilities, so I'll just fill in what the less intuitive other ones do.
War is your understanding of strategy and mass combat tactics.
Larceny is skill at thievery and a smattering of other deceptive skills.
Integrity has to do with your mental resistance and how sure of your own positions you are.
Performance is used for social rolls targeting groups of people.
Presence is used for one-on-one social engagements.
Linguistics is your skill at writing and the number of languages you know. You get one to start with, then another language for each dot of linguistics.
Socialize is manners and social awareness. It's also used for abstract information-gathering rolls (i.e. "I go to the bar and scout for info on X")
Investigation is mad detective skills.
Lore is general mundane knowledge. Lore 1 is roughly equivalent to elementary school, and it means that you can at least read and write.
Occult is how much you know about affairs of the gods and religion, as well as much scientific knowledge (because thaumaturgy is based on the Occult ability).

The little black check box next to one of your abilities means it's favored. Basically, it's your talent. You can increase it for a slightly reduced XP cost.

Next, it will have a section on Essence. Ignore it for now. You're all unenlightened heroic mortals, so you can't use that yet.

Next is a bunch of boxes with your health levels. The numbers next to them show your wound penalties. You can take one level of damage without taking a wound penalty (the -0 box). Either or both of the next two give you a -1 penalty, and so on.

Beside that is your specialties. These represent specific areas where your character stands out. I don't intend to spend very much time in mortal-land, so I didn't bother to fill these in just yet.


Not much on the second page, but what's there is important. First, you'll have your Dodge MDV. Whenever you see the letters DV, that means "Defense Value." The M here means "Mental." Thus, the Dodge MDV is your defense against being persuaded when you don't want to be.

Beside that is your Join Combat. It's just Wits+Awareness. It's what you roll to establish who goes first in debate/social combat.

Next is your willpower. It is exactly what it says on the tin. When someone gets past your MDV with a social attack, you can spend a willpower and not be persuaded. Whatever you do, never run out of willpower. The square checkboxes underneath the circular dots is where you can mark what you've spent.

Ignore the little chart there. It doesn't do much. Below it is a list of assorted various actions you can do in social combat besides just hammer at the other person's position. It's mildly useful.

Next, there's your virtues. We've already explained these in chargen. They'll become more important later.

Below that is your intimacies. This represents especially strong, specific emotional ties to people, places or things. You can take up to (willpower + compassion) intimacies. These give you MDV bonuses when someone tries to persuade you to betray them, but they also impose equal penalties when persuading you to act according to them. An example of an intimacy would be "The party (loyalty)" or "Deathknights (hatred)." Thus, you'd get an MDV bonus when someone tries to tell you to betray the party or help a deathknight, but you'd get a penalty if somebody was pointing out that going along with a specific bad idea would hurt the deathknights.

Then there's your motivation - what you want to get out of life/how you'll change the world. Mortal motivations are as a rule less epic than Exalt ones, so we're not going to worry about this yet.

Don't worry about the next page - we'll explain combat when we get to it.

Don't worry about the next page, either. If we're doing an extended mortal campaign, then it would be more important, but not here.

Next-to-last page: only thing you have here are your backgrounds. Resources are your income. One is bare subsistence, 2 is average - you can afford meat once a week and have some disposable income, and it gets better from there. Other backgrounds can represent people that can help you in varying degrees. Ally, Mentor, and Sifu are the most helpful and personal, whereas contacts are more distant. They are useful for gathering info or arranging deals. Reputation is how well-known you are. Specifically how is marked on the sheet.It helps with social rolls against relevant people.

Last page has those little filler details that flesh out your character. I left this blank. You can track your XP here, which is a good reason to print out your sheet. You get 1/3 XP for substantial IC posts that are at least a solid paragraph long. Please track this yourself.

How Exalted Works

When trying to do something that has a non-insignificant chance of failure, you will be asked to roll dice. In Exalted, you roll a number of d10's equal to your relevant attribute + your relevant ability + relevant specialty, and then you tally the number of successes. Seven through nine is considered a success. Ten or zero (depending how it's notated here) counts as two. Those successes are compared to a certain difficulty (usually between one and five). More successes than the difficulty means you succeed; less means you fail. Defender wins ties.

For instance, Harmonious Flipper attempts to decipher a difficult series of ancient carvings. This requires him to roll Intelligence+Lore against a difficulty of four. His intelligence is three, and his lore is three, so it looks like he and his six dice are going to have a tough time of it. He rolls and gets the following result: 3 5 7 2 0 0. The 3, 5, and 2 do nothing for him. The 7 nets him one success, and the two zeros give him four, for a total of five. He successfully interprets the carvings. However, if he hadn't rolled the seven, he would have tied the difficulty, and the carvings would have "won." He would not have translated them.

