Revision as of 08:32, 23 May 2006

Four Willows Weeping

Infernals: Willows Ikselam DeathBySurfeit BoXP
CrunchRelay Fiction

A note on designing Charms: After you're written a Charm, read it and think about what the Charm Text says. Don't think about what you want it to mean. Just read the words. Change the words until they match the meaning that you were looking for. Designing Charms in this manner will result in better, clearer texts; if you think about them carefully enough, and realize what the consequences of a particular mechanic are too, then you may learn a thing or two about Charm balance in the process.

Hey, I'm Shreyas Sampat. My name is uncommon and somewhat androgynous, so one might be confused by it! I am not a woman. Besides being an Exalted fan, I also like Nobilis and a fugue of other games; you might see some of my thoughts on them at my website, linked below, where I also have some roleplaying games that I have designed myself. I can be IMed at the screenname unrequitedthai; this is also the username of my Livejournal. I can be emailed at ssampat at gmail dot com.

I have noticed that I sometimes come off rather curt when I am debating with people whom I do not know. Please understand that I don't hold any personal enmity toward you! I only attack your arguments, and the curtness is only there in service of saying precisely what I want to say and nothing else.

Charm Count: 427 + 38 CharmRelay + 16 MartialArtsRelay = 481

the above charm count is no longer even vaguely up to date

Ex2 Charm Count: 3 MartialArts + 0 = 3

People to Visit

I really enjoy the Wiki environment for workshopping and collaborating, and I try to read a good slice of what's posted, regardless of who writes it. Even so, there are some people whose edits I look to first, because I have found that their ideas consistently surprise, impress, and inspire me. Here are a few of them:

Balthasar

hasn't been around a lot lately, but he is always a pleasure to speak with when he is. Check out his ExMod!

Charlequin

is another infrequent editor, though he occasionally contributes to CharmRelay. His mechanical judgement is very good.

Dissolvegirl

is great writer~artist company, and really deals with my off-the-wall moods well. She writes great Hearthstones.

haren

used to write a lot of Abyssals material. Not so much anymore, but her Charms are still here and still very good. She was a great source of Infernals ideas!

Ikselam

and I have this cognitive dissonance thing going on, which somehow makes it so I always leave his pages seeing the world a little differently, and the better for it. His is the page to consult for Hearthstones par excellence.

Quendalon

is one of the few of us brave enough to write SiderealMartialArts, and one of the fewer who crafts them well. His gods and demons are creative, beautiful, and generally awesome.

Resplendence

writes immaculate, heretical Dragonblooded Charms, and is a talented artist besides. Visit his website for a treat.

Shataina

is a really pleasant, sociable presence on the Wiki. She and I don't always see eye-to-eye, I think, but her approach to conversation makes it so that disagreeing with her is always an interesting and rewarding experience.

szilard

is attentive and creative. Ask him about Standard Deviants at some point; it is his very compelling idea for a game.

TedPro

is a relatively recent joiner to the community, and his Charm names always happily surprise me. I wonder what he would produce outside the auspices of CrunchRelay.

Telgar

has a great many excellent Artifacts.

Cosmology and Mythology

Creatures/APanoplyOfDragons

A compendium of the dragons and dragonlike creatures of Creation.

Creatures/ATaxonomyOfMadness

A project to populate Malfeas.

Creatures/HeirsOfSeaAndFire

More population fun, this time for the lesser elementals.

Creatures/IdentifyingBeings

What is it?

CrunchRelay

Ikselam's second excellent collaboration-game idea, this has produced (in my opinion) some of the very best Charms on the Wiki, and a wealth of brilliant Artifacts, Hearthstones, and other things.

Lexicon of Elder Days

A collaborative, constrained writing exercise.

/TheCharmSky

Some thoughts on how the sky works, very non-canon.

/WhoTheIncarnaeReallyAre

More thoughts.

WillowsInfernal

This is different enough from IkselamInfernal that I've made a different page for it, though I owe him (and, more recently, DeathBySurfeit) a large debt of gratitude for giving me the inspiration and zanshin to work on this. This project and my MartialArts represent the massive majority of the Charms I have written.

WhirlwindBrushMethod

Ikselam started this collaborative fiction project; it is vachement chouette. I'm writing for it! Yay!

Rules & Ideas

/BrawlAndMartialArts

A way you could, in theory, differentiate the two.

/CasteMarks

I think that, canonically, castemarks are a little dull.

/CraftEtAl

A unification for 'panoply' skills like Craft, Linguistics, and Melee.

/ExaltationBackground

To simulate the "blaze of glory" at Exaltation.

ExaltedNobilis

Exalted using the Nobilis diceless system.

ExaltedPokemon

A system for "monster trainer" games.

FairFolk/RainwaterJaguars

A shaped society.

FairFolk/ShapedSociety

Using the MF as Fair Folk.

FiveMagicalGeometries

Why 5MM Artifacts are shaped as they are.

IndependentActions

A definition of Independent Action Charms and the manner in which they Combo.

NewSiderealCharms

Houserules for creating new Sidereal Charms.

/FiveMagicalMaterials

A counterpart for PassengerPigeon/AnimaPowers.

PerfectionOfPaoC

What happens when you learn 40 styles, anyway?

/Stunts

Stunting rethought.

TheCastelessAbility

Making MA really, really universal.

Charms

Martial Arts

I make a practice of designing structurally weird or experimental Martial Arts, following the precedent of the Prismatic Arangement of Creation Style. The vast majority of the Styles that follow are, among other things, meditations on the sheer possibility that characterizes Exalted Martial Arts, without stepping beyond the bounds of mystical combat technique.

