While I Read: Glories of the Most High

Do you not count Abilities as basic stats?

Beowulf90:

It may just be rose tinted glasses, but I'm really liking everything I'm reading. The only complaint I have is that I'm not sure how to kill Luna. Sol was fairly obvious, mess with his virtues, but Luna... I just don't know.

She's a completely different fight than the sun. Him you have to turn off or you lose. With her, you're just in for the fight of your life. She's not absolute, she's not perfect, but she's inordinately badass. Bring the fight accordingly.

I -totally- loved the lore regarding Luna. Let me explain why...

This is all noncanonical personal campaign stuff, but sometimes people care. :P

Anyway, I used Oramus in my Infernals game? I had an essence 6 Oramus Akuma that my 'good guy' Infernal group was facing off against. So, I defined Oramus as the Titan of boundries - he was by necessity the first Primordial, as he was the embodiment of that which distinguished Primordial from Other, if that makes sense.

So, Oramus in my interpretation had 3 trees of Yozi charms...

Tree 1 was the most basic - combat. It involved the metaphysical concept of consuming things (for Oramus cannot be enveloped, save by itself) and using the definition of that consumption to attack. Basically? Breath weapons. Oramus is one of the two Primordials that understands the Underworld, thematically. He can take a bite out of something and breath it out, as a horrible breath weapon. So Oramus can breath wyld, breath shadowland energy, etc. If an Oramus Exalt hits an Abyssal, and does damage, they can then breathe horrible Abyssal energy, etc.

Tree 2 was more sophisticated - it dealt with the boundries between worlds. Oramus can make any region into Borderlands. But likewise, he can make any region into Underworld, or Autochthonia, or any other metaphysical space - changing the paramaters of the world around him. He does this because Oramus defines and embodies those paramaters. Without Oramus, other places simply could not exist. Oramus could never be trapped in the Demon Prison, you see, because he -IS- the boundry between the demon prison and other places. The only way Oramus could be trapped?... was to trap him within himself.

Tree 3 involved manipulating boundaries in people, objects and Exalted. At his full majesty, Oramus can break any shaped thing into a Raksha -- but he does not stop there, for Oramus does not find Raksha pleasing. Rather, he continues to define them into something else. A slave, if you will - the Raksha might consider such a being a zombie, but Oramus finds them much improved. So Oramus takes a mortal and breaks him back into a Raksha, then, breaks him further into one of his unique servants.

Independently, I did all this, but you writing up Luna as an 'Oramus Spirit' has truly given my group thrills, as it totally makes sense taken in the context of the trees we've already seen used in play. :P Luna has many of these same invested abilities!... though, less potent, of course.

Beowulf90:

It may just be rose tinted glasses, but I'm really liking everything I'm reading. The only complaint I have is that I'm not sure how to kill Luna. Sol was fairly obvious, mess with his virtues, but Luna... I just don't know.

You're not seeing it because there are no "cheat code" to beat Luna. She isn't as powerful as Sol, but she must be faultless, because she's the back up and she can't afford to screw up. And if Sol got owned in the first place, something got smart and used a clever lever to win (since no one can just outpower him), which is why you absolutely need to make sure there's no backdoor. Because whoever Luna has to fight is probably an expert at weakness exploits, so you want a Luna without specific weakness.
But there's no win-button in her panoply, so you don't need to find a specific way to kill her.

I have just skimmed through the three books and all I can say is that I'm sad that I don't have the proper mastery in Linguistics to describe my feelings as I read through them.

It was trully an inspired work, and every single word a pleasure to read. I feel humbled by such talent and devotion.

Thank you for that :)

~Draug

My suggestion would be prepar for anything/everything and hit her hard and fast. Less time she has to adapt to you, the better.

So a bumrush then? You'd need a way to keep her from escaping...

Beowulf90:

I'm a little touched from the way they describe the love of Luna and Gaia. Its... a little beautiful. What else... oh, a little artifact write-up, which copies a Knack, if I recall correctly.

Not quite copies-- you get to re-assign your mutations every time you turn on DBT.

Beowulf90:

So a bumrush then? You'd need a way to keep her from escaping...

Good luck with that. If Luna decides to play guerilla terrorist, she'll be the chaos typhoon supespeed godzilla terrorist that keeps popping back up to wreck something. She's absolute hell to deal with if she decides to fight you that way. It's a lot like how she is ultimate shaping megakaiju with her pseudograce and raksha Charm manifesting if she's wanting to play fairy games for shits and giggles, but story time ends when she rips your heart out and crushes you into a god. Or decides to eat you for real.

Luna can aggro like nothing else, she's awesome for it, but she's at her scariest when you look at what she can do with apocalyptic hit and fade and a willingness to throw sporting to the wind.

Nephilpal:

Luna can aggro like nothing else, she's awesome for it, but she's at her scariest when you look at what she can do with apocalyptic hit and fade and a willingness to throw sporting to the wind.

Let's not forget her ability to lie back, pull out the Essence 8-10 equivalents to Ecstatic Reproduction Style, and give birth to approximately ten thousand thousand screaming berserker raksha.

Kukla:

Let's not forget her ability to lie back, pull out the Essence 8-10 equivalents to Ecstatic Reproduction Style, and give birth to approximately ten thousand thousand screaming berserker raksha.

Yeah, she's fun. When I started writing her I didn't care about Luna. By the time I was done, I loved her.

Nephilpal:

By the time I was done, I loved her.

She's like that.

Obviously this is moving a bit outside of Luna's specific bailiwick, but it is in her purview: What sort of things can Essence 6-10, Grace 6-10 Raksha charms do? Do they even exist?

Yes. There's one of them in the Unshaped chapter of GWM.

MissMaddy:

I -totally- loved the lore regarding Luna. Let me explain why...

What can I say? Great minds think alike. Although in the next breath I wonder why you despise the Solar Exalted.

Kukla:

She's like that.

Actually, she has that Charm precisely because she had that effect on me. It was my final touch.

Drauggurth:

It was trully an inspired work, and every single word a pleasure to read. I feel humbled by such talent and devotion.

It was worth all the hardships just to make you guys happy. We appreciate your kindness. Thank you.