Latest revision as of 06:38, 24 March 2006

Chapter Two: the Infernal Exalted

First Drafts

On the Yozis and Lying

Though the Yozis are infallible, they are not always truthful. In fact, the Ebon Dragon, the prime among the Yozis with whom the Infernals deal, is the embodiment and inventor of deceit as a concept. He would not show the love a Primordial constitutionally shows towards its creation if he told the truth at all times! How do they reconcile their absolute loyalty to their masters with their sometimes lack of truthfulness?

The simple answer is that communicative speech is an act no different from any other. In communication one performs an act upon something to change its characteristics. With communication, the characteristic one seeks to alter is its object's base of knowledge, but there is nothing inherently special about thsi characteristic. Any changes the Yozis wish to make upon the charachteristics of anything can only - be definition - bring it closer to its telos, and the deceit of the Yozis is as a healing balm that perfects the listener. So the majority of Infernals take the position that even though much of what they hear from the Yozis is likely to be false, in some secular sense, it is nevertheless what the Yozis want them to believe, and, therefore, their obligation to act as if it is true. They laugh at epistemological objections to this as childish and un-thought-out, as the basis for the Primordials' authority in the first place is not a matter of revelation but simple deduction.

There is, however, another interpretation, taken by the small minority of Rogue Infernals. This is that certain of the Yozis' lies are not intended to be taken as true for practical purposes, but, instead, figured out. Most of them have arrived at this belief independently, and do not talk with their fellows for fear of retribution, and certainly not with the Yozis, because that would defeat the purpose of their communicating in that way. Instead, they ty to follow the "apocryphal will" - that is, the true and actual will - of the Yozis to the best of their ability. They tend to keep quiet about this, but it would not be totally unlikely for a Circle of Rogue Infernals to form in the near future.

Just as the act of lying for the Yozis is a simple matter of performance, the Infernals understand that their tasks in Creation often involve dishonesty. However, it is the general will of the Yozis that the beings of Creation come closer to the truth. Deceit, therefore, must be justified. There are three main categories of lies that the Infernals are comissioned to tell:

• Lies for tactical benefit. The return of the Primordials to their Creation is a matter of extreme inportance. Even if some beings are moved further away from there telos for the time being, concern for the world-at-large dictates that some expediency must be made. These should be made with contrition in one's heart (but total earnestness in the face.)
• Lies as preparatory doctrines. This is a type often told to younger Infernals by their elders (though they do not differ much in age in any event.) For instance, it is common to tell a novice (depending on her temprament) that her journeying to Malfeas was a matter of fate, if it is thought she might understand early lessons better, and only later does she learn how it was an expression of freely chosen duty. Similarly, the few pure and isolated tribes that never quit Primordial-worship are never told that their gods are imprisoned or defeated, to preserve their innocence.
• Lies to serve as a test. This can often serve as a permutation of one of the other forms of lies. Young Infernals are sometimes told that the Yozis wish them to die - those willing to ccmmit suicide have passed the test. Similarly, many of the deceptive Charms in the Infernal retinue concern presenting some person with a choice - out of which he will come unscathed if he acts righteously, and face punishment, if unrighteously.

The tests of faith to which Infernals are subjected does more than just show their faith. It trains them to act with resolve and submission to the Yozis' will in even the most dire of situations, and nearly every Infernal has faced seemingly-impossible circumstances that turned out to be merely phantasmagoria designed to test her devotion.

Talk

Don't put anything in the first big header. Suggest and hash out topics here, and put first drafts under the First Drafts header, which will get moved to the "actual actual text" (under the first big header) when consensus maintains that it's ready to do so. --MUrielw

I have an idea.

Exalted already has a strong Greco-Roman influence, as shown by the story of the Primordials and the Gods themselves. Solars are heroes in the classic, Grecian sense. Norse legends influence the Lunars, and Mythic China is the symbol of the Realm. Meso-American legends influenced the early design of the Alchemicals, and Western death legends contributed to the Abyssals.

mUrielw has cast the Yozi in the light of G-d, invoking a Judeo-Christian flavor for the Infernals. What better source for such a group of Exalted? The Christian idea of penance and grace and the Muslim idea of submission to G-d are two of the primary ideas behind this brand of Infernals.

The Primordials are - were - incomprehensible to mortals, and mortals to the Primordials. Yet mortals became Exalted, and the Exalted rose up and defeated the Primordials, slaying some of them. The Primordials suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Exalts, locked within a prison of their own bodies and transformed into the twisted Yozi. The absence of the dead Neverborn from Creation saddled a Great Curse on the murderers.

Trapped within Malfeas, the Yozi elected the Ebon Dragon, a concept with a body of pure shadow, to discover a method out. In the meantime, the Yozis raged against their prison, slaying what Exalts they could and enslaving the rest to their will as akuma. Now, the Yozi are in possession of a secret weapon: Fifty Solar Exaltation shards, capable of rewriting the universe and bringing Heaven crashing down before the Yozis.

