Latest revision as of 01:15, 6 April 2010

Chapter Six: Hell on Earth

First Drafts

Questions to answer:

- How can the Infernals pry open the prison enough to let the Malfeans in?
- Where are some places that this can occur?
- What forces of Malfeas would pour through this crack?
- How do they prevent the gods from using their right of dominion over the Yozi to force the Yozi to just kill themselves/each other?
- What does the army of the Malfeans look like statwise?
- What sort of awesome stuff will happen during this Ultimate Showdown for Ultimate Destiny?

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

My guess? Once they've won, they torture everything for a couple hundred-to-thousand years until the Yozis consider it purified. During this time civilization is organized around the idea of having as much pain as possible while still holding off the Wyld and Deathlords and anyone else who wants to destroy Creation just like most current civilizations are organized around the idea of having as much fun as possible while still surviving. Some things get punished for longer or shorter, depending on their sins, slave-owners are almost certainly singled out for punishment, for the pretense that humans can be the property of anything but the Primordials, as are proponents of religions other than Yozi-worhip. Sorcerers, for the sin of actually want to make slaves of their proper owners, are probably tortured through elaborate methods for all eternity. Humanity in general will probably have to go through several generations of pure punishment (and penitence) so that they can be sure that every soul has been purified. Penitence and contrition may be difficult to extract, because they must be freely given to truly satisfy the Infernal ideology, which means that one's repenting and praising the Primordials can have no effect on one's punishment recieved.

Humanity probably would have been scrapped entirely - their none of the remaining Primordials' pet projects, and there's nothing terribly special about them - but the Exalted are so useful. Which is not to say that the Exalted - including the Infernal Exalted - shall not be punished to recompense for the most terrible deed of the murder, mutilation, and imprisonment of the Loving Parents of All, but they will be employed for the important goals of staving off the Wyld and perhaps Deathlords.

In addition, the Earth is put through punishment - Gaia is to be punished for colluding with the Celestines in their overthrow. Toxins are thrown into the streams, forests are chopped down wholesale, feilds are blighted. Though not in whole, not such that it disrupts the operation of things that need to occur, and not enough to kill Gaia. She simply needs to be punished for her transgression, and for every forest that is uprooted they collect samples of all that will later be replanted, and for every toxin they dump into the waters a solution is developed beforehand. When she has been made contrite, she will rejoin her peers and serve as an equal in ruling the world.

The Dragon Kings will be punished for their role in the overthrow as well, after which they might either be scrapped entirely, allowed to live as a normal race, or re-installed as mediators between the spiritual world and the other physical races.

Some things would go free of punishment entirely. Remote tribes that never stopped worhipping the Primordials, people who accept all the suffering that they're given, like the Djala, and the truly contrite and humble would be regarded as living in a state of Edenic innocence and admired. The Djala would probably be encouraged to have their population increased.

All this while the repopulation of the world with a plethora of sentient races would be enacted. Some might be failures like the cephalapods, but many others would be created and spread over Creation, making it a much more diverse place.

Heaven will be subject to great and terrible retribution. All of the Incarna will be punished for eternity, and replacements for the Incarna will probably be created (and given the Infernal Exalted for overseers). The sky will look very different. Cults will be created to worship entirely new deities as intermediators between the Primordials and the rest of Creation, so that Yu Shan can continue functioning as much as neccessary while the traitors are tortured or simply purged.

Infernal Exalted - and Infernal versions of Lunars and Sidereals, having grabbed the Shards - will, in addition to the punishments to which they must properly be subjected, have a great number of tasks to perform. The Fair Folk must be kept at bay, and the Neverborn doing the same will probably be contingent on the Infernal Exalted questing for a way to euthanize them - or maybe even resurrect them! Reconstructing the Masters' fallen brethren would involve Hekatonchire, Underworld Manses, Essence 9 Medicine Charms, and whole 'lotta questing. The Great Curse, which is really the removal of the integral relationship between Creation and Creators, will be solved in part through the punishment-and-penitence process through which Creation's sentient beings must go through, but there's probably a whole lot of questing on the side as well.

The Yozis and the Crusader Caste will probably work fervently on a way to make new kinds of Exaltation Shards, especially for the purpose of producing Exalted of nonhuman species.

