Thank you. I try to make most of the songs hopefully at least comprehensible on their own with a few exceptions. It is based on an ability in the game the character has that allows her to learn from teaching others. The whole “student becomes the master” concept if that might help a bit. But I tried to make this more about a teacher and her students with the main thing that might require context is her mentioning sunlight twice. But I am really glad you enjoyed it.

Very cool.

@@drakethedreamingdragon2183 If you have any questions feel free to ask. If you like this style, I think this is the only song where I fully went for this approach mood wise. This would be a newer sample of mine. Most of my stuff tends to be metal or rock… But unless I wanted to do Schoolhouse Rock, I went for more sedate than usual.

@@doge_br Thank you

After I made a playlist, I realized I knew exactly where this one in particular it should go in the timeline… After Artful Maiming Onslaught. Now that I am treating even the charms as having a spot in the timeline, I need to rearrange a little when other charms come out that better fit with what happened.

@@prodigalsun5260 it's beautiful but amazing nonetheless

@ Good news is due to there being a bit of a hiatus, I told my player’s a bit of Guillotine’s backstory (at least her origin not her full motivations) since Guillotine is in a position to be studied and went over how she does talk like an aristocrat and was confirmed to be and even referred to as a ghost-blooded before she was confirmed to be an Abyssal and her surprising degree of medical knowledge for her medicine charms so I can probably do a song for her and Four-Parts Treason based on what they know about him. If you don’t want to be spoiled before I hopefully get a song rolling this is what I informed the players conceptually on the real-life story that Charles-Henri Sanson, an executioner during the French Revolution was reluctant to execute Louis XVI and left the scaffold sick after the execution of Cécile Renault. So, Guillotine’s ghostly Hertitage is from dead nobility and her living parent came from the line of executioners that performed the regicide but performed prayers to appease the ghosts.

I imagine lore supernal Zeniths might but fun as well. But lore is usually one of the cooler charm trees but Solars seem to have the widest selection besides them not having solar bolts in 3e, seems like they settled on how bolts work in 3e around What Fire Has Wrought.

Funny story on the subject of lyrics on this one, the ai kept wanting to pronounce “Da capo al fine” as fine like “everything is fine” so I almost dropped it till I got to “close enough”

@@prodigalsun5260 lol Ai can be fickle when it wants to be

@ I’d say the most common issue with Suno is the ending being cut at a high point so it’s either me extending or me trying to crop at a lower point.

@@prodigalsun5260 your doing a good job regardless

@@xeroflarexlAh, that was not me dismissing this one’s results. I was just confirming your statement of AI being fickle.

Yeah, I this was one of my earlier ones but it is still one of my favorites.

I found the concept of “she moves through countless scales of song, seeking to find the one deadly note that will unravel the Essence of her foe. The enemy’s physical form begins to decohere, his features become blurry and amorphous, trailing behind him in streaks as his very existence threatens to dissolve into nothing more than a few notes of music. If he’s incapacitated, the target’s body dissolves in a cacophony of disparate noises as his heartsong is ripped apart note by note, leaving only silence behind. The martial artist may breathe in the ruin of a destroyed enemy’s heartsong, making it a part of her own and provides the Nightingale with any knowledge she could have obtained with a read intentions action against that character.” To be one of the coolest things in the Exalted setting.

@@johnmandrage3248 When I last checked the full release of the Abyssals book for Exalted 3e was at the art stage so hopefully are interested in upholding the Pledge without the messiness of real life consequences, it should hopefully be widely available this year.

@@julvatn I am glad you like it.

Thank you! I am glad you found it beautiful.

@@ЮрийЕфремов-д3ж I had a few Twilight Solar npcs and played as one. I can definitely try, the only particular rule I am operating by is no canon mortals and exalts in case other storytellers have a different interpretation. Anything you particularly request? Two that come to mind are ones that are from one of my older campaigns that I have been wanting to start making songs for… One is the more typical Twilight though he was more stilted than most he’d be a bit more difficult, and a later antagonist that used sorcery based on “The sorcerer builds on the emotional resonance of song through her spells, gaining (Performance) sorcerous motes towards a spell once per scene after using song or music to inspire an audience with an emotion that resonates with that spell or with the purpose she’s using it to achieve.” Main reason I have not touched that campaign was I used a lot of modules so a lot of characters were canon and I was not in this habit at the time.

@@prodigalsun5260Thank you. It would be nice in the same style - kzbin.info/www/bejne/gIKafJqgjd9_ebs

@@prodigalsun5260 Magic is related to Ebon Dragon, so it would be good to have some infernal notes

@@prodigalsun5260 The general theme of the twilights, endowed with great power when receiving the necessary spells, is interesting. The choice of their path, the price for power. My twilight Solars are the usual type of heroes who are trying to correct the mistakes of the first era. And they help people on way, constantly facing attempts by dark forces to corrupt them. I can't recommend anything here

@ My focus at the time was on the Invisible Fortress where I had an actual solid number of Solars that would have still been incarnating in Creation before the Scarlet Empress’s disappearance like Filial Wisdom with me portraying them as the heroes that had been reincarnating throughout the years keeping Creation intact before the era but those that lived too long becoming unhinged like Filial Wisdom due to limit breaks and a world that is actively their enemy like the battle had been one slightly of reluctance from the players as the Twilight’s familiars are still very sane and trying to keep their master alive and acknowledge their limit break as a betrayal of that character’s very ideals. It’s probably not going to cover their theme as a Twilight first. I try to see if I can capture their speech pattern by having them in their more extreme emotional highs or lows so I can get a persona set. Then I can try to get the ball rolling