Here's the cool part: You can increase your dice pool momentarily by stunting.

Stunting is describing how you accomplish a task to add flavor and awesomeness. Varying levels of stunting will get you varying numbers of dice to add to your dice pool.

Simply saying that you do something is not a stunt.
Saying basically how you go about something is a one-die stunt. (ex. for clearing a room: I open the door and shoot the first thing I see)
Giving a more detailed description of your action and/or using your environment to your advantage is a two-die stunt. (ex. I kick open the door, check to either side of the door and shoot at my target inside)
Utter awesomeness that wows the GM and party will give you three-die stunts. These are very rare. (rather than type out an exaple here, I'll just show you this as a loose example: https://youtu.be/BDSvVxGaiFQ?t=1m17s)

To persuade an unwilling person, the difficulty is their MDV. To attack someone, the difficulty is their dodge or parry DV's, whichever is higher (although PDV only applies if they have a weapon ready).


Combat
Exalted combat measures time in "ticks," aka seconds. Each action has a certain speed, which is written down on your sheets with your weapons. Miscellaneous actions (basically anything that isn't moving, attacking, or breaking a large object) take five ticks. Most attacks take five ticks. Speed is denoted as "speed (number of ticks it takes to complete)." Thus, a miscellaneous action is Speed 5.
To start combat, everyone involved rolls Wits+Awareness to establish initiative. Whoever rolls highest acts first, and everyone else starts on ticks after that determined by the difference between their rolls and the winner's.

I will track ticks. What will happen is that you all will post and roll your actions/attacks for the round, and then I will resolve them in the order that they occur. I figure things will go most smoothly this way.

On your turn, you get one action.

Miscellaneous actions are unrelated or tangentially related to combat.

Attack actions are exactly what it says on the tin. Declare your target, stunt, and roll a number of dice equal to your weapon's accuracy (second field on the chart, right next to speed). If you beat your opponent's chosen defense value (parry or dodge, marked on the sheet as PDV or Dodge DV), you add the number of extra success you rolled to your weapon's raw damage. This number is compared to the target's soak. Soak is the amount of damage reduction afforded by armor. To determine your final damage, you roll the number of dice equal to the difference between soak and raw damage. If you didn't beat your opponent's soak, you roll your Permanent Essence in dice. This is known as "ping damage."

You may also flurry attacks. This number is limited by your weapon's rate. This imposes higher defense value penalties than normal attacks, and it is less accurate, but your opponent suffers onslaught penalties that increase as you keep attacking him. Flurrying takes as long as the longest single attack used (so if you flurried a speed 4 and a speed 6 attack, the flurry would take six ticks). It also imposes an accuracy penalty. The first attack's penalty subtracts dice equal to the total number of attacks in the flurry. Subsequent attacks increase this penalty cumulatively by one die. For example, a three-attack flurry would have penalties of -3, -4, and -5 dice. Magical flurries have no accuracy penalty.

Moving and talking are free actions: you may talk freely during combat while doing other things, and you may move up to your full Move speed in yards (not your dash speed) once per tick.

Damage is either lethal (L), aggravated (A) or bashing (B). Lethal damage is from cuts and burns, bashing is from blunt trauma, and aggravated is from such things as ripping your soul out through your eyeballs. When you take bashing damage, mark it on your sheet by crossing off your highest empty health box with a slash. When your health track fills up to the first Incapacitated level with bashing damage, you go unconscious. When everything fills with bashing damage, your health track starts to fill again, and additional bashing damage turns into to lethal.
When you take lethal damage, mark it on your sheet with an X. When that fills up your Incapacitated health levels, you are on the brink of death. Any extra damage sustained at this point converts to lethal damage and starts filling your dying health levels. You lose one dying health level per action. When the dying health levels run out, you're dead.
Aggravated damage is marked with an asterisk. It never converts into anything but aggravated damage, unless you have a charm that says otherwise. It also bypasses natural soak.