The akuma had - the akuma WERE - agenda of their own. The Fifty were to be a new breed of Exalt, one cast in the image of the Primordials as the Abyssals were in the image of the Malfeans. Transforming a new Exalt into an akuma would ruin it's ability to grow; letting a Solar Exalted have knowledge of Yozi plans was a disaster waiting to happen. The Primordials were faced with a failure of empathy: without the ability to understand and control their new Exalted, history was doomed to repeat itself.

And then the Scarlet Empress read The Broken-Winged Crane.

Flung into Malfeas, the Scarlet Empress appeared before the assembled Yozi. The Ebon Dragon siezed his chance. The Scarlet Empress would be no mere akuma; she was to be a breed apart, Demon and Exalt in one. She was to be the bridge that joined the Yozi and their Exalted, high priestess for the return of the Primordials. Her death in absentia would pass the throne of the Deliberative to her husband, the Ebon Dragon, exploiting a loophole in his contract of imprisonment and freeing him from the bondage of Malfeas.

When the Scarlet Empress accepted the Ebon Dragon's proposal of marriage - albeit under duress - a connection formed between the two. For a moment, understanding of mortality flooded the mind of the Ebon Dragon, and a single tear of black tar escaped from his eye. His understanding faded, but the tear remains, a deep lake of fetid black water. It became a favored spot of reflection for the new Infernal Exalts. Unlike the akuma, these Exalts kept their will, for bonding with a Yozi or a demon would force Primordial blood into their veins and cripple the growth of their magical prowess. Strength was what was needed now, not loyalty. However, if the Infernals do not remain pious, they find their powers fade to little more than parlor tricks.

I propose that this be not fetid water, but pure, clean liquid obsidian, ice-cold and steam-hot and utterly lethal.--Kukla

I agree. A third possibility could be that the water starts out pure but grows fetid, or starts out fetid but grows pure, just as the Kaaba was once perfectly white but has since grown black after absorbing so much of humanity's sins. --MUrielw

You could also do the opposite. The water is a fetid, dull black pool that becomes slowly glossier and more reflective as the Infernals cleanse the sins of Creation. When the pool becomes an obsidian mirror, the time will have come for the Yozis to step through it into a reborn world.--Azrael

Now, the Infernals are ready to scour Creation, to herald the coming of the Dragon. Already, the Terrestrial Essence within the Scarlet Empress bleeds out of her soul, replaced with the malefic energies of Malfeas and the Infernal. When the wedding ceremony is complete, she will die, and be reborn as an entirely new class of being, a Onceborn, capable of comprehending mortal and Primordial alike.

The akuma shall be the blade that cuts down the gods, the Infernals shall be the hand holding the blade, and the Scarlet Empress will be the heart behind the hand.

It is a wonderful time to be in Malfeas, for soon, it shall be empty, and then no more. -- Spider

This is awesome and I love you.--Kukla

Aha! And now I've groked the "Coils" that I talked about earlier. They're getting renamed the Exercises.

For those out of the loop, Gauntlet Spider and I had an IRL brainstorming session for the Infernals that incorporated everything from computer programming to the difference between Logos and Process Christology. Anyway, I had an idea for various levels of understanding that the Infernals would go through, tenatively named "Coils" like the Immaculates' ordering - they would be lessons that the Exalt would be taught in the course of progressing through higher Essence levels. There wasn't much to distinguish it from the Immaculates in any event, and I wasn't much satisfied with it. But that's been quite changed.

The Infernal Exalted often gather around the lake, but certainly never touch the water, as it consumes-rejects anything that comes into contact with it. It is a popular place to meditate. When engaging in the meditations neccessary to grown in Essence, the Infernals allow the meditator to engage in her meditation - the meditations of this sort are called the Exercises - alone, with neither Exalt nor sentient demon allowed near. Each of the Exercises have a specific understanding inherent in them, so that the Exalt grows in wisdom as power, but I haven't figured out what they are yet.

In the first Exercise (i.e., going to 3 Essence) the Exalt meditates by the pool. When she has reached the moment of understanding, the Exercise is complete.

This would involve no Essence change, as all Exalts begin at one Essence. This would merely be tacit acceptance of the Infernal party line, then? -- Spider

I thought Exalts began at two and the meditations needed to increase it started at going from two to three? --MUrielw

Exalts Exalt at whatever Essence level they had before. Exaltation itself does not increase Essence, it merely introduces a new paradigm with which to use that Essence. Thus, the majority of mortals begin at Essence 1. -- Spider

Not true. Even if we look at it mechanically, even in the Corebook on page 103 there's a few lines in the 'create a mortal' section that read that in order to Exalt a mortal, you simply add 3 attribute dots, 3 ability dots and raise his essence by 1. So Exaltation and recieving a Celestial shard /does/ increase essence. This is further backed by the Player's Guide's Flaws section, page 41 - Flaw: Weak Essence makes a starting exalt essence 1. The existance of such a flaw (and the flaw's text) suggest that this is very extraordinary. So yeah, Exaltation raises one's essence, and not only supply him with ways to channel that essence. --BrassLeviathan

In the second Exercise, the Exalt meditates by the pool, and when she has reached understanding, two hands push her unsuspecting body into the water. Her body is miraculously not yet destroyed, though it does hurt, and she is pulled out of the water by the same hands. Coughing and looking around, she sees no-one, but the Exercise is complete.

