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| New Exalt: Leviathan; Isaiah 27:1 | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 21 2018, 01:17 AM (192 Views) | |
| Username | Jun 21 2018, 01:17 AM Post #1 |
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Leviathan![]() Before, Order, before Chaos, before the God as we know them, the Syrne shaped the Astral Sea, a vast canvas to twist to their liking. They were not the only ones with this idea however, and in the depths of those seas the Syrne met a grim mirror of themselves, beings that twisted flesh, broke minds and sought to dominated all by Divine Right and Bestial Might, the Leviathans. No one knows the truth of what happened so long ago, history before history. But what is known is that the Syrne defeated these creatures and locked them away in the deepest darkest place they could find, Pandemonium. There they stewed, bred and fed on each other, spawning degenerate progeny until none of the pure blood remained. Outside Pandemonium, the Leviathans lived on only in legends which faded to myth. Their only remnant is their cursed bloodline, intermingled with the mortals in the wheel to spawn mutants and monsters. Occasionally however, for reasons unknown, the stars will align and the soul of one will be born with the triple nature of the true Leviathan Progenitors, a soul that is a balance of Man, Monster and Divine. The urge to Dominate and Destroy calling to them from the back of their mind, tugging them deeper into the tides of the Old Blood. STATIC POWERS The Shape of Water:A Leviathan begins play with one free rank in the Hydromancy or Enchantment spell school and may purchase ranks in that Magical School as if it appeared in any class progression they possess. A Leviathan may remove the Verbal, Material and/or Focus Keywords when casting spells from those two schools. Not of this World: A Leviathan has the Amphibious trait and does not need to breath, nor are they negatively affected by the vacuum of space nor the astral sea, swimming in them as easily as they would water. Wake: The Leviathan subtly projects the shadow of their divine presence in a meters radius of themselves equal to their Sheol squared, known as their Wake. While in the Leviathan's wake, beings have their disposition toward the Leviathan increased a number of steps toward Fanatical equal to half the Leviathan's Sheol, rounded up. In addition, beings take a static penalty to alignment checks equal to the Leviathan's Sheol. Exalts are immune to this disposition increase and the Leviathan instead takes -2k1 on social rolls against non-Leviathan Exalts. Still Waters Run Deep: A Leviathan doesn't draw from a well of power, he submerges in it. A Leviathan's Tell is calculated as half the amount of Tranquility they are missing from their pool rather than the amount they have spent during the scene and the Leviathan's Size is increased by that amount as well. However, the additional resilience from this Size is ignored by E damage. Tell: As a Leviathan releases their Tranquility, the triple nature of their being reveals itself as the mortal secedes to the majestic and monstrous. The exact appearance varies from Leviathan to Leviathan, but is always alien and aquatic. This may begin as a slight moistness to the skin and a laugh that sounds as if coming from underwater, growing into something from a horror movie and finally something so divine and damned that even its voice, heard over the phone, immediately proclaims the speaker is nothing that should exist. Power Stat: Sheol: The blood of the Tribe runs deep with ancient power, and measure of the measure of the Leviathan's harmony with this bloodline, the degree to which they have assumed the mantle of the Tribe, is their Sheol. As they descend deeper into this bloodline, the Leviathan realizes the legacy of their blood but at the same time drifts further from the world of mortals. Their Wake grows vast and strong, and the ability to empathize with the swarming masses of mortals caught in it becomes harder and harder. At the highest degree of Sheol, a Leviathan begins to resemble the beings from which they descended - with the natural consequences for all those that cross its path. Resource Stat: Tranquility: A leviathan has a pool of maximum Tranquility the sum of the highest and lowest of their Willpower, Constitution and Composure, plus Twice their Sheol. Tranquility is restored by appeasing the three aspects of man, beast and divine: whenever a Leviathan would restore Resolve, they restore an equal amount of Tranquility. Once per day, a Leviathan with Followers dots may restore Tranquility equal to their Sheol as the Leviathan's Divine aspect is appeased by their devotion. Finally, for each hour spent submerged in water the Leviathan regains