Exalted 2.5 hack

Exalted 2nd edition is a fun RPG, but crunchy. The complexity of the rules mean there's never going to be any such thing as a pickup game of Exalted unless you're willing to play one of the many adaptations out there. Here's mine.

It's based on Cthulhu Dark's roll-keep-highest system, intended only for playing Solar Exalted and makes no effort to cover sorcery. (In all the time I spent thinking about it, I never came up with a solution I liked better than the one from Daiklaive Qwixalted. That's what I've used in play.)

As a teaser, here's a set of example artefacts I wrote up to demonstrate that not every magitech item you're packing has to be another eight-foot sword:

Mountain Rises, Mountain Falls

"The Exalt and the Demon fell from Heaven, cursing and clawing at each other as they tumbled. Their impact on Creation left a crater as deep as a tall man's length. Swords broken, armour cracked, drained of essence, they glared hatred at each other as they lay exhausted. 

"Long Stride gained his feet first. Having no other weapon to hand, he raised a torso-sized rock over his head and bludgeoned the Demon with it."

Mountain Rises, Mountain Falls is a warhammer made of rough-hewn stone banded and capped with orihalcum and fixed to a five-foot haft. Too heavy for an ordinary man to lift, never mind wield in battle, a blow from this hammer could fell a mammoth.

When spending a mote and striking the ground during battle, opponents must succeed in a roll vs character's essence die/2 or be knocked prone, stepping their side's combat dice down by one step for a turn

Lamentation

"The beast called Sorrow rode down the mountainside. It was atop a pile of tumbling, rolling skulls, laughing as it came. The Excellent Harp recognised her husband's skull by the jewels set in its forehead. She was too late.

"As it raised its bow to end her life and collect her skull, she spoke to it of the affection they had shared. The slow, halting blossom of love. And the enduring oneness it had ended with a single act of savagery. Ten minutes later, with her ready assistance, it hanged itself with its own bowstring." 

Lamentation is a bow formed from the ivory of some unknown beast, decorated with rings, ribbons, and scraps of silken veils. The beast Sorrow preferred to kill married men and women, and decorated its weapon with their scavenged love tokens. It has been restrung with a single strand of orihalcum wire.

When spending a mote and shaking the bow so it jingles, all opposing combatants who have a lover on the battlefield must succeed in a roll vs character's essence die/2 or be frozen in horror for a turn, stepping their side's combat dice down by one step.

Whisper

"When Sanshu left his lover's arms he stole away every trace of his presence. Even the smell of the flowers he brought her. Still, her husband the Magistrate felt that something was wrong. Sanshu was known to take strands of women's hair as souvenirs. The Magistrate counted every hair on his wife's head. Then he was satisfied she was faithful. 

"It was years later he realised the strand of her hair he kept in a locket around his neck was gone." 

Whisper is a rope woven from orihalcum wire, silk fibres, pattern spider cobweb and women's hair. It's light, durable, and seems to know its master's desires.

This rope is very nearly unbreakable, and when spending a mote and tying a knot in it, suppresses any noise its master makes.

Library bestiary part 1 - human

For nearly a year I've been thinking about an adventure set in a cursed library. It's giving me some trouble, mainly the map. I'd like to site the main areas deliberately, and use a simple semi-procedural generation for smaller rooms. The details haven't been gelling and I had mostly put it out of my mind, but a week ago I woke up from a dream with the perfect solution - which I didn't write down and had forgotten by morning. Something about a die-drop table? Maybe? I'm still kicking myself over that.

In any case, it's reached the point where I need to write it down in order to either progress my ideas or get them out of my head completely. I don't have a map, but I have a bestiary.

The library was created to house a singular book, the Book of Ashes. It has a wealth of knowledge on a variety of forbidden subjects, including descriptions and true names of a number of high-ranking demons. You don't let people read a book like that, but you don't burn it either. It might be useful some day. So they put it in an isolated building with a staff of scholar-soldiers to protect it. Over time, other heretical but potentially useful books joined it. Then, because it's the nature of libraries, a collection of mundane but associated volumes useful to visiting researchers.

Maybe because of the nature of its collection, the library grew strange and dark over time. The librarians became insular and uncooperative with visitors. Eventually they stopped leaving the library altogether. The building itself grew larger than its walls should allow, and its corridors twisted into a maze.

The library still operates and protects its evil books, but it's a hazardous place to visit.

Librarian castes

Shelvers

Shelvers climb the library shelves like monkeys, deftly reaching for finger- and toe-holds, always careful not to brush against the books. Theirs is the sacred task of returning books to their proper places after they've been repaired, seized from a rival tribe that follows a heretical cataloguing System or (Great Librarian protect us!) read.