@ Their adventure is still ongoing and I will be the first to admit the songs are out of chronological order because I’m looking at events and going “That deserves a song” as I happen to remember them plus there being times I can’t quite get things to line up so I move to something else and try again when I have a new idea to try to get it to cooperate with me. But don’t worry Pyre is still alive. The campaign is currently on a pause due to factors but the players and I intend to continue. The latest thing to happen involving that particular group is Avenger and the group fighting Guillotine. I do want to know which songs suggested Pyre died because of Pyre being a Deathknight the Abyssals tend to use interesting language that declares themselves dead. But also Gallows has told the party and Avenger that Rhea (Pyre’s living name) is dead and Pyre killed her to be particularly cruel so Pyre would be gaining resonance if she said “No, I am Rhea.” Feel free to ask me more questions as things wouldn’t be so vague if I could fit more than 5000 words in the descriptions… Rielle (Avenger’s body) was Pyre’s older sister who died fighting Gallows by rolling herself and Gallows off a great height (I literally roll almost most npc fights with players rolling for the “good” NPCs while Gallows was strangling her. Eshara, Pyre’s other sister ran to try to help Rielle so Pyre was left with the impression she was abandoned (hence her title being Betrayed Pyre of Lost Innocence). Avenger actually knows Rielle’s ghost via Liminal charms so the two actually like each other with Rielle asking Avenger to save Rhea. Eshara is Avenger’s thread of life. And while Gallows is a persistent issue (this campaign stretches years in game) Gallows is built to avoid the consequences of her own actions so she’s proven really hard to kill with her first near death experience actually convincing people she was dead only for her to join the party… disguised as a still alive Rielle before they met Avenger with Gallows pretending to be an alive Rielle to see if that would draw Pyre out who was hiding from Guillotine and Gallows. There’s a lot more but that’s more me trying to think where there might have been some miscommunication. Gallows tends to be the source of most false information. Four-Parts Treason due to his method of operations has not really gotten a chance to be a problem in person. Pyre has been mostly avoiding people for several reasons 1. Guillotine is actively hunting her but Guillotine has recently gotten distracted by Avenger and Eshara who are also looking for her. 2. Resonance is horrific. I recently got more into the 3e previews and the new resonance mechanic does not target people from a a distance anymore but still does wide spread harm in her local area and Pyre gains resonance like crazy so her limit breaks are a constant threat to everyone around her. But I’m so happy I’ve gotten someone interested enough in the setting to understand the differences in Liminal aspects.

@@Relmitos525 As an added elaboration I am hosting more than one game and starting to reference older campaigns so if you encounter contradictory information some characters get recycled and the events blend together in my head (the biggest example is a lunar character named Kosuke who was a Komodo rat in her first iteration then I found out stinging snakes were a thing so a later version of her was made a stinging snake) or characters have similar archetypes (I realized that Pyre is somewhat similar in looks to a cursed Solar in another game named Golden Briar Rose who is based in Sleeping Beauty while there’s a Dragon-blooded in another game that was called Sleeping Beauty) or backstories, modules might have went in different ways, etc. So, if there’s anything that seems odd feel free to ask. It’s quite possible I made an odd lyric or if it’s a character like Gallows, a straight up lie if she is supposed to be talking to another character.

@@prodigalsun5260 lol, I didn't realize the line in Why Should I?, "We shared a fall", was literal, that's fantastic. I thought it was figurative. Y'know, like "We fell in battle", which is still true in this case. The songs I interpreted as "Maybe Pyre is dead now" are Confronting the Pyre combined with Why Cling to Life. Guillotine actively hunting down Pyre and Gallows saying "Now Pyre is gone, it's you alone" combined to make me think Pyre may be dead. "Now Pyre is gone" could be interpreted as "Pyre is dead" or "Pyre escaped" in my mind. I had hoped for the latter or something like it, but Guillotine wanting her dead and being phrased as being much stronger then Pyre made it lean to the former. In terms of song order, I mostly tried to string them together in a way that made some sense. I found this channel, found this group of characters, put them and the songs in an order that made some kind of sense to me(Which admittedly, that is probably ALSO not the correct timeline since I more focused on introducing the characters to a friend of mine. I was like "Look, you need to know these characters at least a LITTLE bit before I get to the one I wanna talk to you about", heh). I ended up doing Guillotine > Four Parts > Gallows > Avenger > Maiden > Pyre > Guillotine & Pyre duet > Maiden & Pyre duet(Which I'm well aware is quite possibly supposed to be before Guillotine & Pyre, "I'll distract Guillotine" more makes it sound like it should've come first) > The other Pyre songs > Maiden & Gallows. Probably not the best order, but I had no real frame of reference. My main clues mostly came from Reasoning with the Pyre, which highly suggested I need to put in Guillotine, Four Parts, and Gallows early on. Any questions? Hmmmm...............I think I'm mostly missing what Four Parts is doing in all of this. I understand that he was working with Gallows and Guillotine to mess with Pyre, but with so few songs he feels mostly absent. I get that his character is MEANT to be "The man in the shadows pulling the strings", that's literally him, so him being absent makes sense, there's just so little connecting him to the rest. The only thing I actually know about him is that he's the guy in the shadows pulling the strings. Other then that there's basically nothing there, which I assume is due to the players not really digging to deep into his character, or trying to and failing because he's Four Parts. Just becoming an Abyssal basically means being a Death Knight, right? That's my understanding from the wiki, because I'm struggling to figure out why Maiden would become a Death Knight if she dislikes it so much. It feels like if being an Abyssal didn't mean "You have to be a Death Knight", she wouldn't have chosen to be one. I recall seeing something saying that she just doesn't like the title of Death Knight, which I guess could mean that she just doesn't like it when people call her that as opposed to not liking being one. You certainly did get me interested enough via song lyrics to actually go to the wiki and be like "What is this?" lol, so good job there!

@@prodigalsun5260 Oh I haven't even gotten to the Lunar characters yet. I've not even listened to half of the songs on this channel. I just found this channel a few days ago, and there is a lot, heh. Good to know though! I've mostly been going through the Abyssal stuff so far, I only put on Avenger because at some point I figured out that Avenger really wants to kill Gallows, and Gallows is a character I was listening to.

@ Four-Parts Treason is actually supposed to have a paired song with Pyre when she’s still Rhea but his came out so creepy and not the good kind of creepy. The players haven’t investigated his backstory yet so he like Guillotine’s exact origin is going to stay hidden till they roll it. What they do know about him (thats actually true, they actually know a lot about him but most of it is misinformation because Gallows) but what is true is he is the oldest in the group, he recruited Guillotine, he is the one that pushed the study of the quality of soul steel being affected by nature of essence that led to Maiden who is demonblooded and Pyre who is of divine ancestry on her father’s side being cloistered and trained to refine their essence with the intent of killing them but the Deathlord chose to recruit them instead. Which as storyteller is possibly another reason he does not interact that much with those two as I type this as it might be awkward interacting with the people he was ready to kill after Maiden became aware. Moonshadows tend to be the leaders of their circles and he is their leader mostly for keeping the group cohesive (which as I type seems a bit undermined by Pyre leaving but he had been portrayed as relatively good at his job for not having Pyre and Gallows killing each other) and he’s the one that talks to living people on a regular basis because Guillotine tends to have little patience for the living. Most of his interactions are with Guillotine, whenever the players actually met him Guillotine was there so those two would probably have the best paired song but they know each other’s backstories so I kind of want to wait for them to discover that first. He’s the one that actually convinced the others to keep the lie that Pyre’s family abandoned her. Gallows is afraid of him because he did kill her precursor when her exaltation’s previous holder got in the way of him hunting his bondmate. The only people he’s been proven to directly kill are his lunar bondmate which is how the players found out he even exists and Gallows’ previous holder. It’s worth noting that Deathknight is actually slightly worth distinguishing from Abyssal. It’s a very slight distinction but the title of Deathknight suggests they at least completed the basic training as in they reached the Five Understandings… which I need to now publicize a song about that… And I did not see Legends on your list which should be the earliest song which is mortal Maiden reading to Mortal pyre.

