Sz/PMEStarstriders

Thoughts Regarding Giant Magic Robots and Orbital Genocide Dispensers

Warstriders are big. But not big enough to be big in outer space. An Exalted weaponry shouldn't be not big compared to something as mundane as a moon or, pffft, planets. So, during the Primordial War and the First Age, Exalted engineers and shipwrights created a class of instruments called Starstriders. Warstriders are keen at striding over battlefields and enemy warriors. Similarly, Starstriders are keen at striding over outer space and enemy stars.

Starstriders are also the schtick of a new type of Exalted, the Alchemicals. Exalted excel at operating these titanic machines, but nobody (but Solars and Abyssals) come close to rivaling the Alchemicals at becoming as one with the Starstriders. Terrestrials can only attune to Starstriders of the First Circle of Silver. Celestial and Primordial Exalts may attune to Starstriders of the Second Circle of Mercury. Solars, Abyssals and Alchemicals may attune to the highest class of Starstriders, Third Circle of Ruby.

To accomodate this new class of weaponry which does not fit in well with the existing Artifact Background, a new Background becomes necessary: (Name Yet To Be Decided). This new Background covers tools and instruments that are not personal or of massive enough scale they are useless on a personal level. Warstriders, starcrafts and Starstriders mainly fall into this Background's purview. Generic Warstriders are covered by the first three dots of this Background. The massive drop in their value represents 1) the change in scale between canon and PME and 2) the writer's oversight. I'll fix this later. >_> Well anyways. Most airships, starcrafts and such devices range from 1 dots to 5 dot. Starstriders range from 3 dots to 5 dots.

Generic Terrestrial Starstriders cost (NYTBD) 3. To operate Terrestrial Starstriders requires the Charm Silver Circle Attunement. They can be as small as skyscraper and as large as a hill. By definition, they are all capable of exiting a planet's atmosphere and traveling between planets within a single solar system. Operating a Starstrider is costly, however. For a Terrestrial Starstrider to remain operative, it must be powered with a large collection of Hearthstones and/or Essence. It requires 15 dots worth of Hearthstones or yielded Essence. Having multiple Exalts or Essence users on board usually helps.

Generic Celestial Starstriders cost (NYTBD) 4. To operate Celestial Starstriders requires the Charm Mercury Circle Attunement. Celestial Starstriders can be as small as a hill and as large as a small city. If one of these showed up on a planet, the entire planet's populace would cry anathema. Surely, this mustn't be possible without demon magic or fae trickery. So they usually end up in Elsewhere hangars. Unleashed in outer space, though, Celestial Starstriders could wrestle with some of the more powerful behemoths and demons. A Celestial Starstrider is capable of interstellar travel, either through actual transition through physical space or through exploitations of space anomalies. Operation of Celestial Starstriders requires 20 dots of Hearthstones or yielded Essence.

Generic Alchemical Starstriders, if such exist, cost (NYTBD) 5. To operate Alchemical Starstriders requires the Charm Ruby Circle Attunement. Alchemical Starstriders may be as small as a small city. Since the First Age, none of these megastructures has been spotted. At least, that is what the Realm's intelligence officers believe. Alchemical Starstriders were created to be mobile command centers and fortresses against the forces of the Yozi, the Wyld and the Deathlords. Not only are they free to wander among the constellations, they are often capable of traversing across Primordial Realms on their own accord. These titans require at least 25 dots of Hearthstones or yielded Essence to awaken.

Do note that this is just a rough sketch of the Starstriders I'm thinking about. I haven't considered if their scale makes sense or not yet. Also, I still haven't quite recovered from Diebuster and TTGL. :|

Considering the scale, each Starstriders should be utterly unique. Similar to the Manse-designing system included in the Oadenol's Codex, there should be a system for customizing a Starstrider. Beside basic weaponry, there should be tricks such as a support for indefinite habitation, internal factory-cathedrals, a pool of the Wyld/the Labyrinth/etc., an Inauspicious Citadel-like trick which links the Starstrider with Sol Invictus' sunfire, the Mouth of Oblivion or the Godhead of Autochthon, and so on. And, of course, there should be a feature which allows the Starstrider to be split up and combine together.

A thought on power: It costs a lot of Essence to keep a Starstrider working. You can bypass this by forfeiting slots for extra features such as eye lasers and giant burning swords, but that's boring. There are a few ways to activate a Starstrider beside throwing a heap of Hearthstones at it, though.

One is that the Exalt yield a few dots of her Essence to power the Starstrider. Doing so effectively lowers the Exalt's Essence rating, down to half her regular Essence, rounded down. With her lowered Essence rating, she may lose access to certain certain Charms and powers, though effects of Charms that have been activated prior to the attunement persists, as well as the attunement itself. This method has a lethal disadvantage, however. When the Exalt's Starstrider suffers damage, the shock bleeds into the Exalt herself as well through the intimate binding of Essence between the Starstrider and the Exalt. Each time the Starstrider is damaged, the Exalt suffers (Essence yielded)L damage herself, which may not be soaked by either natural or magical means.

One another is that multiple Exalts may attune to a single Starstrider. Each extra instances of Silver Circle Attunement reduces the power requirement by 1, Mercury Circle Attunement by 3, and Ruby Circle Attunement by 5. Attunement bonus from an Exalt of different type reduces this bonus by 1, 2 if the Exalt is of an opposing alignment (Abyssal and Solar, for example.)

Some Starstriders may be equipped with alternative power sources. A Soulsteel and bone Starstrider might only be powered by a continuous blood sacrifice at its heart. An Infernal might ignite his Starstrider with an exultant dance or perhaps a poetry, ringing the heart of Malfeas, who then pours the machine with a deluge of his warped Yozi Essence. Or... something. I don't know.

Oh, bah, I should hammer this out and inject it with a massive dose of sense.