While I Read: Glories of the Most High

Alright, since I've sat in wide-eyed wonder and flat out laughed at a handful of things since I bought Glories, I'll start cataloging my thoughts here. With any luck it will be vaguely entertaining..

If its needed, I'll flat out state: This will contain spoilers for anyone who hasn't read the entire Glories of the Most High series. Actual comments will start with the next post.

unless I ninja in before you post! :0

That was mean, are you trying to make him cry ? You won't be getting your tasty candy on such a glorious day.

Unless you also crave tears of joy ?

Sojko:

You won't be getting your tasty candy on such a glorious day.

no no no. Holden gets the candy. All the writers do. Just finished all three books and loved every minute of it.

TheDude:

Sojko:

You won't be getting your tasty candy on such a glorious day.

no no no. Holden gets the candy. All the writers do. Just finished all three books and loved every minute of it.

His candy is your tears. (See: my sig.) Could you muster up some tears right now? He's probably really hungry. 

Okay, inaugural post. Except for jerks that made me cry.

...


Starts off mostly how I figured it would, bowing and scraping at the feet of Sol Invictus. To be fair, the man is Unconquered.

Did we always know that the UCS created the Bureaucracy of Heaven? I'm not sure it was spelled out before.

The idea of Sol as the antithesis of the Ebon Dragon has been batted around before, but I believe that this was the first time it was acknowledged. I like the idea as a broad concept, where his existence defines the concept of Shadow, we'll see where it develops.

Or not. Seems the Sun used to literally patrol Creation to keep the bad-things out, still seems like using a Nuke to keep the Girl Scouts from messing with your cookie revenue. On the plus side, Panther and Dace seem to be murdering an Infernal and an Abyssal as... something happens in the background. Plus, Ignis Divine was apparently his pre-War name, so that's worth something.

I (mostly) like the characterization of the UCS as a sort of Super-Superman, who trusts too much in humanity to make a difference. His decision to offer himself as a hostage for a single human? AWESOME. Exactly what I'd consider a paragon of virtue to do, while still maintaining his paragon of perfection aspects by believing his (kinda) stupid decision to be the correct one, regardless of results. The idea that he beat the Primordials at the Games themselves is all sorts of entertaining, as well as the idea that this action ultimately worked in his favor. Unconquered Xanatos might be a better name for that Miasma of Incandescent Plasma.

The Four Fulcrums being given metaphysical weight are entertaining in and of itself. The fact that he took a largely ceremonial gesture and decided to not only change his own nature (Draconic! So the whole Dragon King thing makes sense) but his supernatural powers to fit, was either something heartwarming or disheartening. Might just be my love of the pre-human races speaking. Oh, and the reference to the Sun's four arms vs. the Four Castes was nice as well.

Oh my Sun, where do I start on his stats? Well, the specifics of his intimacies are pretty nice, I especially liked the Solar Exalted, Gaia, Autochthon, Weaker Deities, Dragon King and Humanity entries. I think that they alone say a lot about what Sol is all about. The fact that his Attributes and his Abilities go (well) past 11? Made me chuckle. His Virtues say A LOT about how to deal with Sol in a game (and maybe how to kill him, need to double check). His specialties though? WOW. Ruling the Universe, Against Exalted, Matters of Cosmic Importance, Greater Elemental Dragons, Jouten, and Luna? I laughed at least twice going through those.

His backgrounds are impressive as well. My eyebrow raised as I read them, but I can't bring myself to raise argument.

The Sorcery section is especially enlightening, but mostly confirms my own suspicions in regard to what it brings up. (Trying not to piss anyone off with these posts)

His Charm section is a small measure of brilliance in and of itself. So, I'll move on to his Panoply. Looks like he has some Charms he can bestow on others as physical objects, I kinda like the idea, its like Perseus with his Shield/Sword/Helmet. I seem to remember someone posting UCS Charms based on his four items a few years ago, on RPG.net.

The Charms are... cool. I can't think of any other way to describe them than just cool. His flight Charm is especially awesome, reminds me of Silver Surfer/Thor. The idea that he has a special Charm to deal with his Linguistics Score is kinda awesome the idea that he gets around Linguistic problems like an American (I SAID, WHERE IS THE BATHROOM) is even better. The idea that you can pray to Sol for miracles is pretty nice too. His Training Charm is cool too (Oh my god, he winked at me, I'M FULL OF COSMIC POWER!!!). His success adder is... wow. Oh, and they sneak a little stealth Errata on the Kukla too? Nice. The Godspear? HOLY SHIT. I mean... zoinks! I don't... I mean, really? Infinite Damage Kill-Sat?

Sorry, just need to start a new Paragraph, lest Sol strikes me with his Godspear. But, OH SHIT, GODSPEAR KEEPS GETTING COOLER.

His combat stats impress me to the point of comparing my Players' stats... two to three of them at Ess 6 may be able to deal with him, but they've beaten up Mask of Winters and Dukantha at this point, so... Yeah. The addendum of what happens should you kill Sol? Very much appreciated.The side-bar on alternative interpretations of his write-up are even more appreciated.
___

Considering how long I spent on Sol's write up, I figure its only fair to give a breather here.
___

Moving on, I always wondered at Sol's relation to the other gods (my mythic background originating from Greek, I had some ideas...) but I really enjoyed the following write-ups:

Nysela: Seemed kind of... sad. Like a mythic figure introduce to a pantheon who possessed enough redundancies to make her useless, but then decided was hardly important after-all. At the very least, she defines the Sun's daily travels well enough. She uh... made me sad. I don't know what I want her to do, but I only want her happiness from now on.