@@MssEklund You have mentioned it in other videos and I deeply appreciate the encouragement. Among my concerns would be these songs are based on a setting I have no rights to so I am just acting as a fan and I would like to avoid any issues and focus more on sharing tidbits of the setting based on some campaigns I hosted. Let’s see, I think I have noticed you liking a lot of the Deathknight videos with notable outliers like Autochthon’s Clarity and Silver Metamorphosis. I am trying some more from the character in Autochthon’s Clarity unfortunately, it’s not going to be the same approach.

@@MssEklund Thank you.

I am glad. Beautiful was kind of the intention with it. I usually want stuff that’s a bit energetic but the subject matter required me to try to keep it mostly steady unless she mentions mortals as interacting with normal people is what holds off clarity to try for “EFFECTS OF CLARITY Rising Clarity erodes an Alchemical’s ability to empa- thize with humans, even as it attunes her to the alien logical processes of her Primordial patron and his component souls. This is a gradual process with several recognizable stages, each with its associated benefi ts and drawbacks” which most of the time clarity is described as cold but the books surprisingly uses some interesting language in the later stages like “Her dreams are full of the crystalline hum of the Machine God’s logic processes”.

@@MssEklund Thank you. And this is now a fan project so I’m doing it for the fun of it. And I’m making a lot of references to stuff directly from the Exalted books so I would rather not risk making a cent off these. Getting other people to ask me “What is Exalted?” has been my favorite reward. Me and my players have been using it for our own fun and I just happen to be sharing the ones I’ve made. Though getting encouragement from people outside of my players has given me new ideas and interpretations to work with. I can honestly say a few of my ongoing NPCs have been reassessed and new aspects added from this experience. So far my expenses have been limited to tools I’d using anyway. The only thing I can say is new is I’m trying trials of apps like photoshop so I can try to remove elements that clash with the setting in future images… hopefully… I can’t say I’m doing the best job with that just yet.

It’s our pleasure. This one got to be on a larger scale than most.And I do have a soft spot for stories set in the sea.

⁠​⁠@@CaesarJulius99711 Definately. I would have to refresh my memory of D&D spell list but I would think she’d be personality-wise suited for an artificer that can do necromancy spells or necromancer that can craft. A lot of her existence can be summarized as a technomorphic transcendence path practitioner except she was actually innocent when she first got executed. (Abyssals need to “die”) She had been deciphering a “cleverly disguised sutra” of the practice so was caught with incriminating evidence. Then picked up the path she already got accused of practicing. Her Liege in Death actually values warriors above all else but also needs someone to craft so it was a strained mix of her job actually being crafting but he also wanted her able to fight but the technomorphic path leads one to be detached so he cursed her with hunger down to her soul so even in a later mostly mechanical body her soul feels primal impulses like hunger to kind of compel her to at least get her hands dirty. The Locust Crusade happens (that’s a whole published campaign in itself, unfortunately it’s not particularly well received in a lot of cases) the Locust Crusade is an invasion by a realm of Magitech and her liege had plans and this was a field she excelled in. (Locusts are people but called Locusts because they are stealing resources.) Temporarily allied with the players against the Locusts, she gained knowledge and did her own experiments before going rogue as her own agent. She has since been a bit of a recurring issue but her liege was the bigger problem at the time. Her cold demeanor is her “default” while the death growls are more expressions of her soul. It’s worth noting that she hid her nature at first so no my players did not immediately sign up with a necromancer but by the time her nature became clear, the “Locusts” were still the bigger problem and… she did not do her more heinous practices openly until even later when things got bad enough that war crimes were considered valid options and if anything the players openly asked if there was anything she could do so they are the ones that opened that can of worms though she had been doing really bad stuff in secret like studying a kind of sort of disease among the Locusts called Gremlin Syndrome. That bit the players never fully endorsed because they concluded Locusts with Gremlin Syndrome was possibly even worse of a problem than normal Locusts. Which the Gremlin Syndrome did wind up resulting in a character that became literally everyone’s problem so the players were right about that. If you are interested in the Technomorphic Path. That’s its own sordid history but to Summarize the “paths” are no human in origin but “because the elements of the Underworld are so innately tied to the deceased of humanity and the Exalted destruction of the Neverborn during the Primordial War, humans (mortal, God-Blooded and Exalted) may learn the first Step of each Dark Path” and she got creative after the first step because well… she’s kind of already technically dead so could do stuff that would be fatal under normal circumstances so she has pretty much created custom charms (an actual game mechanic) based on the later steps so she might as well be a full scale “dragon”. Quote: THE TECHNOMORPHIC TRANSCENDENCE PATH Favored Breed: None Anathema Virtue: Compassion The way of technomorphic transcendence is the way of cracking bones. Its teachings reveal the power of rationality and technological progress. By opening himself to the will to power through scientific augmentation and cold logic, the adherent learns to become the ultimate blend of Dragon King and machine. The Steps of this Path help the adherent to enhance himself through the use of artifacts and to become more like them. He first learns to power artifacts using cold focus in place of Essence, then to build and repair artifacts as a part of himself. Further teachings allow the adept to fuse artifacts to himself, making them a part of him. He may eventually learn to hide his artifacts within himself. The master gains the ability to instantly attune to artifacts, even if they are attuned to others. The Transcendent Dragon of Technomorphic Transcendence can become completely mechanical, rapidly regaining Willpower and becoming immune to mental influence. During the First Age, walkers of this Path were hermits whose study of mechanical remorselessness eventually led them to attempt wild schemes intended to further psycho- pathic agendas. Today, there are no known adherents to this Path, but it is said that true automata can occasionally enlighten Dragon Kings into its lessons, and cleverly disguised sutras explaining its techniques are currently being deciphered by both Lookshy and the Realm. DRAWBACKS Using surgery to implant biomagic artifacts typically requires a sophisticated laboratory (Resources 4), as well as an extended action requiring multiple (Intelligence + [Lower of Lore, Medicine or Occult]) rolls. See the descriptions of specific artifacts for details. The scientific detachment of this style does not react well to feelings and does not play well with others. A penalty to Compassion and social rolls is applied to any character using a Step of this Path. The penalty is equal to the high- est Path rating of the Technomorphic Transcendence Path Steps currently active. Then the curse is more an indefinite duration of this: Wrath of Ravenous Hunger Calling to her foe’s lower soul as one might lure a hungry dog with bloody meat, the necromancer grants it greater sway. The necromancer makes a ([Manipulation or Intelligence] + Occult) roll against the Resolve of a living character within medium range. Success awakens and strengthens his lower soul, filling him with violent urges and insatiable hunger. Her most frequently used abilities: She won over the Players with this: Betrayal-Spurring Gifts The gifts and treasures that fall from the hands of Death’s Lawgiver are fetters for those who claim them, subjugating them to her dark will. The Abyssal may use social influence to leverage gifts she’s made for others as though they were Ties of gratitude to her. Gameplay wise. I did not enforce those ties, the players just really liked she gave them free stuff and for a while they treated her like a crafter from monster-hunter because she could do this: Charnel Workshop Mastery No scrap of carrion or splinter of bone is beneath the Abyssal artisan’s notice, imbuing her work with deathly power. The Abyssal excels in making use of the dead as raw materials: forging armor from iron mixed with bone- coal, tanning a beast’s hide for a cloak, tempering a freshly-made daiklave by using it to execute a living prisoner, etc. So long as such materials form an essential component of a project. And in case you are interested in Gremlin Syndrome: Gremlin Syndrome A persistent, violently suppressed heresy posits that the Great Maker’s endemic sickness has made the jump from the gremlins of the Far Reaches to his own Chosen. This heresy is correct. No one is sure how or why, but some Alchemicals are touched by the Void. Their Clarity is broken. Distance from humanity does not bring them into communion with the Great Maker. Rather than crystalline harmony and industrial percussion, their dreams are full of glitter- ing nihilism and mechanical cancer. Rusty screams echo through their minds in idle moments. Visions of torn steel and shattered glass leap forth when they close their eyes, and these sights are glorious. Rather than Clarity, infected Alchemicals possess a trait called Dissonance. Dissonance manifests as a form of sociopathy and sadism that grows more severe as it rises. Eventually, the regimented order of the Great Maker and the societies that support him becomes unbearable.