Essence 1 to Essence 2. --Spider

In the third Exercise, the Exalt meditates by the pool, and when she has reached understanding, two hands push her unsuspecting body into the water. She is not consumed by the water, though it does hurt, and she is held down until she has drowned. The dead body is immediately pulled up on to the shore, and seven days later the Exalt finds herself alive again. The Exercise is complete.

Essence 2 to Essence 3. Interestingly, for no other Exalt type do the above three requirements stand; Exalts do not have to meditate in seclusion in order to raise their Essence to 3. This suggests a psychological, rather than metaphysical, restraint. -- Spider

For the solitary thing, I wanted an excuse for nobody to see them getting pushed into the lake. It could be changed. --MUrielw

Either way, it's fine. I'm writing the Prologue, with the Penitent sig character having just completed this step. How about this - generally, Infernals are encouraged to stay within Malfeas until their Essence reaches this level? Just to establish a base level of competence? -- Spider

In the fourth Exercise, the Exalt meditates by the pool, and when she has reached understanding, two hands push her body into the water and hold her there until she drowns. Her body is left in the water, and some time later - perhaps a very long time - her body washes up on the shore. Seven days later, she returns to life, and her first living act is to - very painfullly, as its diameter is larger than her throat; it is as giving birth, and, in a way, it is giving birth - cough up a perfectly opalescent pearl. The Exercise is complete, and the only two Infernals yet to complete this Exercise have placed their pearls in places of honor at their Great Hall of Worship of All Yozis Except Adjoran Who Scorns Worship.

Essence 3 to 4. This would be the first Exercise which conforms to the Essence = months in meditation, then? The Exalt doesn't have to stay in seclusion, then, and may actually be encouraged to walk the streets of Malfeas. -- Spider

Once, Habphatatat, a minor demon who thought he could win fame and power if identified as the arms behind the Exercises, snuck up on an Infernal doing an Exercise, and gave a great push into the water. He fell right through the Exalt, who had his meditation annoyingly but amusingly interrupted by a pudgy demon splashing and dissolving in the lake.

No Exalt has yet completed the fifth Exercise.

Essence 5. This establishes the Infernals as having the same approximate strength and powerlevel as the Abyssals. Perhaps, this time, they catch the arms, and see themselves as they WOULD HAVE BEEN, had they not become Infernals, as the one doing the pushing. Each time they were pushed, it was an attempt by this part of themselves to destroy the growing Infernal faith, and a temptation to let themselves die. This is a concept I took from Vampire's rules for Golconda, yet unlike Vampire, the changes can be positive or negative. For example, the Immaculate monk Ascendant sig character we discussed would see himself as a patriarch in the temple, devoid of true belief, for the religion is false. The Nexus thief sig character would see himself as a starved corpse, left to die by the gods. On the fifth Exercise, the Infernal walks with their weaker selves into the water, where their lesser half is consumed and only the Infernal steps back to shore. -- Spider

Hmm. It's a possibility. I was thinking of the more obvious baptism metaphor, with the pusher representing enlightenment and probably being the sentient humanoid manifestation of the Ebon Dragon's empathy for humanity (yet estranged from his higher soul.) My bias would be to have the listed four one bringing the Exalt up to Essence 6 in this chapter, with the implication that further meditations would require doing so with the pearl. A section on going through the Exercises in the Storytelling chapter would, in addition to giving Seeking-like tips on roleplaying through them, have several suggestions as to what further exercises might imply and suggestions as to what the various aspects might represent. So the shadow self metaphor, baptism metaphor, and any number of others could exist in a state of suspension. --MUrielw

Perhaps, though I like the possiblity of having the players undergo a transformation that no other Infernal has undergone before. And, yes, this could just be a rumor, or something unique to every Exalt. -- Spider

Most demons who have heard the stories of this place are certain that the pool is a Third-Circle soul of the Ebon Dragon, that the hands that push into the water are of the humanoid manifestation of it, and that the Exercises are its 2nd-Circle souls. Most of the Infernals, however, are far less sure as to whether it is that, something else entirely, or both. --MUrielw

Very cool - if it's connected to the Ebon Dragon, would all Infernals go with it? It's been simi-implied that that not all the Yozi get along. Still, it seems just to cool an idea not to use. - Dasmen

Theoretically, the Infernals are under the command of the Ebon Dragon, as their duty is to prepare Creation for his escape. In terms of their spiritual life, the Scarlet Empress is the Christ analogue of the Infernals. Still, just because the Ebon Dragon is at the center of their religious life doesn't mean he has to be at the center of their servant life. -- Spider