Little Beam: Stikes me as the standard "young samurai."  As such, I hope for the best, but  cannot help but expect the worst. The fact that I, as a ST am bursting with ideas for him is hardly worrying. Unless you are a player of mine.
___

Very brief breather, as the subject has radically changed.

Okay. Firstly, I don;t know if the freelancers have been listening, or if a device has been developed to read dreams, but I really appreciate all the Dragon King references, especially considering the DKs rebelled mostly for Sol's sake.

The contrast between Sol and his Immaculate reputation is startling. I always wondered what they said about him.

There is a lot on how the average person view Sol. Much of it seems to be harsh/horrible which I guess is ok for the god of Light

And I'm at p10 of maybe... 50 pages as of the end of this post... crap, I've totally over estiamted my ability to comment.
____


Alright, CMA Charms that Sol uses... cool.

I'm not sure that commenting on MA charms from official sources is within my legal realm. So I'll be as vague as possible here.

HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS! Armor Shattering Strike is awesome, assuming alcohol and fatigue have not worn me out, this seems like great Charm design. I believe we were already shown Iron Talon Technique, so I'll just shiver in amusement. The fact that the writers snuck Abyssal Charms in only makes me happier. So far all the Charms are really cool, to forsake further problems, I'll just say, Rising Sun Slash is cool, as is World Scarring Solar Glory. Immortal Blade Transcendant? Well played exalted Eratta Team Prime Stealth Division Alpha. Well played.

I'm not sure what to say about the Integrity Charms. Is Fantastukuckular good enough? I half hesitated on Rising Sun Soul, before I realised that everyone can use Hearthstones. The age breaker is especially cool. But nothing compared to the DEATH BREAKER.

To avoid risking commenting on the rest of the Solar Charms, I'll skip ahead. But still... damn dudes and dudettes, buy this product. Its all pretty cool. Primoridial Principle Emulation deserves a special mention though. It's all like: Woah!

Crud... I'll need to come back to this, I'm maybe 2/3rds of the way done, and I can't read anymore due to non-stop crying/classes tomorrow.

Beowulf90:

Did we always know that the UCS created the Bureaucracy of Heaven? I'm not sure it was spelled out before.

CoCD: Yu-Shan went into great detail on the subject.

This post has made my day (for about the seventh time, it's been a hell of a day). Thank you, sir.

Edit: Also, commenting on the Charms is totally kosher. And encouraged :p

Little Beam is an older idea of mine, so I knew immediately that I wanted to use him for this. Nysela came to me just as I finished the Sun's Personage and Panoply and was looking ahead toward his entourage, and I loved her immediately. I saw her as this harsh teacher, trying to force Solars to be the upright paragons they once were, even if by sheer might. Most of all, I saw her sending the monorail of the sun down to Creation, first as this flaming streak across the sky, then as a train cutting across the desert wastelands on a golden essence track, coming to a stop in front of a group of Solars, its doors sliding open. She is my favorite of the two. I had to cut a great deal of my writeup on her for space.

Holden:

This post has made my day (for about the seventh time, it's been a hell of a day). Thank you, sir.

Wait...this is your first published work isn't it? Well sir, congratulations. From the little browsing I've been able to do I'd say you deserve a cookie...a day...for the rest of your life.

Demetrius7997:

Holden:

This post has made my day (for about the seventh time, it's been a hell of a day). Thank you, sir.

Wait...this is your first published work isn't it? Well sir, congratulations. From the little browsing I've been able to do I'd say you deserve a cookie...a day...for the rest of your life.

Yes, it is. Thank you.

Holden:

Demetrius7997:

Holden:

This post has made my day (for about the seventh time, it's been a hell of a day). Thank you, sir.

Wait...this is your first published work isn't it? Well sir, congratulations. From the little browsing I've been able to do I'd say you deserve a cookie...a day...for the rest of your life.

Yes, it is. Thank you.

Holden:

Demetrius7997:

Holden:

This post has made my day (for about the seventh time, it's been a hell of a day). Thank you, sir.

Wait...this is your first published work isn't it? Well sir, congratulations. From the little browsing I've been able to do I'd say you deserve a cookie...a day...for the rest of your life.

Yes, it is. Thank you.

Wait, Infernal isn't ? How ?

Prisoner of the Void:

Holden:

Demetrius7997:

Holden:

This post has made my day (for about the seventh time, it's been a hell of a day). Thank you, sir.

Wait...this is your first published work isn't it? Well sir, congratulations. From the little browsing I've been able to do I'd say you deserve a cookie...a day...for the rest of your life.

Yes, it is. Thank you.

So now we can officially say how much we like your work, instead of judging you purely off your unofficial content.  My only question is on Immortal Blade Triumphant.  I fail to see how it would really hold up against Protection of Celestial Bliss.  Sure you get more charmless defenses, but the charge up time is painful.  The stealth errata on the Deathlords is appreciated, though.  Now maybe I can actually get my players to stand up and face E&7D without whining about how badly they're going to looooose (they're all Essence 6-7, they are totally overreacting).

Mostly it's something you want to put up pre-fight, and use as an emergency overflow.

Sojko:

Holden:

Demetrius7997:

Holden:

This post has made my day (for about the seventh time, it's been a hell of a day). Thank you, sir.

Wait...this is your first published work isn't it? Well sir, congratulations. From the little browsing I've been able to do I'd say you deserve a cookie...a day...for the rest of your life.

Yes, it is. Thank you.

Wait, Infernal isn't ? How ?

He stress tested the Infernal charms.