AC 8 [11], HD 2 (9 HP), Att 1 × wooden club (1d6) or bone knife (1d4), THAC0 19, MV 120’ (40’), SV D12 W13 P14 B15 S16 (F2), ML 8, AL Lawful, XP 20, NA 1d6 (3d4), TT P

• Ambush: May set simple traps or push shelves over onto opponents.
• Bombard: May drop heavy items on opponents from high spots.

Returners

Returners are the police force of the librarian tribes. Their job is to apprehend criminals accused of mishandling books, folding pages, or the greatest crime of all - book murder. They go armed with man-catchers. The only punishment is hanging. Executed criminals will be displayed in the entrance hall for a few days, then taken down and expertly butchered so their skin can be turned into leather, their bones into needles and their sinews into thread for repairing books. Returners from rival tribes have a wary truce during times of peace and co-operate to bring book vandals to justice.

They wrap heavy cloth around their faces to muffle their cries if injured in battle. Hushers execute noise-makers indiscriminately.

AC 6 [13], HD 3 (14 HP), Att 1 × man-catcher (1d2 + restrain) or sharpened ruler (1d6), THAC0 19, MV 120’ (40’), SV D2 W13 P14 B15 S16 (F3), ML 8, AL Lawful, XP 35, NA 1d6 (3d4), TT Q

• Capture: Standard tactic is for several Returners to immobilise and gag an opponent so their body can be used for book repair.
  

Porters

Some books are so important than ordinary visitors can't be trusted to handle them. Porters wear harnesses which let them carry a book of any size on their backs, and act as a lectern when needed. They wear blinkers to keep them from accidentally reading their books, and use whisk-like devices over their shoulders to turn pages. If there's danger, they're trained to retreat immediately, shielding their book with their bodies. Porters are always accompanied by two Returners.

AC 3 [16], HD 2 (7 HP), Att 1 × turner (1d4), THAC0 19, MV 120’ (40’), SV D11 W12 P14 B16 S15 (C2), ML 6, AL Lawful, XP 31, NA 1d6 (3d4), TT O

• Retreat: If threatened, back towards the nearest entrance, fighting defensively. 
• Distract: Drop lesser books or scrolls to delay opponents if necessary.
• Magic: a porter will know 1d2 of:
  • Cause Fear
  • Darkness
  • Detect Magic

Lectors

A book is an ideal object (of course), but if you were to (carefully and hypothetically) admit a limitation in their function as information transmitters, it would be that only one person can read them at a time. Having someone read them aloud fixes that problem. The library's altered nature means that Lectors are most often reading to empty lecture halls, but they do it anyway. Tradition is what maintains their privileged position among the tribe.

AC 7 [12], HD 2 (5 HP), Att 1 × wooden bookmark (1d4), THAC0 19, MV 120’ (40’), SV D13 W14 P13 B15 S16 (MU2), ML 7, AL Lawful, XP 31, NA 1d6 (3d4), TT R

• Call to defend: a lector can call up to 1d6 bystanders to defend the book he reads from (and by extension, him).
  
• Magic: a lector will know 1d3 of:
  • Detect Magic
  • Read Languages
  • Read Magic
  • Sleep

Casteless

Hushers

Hushers are an order of warrior-monks, called by faith to enforce the library rules. They patrol the shelves and galleries of the populated areas of the library and and go on days-long patrols through the far sections, where there's danger of bumping into wandering Marginalia. They take a vow of silence and fight with arrows fletched with the hair of executed criminals, stiffened with book-glue.

AC 6 [13], HD 4 (18 HP), Att 1 × bow (1d6), sharpened ruler (1d6), THAC0 17, MV 120’ (40’), SV D10 W11 P12 B13 S14 (F4), ML 7, AL Lawful, XP 75, NA 1d6 (3d4), TT P 
Conceal: hide in the shadows and attack without warning if rule-breaking occurs.

Binders

Binders have put aside tribal differences to concentrate on the sacred task of repairing damaged books. Cracked spines, torn pages, faded lettering. Time is unkind, never mind the depredations of the library's despised patrons.

AC 6 [13], HD 5 (18 HP), Att 1 × rope dart (1d6 + tangle) book knife (1d4), THAC0 17, MV 120’ (40’), SV D9 W10 P12 B14 S12 (C5), ML 7, AL Lawful, XP 300, NA 1d6 (3d4), TT N/O

Bibliomaniacs

Despite the obvious danger some people will, accidentally or otherwise, read the wrong book and lose their minds. These madmen haunt the library, even wandering alone through the far sections without fear. Hushers will sometimes kill them out of pity.

AC 7 [12], HD 8+1* (37hp), Att 1 × weapon (1d8 or by weapon), THAC0 14, MV 120’ (40’), SV D8 W9 P10 B10 S12 (F8), ML 12, AL Chaotic, XP 1750, NA 0 (1), TT O 

• Magic: A bibliomanic will be able to use one of the following 3 times daily as a spell-like ability:
  
  • Blight
  • Continual Darkness
  • Curse
  • Detect Magic
  • Locate Object
  • Sticks to Snakes