@@CaesarJulius99711 Update. Trying to bring in one of my longer running campaigns. If I exorcise a bit of the canon campaigns or leave it vague enough to not spoil people who want to play the published modules. (That’s literally why I try not to name too many canon characters) then we will have some characters from a campaign that went on for an extended period of time if I can recall the events and translate the world’s transformed political map in the character summations. Trying for one of the player favorite NPCs and seeing if I can capture her flavor and I can try to expand from there and bring more characters in from that campaign overtime. Though she was a latter character so a lot would be working back. But I noticed I’m reaching a lot of present events with the songs

@@iamtigra Yeah… I am on the monthly plans and still needing to buy credits halfway through the month. Sometimes I get lucky and maybe get it in five tries but usually for everything I make public there’s a lot more that I hid away. I just checked my library and I have a bit over 12000 songs so I need to divide that by my “successes” to figure out my average. Once you get used to it, replace section is your friend even if it’s the annoying friend that gets things wrong 75% of the time. But sometimes you get a song that’s so close to right that you need salvage it if you can. Though I recommend extension over replace if everything moving forward from that point can be replaced. To me, the best benefit of not being free is the personas. You might notice songs for specific characters sound similar, that’s a persona. I had tried to force songs to come out similar without it to varying degrees of success. This character is actually one of the hardest ones I ever thought to make a persona to create a song with both robotic voice and death growls.

@@iamtigra May I ask if your song publicly available? I’m interested in what you made.

Thank you. Really the process for the lyrics is mostly I try to make the song and its me hearing the song and rewriting it. I tend to not focus on getting it right and more simply get it out then look up rhymes over the course of days as I go “Oh… I need to fix that.” And this characters is from an Exalted game so it’s me trying to make references to the setting so the vocabulary was partially developed from portraying that npc and the subjects she said.

@ I’m a huge fan of Exalted myself, and I really appreciate how you are bringing it all out in your lyrics. Especially this one and the Commandos fighting to avenge creation is especially dear to me (although the abrupt ending is a letdown). Keep up the great work ❤️💪

@ I probably do need to remaster the commandos one if I have not already. The remaster system tends to be disjappointmenting but I want to preserve the structure… Maybe if I extended it then cropped. Fact is title-wise that it was the (word for self-deletion) Commandos from Return of the Scarlet but I was worried using that exact word as the title was inappropriate because anyone could just run into it and its an uncomfortable subject so I tried to at least focus on another aspect of that death cult. Twice-Dead Commandoes is 3.5 so is in need of a remaster so I sent a reply on that page with links to some of the results I am considering.

To be fair, I have the benefit of wanting the subject of the song to sound artificial.

@prodigalsun5260 Still pretty good. I enjoy it.

@ And thank you. I am glad you enjoyed it. I was just thinking of possible explanations for why this one may be an exception.

@prodigalsun5260 The beats in sync delivering the vibe that gives off wrath, someone hellbent on killing you in a fight. It's like a boss battle theme that gives off the emotion of a villain who just wants you DEAD. They have no fear, nothing to lose, only a desire to kill you and do away with thier schemes, and so the voice behind this shows this side of assertiveness while the artificial yelling just spews out words of venom. Utter hatred. The fact is that it gives off that emotion through the lyrics. Had you not titled it as an A.I. song you just made on a website and posted it as some music you made through music software, I would've believed you.

@@almightynaz.2704Wow, you literally stated my exact intent. This is literally her boss music I made for her to listen to so I stayed in character for the boss fight in a game I host. As GM I got into a habit of trying to make songs for individual characters to listen to make sure I am in the mindset for them. It would be hard to explain fully what she is but she is pretty much close to completely machine but souls are a thing in setting so even if she does not have a literal heart, her soul still remembers the sensation to the extent she still needs to “eat” even though she does not have a stomach so the death growls are meant to be her soul that has all her living instincts while she has no compassion or fear.