XP costs

Cast of Characters

Player: Arch
Name: Red Cape (Not his real name... It's just that he has never told anyone his real name.)
Occupation: A thief/assassin
Brief bio: Hailing from the South, where his father gave him lessons in conducting business and how to properly bribe and get others to do what you want. After Red Cape was 10, his father sent him to the West to learn how his mother did things. His mother taught Red Cape the intricacies of thievery and assassination, and then, when Red Cape turned 20, his mother set him loose in the Western world.
http://www.4shared.com/document/5JClSJWU/Archdemon_mortal.html

Player: Ji
Name: Joyous Silver
Occupation: Common fence for pirate goods of the thaumaturgical nature
Brief bio: Joyous Silver's family were mere farmers, as Joyous Silver was growing up. However, he had always taken an interest in the occult, lore, and the local priests in the area. He practiced with them as he grew up, forgoing his families trade as he aged, prefering instead, the life of a merchant, and more specifically, the lofty posistion of a pirate fence he's managed to ahcieve today.
http://www.4shared.com/document/IPJ-Hvnm/Wolfji_mortal.html

Player: Jac
Name: Stalwart Heaven
Occupation: ...
Brief bio: (a few sentences will suffice) I got nothin...
http://www.4shared.com/document/1QrEQtqU/Jac_mortal.html

Player: Midnight
Name: Dusk Fang
Occupation: Pit fighter/slave
Brief bio: Abducted from his home island by pirates, he was sold into slavery, where he is now a headlining attraction at the local gladiatorial ring.
http://www.4shared.com/document/gWrBk6Aw/Midnight_Mortal.html

Player: JohnOstrich
Name: Still Warrior of the Scarlet Fist
Occupation: Merc for hire
Brief bio:
http://www.4shared.com/document/nfE0DdbR/TLJO_mortal.html

5 Resplendent Fire, Realm Year 768

It was a fairly typical Saturn's day in Tang City. The season was what others might call "Summer," in the month roughly analogous to August. The weather was typically warm, and the sun beat down with its usual enthusiasm. A few wispy clouds sat high in the sky, adding a little bit of interest to the afternoon sky.

A small band of pirate ships had arrived at the docks a few minutes ago, bearing the fruits of its most recent pillage - they'd somehow managed to waylay a ship carrying Realm dignitaries, rumor had it. Once they'd sold their goods in kind, they'd surely be out on the town tonight.

In back of the Hardtack and Carnival Arena, the cells weren't as hot as the outside, but they also didn't enjoy the sun as much either. A lone shaft graced the heavy wooden door, streaming through a small barred window near the top of the wall. Dusk Fang and a minor contender or two were locked up, as they often were, waiting for the night's battle. Currently, the sounds of a lightweight barehanded match were audible from down the hall and above.

Joyous Silver yawned at what was unfortunately a slow day, though rumor had it he couldn't close just yet. Pirates, with loot? That was a might bit too good to be true. Still, the pirates had to sell it somewhere, and he had a reputation for being a good place to unload slightly more... special, goods, which one could reason the Realm ship might have been atleast slightly laden with, maybe. Who was he kidding, though? The stuff on that ship would be far, far too valuable to simply sell to him, and he knew it... but he couldn't close just yet, not while hope said he could still get his hands on them.

From Silver's vantage point on the mountainside (for the entire island was pretty much a big crescent-shaped hill), he could see pirates disembarking if he looked out the window. Most of them seemed to be carrying fine silk clothing or other diplomatic finery - not particularly Silver's forté. However, one of them walked in the door carrying a small cruse. His eyes were bloodshot and dilated, and he seemed to be walking a bit fast.

He tossed the cruse down on the counter. "How much for this?" he asked. He spoke quickly, not like someone who was looking to get something out of the way quickly (though there was that too), but like someone for whom time was moving a bit faster than normal.

((Int-lore to figure out what's in the cruse, occult specialties/thaumaturgical degrees apply. You have a second-level degree and hence a two-die specialty.))

Joyous Silver looked at it for a moment, trying his best to mentally appraise it. This was his chance, something from the Realm, hopefully anyway. Why, he might make... a little bit of money, because really, he still had to sell it, and he wasn't exactly the best buisness man, if you caught his drift. Still, this was a good thing for him, maybe this would be worth something.

((I thought I rolls nine dice, if I only roll seven, I was confused, remove bottom two.)

The member 'Mr_ji' has done the following action : Dices roll

'Ten-faced die' : 8, 9, 8, 1, 6, 6, 8, 7, 3

((Nine dice. Int 4, lore 3, +2 specialty.))

Opening the cruse revealed Seven Bounties Paste: a moderately rare medicine that could heal just about anything save the Great Contagion (which had by now run its course and wasn't much of a concern anymore). This amount was worth (Resources 3) on the shelf. Also, the pirate was high on qat.

((Here, I think I should put in an excerpt from the core book regarding the resources system))

Quote :

THE RESOURCES SYSTEM
Items in Exalted do not generally have a value in game-world money attached to them. Instead, they are rated with the number of dots in Resources a character must possess in order to purchase them. Of course, the character is paying in Realm jade, Guild silver dinars or paper scrip, but most players don’t enjoy painstakingly keeping track of every jade bit that changes hands.
An item with a Resources cost lower than the character’s Resources is an out-of-pocket expense. Within reason, the character can purchase as many of the items as she wants without a strain on her purse.
An item with a cost equal to the character’s Re- sources is a serious expense. When she buys it, she lowers her Resources rating by one dot until it is increased through roleplaying.
An item with a cost greater than the character’s Resources is too expensive for her.