It will be an age of terrible beauty, the Third Age of Men.

EDIT: and oh, yeah, the Yozis will hit that crack pipe like it never went out of style. -- Kukla, quoting MUrielw from an RPG.net post

As a note, wasn't Creation the work of many primordials? Some of which died, and are now either crazy or dead, depending on your definition. Hence, regarding the 'new' Creation they're building, with the 'proper' order in place: Is it the same as the old? Take almost anything designed by committee, take out 20% of the members, and you'll get a new thing. What I'm saying, phrased another way, is "Will the Primordials change the plan now that their brothers aren't around anymore? Is the perfect machine for (X-10) primordials the same as the perfect machine for (X) primordials?" -- GreenLantern

Totally and completely true. The idea of a fundamentally broken world and the quest to fix it is one of the core ideas to the Infernals. That's why Gaia has to be brought back into the fold, why there will be quests to resurrect the Neverborn against their will, and why there will be weirdness if contact with Autobot is ever made. (And no matter what, it will be a different Creation even from how it was before the First Age, though it will resemble that period in many respects.) The Exalted were created to be heroic by the doing of impossible things; it's their job description and the Infernal Exalted should be no exception. --MUrielw

I don't think I would have a "The Yozi completly win" Senerio. They didn't really give that even for Autobot, and to be perfectly honest, he's in a better position to really achive that. A Locus Crusade equivilient would be far more interesting. Their are several goals that you have to accomplish first:

1. How are the Yozi going to force the Gods to renounce their right to command them? If this isn't accomplished, the Gods could just summon them and command them to kill themselves. Gaia intervend on their behalf before (her only contribution to the war), but if they cause to much truble I'm sure she would have not problem watching the exictuion of the remainder.

This is a harder goal then it sounds like. Even if the gods felt like they would die for exerising that option, they would before they would lose - they know their fate, so it would require so scrifice or promise on the part of the yozi that is more valuable then their service.

2.Getting into creation. Cecelyne would oppose the others in this, as she has been redisgned to do. While it's been implied that if they all wished it, they could break free of Malfeas, it has been implied that they couldn't do the same of Cecelyne. Hence, you need either a Deus Ex of some sort. I can see it taking two forms. One, a way to simply relase the Yozi back into creation, or two a way to create path through which the yozi could force small but increaingly meaningful bits of themselves into creation. As Kimbery kind of does the second already, I think it's the more viable approch (and the more interesting one). You still need to come up with why they can do this NOW... the loophole, whatever it is.

3. How to not instently be subjected to pattern spider bite, and its equivilent. The Gods and exalted have a number of world destroy/shattering weapons at their desposal, and once the invation has started, will most likly use them. You know, like the Kulka. -Dasmen Who wishes he had invered more in his Astrology so that he could see how this develops.

O, I definitely agree that a Yozi Victory is unlikely. But I think it's worth posting the end scenario as a possibility, if for no reason other than to have a palpable idea what it would be like if they actually won. As protagonists, it helps to have a goal in mind, and all the development you can have for your side is good, and for antagonists, you move from the abstract "the Yozis want to enter Creation so they can torture it" to a very detailed example that really makes their evil paplable. Or at least that would be the intention.

The other reason why I think this is worthy is that it's the job description of the Exalted to be heroes by doing the impossible. Getting the Yozis into Creation? That's to the Infernals what "Take over the Realm or any other kingdom and conquer the world with it" is to the Solars. It's the particular kind of impossible deed that is tacitly presumed to be their primary concern. Certainly the beginning of the Chapter should have several suggestions, all based on the premise that they shall be accomplished by some daring circle of Infernals. Same with everything else. I mean, the Incarna? It's canonical that a circle of Essence 5 Solars can take Sol Invictus down. (Well, maybe "canonical" isn't the right word, since anybody who read the thread saw how it turned from that wonderful discussion about Infernals to a flamewar over that question, but it's not out of the spirit of the game.) The Oath of Obesiance can be gotten around the same way the Gods did, via Exalted - s'poetic justice, after all.