This one didn’t really get a chance to be fully explored besides the fact I tried to (whether it was successful or not is another question) portray them as a mix of cold unfeeling machine with bursts of primal animal animalistic hunger hence why I made her have a vocaloid as her default voice and a death growl for when her hunger is setting in. So, the Deathlord she worked for was the First and Forsaken Lion, the Lion prefers warriors so the pre-players backstory was she got cursed with a hunger of the soul so even when she pursued her technomorphic transcendence she still craved raw flesh so a bit of a mechanical zombie vibe. When the Locust War kicked in with the campaign where that region was now being invaded people that used magitech she could really shine in her field of expertise and even worked with the players a bit because the Locust War was kind of natives vs invaders so the players thought a native Deathknight was the whole enemy of my enemy for the moment so she assisted them and they assisted her and she eventually got enough magitech research from the “Locusts” to kind of technically go rogue and pursue her own ends. Which she became a potential side antagonist but her boss, the Lion, had a plan that was full blown apocalyptic and very immediate and the players kind of let her go so they didn’t have more problems to deal with at the time. She might come back later or be recycled for another group. But she pretty much specialized in necrotech which is necromancy with magitech. An interesting thing in universe is necrotech is easier than magitech in application, an arm knows how to be an arm apparently rather than an arm of pure metal so you get a severed arm plate it with iron and you got something. But necrotech rots so you have to replace the organic bits regularly so… the more necrotech you have the more you are going to have to “acquire” more parts so it’s not something that will likely end with someone sitting in their factory minding their own business indefinitely. Okay. I probably might need to explain the Locust War. It is relatively common occurrence in game in some shape or form. There’s a realm called Autochthonia… if you don’t mind spoilers for a more common campaign. All the human inhabitants in Autochthonia descend from human taken from Creation and have been recycling the same finite amount of souls for generations… Autochthonia is rich in a lot of resources but not the more natural elements we know hence the “Locusts”. Autochthonia opened a portal back into Creation and invading primarily with the intent of resources but depending on the campaign also to harvest more souls as Autochthonians are born stillborn if there isn’t a fresh soul ready so a growing population has resulted in higher stillborns etc. I could probably look up the exact number of souls they started with but here’s what really makes their finite soul system particularly prone to issue. Humans aren’t native to Autochthonia so there isn’t a natural reincarnation system so people have gems on their heads that contain their souls upon death that need to be physically collected… so it’s possible to lose a soul, whole cities can die and have their souls waiting in the dark. So, it is also a diminishing supply.

@prodigalsun5260 sound like they need clones! Or "volunteers"

@ Hmmm… I’m going to be honest with you, as storyteller I honestly never considered clones as a solution… I kind of assumed the most economic option was to go to some random location and “collect” if being the more mad scientist archetype while someone more militant and at war won’t be short on resources. I might need to give that some consideration in the future. I would need to check if growing clones would be “nurturing life” which is a “sin” for this character or if something that never fully lived might not make the best materials so necromancy like if necromancy is acting on the shape or memories of the body. I am actually going to search the books… Update: So, the quotes I found so far: “Until damage and decay erodes their potency, parts of dead bodies possess the potential for most of the mundane properties and abilities that they had in life. This is why zombies know to shamble and claw their prey. A newly dead arm still has most of the strength it had in life; it just needs a will to make it work. A dead eye can still see; it just lacks motivation. People who lose limbs, eyes or other important parts can exploit this principle through necrotech.” “Skilled necrosurgeons always try to be picky, but qual- ity parts are not always available. As body parts decay, their natural capacities diminish. If some meddling Solar ripped out a necrosurgeon’s eyes, and she has to rob a grave on short notice to get a replacement pair, the eyes that she gets might be decayed to near-uselessness. Rotten or damaged parts im- pose internal penalties, just as quality parts provide bonuses. The Storyteller remains the final arbiter of what bonuses or penalties a body part grants, and to which rolls.” Looks like your clone suggestion might be valid but I as storyteller might say it’s not “quality” parts.

@prodigalsun5260 ok well since we're being honest I misread the song title to be nanotech.. hence the borg refrence

@ There is technically nanotech in Exalted, different song though. A scientist tried to make little things to regulate destructive impulses, the stuff went free and resulted in a population that are the friendliest people you can imagine all year except one month, and for a month their nation is chaos as all that pent up stuff gets unleashed for one month, directed at outsiders first. There’s little stories of nations taking over without resistance then that month rolled in and the natives killed everyone. The “nanomachines” burn so only the natives can carry them, the nanomachines if so directed can incinerate their hosts from the inside but they tend to be unaware. The kind of nanomachines spread through “pollen” and “fruit” produced by fire trees which are trees that are a silicone based lifeform it seems. Only the natives like the stuff and the natives get sick without it.