Joyous Silver nodded, telling the man what he could expect to get for it, and of course, saying that he'd take it off his hands for that price. He had no reason to lie, of course, he could afford it quite fine. That would come in handy for someone, he was sure, and he could make a little bit of money swindling someone for it if he didn't think they really needed it, like for some petty disease or the like. Or, even still, it might be good to just own, incase he ever needed such a paste.

"Yeah sure, it's yours," the pirate replied. He accepted his payment and left without further ado. That looked about like what Silver would get from this batch.

Silver tucked the rest of the moneyhe'd pulled out away, and figuring he didn't see anymore pirates heading his way, closed up shop early tonight. Not likely that anyone else would need his services today, and besides, now he could go do other things, like finally watch one of those barbaric arena matchs. It wasn't his thing, no, but hey, why not, right? They were going to kill each other anyway, he might as well see if he could enjoy it, it was Saturn's day.

Dusk Fang sat in his gloomy cell as he waited for today's fight. He was being put up against a veritable giant among contenders. Colossus, as the man was called, was viewed as one of the most fearsome and deadly of the slaves. Dusk Fang had heard many rumors about the man who was 8 feet tall and weighed over four hundred pounds of pure muscle. It was said that in one of his fights Colossus had crushed his opponent's head with his bare hands. Dusk Fang shuddered as he imagined the fight ahead of him.

"Dusk Fang!" One of the nearby fighters had broken him from his trance. He looked around and saw the Mouse.

"Whaddya want boy?" Dusk Fang asked gutterally. He didn't have much time to deal with nuisances like this runt.

The nearest fighting ring wasn't but a few blocks away from Silver's shop, and there was a big match scheduled for that day: a series of heavyweight fights culminating in Dusk Fang versus Colossus, if memory served. The flyers had been posted in pretty much every tavern on the island. The match started at sundown, which wasn't terribly long from now - a couple of hours at most.

A cry of pain, a ceiling-rattling thud, and a faint cheer resounded through the building. Evidently, someone was coming out ahead.

"You'll never guess what I got from the boss," the Mouse said, grinning. His raspy voice grated on Dusk's ears. "But if you're going to take that sort of attitude, guess you're not interested."

Dusk Fang sighed and rubbed his forehead. This kid was far too chipper for a slave. If he didn't get killed in the arena, someone else would probably just snap his neck. Dusk had thought about it a few times himself. But he knew that he could never bring himself to hurt someone just for being annoying. The Mouse had done no wrong to him and so he let go of his anger towards him.

"Alright," He said, trying to change his tone of voice. "What'd th' boss give ya then?"

"Promise not to hurt me if I tell?" Mouse asked. He was still being coy - perhaps not the wisest move, but if he had something really important, it made sense that he'd seek some assurance that Dusk wouldn't simply pound it out of him.

Dusk Fang chuckled lightly until he saw that the boy was serious. He brought up his hand and put an 'x' over his heart. "Ah cross me heart and hope t' die son. Ah won't hurt ya none unless we be forced t' fight. Now tell me what th' boss be given ya."

Joyous Silver marched down to the Arena he'd heard so much about, with such a 'big' match taking place soon, well, he figured he could spare the coin to take a peak, there was nothing wrong with two contestants beating each other to death, it just happened, and all that, it was fine, to him, atleast. He was never sure on what the contestants got out of it, if they even did at all, but he knew the famous ones tended to get to be fairly well off themselves.

Mouse reached into the old thatch that covered the dirt floor and pulled out a key. It seemed like his grin reached not only from ear to ear, but past his ears and somewhere around to the back of his head. "Figured you'd like to come with me," he said slyly. "If you've got the big match tonight, figured you'd want to get out before then. Care to do the honors?"

He held out the key on an open palm.

~~~~~

The fare was a bit steeper than for the weekday fights; the evening's festivities were often the highlight of the entire week. The match was just getting started. As Silver paid the fee and took his spot (seated in the bleachers or standing, depending which ticket he paid for), the announcer had just finished introducing the first two combatants. One was a lithe man with a weighted chain, while the other was equally lithe and armed with a simple wooden stave. Both were being rather cautious, although the chain wielder seemed to know he had the advantage.

Still Warrior of the Scarlet Fist stood in the water listening to the ocean, and trying to resist the force of the waves as they lapsed over him. He was in the middle of his daily meditation, to find his inner peace, whatever that ment, he just knew it was good for him. Atleast, that's what his master had told him.