Exalted

Started the thread: Let the Wheel begin turning once more!

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Dhoom. That wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turnings of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning. Southward the wind blew, past the walls of Fal Dara, sending the banner of the Golden Crane billowing in the air. Eastward it raced, puffing up spiraling clouds of dust. If one listened closely, they might be able to tell that this wind was different--an evil wind, almost. But even this far south of the remains of the Blight, there was no one to hear the warning. The wind buffeted the flaps of a lonely tent by the roadside, causing its lone occupant to look up irritably. Laeran Al'Elarin grumbled under his breath as he moved to belt the tent flaps down, then paused. That certainly wasn't there before. On the road, if the single-track dirt path that led out of the Aiel Waste could be called that, lay a ripped segment of green fabric. It seemed to almost shimmer in the early morning light. After crawling out of the tent, he hastened to his feet and delicately snatched the piece of cloth off the road. It was relatively new, and free of dust besides. Someone must have passed by in the night. But who would be traveling so near to the Wastes? And which direction were they going? Frowning in concentration, Laeran wove Air, knocking his tent to the ground and rolling it up in a single awkward weave. He eyed it with a small amount of satisfaction--it looked slightly better than yesterday, which meant he was improving. Hopefully. No use dwelling on that now, though. If there was someone nearby, and they were heading in the right direction, he might be able to snag a traveling companion for a little while. Light knew, it was boring being on the road alone. Perhaps he should think about settling down somewhere--but no, the Black Tower might still be searching for him. But that, too, was a problem for another day. For now, he wanted to see another human face, talk to someone else for a change and maybe learn some news of the world at large. He gathered up the bundle that was his tent and slung it over his back, checked the cord around his neck for his good-luck pendant, and set off up the road clutching the green strip of cloth. It wasn't long before he spied a lone figure, sitting huddled around a cookfire and slowly warming a hot breakfast. "Hail!" Laeran shouted as he approached. The figure looked up, and Laeran grinned, hoping it looked disarming and not just creepy. "What brings you to these parts, fellow traveler?"

An alien realm full of ideas given physical form, where the rules of society don't apply. Where you can sink into the very ground you stand on, where thoughts and emotions are weaponized, where everything you want to change doesn't want to change at all... ...holy storms, the Internet is Shadesmar.

But...Calamity wasn't even out last Christmas...what is this sorcery??

That's true, actually--let's do that. Where should I start the thread? In the RP subforum, or is there a special place for ongoing games?

Well, if everyone else is on board with it, I'll volunteer to start the IC thread.

And "X". Don't forget X.

Well, there's always the tried-and-true "You meed in a bar..." In all seriousness, most of our characters seem to be nomads, and if we're meeting near the Blight, it makes sense that we've banded together on the road for protection during the journey to [wherever each character is going], and we get attacked by trollocs or something, with the plot kicking off from there. Plot: It's several hundred years after Tarmon Gai'don. Moghedien has escaped being collared by the Seanchan, and Sammael was actually returned after his death-by-Mashadar, but ran and hid during Tarmon Gai'don. As the two last surviving Forsaken, they are working together to subvert the Dragon's Peace using a combination of trollocs in disguise and men with Compulsion laid on them. Their goal is for it to shatter and the nations to go to war, where they can mop up the pieces and rule over the survivors. That's just one suggestion, of course--thoughts? Critiques? It's a bit cliche...

Or worse, like the Hobbit adaptation, which was basically just Bilbo watching a montage of things happening around him--but for eight hours!

The members of the Dark Alley have hidden hemalurgic spikes in the cookies. They'll Ruin your life if you eat them, so I'd suggest avoiding that. Also, welcome to the Shard!

Went to the Aether Revolt prerelease last night, had a whole lot of fun, even if I didn't win anything. The new set looks cool, and Revolt looks like a fun mechanic so far.

I seem to recall Wax saying that he couldn't Push on his own metalminds at some point? Maybe I'm wrong about that. My first point was that an Awakener's Lifesense can detect how many Breaths someone is holding, and that a Breath is Investiture roughly equivalent to that of one person. (Nalthians have slightly more Investiture than other races, but their Breath doesn't contain all of it). Since adding or subtracting a Breath is a noticeable change if you're trying to detect it, wouldn't that suggest that humans have at least a fair bit of innate Investiture?

But doesn't it take an amount of Investiture less than the amount contained in a person (i.e. one Nalthian breath) to noticeably alter them when viewed by Lifesense? And it doesn't appear to take a lot of Investiture to make metalminds (which, granted, are inanimate objects) immune to Era 2 allomancy.

Hemalurgy is end-negative, and yet Inquisitors and Koloss are both definite powerhouses. Nightblood is the product of an end-neutral system, and yet it could probably destroy 90% of a population given the chance. End-negative to end-neutral to end-positive isn't a scale of power output; it's a scale of net Investiture (potential, kinetic, ambient, or otherwise) after the magic is over and done with. My personal suspicion is that the Dakhor monks are the other end-negative. Fifty deaths to give one person the ability to resist Aons seems a little lopsided to me.

Welcome to the Shard! Don't eat the cookies; they'll Ruin your appetite. ...I'm not sure about cookie dough. Hey, anyone from the DA, do you add the spikes before or after the cookies get baked?

Don't eat the cookie! Also, welcome to the Shard. Hope to see you around!

Just thought I'd leave these here... (There are plenty more, but I figured three was enough.)

When you get a 17th Shard notification, and you click on it, but it opens the notification in a tab that you were still using.

I started a D&D 5e Stormlight expansion, titled Pathways of Light, around the time Words of Radiance came out. I haven't touched it since Arcanum Unbounded, so some of it's outdated, and most of the lore stuff is just copied over from the Coppermind. (Also, I'm not really sure how balanced everything is--the races and class(es) are still unfinished and untested). You can find it here, as a Google doc. And if you'd like to help edit and expand the document, just shoot me a PM.

Welcome to the Shard! Watch out for the cookies, they'll Ruin your appetite.

Whoa, I never knew that. Do you know how early/late into the series it got changed to 12?

That...um...that was not a solution I even remotely expected. Well done! Solution: Why do you need a solution? You have Sanderson books! Problem: Despite your best efforts, you can't seem to get your friends to agree on a time for the final D&D session of the campaign.

When you get into a conversation about The Name of the Wind with your physics teacher that ends with you recommending Mistborn and Stormlight.

Solution: speak only in High Imperial so that no one understands your subtext, either. Problem: you need more bookshelf space for Sanderson books.

Uh-oh. Better start running before someone less...forgiving...catches wind of this...