two Tranquility. POWERS *Watcher in the Dark: Gain the Darksight trait. You may see and read Auras as per an Aetheroscope, but with a maximum distance in meters equal to the radius of your Wake plus half amount of Tranquility missing from your Pool in meters. **Vigor of Protean Kings: Gain Aura equal to your Sheol plus half the amount of Tranquility missing from your pool. *** Hunter's Terrible Beauty: Enemies entering your Wake for the first time in a scene are subject to a Fear 1 test, with the Fear TN increased by an amount equal to half the amount of Tranquility missing from your Pool. ****: Indomitable Solipsist Tyrant: Gain a static bonus on Saving Throws equal to your Sheol plus half the number of Tranquility missing from your pool. ***** Monstrous Host to All: Fully blooded, the Leviathan may venture toward new spheres to spread their influence. The Leviathan may travel through space and spheres like a Spelljammer, safely able to bring and fully support a number of people equal to your Sheol plus half the amount of Tranquility missing from your pool. With the aid of a Portal Relay, the Leviathan may even travel the Warp between Spheres. When doing so, the Leviathan acts as the Navigator, making all rolls with their Sheol rather than Arcana and gaining a static bonus equal to half the number of Tranquility missing from their Pool. When rolling for Warp Encounters while doing this, the Leviathan subtracts an amount from the result equal to their Sheol. Progenitor Assets Dagon: Dagonites claim their ancestry in the Progenitor Dagon, who they identify both as a patron of trade, the weather, and the harvest but also a force of power and fertility. The Progeny of Dragon may tap into this, budding armies. Whenever you spend Tranquility, even just to activate this ability, you may choose to spawn a Minion with Damage and Threat Ratings equal to your Sheol for each Tranquility that was spent. Your minions, even gained from outside this Asset, gain a static bonus on their rolls equal to the number of Tranquility missing from your Pool, plus twice your Sheol when they are in your Wake. Lahamu: The Lahamin claim ancestry of the Progenitor Lahamu, a being of boundless wisdom and unchallenged sight whose gift of prophecy guided the tribe and their mortal followers from the darkest depths of the primordial seas. The progeny of Lahamin cultivate endless eyes, and are able to perceive through their willing allies (such as Followers or other players) at a distance of kilometers equal to the Leviathan's Sheol. If the target is outside the Leviathan's Wake, the Leviathan must go into an insensate trance while they do this. The Leviathan only perceives what their host does rather than making tests for themselves, but the host gains a static bonus on Perception and Scrutiny tests equal to the Leviathan's Sheol plus half the number of Tranquility missing from their pool. Jormungand: The Jormungandr trace their descent back to a Progenitor labeled Jormungand or the World Worm, both for its size and vitality. Your Size is directly increased by your Sheol plus the number of Tranquility missing from your pool, rather than merely half the Tranquility missing. This extra size is still ignored by E damage. Nu: The Nu claim to be descended from the Progenitor Nu, sometimes called Naunet or Nun, said to be the first of the progenitors and most akin to the primordial waters, formless and of alien geometries. The Nu gain a static bonus to Static Defense equal to their Sheol plus the number of Tranquility missing from their pool. Oceanus: The Oceanids' mythical Progenitor is Oceanus, who they claim is the Orderer of Seas and Thoughts, and the natural leader of the tribe. Oceanids claim absolute dominion over their wake and the things in it, and are able to telekinetically move and manipulate things in their wake without lifting a finger, using their Sheol in place of their Strength and Dexterity where appropriate, and gaining a static bonus to Sheol rolls in this manner equal to the number of Tranquility missing from their pool. Tannin: Tannin is proclaimed in Tribal myth as the devourer of sinners and of the foes of the Tribe, whose mortal devouring armory consumes all. Tannim gain a natural weapon with the profile of Xk1 I or R, Pen Y, Brawling, where X is equal to the Leviathan's Sheol and Y is equal to the number of Tranquility missing from their pool. Thalassa: The Thalassans claim to be the descendants of the Progenitor Thalassa, the mother of fishes. A being of immense power who forged islands with mighty claws or shattered them with one blow of her many arms. Thalassans tap into this might, and on tests using strength gain a static bonus equal to their Sheol plus the number of Tranquility missing from their pool.
Edited by Username, Jul 8 2018, 01:55 PM.
