CaspianM/JonAbyssals
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One of the things I dislike about Abyssals is that they are a bit too low in their command hierarchy. The Neverborn control or can control quite tightly the Deathlords (look at the backgrounds of the First-and-Forsaken-Lion and of Princess-Magnificent-etc.). And the Deathlords control or can control quite tightly the Abyssals, having literally a "death switch" on them. In summary, Abyssals are pawns of pawns - that's not very cool!
In contrast, Solars, Lunars, Sidereals and Terrestrials, once Exalted, are pretty much free to do as they please: the Incarna are disinterested in anything but the Games of Divinity, they have officially given the Exalted mandate to rule Creation, and even if they wanted, they could not do much to reclaim the Essences (or the Primordial War would have ended as soon as it began). While most Sidereals and many Lunars and Terrestrials do have a social infrastructure to which they have to answer, they are at worst "least among peers" in it, rather than subordinates; and even those can always forsake the infrastructure without risking the same kind of retaliation Abyssals face.
An interesting change to the Abyssals would be to simply remove the Deathlords - or rather, identify the Abyssals with the Deathlords - and say that the Abyssals gain power from the Neverborn themselves. A further step would be to say that the Neverborn cannot really say "do this and that" to their servants. They are dead, and they cannot think or plan coherently, being instead driven by a blind, mindless need to "end it all before we rest" - the same drive that makes the Underworld exist. The Abyssals shards are drawn to exceptional people who are dead (or on the cusp of death) but do not want - or simply are not capable - of "letting go", and would rather drag everything with them into oblivion than let something outlive them.
This premise would require reconsidering a few things in the setting, but I think one could get a coherent whole out of it.
For example, where do the Abyssal Shards come from? Perhaps a very, very, very, bitter and vengeful Solar (perhaps one with a ton of limit?) can, upon death, leave behind a shard that is so heavily tainted by the Curse that it refuses to be "wiped clean", at least not before it has "wiped clean" everything it was connected to; very much like the Neverborn cannot really stop existing until Creation does. This might be a simple (and unforeseen) consequence of the Curse, and of the birth of the Underworld and of the-things-that-cannot-rest. The shard turns abyssal, drawing power through the Curse from the Neverborn, and is then attracted to some sufficiently heroic dying/dead mortal with the same needs - bring his world down with him.
This would create an interesting dynamic between the needs of the shard, and the needs of the host. Perhaps the set of things that the host *needs* to see destroyed (from empires to relationships to philosophies) grows to encompass those of the shard (some limit mechanism would work nicely); perhaps the set of what the shard needs to see destroyed also grows with time to encompass all of Creation (after all, after sufficient time even the smallest thing becomes, directly or indirectly tied to everything that exists). What if the mortal host realizes that there is something that he wants to be saved but that is part of what the shard needs destroyed? This could lead to the same kind of dramatic tension that you have with rebel Abyssals. In some sense, it would be a mirror of the tension between the "righteousness" of Solar shard and the occasional pettiness of their hosts (wanting save one person when you have embraced a destiny of world destruction is, in its own way, pettiness). One could play it as the terrible tragedy that it is, with Resonance "punishing" the Abyssal that denies his nature, or perhaps allow something like true love, or true wisdom, to redeem the host *and* the shard.
The "Deathlords" could then be 1500 years old Abyssals exalted by those bitter solar Essences that at the end of the First Age were not brought into the Jade Prison, and managed to hide from the Wyld Hunt in the Underworld (where the Sidereals are blind). They slowly grew in power there until, after seven or eight centuries (with the most powerful of them having reached essence 7 or 8), they felt strong enough to attempt to bring down Creation by unleashing the Contagion. The new generation of Abyssals springing up 5 years ago could be that exalted by those bitter Solar Essences that just escaped from the Jade Prison (yes, a good 40% of the original Solar Essences are sufficiently upset that they want Creation shut down, rather than see it go on as the pale shadow of what it used to be). The Deathlords would then treat them more or less the way Elder Lunars treat newly exalted ones.
[Attributed to babayaga]
Key concepts: Frankenstein, undead, unlame, Fetters keep the Abyssal together + focused on something, "true form" expresses their true horribleness, shown through resonance.
Fetters are both emotional and physical representations of what binds them to reality. Sometimes its an artifact, or a tattoo or a scar or whatever.
The goal is to create an opponent who is:
1) Very narratively inhuman when needed.
2) Has the ability to come back a couple of times for rematches until finally utterly and satisfactorily destroyed.
3) If having to deal with the internal monologues and motivations there has to be large sums of conflict within.
4) Have the anime power of "freak out and kill you when stressed" which ties in with the internal conflict thing earlier.
This being said lets start poking at this mythos.
The Abyssals are the servants of the Deathlords who are further the servants of the Yozi. They are humans who have been coerced by a Deathlord into accepting one of the tainted Abyssal shards and becoming an Exalt in the service of the Deathlord.
This is a neat idea. However it feels somewhat incomplete. Why do I think this?
1) This seems to suggest that only living humans can be Exalted, that's kinda uncool. 2) They are mortal and thusly they can be killed like mortals, ok well like Exalted. This meaning that they can only be killed once. This also means that they are alive. 3) There isn't as much horror as there could be.
Solution: Steal from current mythoi, blend for a couple of thoughts then pour out.
Things that are scary and that follow the themes we want are 1) Vampires 2) Frankenstein 3) Ghosts
So ideally what we want here is an artificial creation, something generated out of the myriad souls that the Deathlords have in their thrall. So these creations will be created souls, jammed into created bodies held together by the Abyssal shard, but only barely. To sustain its existence it will require Essence (preferably in the form of living flesh or fear) and the creation of a Fetter, something along the ideological lines of "Serve the cause of Oblivion to destroy Creation" So long as the Abyssal wants to exist it will feed on essence and try to follow its fetter to the best of its abilities.
An Abyssal has two forms, his Creation form which is the shell in which the conjoined souls and the Abyssal shard reside and his Abyssal form which is a reflection of his abilities as an Abyssal. Generally speaking the Abyssal is always seen in his Creation form as to make them more competent at dealing with mortals and what not. As the Abyssal expends more essence his Abyssal form manifests in an overlay format. Some Abyssals take advantage of their Abyssal forms and have charms to specifically allow them to manifest their Abyssal form (much like the Lunar Deadly Beastman Transformation) at the cost of their normalcy.
Abyssals have one major weakness, they are dead. Their fate has been ended and while they exist nominally on the Loom of Fate as an errant blip they can only truly accomplish things that relate to their fetter. They may gain more fetters to accomplish more things and become more powerful but every new fetter becomes another thing that ties them to Creation and another thing that might destroy them. They excel at destroying, moreso than Solars, however they are poor at creating and in many cases do not desire to create at all.
This changes the mechanics very little. In general there should be an exploration aspect to the Abyssals for the characters so I will leave this at that for now and develop it more as the game progresses.
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