@@CaesarJulius99711 I’ve got two infernal characters but theirs is more a general philosophical debate with the male character supposed to be pretty zen which has proven for his songs to not come out well as I try to get a bit of a chant out of him hence why I have not shared any songs of him here yet. It feels like he probably wasn’t meant to be adapted into song but I like portraying him and his circlemate. If I can’t get that set out the door then I am going to probably try for a general paired song of Pyre’s sisters and see if I feel comfortable enough to try for a set of three or more with them encountering Guillotine for a second time. I probably need to do a paired song for Four-Parts Treason but the relationship dynamics the players are aware with him is with Guillotine and Pyre separately and those two have been getting a lot of attention from me in these songs. I think Gallows did tell the players he’s the one that killed Gallows’ precursor but when she was talking she was trying for something so if I make a song that might confirm some stuff for my players so they’d maybe also figure out what’s a lie… If it’s a Guillotine-Treason paired song it might have to be very general as Guillotine’s exact origin has not been successfully investigated by the players besides her medical charms suggesting she could have Exalted at any age and aged herself up. (Abyssals don’t age) And Four-Parts Treason as a whole has both not focused on himself in the few conversations he’s had (he’s a diplomat so he kind of speaks for other people) and his guile is so high like Gallows’ that even if was the type to talk about himself it would likely be hard to roll against him if he decided to lie. The only real confirmed truth about him is he killed Gallows’ precursor and the fact that Pyre’s sisters were looking for Pyre is proof that he along with Guillotine and Gallows lied to Pyre that her sisters abandoned her. But I am not sure if I want to fully confirm or deny if it was his idea or not to start the lie. The players learned from Pyre’s sisters and even Gallows admitted it that Gallows while she was still mortal did indeed kill Rielle but got really messed up in the process because Rielle pretty much dragged Gallows down with her off a ledge to save Eshara from the still mortal Gallows (Avenger and Eshara associate Pyre’s kidnapping mostly with Gallows because Gallows killed Rielle but Pyre confirmed it was Guillotine that took her which I tried to show a bit with Fleeing the Guillotine while I portray Rielle and Eshara thinking of Guillotine as more the person that watched as Gallows performed the act so most of their hate is directed at Gallows and Gallows’ mocking has made her a bit of a hate magnet for NPCs and players). So, Gallows may have been too injured to show up and say Pyre’s sisters ran away when she herself would have bleeding all over… So, players have deduced it to being Treason telling Guillotine or the others to tell the lie, Guillotine maybe coming up with it, or Gallows showing up later to tell the lie with Guillotine having enough medical charms to have gotten Gallows back up and running fast enough that Gallows may not have been obviously injured after a few days. Gallows herself kept the lie going long enough to disguise herself as an older Rielle just to try to draw Pyre back out and hurt Pyre so Gallows was firmly involved but I don’t think it was fully established whose idea it was in the first place. (Chronologically Gallows disguised herself as a fully alive Rielle after the events portrayed in Do You Remember and Why Should I because 1. To hurt both Pyre and insult Avenger at the same time. 2. Finding out Rielle’s body was moving around as Avenger put a time limit on before Pyre figured things out so kind of wanted to make use of it while she still could so moved around as a living Rielle (and actually temporarily joined the player circle) to tick off Avenger and draw out Pyre. Gallows as Rielle told the players that Eshara was the one that died and that she heard rumors that Pyre killed Rhea (Pyre’s living name) so the players would help her hunt for Pyre and throw Pyre off psychologically if they fought. (If you are wondering what’s the benefit of someone doing the whole Vader killed Anakin gambit Abyssals aren’t supposed to acknowledge their living names so saying “No, I am Rhea” would potentially hazardous as the proper Abyssal response to being addressed by their real names is supposed to be something like “That person is dead” which is what I tried to show in these songs with even Pyre speaking in past tense like saying Maiden was Lysaveth but Maiden actually just once calls Pyre Rhea in present tense because I like saying it only once when Pyre has set a decent cushion of past tense probably softened it and I felt in story Maiden needed to say it at least once since Pyre was appealing to their past.) Another I want to do is one for Gallows and Pyre but that might reveal some stuff my players aren’t aware of yet so that might have to wait in the ether indefinitely… Depending on what a set of players do next week there might be a development with two Lunars… I have brother and sister Dragon-blooded I would like to share here but the brother is a Beastman (it’s complicated) that has not resulted in me making any songs at all of him yet because I feel like his very existence is complicated to tackle… because I will admit openly those two started as a Goldilocks and the Three Bears joke and feels like Puss and Boots 2. I have two campaigns I loved but I have not unpacked at all yet mainly because the biggest one used a lot of canon campaign modules and expands over the course of decades in game and kind of resulted in them reshaping Creation politically in ways that may sound odd… as they got heavily invested in the political landscape. The other and weirdly the one the players probably look back the most fondly on is one where they are in a fae freehold and ALL the NPCs were named after fairytales. That campaign had a lot of Dragon-blooded but I’m not sure sure how well non-players can handle me dropping stuff like Rapunzel is Sleeping Beauty’s niece, Charming is Liezel’s (Matchstick Girl) father. If I can go into it for a moment, in setting there’s this place called the Wyld where people can develop addictions to behaviors and mutations, it essentially flattens people mentally as they taken on a narrative role to maintain their own existence so I went with a community named themselves in manners similar to Fairy Tales to keep themselves sane. That… and the fact that I personally love Tangled I feel like I had a bit too much fun with Rapunzel… did the whole isolation thing but portrayed it more like Tarzan using her hair like she’s spider-man and joining the campaign without language comprehension… it made some sense in context. Just not sure if a character named Rapunzel using Hulk-speak for her earlier songs be off-putting or not. To Summarize: Infernal paired songs: Got lyrics but don’t have it sounding right so could come out once I think they sound passable. Pyre’s Sisters: Still working on lyrics stage. Possibly Four-Parts Treason with either Guillotine or younger Pyre… Anything else on my mind kind of requires me to unpack or contextualize a bit beforehand.

@@vlad-ovidiuadam6489 I am sorry to inform you that our future AI overlords can already imitate a human voice to this level. The story is from the Exalted setting if you are interested. It’s a bit of a twisted version of the true story. Darienites are actually demon worshippers but the founder of the cult was a chosen of the sun god but falsely demonized so things kind of got weird over the years. But everything is mostly true except the Dragons part. The Dragons actually worked alongside the Unconquered Sun against Malfeas but the Chosen of the Dragons betrayed the Chosen of the Sun so the Dragons got made bad guys in Darienite legends… it’s complicated. I was actually going to have an intro where the vocalist is reading the title of the book and pointing out it might not have been entirely right but also saying the person who sold it guaranteed it was of decent quality. But the AI went insane on that part in particular for some reason. Intended intro: What is that you have there, Rhea? You asked Makarios for stories involving the sun? Let’s see… If it’s something Makarios would sell to you, there’s no question to the quality. You can’t read it? He’d never sell something worthless to a customer… Why would he- Oh… curse him… He knew you had me… Give me a bit to read this over. Let’s see… A treatise by Darien Nightbreaker… Probably spun from the dream of a Darienite somewhere out there.

@@prodigalsun5260 I am now... impressed but quite conflicted

@@vlad-ovidiuadam6489 There’s a few words at least Suno can’t seem to handle. I should have a list. An example would be wind as in winding path. If I told it “path that winds” it would use the weather term.

The singer is the one on the left. Your comment is translating to “Venerable Frau” for me. Which I am interpreting as meaning “Maiden” who is on the right. If the singer is venerable, then yes that is the one on the left.

@@prodigalsun5260 я просто подумал что там две дамы)

⁠@@PolitSlaaneshitYou were right. There are two women.

@@prodigalsun5260 тяжелый выбор в плане симпатии)

@@donnezqiqilasvp6405 I try to do different vibes for different characters. I got a few other songs for this character in particular but most of them are focused on her playful or taunting side. This is one of the few where she’s being open about her true(r) nature.

And thank you for liking it.

@ Okay, I love this topic so feel free to ask any questions if it catches your interest but I will try to give you what I consider the bare bones. It’s kind of like D&D but instead of classes there’s exalt types. Among in-universe natural laws: there can only be one exalt type, there’s no true resurrections, no time travel, no flawless immortality. Other than that, everything is possibly on the table. In-universe, Exalts were created because the gods wanted to rebel against the creators of the world, the primordials but the primordials put a geas on everything that could harm them including the gods so the gods found a way to share a piece of their powers with humans who were considered too weak to be worth placing the geas on so the humans could fight in the gods’ place. The Divine Rebellion worked out and the exalt system is still going with the most common being those called Dragon-Blooded which have direct elemental powers so kind of like Avatar the last Airbender is the standard. There’s multiple cultures but the dominant nation has a Japanese surface level design so the architecture is often like Feudal Era Japan. The dominant nation recently lost their Empress at the start of most games so the world is in political turmoil. At random trivia, the world is flat and elements come from particular directions making the world map based on elemental interactions like water comes from the west so the west is a huge ocean and kind of feels like Pirates of the Caribbean complete with undead pirates being a problem. The south is where fire comes from so the south is blazing hot and north is frozen, etc. Oh, wood is an element among fire, earth, air, and water. Again. You or anyone can feel free to ask any questions and I can try to answer as best I can. I can provide links, etc. I am more worried I might provide too much information at once.