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| Username | Jun 21 2018, 01:17 AM Post #2 |
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An exaltation I'd been wanting to make for a while, this is a draft I had of it. Some things still need to be tweaked or adjusted and I gotta type up fluff and fix the fluff that's there but let's start from here. Leviathan's are based on Leviathan: The Tempest from NwoD, which I think are pretty cool at what they do. With so much discussion about sea life things these days, I knew I couldn't wait much longer with this on my back burner. It's also based of course on other things, such as the Mass Effect Reapers. I had looked at the Titan Exaltation while making this years ago, as well as Dragon Blooded which actually fit Leviathan's quite well. Considered making Leviathans a Dragon-blooded alt. Leviathans in LtT need to balance that they don't have access to most of their powers unless they shift into a progressively more alien and monstrous form. When you have an entire system and splat to work with for that, you can do quite a bit. But when adapting it, it needed to be pared down. I considered making Size be their deciding factor for when they have access to their powers, with a base power to increase their size for that. But it came off as cumbersome. Then I considered linking it to their Tell level, but that didn't work quite right either. So currently I've settled on making most power linked to their Resource pool, specifically how depleted it is. Their first power, The Shape of Water, is mostly to get them Hydromancy, but since not every game will use Hydromancy it can get you Enchantment instead, an appropriate ability for aboleth-kin. As a bonus to set them apart the Leviathan can ignore certain keywords with both of the schools, even the one you didn't pick. This is most useful with Hydromancy since it is heavy on having large amounts of water to focus on or use as a material but the verbal part helps for Enchantment to give off the mental control vibe. You still need a shared language though for most enchantment. Not of this world is a pretty basic ability, just giving them the ability to move about underwater without worry about air, although it does that if you're in space too. Not that useful the second part but it might come up. The spess aspect ties into the Reaper inspiration. You're not likely to reach many planets or anything like this though since you truck at a normal speed. Mostly useful for space walks and the like I suppose. Wake is one of their more defining abilities, both in Leviathan the Tempest and here. It gives a growing radius of increasingly powerful Mental Defense malus, at least for the attacks of the Leviathan. The maddening and dominating effect also causes people in it to have their Alignment Tests go much worse. I had considered making that only in effect if they were of a different alignment, but I think it is fine this way. Wake's Mental Defense is extremely powerful, up to -25 all the time. Perhaps too powerful, I witched it between that and being tied to the negative tranquility multiple times. In the end, I left it as it is since it is one of the few powers that doesn't require you to hulk up to use even in tempest and in fits that it is fully effective even in mortal guise, since it's the shadow of your divine presence being cast. I might still change it again. Even though it is a huge penalty, it doesn't let you drain more than one Resolve per attack so the enemy can still avoid your requests unless you keep trying different approaches. It also has a penalty. Exalts are immune to the mental defense portion (but not the Alignment penalty!) and you in fact get a social penalty against them instead. This is my attempt to mirror the Atolls from LtT, which are immune to the Wake and in fact exhert a wake like effect on leviathans instead. Since the Leviathan is likely so used to relying on their Wake, they have trouble dealing with those unaffected. Still Water Runs Deep is the Leviathan's other most defining Power, which I alluded to earlier as well. The Leviathan's “Tell” doesn't go down unless the resource spent is restored. While their Resource is spent they get a variety of static powers based on the amount, but you gotta deal with the fact you're stuck being a giant fish water elemental monster which can make daily living hard. Part of this power is that your size increases too. I originally had this at a 1 to 1 ratio with Tranquility, but you grew too quickly and too large overall so I backed it down. I may back down some of the Power Stat uses for this as well. The Leviathan has a pretty large resource pool, although it depends on 3 different characteristics and their power stat. Since they'll want to balance how much Resource is in their pool, I imagine it will rarely be full. That said, they have 3 ways to refill it, possibly too many. Each is meant to represent a calming influence on the mortal, beast and divine aspects of the soul. The mortal is calmed and becomes tranquil when it is restoring resolve, whether through the normal once a day test or by stunting tests that further your alignment. The Divine needs the worship of your cult. I went back and forth on that one for a while, considering whether to limit this or expand it or change it so you won't ALWAYS take Followers but I left it as is for now. The final is by being submerged in water, it calms the fishy beast in you. All of these tend be time based or limited daily however outside of furthering your alignment, so once you get BIG and STRONG you might have a hard time becoming more normal. Not to mention that you take a penalty to static defense, but any resilience bonus is negated by E damage, such as las weapons. I originally considered making Las weapons just directly half your Resilience but went with this instead. Might change it. Pretty much all their Power Stat abilities tie heavily into using their negative tranquility. As said, I might half the bonus from that if it is a problem. Power Stat 1 is based on the Awareness ability from LtT. The Darkvision is mostly there so you can see in the depths of the ocean if you go there, with the ability to read