Thus Spake Zargrabowski/DeployingAstrology
g_c_grabowski - 10/11/2003 08:51:10 - raindog@white-wolf.com
>>>One thing I'm a bit lost on is the "intelligent" scope triggers. I understand things like "Your sword will betray you at the worst possible moment." But what other kinds of intelligent triggers are there? I keep trying to think of some, but everything else I think of seems fairly straightforward.<<<
Non-triggered effects are just direct. Curse event happens, if the fate can kick in, it will. These are mostly good for inflicting conditions on someone -- making them rich, poor, hooked on phonix, whatever. "Spiders of the College of the Treasure Trove Ascendant, make this man gifted in arts of the pimp through the use of the Blissful Idiot Blessing." The very first time it can in every effect frequency, the effect helps you with pimpin'. Note that this effect will seem to be sorta intelligent, as the event it influences will always be meaningful because otherwise it wouldn?t be eligible for the effect.
Conditional ones are mostly good for Pavlovian conditioning of various sorts, or ruining someone in a very direct and obvious fashion. You use this for if-then destinies. This is gonna be the vast majority of everything you *need* to do. You tell the spiders to make the dude Dolemite until he beats his bitches or skims money from you. Note, however, that it's very hard to have the same effect then turn around and ruin your pet pimp when he gets uppity. The most the destiny will do is stop giving him mojo. For poetic stuff, you need a fully intelligent trigger.
Intelligent destinies are ones that are really useful. They exert themselves whenever it will be useful, intelligent and mythically resonant to do so. They're not only out to get you, they're out to get you in a poetic and clever fashion. Here, you say you want to see a story of rise, betrayal and tragedy, set Dolemite up to rise against you (but not in a really dangerous way) and then guarantee his power deserts him at a moment of weakness.
Reasons to use the intelligent ones: You want to write real-life stories: For whatever reason you wanna do it, sometimes you need your destinies to have a good narrative character. High intelligence does that when you combine it with them acting every chance they get. See the rise and fall of Dolemite, above.
You want the most of an effect: Intelligence makes broad-scope effects *really* broad scope. All those possibilities that can get messed with, and then with a great big mythic curse-intelligence behind it? Ow.
When it is on you you you: Yes, the blessing works now because this is the general situation you intended it to work in and it's smart! Hard to argue with this logic. Also called "my wife will always overcome the intruder". Remember these things are not *you*. They are the schemings of the devious mechanical knitting machines that exist only to spin tales of extraordinary beauty and woe. Give yourself a couple of positive everytime-it-can effects and you can reduce your life to a parable of some sort, probably not a good one.
Intelligent Sidereal blessings in the arts of war are better even better for combat than making yourself the subject of a resplendent destiny in the combat Ability associated with the constellation.
Also, if you have a protective blessing that tries to tip you off to whoever is fucking with you or help you out of bad situations, this makes it start to look very presceint, because the plotting of the spiders can take advantage of events elsewhere in the tapestry and look at forward planning. It can start to act to minimize threats to you long before they become apparent to you. Again, remember, this is not giving yourself a die bonus, it is giving yourself a destiny that gives you a die bonus when the time is right. You better hope you like what you asked for.
[[Note -- if you make a short and painful death curse, scope as large as you have successes to define (those who plot against me), happens every time it gets a chance, duration whatever is expedient -- you can probably give yourself a Curse of Imhotep effect where the curse invades the destinies of all those who would even dream of charming you. Yes, an intelligent one will strike down all those who fit inside the scope, and will aim the scope as best it can, and I can't even imagine how much trouble you would be in when the news of the fatal, vaguely aimed, intelligent Scope 17 Sloped Floor Curse you just let loose hit the Convention on Esssence Wielders about 20 minutes later, because it's probably not strong enough to scythe down all the messengers of those who bear you such ill intent. This is the definition of censure-inducing.]?]
You want a curse to absolutely positively fulfill a condition: Sometimes you need something done really thoroughly. Last lineal descendents sometimes need really killed. This is how you make a curse that hunts across the face of Creation for dangerous people to pick off.
>>>Also, I'm not clear on how these triggers interact with the Power(frequency) of the effect. Like if I say, "Your courage will fail you when your loved-ones are threatened-betraying you for the coward you are." Then if I buy a power of 1 then this happens no more than once a week. But what about power 4? If the target's loved-ones aren't threatened more often than once a week, did I just waste 3 effect points?<<<
Well, let's talk about "waste". What are you measuring waste against? The ability to affect his uttermost descendents? The ability to match his Essence? The political shit you're going to take for putting the zapomatic on someone? If you're just pegging an individual with some curse, and it's not a demigod, and you don't want it to involve the rise and fall of nations, you are going to have *so many* extra successes. Just keep in mind the strictures the bureau imposes are mostly because they don't want specific people having specific fates. Once a week across a larger area is better, as far as the bureau is concerned. Maybe you could just make their farming district prosperous? Still, once you've crossed the line of actually inflicting a destiny on someone at once a scene, you might as well go all the way, spend the one extra point and get it constant.
Also, keep in mind as a Sidereal, *you* are destiny's weapon. Not astrology, not Charms, not Martial Arts. You. Sidereal astrology is bad for setting things in motion but super for sustaining them. Go and set up a context for your astrology, then deploy the effects.
Geoffrey C. Grabowski\\ Exalted Developer, WWGS\\ raindog@white-wolf.com
g_c_grabowski - 10/11/2003 10:30:01 - raindog@white-wolf.com
>>>One thing I keep wondering and can get no concrete answer on:<<<
Each astrological effect can have one of the eight functions attached to it. Increase its power by increasing its scope and frequency. You normally double up by making overlapping prophecies *if* you can fit more than one on the target, but make sure you read the rules for similar prophecies bumping one-another off.
Geoffrey C. Grabowski\\ Exalted Developer, WWGS\\ raindog@white-wolf.com