@prodigalsun5260 so video game or TRRPG? I love both... though my group hasn't met in about a month.... which is a shame cuz I found an item that actually had me cry out "best magical item ever!" A cook book of all things

@ TRPG. Uses only d10s. Uses same dice system as Vampire the Masquerade and World of Darkness as it’s published by the same company if you have any familiarity with those. And what’s the magical item that’s a cookbook if I may ask?

Oh yeah I GMd vampire ended up with fighting Abel (cains brother) on the pinnacle of R'lyeh. Warlys recipe book: 1. Volt goat jello (adds electric damage) 2. Nightmare pie (causes insanity when eaten) 3. Salamander spicy nacos (immune to heat and fire damage) 4. Cloud flower mashed potato (temp flight) Bright shade salad ( can glow or produce light or see in the dark- user choice) 5. Sea salt salmo with soy sauce (ignore 1 attack per round) Meals last half day My PC is a halfling chef / doctor-surgon

@ Nice. Okay, you have a taste for some of the madness this setting can throw then. I had to take a moment to look up Abel in context to Vampire because he’s kind of the reason that Caine is the first vampire and I see a few scenarios where he comes back. Now I’m really curious what led to that.

The webcomic? I think I may need an explanation. I tried looking up Stalker X Stalker tutorial tower.

@@florianmarcelhartmann6920 That’s more on me not planning most of these songs in advance. For a plot, a lot of them are more looking back at different campaigns whenever I remember them and I don’t need much context when sharing with my players as it’s me going ‘“Y’all remember this?” So even the ones that are related might be out of chronological order. If you have questions I’m willing to explain but assume most are unrelated to each other directly unless they were released within an hour of each other which means they are likely my attempt at paired songs. Which this one is paired with “Do you remember”. Really barebones summation was that this antagonist killed an NPC and was involved in the kidnapping of that npc’s sister and now that NPC has a being that is using her body in a Frankenstein’s monster-like situation but that being honestly wants justice for her body’s original resident. Its very important in setting to clarify that they are two separate existences as true resurrection is impossible, essentially it’s a new soul in the body and that new person actually personally likes the ghost of the person she is Avenging. So, it’s already complicated situation I am not sure I can capture easily in the span of four minutes

If I have a personal misgiving for the art, it’s the crosses. The setting does not have that particular symbol for death but this was the best image I ever got for her skulls and the red in the trees. But I am particularly happy with how the song came out. I was worried maybe it took a bit long for her to start speaking.

@@prodigalsun5260 If you delved into Photoshop a bit you could probably remove them without much trouble. A bit of work and you could substitute an actual Creation-specific symbol, I'm not sure what it would be though. Death isn't a natural part of that world, and the Neverborn aren't common enough knowledge to be that. Something Immaculate is probably most analogous, but crucifiction would be a known method of execution. Saint Andrew's Cross or Lorraine's Cross both are familiar enough to evoke death while also looking exotic.

@ I have been trying for Japanese style grave markers when I can. I probably should just take an hour to sit down and read back over Sijan with a fine tooth comb and see if they mention any specific symbols. But I’ve seen bee symbols mentioned in the more positive necromancy spells and 2e sorcery had ghosts summoned with blood and honey. So, maybe bee iconography? Then again, in this context I doubt this character would ever use the nicer symbols of death because Abyssals typically don’t view death negatively at all so will use the more horrific iconography without batting an eye. … if we go with crucification as simply an execution method then it’s not as bad as I thought… With the Immaculate symbols, it would probably depend if we want to say the Abyssal recently intruded into that territory. That’s at least why I actually do try to get shrines in frame with a lot of stuff involving a Day caste to suggest they are still trying to be sneaky

@@Kyoz Thank you.

@@justinsanchez6255 I am glad you like it.

​@@prodigalsun5260 KZbin has been on it with recommending me excellent songs from small channels it's how I found of my current favorite songs

Happy 2025.

If you like this character’s style in particular, I have some songs involving her still being worked on so there will be more. She’s got a no nonsense attitude so it seems like my main issue with her is simply coming up with songs that have some variety to them. I love how she can in character can off-handedly espouse hate and disgust yet stay cold so she offers unique opportunities but seems like herself is a bit niche. That or I have currently have her in a niche.

I am glad you like it. This one in particular had to get fixed up a bit. Originally, it said the titular name in the Chorus but my players snickered a bit to the name being repeated. This one is a bit quicker than the original draft and actually sounds high spirited.

@@Voidflyssa It’s based on the Exalted setting if you are interested in the subject.

@@TheShadowrod I am glad you enjoyed it. I was primarily concerned about the sections where she was talking normally for the pledge and if that would be offputting.

@@asonofhoruslegionary It’s from the Exalted setting if you are interested in the original concept that led to it. I recommend the tv tropes page if you are interested in random trivia.

@@iamtigra I imagine the scythe would be even scarier because the Scythe is meant as the Harrowing Scythe of Azet-Ithey as a control spell. “She may awaken Evocations for the scythe, drawing on its power to cleave hopes, its partially immaterial nature, and the mythos of itinerant Azet- Ithey, who wanders the Underworld enforcing his edict against the blasphemy of joy.” Because a scythe would kind of be not so useful inside the confines of a ship but she has an evocation for it being immaterial so she doesn’t have to worry about it getting caught in stuff at the cost of it just causing despair instead of harming the body. I thought it was an ideal weapon for such an individual while still serving as a good actual weapon above deck and on open water. Story wise, she does not have high enough resistance to learn the Abyssal charm for not needing to breathe so she instead picked up the Bleak Tide Voice merit through necromancy to be able to breathe and sing underwater

