HumbleLunars/Outline

Broad Strokes

Themes, moods, motifs, and other words I don't understand:

• The Past
• Anger
• Love, the personal as opposed to the abstract.

Minor Words:

• • Vengenance
  • Control
  • Memory
  • Animals and Nature

More specifically:

Lunars do a lot of righteous wrath and a lot of killing truly evil people. Often Lunars (or the people they protect) have had some truly evil shit done to them.

One might argue with some justification that the Solars had it coming for them.

This is not to say Lunars never sin. Fate has dealt them a hard hand, and they've made some tough compromises.

A Brief Run Through

The Lunars: Since Lunars are about the past, I think we'll start with this chapter rather than setting , and do a heavy focus on history. This is intended as a summary.

The First Age Lunars were pretty darn nice. Some of this was simply what they didn't do - they didn't limit break monsterously as the Solars did. Often, they were champions of people and causes the other Exalts forgot or found beneath their notice. Sometimes they tried to keep the Solars under some kind of control - but only sometimes.

The Lunars sinned by ommission in a big way. Some of them loved their spouses too much. Some of them had other causes, often very noble ideas, that distracted their attention. Think of it as curing cancer while Rome burned. Also, they just wern't that organized. The First Age Lunars often didn't like each other and didn't see any reason to organize. Some Solar set up a "Lunar Deliberative", but it didn't do much. The Lunars kept in touch via smaller meetings, interlocking circles, and sorcery. The Lunars did nothing, so the Sidereals had to act.

A lot of Lunars were killed, and more than a few followed their mates into the Jade Prison. Some of them fled to the edges of the world. There had always been a sizable minority of Lunars who ruled strange kingdoms near the Wyld, and they welcomed their fellows.

Time passed, the Fair Folk invaded. And I'm skipping a few years =P

Setting: This brings us, sort of, to the present days. The setting is the Threshold, with a *very* Dark Ages feel. The focus on poverty, "ordinairy folk", and the ruins of the first age. Barbarians make an appearance, for sure, but they're not the focus. Read the Iliad, read King Lear. This is going to have a more miedival Europe feel than some parts of the game. There's one huge exception, though - these people arn't ignorant.

There are lots of ruins, and they contain the relics of the first age. These are mostly relatively mundane objects that just happen to have been made out of imperishable material. There are a few warstriders, but there are more imperishable houses that provide shelter from the snow.

This needs to be handled with extreme care, or it will end up looking like some cheesy sci fi where everybody is living in a bombshelter and worshipping a broke down chevrolet. Avoid portraying the Threshold dwellers as being ignorant or having no understanding of how their technology works. They understand perfectly well how their technology works, probably better than the average Lookshy Engineer understands his warstrider. The problem isn't that they're ignorant, the problem is that they're fucking poor. They know how to operate the airplane, they know what its supposed to do. But they'd need three hearthstones and a part that can only be made by a Solar, so there it is.

I'm not sure this can work, and we may have to punt. But that's a thought.

The Lunars are born into this poverty and shit, and they have to put the pieces together. Its similiar to the Solar setup. Except the Solars can get beyond it, just by walking onto the stage. They can make the 14 successuss Craft roll to make the Thousand Forged Dragon go. They can make the 14 successus Performance roll to unite an army. They can rebuild the world.

Lunars can't. They can help people or they can kill people or they can change people. They can challenge the Deathlords and the Fair Folk and the Realm. They can make the world a better place. But at the end of the day, they would still be ruling over the Second Age. A much nicer Second Age, but still the Second Age.

Does that make any sense at all?

The Lunars are alien gods and forces of nature....yet strangely human.

The Silver Pact plays a reduced role, being something of a foil. Its there, but....well, the Lunars are 300 people with no home base and very mixed transportation and communication networks, spread out over an area the size of Creation. They don't really have any way to hold a meeting. Instead, it tends to be more of a rumor network. You run into another Lunar, you fill each other in, you move on.

Comments

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These are comments on an earlier draft:

Hi! Love what you're doing here. I just wanted to respond to something you said up above: you "don't want to run them as mad villains," and I understand where you're coming from, but in defense of the current Lunars... what if they're right? I mean, as has been pointed out, they're much, MUCH smarter than we are. Are they necessarily villains if their solution involves the deaths of X number of people/towns/civilizations? Solars are basically heroes, and their hands are almost ALL bloody. Hell, if you want to make a change and you're not willing to break a few eggs, so to speak, you're probably even crazier than the violent revolutionaries! (And yes, I realize defending the default-setting Lunars is silly, because HumbleLunars are a whole new, fresh start - but I just had to pipe up for those lovable anarchist furries.) - DigitalSentience

Eh, its a Dij! Dij Dij Dij! Um. Anyway, yeah. The question is, what kind of story does it make for? The "we want to destroy" Creation thing was probably meant to get some Genghis Khan action in, but it does make them look like "Oh, it will be so beautiful without all the ugly cities, the mutants shall rule over men as cattle. Waiter, bring me another virgin. To eat." I think the idea was to gete some Genghis Khan action going, but it makes it hard to pull of righteous wrath with a straight face. And righteous wrath is fucking key for Lunars. I mean, Genghis Khan is cool, but he wasn't an idealist.

But yeah, I dunno if I like the whole "Curse of Inaction" thing for Lunars. Its cool for someone, but I dunno if it works for Lunars.