auras and see magic hopefully being useful as a more unique bonus. Protean Vigor was originally going to give a bonus to Armor (since you likely are missing some when you get huge) but I worried about it making Las weapons less effective, so it became Aura instead. A pretty large amount, depending on how resource you're down. Originally this was going to be a strength bonus like Titans, but I didn't want to steal their thunder so it ended up somewhere else. Power Stat 3 is a fear effect, but party friendly and with variable difficult. It might get too high, hence why I was saying some of these might do well to switch to half nega-tranquility. If they enter while it's low though you don't get another chance. Power Stat 4 was originally considered for Stuff of Nightmares as appropriate but several things already get that and once the focus was switched to nega-resource SoN became hard to work out. I changed it to what it is now, a general bonus on saving throws instead of effect immunities but that bonus might climb too high. Again halving the bonus from nega-tranq may be the way to go. Of course, you can't assume everyone's going to run around with -23 resource. Power Stat 5 probablys needs to get cleaned up. I originally envisioned it like this, but then changed it to something more along the lines of once per session autocasting Dragon Slave to get your Godzilla on. Wen there was discussion of something like this however, I changed it back. It's a bit long and cumbersome though. You DO need a Portal Relay to enter the warp with this power though, you can't just jump anywhere. The Aboleths and their ilk were locked in Pandemonium by the disabled relay, so you can't get around them. For the assets, I was working on a few different things. Was considering whether to go with the schools or Progenitors and went with progenitors. The progenitors in LtT have sins associated with them but I didn't really express that here. Dagon's a bit of a mess. Minions suck but they're basically what Dagon covers in LtT. They come out pretty slowly but you get them for doing anything. They get a rather powerful bonus though that might help, even if there's only one of them though. Lahamin is a bit messy too, but I in theory like the effect. The perception and scrutiny bonuses may need to be trimmed down. It's handy if you are stuck for a while in monster mode and want to make yourself useful. Jormagund was Bahamut in the original, but that didn't work in DtD so the name changed but the effects stayd the same. This is where you go if you want to get HUGE without being a Titan, being even bigger than originally planned for Leviathans since it adds PS too. E still ignores the resilience without ignoring the SD penalty though. Watch out for Long Las. I considered the poison toad touch effect instead. Nu is an interesting one, focusing on control of the elements in LtT. That didn't work well with everyone getting Hydromancy options so I changed it to mirror one of the Element powers, which seems to deal with manipulating gravity. I fear it is too similar to one of the Demiurge's Assets so I may need to change it again. Oceanus is a funny story. The power it gets, Telekinesis, actually stems from a different progenitor in LtT but it seemed fitting here. With Enchantment and Wake already addressed and me not wanting to give bonuses to magic rolls, I went a different approach. I had at one point considered the aboleth's Mind Slaver ability but heck no, that would be too nasty. Not much to say about Tannin. Gets a growing Natural Weapon that ends up pretty strong, with potentially ridiculous Pen. Last is Thalassa, which is Might. It's strength Tests instead of rolls to avoid damage rolls getting a boost. Still handy for bull rushes, knock downs or just general punching down walls. It's way past my bedtime now, but as always suggestions welcome. Surprised I actually got around to posting this. |
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| Username | Jun 23 2018, 12:06 PM Post #3 |
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Made some updates and changes. The Leviathan's wake was changed first.. The Mental Defense penalty was great, but was both too much and too little. In Core, when someone refutes the result just replaces Mental Defense instead of adding half to it like a parry or dodge. So it either doesn't do much or it does too much. It was actually mostly just useful for reading thoughts, which is somewhat fitting. I removed the Mental Defense changes. Now, those that would be affected by that instead have their disposition toward the Leviathan improved by a number of steps toward Fanatical equal to half the leviathan's Sheol, rounded up. Disposition doesn't have many numerical effects in Core, but it does tell you how it will affect someone's interaction and mindset. So mortals just really like leviathans when the Leviathan is around, but it can become an issue too since you don't get any real bonus on your rolls against them. So they might misinterpret what you say or do things on their own for instance. Your cult might interpret your shopping list as a coded ritual for human sacrifice, and you might have a hard time changing their mind if they have good mental defenses. I also made a change to the Resource total and calculation, so now instead of your three resistance stats added together and then divided in half, it just takes the best of the three and the worst of the three, adds those and then twice your Sheol. Kudos to GuardianTempest who helped with working that out. Now all three are still important, the math is simpler and Sheol is still the factor in determining the maximum as you increase Power Stat. Speaking of Resources, I also changed how the Follower restore works. Now you can gain Tranquility equal to your Sheol from having any dots of followers, rather than just making it equal to the number of Followers. While I do want to encourage someone to have Followers, I don't want to make starting with Follower 5 background the obvious best choice for every build. I may change it back though or to something else. Edited by Username, Jun 23 2018, 12:30 PM.
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