BlackMage

Greetings. I really hope I'm following the wikiquette correctly so far; I don't want to screw everything up by hitting the wrong button. Anyway, I had an idea for something new that STs may or may not wish to give a try in their Exalted games. Is anyone here a fan of Stargate SG-1? My idea is to create, with a bit of modifications, a way to "port over" the Goa'uld and their Jaffa armies from that show to be used as enemies in Exalted. I just like the idea of bringing in an enemy with levels of hubris greater than any Sidereal. Naturally, though, this would take a lot of work. So it'll be a bit before anything really good shows up here. Thanks for your time.

Questons? Comments? Death threats?

I don't think porting anything to Exalted is as tough as you make it out to be. Essence cannons and firewands exist, and the idea of a being simply 'being better' because they're carrying another creature is pretty easily represented by being an 'icky Exalt'. Save in this case, when you die, your shard is a physical, corporeal thing that crawls out and tries to get away. For more fun, if you want a full Exalted cross-meshing, recognize that the Yozis can't get out of their prison - and neither can their demons. Now, a new type of 'infernal exalt' might have a tough time too, because you're sending across a spirit. But have a kid with the Empress, and have that kid be an ultra-icky snake thing, and give it about 100 years to propogate, integrate itself into society (start with Mnemon!) and obtain all sorts of high powered and secret artifacts, and suddenly, the fight for the throne of Creation is really about the nasties trying to seize power, and the Solars trying to stop them. For weapons and technology, see the Autocthonian book, correlating Assault Crossbows to beam staves. - GregLink

They do have essence cannons, a tube-like affair that that shots bolts of essence. As well as Shock Pikes, spears that shoot concussive blasts. As for brining in Gouald and Jaffas... what Greg said. Of course, you could have your Goualds as something that crept up from the Underground battlefield where the Mountainfolk have been fighting it out... Make it a critter that managed to take over a DB... and have them breed and spread over the DB society... y'know... so that THOSE Realm DBs? They're not really normal DBs, at least not after they exalted and get introduced to a lil friendly snake.

And heck, you could even have the host be unconcious after the take over, ie it's the snake what's doing EVERYTHING... ~ Haku

Darn. I don't HAVE Autochthonians yet. >_< Love the ideas, though. I was personally thinking of a more mundane origin to keep in line with the show's idea that they can only claim to be gods because they have all that cool technology and bully about less advanced peoples. - BlackMage

Coughs... they can use artifacts, channel essence, that counts as the cool tech area, the fact that they're inhabiting the bodies of Dragonblooded makes em go, well... I'm a kid of the 5 dragons, I'm a god... now bow down and worship me or die. ~ Haku

Hmm...that'd definitely be a good way to bring them in. It'd be easier that way, too. The only thing I feel a little uncomfortable with is that you'd lose a bit of the menace of the Goa'uld that way. Don't take this personally; I appreciate your ideas a lot. But just think of it this way...which is scarier? Creatures that simply take over a Terrestrial Exalted and make him evil, or creatures that can turn mere mortals into cruel, unfeeling tyrants with enough power to be dangerous for Exalts to take on? - BlackMage

Why not both? The Terresterial Exalted variant would be the Goauld, while the Mortal variant would be the Jaffa. Both would be under the control of the creature. And the celestines help everyone if a Celestial Exalted is infected and taken over (Anubis!). A 'jaffa' would be a challenge to defeat as they tend to be able to use essence and such and tend to swamp (on par with starting Terresterials), while the 'goauld' would be a pumped up Terresterial, making it extremely hard to defeat by a starting Celestial exalted (but still possible). The Anubis would be the long champaign end boss type NPC. ~ haku

An interesting idea, but my sci-fi geek side would prevent me from doing that, as it strays a bit too far from the show. Jaffa just rear the larvae; they're not under direct control of it (and I believe a Goa'uld would rather die than take a Jaffa as a proper host). Speaking of Anubis, though...something like that might be used to create (gulp) Kull Warriors! - BlackMage

You mean like how Guoald originally inhabited the Unas? Well... it's up to you, really. Besides, as far as I know a Jaffa can NOT sustain a Goauld as the body can't handle a mature symbiot or something to that effect. Personally, I would make it so that all humans can be hosts, perhaps normal humans are normally used as hosts for immature snakes, allowing them to use essence and such and able to take on a young DB one on one. It's possible for a mature snake to take over a normal human, but they -prefer- DBs, as it gives them BETTER charms than its own native ones as well as a larger essence pool. While a snake infested DB would get a marked jump in abilities able to go toe to toe with a celestial exalted, and a snake infested Celestial Exalted is all kinds of deadliness. ~ haku

Right, they can't keep a mature symbiote in their pouch. The Unas...now THERE'S an idea for something to scare the crap out of your players with. ^_^ A hideous, hungry, intelligent, deep-voiced monster that keeps coming back for more even after getting run through with a daiklave multiple times.

On the question of "levels" of people that are snaked, I just had another thought; base it on the timeframe. At the start of the campaign, the players only have to contend with Goa'uld in mortal hosts, making them about even with lower-level DBs. Later on, as the Goa'uld are starting to realize the PC's threat to them, you start seeing snakes that have taken Dragon-Blooded hosts. And, for the grand finale, the fight against Anubis in his Celestial host. - BlackMage

Heh... The 'First' would be like fighting a Lunar with the regen gifts... hard to do, but not impossible. You just need Agrravated damage to do him in. ^_-

Indeed, regards the timeline sequence... that works. Of course, it could simply be that the higher ups, the ones in the DBs are starting to take notice of the PCs, in that they've been in the DBs before, it's just that they haven't shown their hands... ~ Haku

That'd work. "Higher ups" would have to mean "those Goa'uld with the bigger resource banks" if you wanted to preserve the idea that they antagonize each other just as much as humanity, but yeah, that'd be a good way to plot things out. The only way it wouldn't work is if you wanted to follow the show's progression of snakes to fight against. For example, Apophis was pretty much THE big bad System Lord in the galaxy at the very start of the show, and therefore would be expected to have a Dragon-Blooded host in this setup. Which leads me into yet ANOTHER idea...

Not all Goa'uld are System Lords. You could have the characters mainly deal with mortal-hosted minor Goa'uld (Klorel comes to mind) at the beginning, with the occasional run-in with a System Lord (or perhaps just a Lord in the context of the game) in a DB host. Later on, the Lords start to take a more active role in your Circle's capture/torture/annihilation and you start running across them more often. -BlackMage