Yeah, that circle has the benefit of being a later group of antagonists so I had a better grasp of Abyssal mindsets and they survived to have further interactions so their circle dynamic became more well established. Mainly because the players were afraid to fight Guillotine, Pyre is actually good and already left the circle, Gallows is incredibly hard to kill, Four-Parts is often away, and Maiden has not given the players enough reason to want her dead especially when they found out Maiden helped Pyre so Maiden while an antagonist is treated more like a punch-clock villain the players don’t want to kill and Maiden has more than once proved helpful. Maiden I feel like is more a case of she hasn’t done anything bad to anyone the players know, Maiden can be pretty bad but she’s also not happy with being a Deathknight so has the benefit of “enemy of my enemy” plus considered a friend of an npc the players like. A bit of Maiden’s worse aspects been pointed out but I think she’d be smart enough to not make it obvious to people she wants to work with. The bad thing about Maiden is she is still an Infernalist (demon worship) but demons and the dead don’t particularly mesh well so its almost like two opposite extremes kind of slightly counteract each other. Crown Usurping Guillotine is kind of the leader of their circle. Technically, its Four-Parts Treason which even my players agree he seems to manage the circle well but his modus operandi so different from the others that he is away from them an overwhelming majority of the time making Guillotine leader in his absence… I could probably do a paired song for him and Pre-exaltation Pyre if I can get pre-exaltation Pyre and Gallows voices figured out… Guillotine pretty much in some shape or form supervised Gallows and Pyre while Maiden is more openly antagonistic but fully aware Guillotine is not someone anyone wants to fight. Rolls-wise, Guillotine has proven to not be invincible but no one has fought her and come out unscathed yet, she’s built so offensively that she’s managed to maim anyone she hasn’t killed. So, she’s by her combat record become one of the more dreaded antagonists and I have portrayed it as carrying over to other npcs. Seems like whenever she shows up the response is to try to avoid her, as even if they can win they might lose a limb, until recently when they got an ambush on her. Guillotine still killed one character then took an arm then a leg from two separate characters. (Her response to an opponent of equal skill or being outnumbered is to literally start disarming her opponents rather than her usual going straight for the head). And she has the medical skills to get herself back into peak condition within a few days so attrition does not work well against her so players did resort to ambush. Guillotine being a true practitioner of Death’s Chivalry kind of gave my players a cruel safety net, hence why I have been saying encounters with her plural. First Tenant better long torment than a quick death means in story she might have a reason to spare my players temporarily if it would cause them more pain in her point of view, second that the mighty must fall before the weak means she will target whoever is viewed as most powerful so she will not hit my squishy players first unless they really piss her off. Unfortunately, the third tenant of let life drown in death means it is also in character to attack mass groups of people but usually she waits till the second tenant is met but its become in character for her to default to the third tenant when angered or impatient as she does not view the common folk that do not stand out as possible opponents for the second tenant as “people” for the first tenant to apply to. Tried to give her a bit of a personality with how she follows the Chivalry.

@@CaesarJulius99711 The latest thing that happened involving that circle was a mass battle involving Guillotine and Pyre’s living sisters. I might try for that as my first attempt as a three song set. Not sure if I want to focus on the emotions of each character or what actually happened because that fight actually got complicated because it was a 5 (and a small group of mercenaries) vs 1 with Guillotine’s equivalent of a health bar doing somersaults. But today I am going to rewind a little bit and try for something set before Pyre and Maiden exalted called Reading Darienite Legends. Then I’m going to try to get Maiden and Pyre’s paired songs done.

Thank you. I will try to note that. This character’s pattern has gone through a few iterations. There’s been experiments with trying for more operatic to kind of reference sirens, commanding for being a captain, etc. This is was a bit more a recent attempt at more energetic and adventurous.

Not sure how this found its way to my recommended! But I like it! Never heard of exalted system but seems interesting! Though song ends abruptly? Like mid sentence? Great love it!

@@MssEklundIt ends with “Path I wend,” though I admit I did not do the best job cropping after that. If you are interested in the Exalted System, I am more than happy to answer questions. I believe I left a link for their official site. For random trivia, I recommend Tv Tropes, that page covers some of the more interesting bits. I love the topic so if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask. If I was to provide the basics, it is like D&D but instead of classes, there’s Exalt types and each Exalt is empowered by a specific god or force. The fact that exalts are what people normally play means the scale of the campaigns often can get epic fast. The character of this song is an Abyssal (Also called a Deathknight) which is kind of its own subject in itself but can be summarized as the Chosen of Death. Abyssals are playable in most editions and in the current edition they are at the preview stage but the preview documents are complete enough for them to be playable and the complete book will hopefully be published soon. They tend to be the go-to for “evil” campaigns but they can be “good” by the more conventional sense but it is very difficult for them to interact with living beings in a healthy manner.

@@donaldevans4312 Excellent. I am glad to hear that you enjoyed it. If you are interested in games like D&D I recommend looking up Exalted. This character is an Abyssal (A playable Exalt type) and she’s listing out the qualities of a Murder-Saint in that setting. Hence why she’s saying you don’t want her to be a saint.

I love dming D&D and I'll give Exalted a shot! Thanks for the recommendation!

@@donaldevans4312 the two editions worth looking into is 2e and 3e. 2e is pretty much upgraded 1e and 3e took a few approaches that are alien to most other games I played (the combat system) and is still catching up with 2e with some of the staples but is slowly adding entirely new Exalt types. The 3e previews for Abyssals and Alchemicals are available for backers and are mostly coherent. But the combat system for 3e is likely the hardest to adjust to from D&D. Combat is treated like a movie. Every move is in-game meant to kill but in mechanics there’s withering and decisive attacks with sides trading initiative to represent the trading of blows till a moment to hit if that makes sense. Seems like my veteran players took a while to adapt and took it the hardest while fresher faces liked it a lot faster once the system actually made sense. I want to explain it better but feels like something you want to sit down with a diagram for. I might be selling it as daunting but it’s more “unique” than convoluted. If there’s another game system that does combat the same way, I have not encountered it. Oddly, it’s surprisingly fast once you have the math formulas done. I recommend you get the players “soak” from them in advance and work down and that can get things flowing. The mass combat system is ironically easier to understand. If you have a questions at all over the topic at all. Feel free to ask, both mechanics and lorewise. Lorewise, like D&D they pretty much say Storyteller gets final say and they even in the books list some recommendations to adjustments storytellers might like such as the true identity of figures, etc. But the universe itself is interesting enough I recommend giving it a glance, I’d say the biggest can of worms in lore is the political situation in the Realm (the dominant nation) with their Great Houses and how they interact with each other. Any example of how fluid the setting is there’s four(?) slots open among the Thirteen Deathlords to make your own up. Then there’s lore skill where players can roll to establish facts where the players can expand the universe itself. In later games I left the some of the slots open in my head and gave general descriptions of a Deathlord from the Deathknights the players are fighting and once the players characters knew the broader universe, they proposed possible identities of the Deathlord in life (Deathlords don’t use their original names) to see if something or someone fit that description. Warning: The Lore in general can get really weird. The 2e lore can get really disturbing. 3e is more friendly and covers less uncomfortable subjects so 3e is safer content-wise but kind of makes the universe seem less dangerous. I try to combine the two. I think some random parts of 2e should have a content warning but 3e has less… war crimes… with some of the more horrific figures kind of reduced in their scale of behavior or entirely removed from being mentioned. I can elaborate further, I’m just not sure what atmosphere you usually try for. All editions of Exalted has general rules of protections for players and the encouragement to remove unwanted content but this was from the same company that made World of Darkness so if you are familiar with that, that’s what might be hiding in the darker corners of the setting.