Again, I agree it's very, very unlikely, and bunches of different endscenarios should be described. But the possibility should be enumerated. It defines the horror of the Infernals so well, I think. --MUrielw

Oh, I'm not saying that the end senorio shound't be mentioned in passing, just that the focus shouldn't be on it. The Locus crusade really is the best place to start in sernrio building, and you can have victiories as great, but the assumption for the senrio shouldn't be "And the Yozi totally win" for the same reason that the base assumption for the Locus crusade wasn't "and the Autochthonians win." - Dasmen

Ah. Cool then. Agree that it shouldn't be the focus, except in the sense that it defines negatively everything non-Infernal protatgonists must do to oppose them. Kukla simply posted it first because I had a fit of passion answering a "so what would a Creation ruled by the Infernals look like?" on the RPGnet thread. --MUrielw

I do think it's certainly worth mentioning as a possibility in a 'side bar' of sorts.--Kukla

The first and most obvious way to get in involves the Wedding Plot. A Very Important Dragon-Blooded Akuma can return in glory, preferrably at some dramatic moment like the capstone of her funeral ceremony. She marches to the Imperial Manse with an honor guard of non-demon-looking demons. Chejop Chejak declares an insurrection against her rule via the Mouth of Peace, and the long-awaited Realm Civil War begins in earnest. Tepet Ejava joins the Immaculate Order and many Dynasts in the fight against the Empress' loyalists, but the most important concern from the Infernal gameplan has already been enacted: control of the Realm Defense Grid.

Meanwhile, there are several Circles of Infernals up in Heaven rolling buckets o' dice on Social Fu. The Deathlords are kept at bay with promises as to the enactment of their goals, when it's all over. Sorcerers have been given honeyed words by their "slaves" that translate into instructions of some form or another, unknowing of the dire punishments that shall be inflicted on them shall it ever come to pass. Mnemon collaborates with the Vichy Realm, confident that she can pull one over on the demons in the end. Many Circles of Solars are helped out by their special "advisors" just whom to attack and when, that their kingdoms might be fat and their names adored when this chaos has passed.

As soon as Sol Invictus takes a breather from the Playstation and notices what the Hell's going on, the Great Geas is lifted. Green fire rains down on the hordes of well-armed Mountain Folk pouring from the Pole of Earth.

Heaven itself falls into Civil War as the Falange rallies the many old gods who secretly supported the ancien regime the whole time and convince others, the Sidereals struggling against them the whole way. If the Infernals can accomplish the impossible yet again and rally (or at least cower) a terrified Heaven to their side. The Incarna are beaten to a bloody pulp and forced to revoke the Oaths of Obesiance and the terms of surrender are reversed. They might be simply executed, depending on the fate of Exaltations. Luna's fate is held as ransom for Gaia's cooperation. She relents. This provided, the Yozis can enter Creation themselves.

Even if they don't decide to blast through the Jade Pleasure Dome and just lay seige to it instead, they've got another prize: the Celestial Shards. They Yozis might have Their Woman in Imperiopolis release the RDG on any areas with concentrated Celestial Exalts, and otherwise kill off as many Celeestial Exalts as possible. The number of Infernal Exalted quadruples in size and Infernal versions of Sidereals and Lunars appear on the scene. This great army then proceeds to beat everything up with Kung Fu.

At any juncture here things can go horribly wrong for Hell and Titanomachy Round II can easily go 2 and 0. And counterstrategies and countercounterstrategies will be around for every contingency. Mostly I'm just brainstorming as to what might be held as various epic sub-goals along the way for Infernals during the Apocalypse. --MUrielw

One concept I always wanted to try: The Yozis haven't been warping and changing and getting twisted new names for themselves while hanging around in Malfeas because they're losing it, or because Malfeas smells funny (y'know, living inside yourself cannot be pleasant), or for whatever excuse they're feeding any Sorcerers who ask. They've been trying, calmly, quietly, to change themselves (and consequently their various parts) enough that the Oaths apply to things that aren't really there anymore. All they really need is for enough Infernals to get into Yu-Shan, Creation, and the Underworld and start screwing around to distract everybody for a minute while they make that one last big metaphysical change of t-shirt. And that's when the Ebon Dragon hits the fan. ~ WeepingStar, who just now realized that "ebon dragon" sounds like a really gross euphemism.