Ex2 Celestial

MartialArts2/SingingImageOfFire

A very fire style, all red jade, mobility, theatrics and swords.

Celestial

MartialArts/ArgentScorpionOfOppositionStyle

This is an experimental Martial Art, intended as an argument that Styles with abnormally long Essence spans are not as good as cherry-picking an equally large selection of Charms from multiple Styles. I am not sure that it worked out that way!

MartialArts/BitterFlowerStyle

This is an attempt to give Martial Arts a more videogamey feel, with Charms that can be chained together and made, with arbitrary flexibility, into virtual comboes.

MartialArts/CrimsonPanoplyOfVictoryStyle1

Working off notes by Balthasar.

MartialArts/CrimsonPentacleBladeStyleW

A reenvisioning. Numerological.

MartialArts/GravenButterflyStyle

A style that uses paired staffs.

MartialArts/HeroesLanternStyle

An answer to an informal challence from Telgar, this Style is designed to be used with Essence weaponry.

MartialArts/HouseOfBattlesStyle

An essay on how I create a Style, complete with my third House of Heaven art.

MartialArts/HouseOfEndingsStyle

A style for astrologers. Kinda wacky.

MartialArts/HouseOfJourneysStyle2

A third style for astrologers. Less wacky than the others, but includes generous Easter eggs for the Chosen of Mercury.

MartialArts/HouseOfLeisureStyle

Well then.

MartialArts/HouseOfSecretsStyle

A second style for astrologers. Very wacky!

MartialArts/InfiniteViridianRadianceStyle

A style with some funky pseudo-Buddhist imagery.

MartialArts/IronPhoenixStyle

In progress.

MartialArts/PersimmonOceanOfJoyStyle

A style with some aikido-inspired thoughts.

MartialArts/SerpentOceanStyle

A revision of the MartialArtsRelay exercise.

MartialArts/StormCrowStyle

A Melee tree in the spirit of MartialArts.

MartialArts/TreadingOnDiamondsStyle

A style for show-off Sidereals and so on.

MartialArts/WhiteSwordOfSummerStyle

A martial shaping art!

MartialArts/VermillionSpiderStyle

A Celestial precursor for the Charcoal March.

Sidereal

MartialArts/RoilingVernalTempestStyle

My first attempt at a Sidereal Martial Art. It is intended to be wholly scary, and harmonize nicely with Persimmon Ocean.

MartialArts/AmberHawkInFlamesStyle

Another Siddy MA, this one features a parametric Form, and combines unhealthily well with Soul-Fire Shaper Form.

Initiations

MartialArts/KirinsClawInitiation

A Terrestrial initiation.

MartialArts/WraptInCrystalInitiation

A Solar initiation.

Other Charms

SolarAthletics/FourWillowsWeeping

Only a few Charms so far.

SolarDodge/FourWillowsWeeping

Dodge!

SolarLore/FourWillowsWeeping

Some extensions of self-sufficient effects.

SolarMelee/FourWillowsWeeping

These are predominantly Charms that improve the quality of attacks rather than their effectiveness, based on the fact that (other than Excellent Strike) such Charms are rare in the canon, which strikes me as odd.

SolarSurvival/FourWillowsWeeping

Uh, armour is dumb.

FairFolkCharms/FourWillowsWeeping

This is just a beginning.

Charms/WillowsSolarCaste

Based on the idea that there is a division between "enhance my Abilities" magic and "fulfil my Caste role" magic.

Charms/WillowsLunarShapechanging

I don't like the asymmetry of Lunar capabilities canonically. So, new Charms.

Other Crunch

Artifacts/FourWillowsWeeping

Duh.

Characters

/Birds-Of-Trinity

For Sol Invictus.

/Ixullanu

For Forbidden Places.

/Zhumaydan

For Task Force Creation.

Games

ScrollAndSwordCircle

Four Sidereals battle the forces nibbling at the edges of Creation while trying to have interesting and meaningful lives.

Miscellaneous

/IdeaPile

This is where I keep stuff that's hardly even in progress yet. If you have an idea to throw at me, just past a couple of lines in there; I'm not a layout nazi there like I am at most pages.

/IdeaPile2

/SiderealsHouseRules

For my to-be-started game.

/SoapBox

This is where I bitch about stuff. I will be glad to discuss my bitch with others, but generally this is matter-of-opinion stuff and it's not really productive to debate it.

My Website

This is where I post my game-design stuff; I have a little Exalted page here too.

Comments

/Archive

Check your math. Assuming the numbers are correct, you've written four hundred eighty charms. ^_^ Give yourself full credit for an incredible body of work! (One that still leaves me stunned every time I think about it, despite occasional disagreements) -Suzume

Hehe. I have to recount sometime, becaue I have not been tallying the various CrunchRelay contributions well. - willows

Ha, I was thinking, "Shouldn't it be Tepet Christ Jesus"? but then I remembered Christ is just a title of sorts, not an actual surname, so the way you wrote it is all good! :) --UncleChu

Is it? Maybe it should be Christ Tepet Jesus, like Daimyo Otori Shigeru... but I don't think that titles are properly used with full-names in the Japanese style. Anyway, hi! - willows

I'd say it Tepet Jesus Christ. it's Tepet Raging Skunk, isn't it? It's not Tepet Skunk Raging.--Telgar

Phew, I'm glad we got that cleared up. Now, how does Resurrection affect stats?--UncleChu

It took the place of the need to meditate for months/years to gain more Essence, so he bought a point of Essence and some new charms. I don't think he actually raised his Attributes, except maybe Charisma.