Lunar Quest

Lunar Quest by Jukashi
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Internal Phase 1
Discussion thread 1 Discussion thread 2 Discussion thread 3

Something something raccoon girl in Exalted. By Jukashi.

Setting

Jukashi is using a modified form of the Exalted setting; here, the Ebon Dragon and the Scarlet Empress have returned, and rule over the Realm and the Underworld. The current time is set after that.

Characters

Saulanna Ricanya Rockblossom

(Lunar/Raccoon/Unfixed) The main character of this quest, she is a Lunar, one of the Heroes of the Moon, with the raccoon as her totem. She is currently amnesiac, but before, she was apparently a scavenger-archeologist, searching the ruins of the cities of the Golden Age for what forgotten wonders were left, and a thief. Then, she was the prisoner of Peregine Kaan, who, in the interest of learning Titan magic, erased her identity and memories in order to attach Wordblood to her. She escaped, Exalting in the process, becoming one of Luna's champions. Now, she is the beginning of a new Titan, and ready to face the world and kick ass IN THE NAME OF LUNA AND SAULANNA RICANYA ROCKBLOSSOM!

Luna

(God) Luna is a god, the second most strongest god, in fact. Luna has as part of her portfolio: Trickery, Survival, and Being The Moon. The first person Saulanna met after Exalting, Luna gave her some help, particularly in the form of basic information about the world and how it functions. Wordblood is terrified of Luna, and does not want Saulanna mentioning him to Luna.

Wordblood

(Titan Fragment/Word-Dragon) A Titan Fragment of He Who Bleeds the Unknown Word, Wordblood takes the form of a dragon made out of words, which expresses his nature as a soul of a Titan embodying words, language, and communication. He was grafted onto Saulanna's soul by Peregine Kaan. He dwells in her mind, sharing thoughts, power, and capabilities, their souls bleeding into each other.

Gevin

(Dead Human/Noble Soul/Male) The first person Saulanna met after Exalting (besides Luna); a ghost that was stuck mourning his inability to accomplish his goal when he died: giving one of (the only?) friends a gift, a music box that he fixed. Unfortunately, he died when a tree fell on him. Saulanna, through her inspiring presence, snapped him out of his ennui and gave him the drive to dig up his body and the music box. He went to check on his friend at her house, with the help of Saulanna, but she left, perhaps centuries ago. He was a woodsman, a simple farmer living in a forest. Currently, he is housed in the fortress of Saulanna's mind, kept safe from any outside harm, and allowed to wander outside the Shadowland where he died through Saulanna.

Peregrin Kaan/Shadow In The Wings

(Abyssal/Male/Daybreak) Self-entited Lord of the Needles, Champion of the Dead, Warrior, Scholar, Master of Four Circles. He was a stage magician, using sleight of hand tricks, but desired to learn true magic, Rituals, Sorcery, Necromancy. He angered a demon with his questionings, and was killed by its hand. However, on the brink of death and life, he Exalted as an Abyssal. He then turned to learning the magic that was, and is, his true desire. Kaan is a renegade Death Hero, hiding in a Shadowland, luckily with a Manse, ruling over the ghosts and learning what magic he can. He was the one who grafted Wordblood to Saulanna and erased her identity and memories. He sought to reclaim her when she escaped, through trickery and force. Saulanna defeated him, though he got what he wanted in the end, when Saulanna told him his True Name and the promise to teach him Words of Power in exchange for his oath to serve her.

Saulanna's Capabilities

Saulanna, being a Moon Hero, is able to use Moon Magic, which are the Moon Abilities and Shapeshifting below. Due to having a Titan Fragment grafted onto her soul, she is able to use all of the capabilities under Wordblood's section and have an effective Soul Force of the sum of both Saulanna's and Wordblood's true Soul Force. Saulanna also has one Abyssal under a True Name Oath, so she has his resources under her.

Moon Abilities

Beast Senses

Increases the senses of touch, hearing and smell, and allows Saulanna to sense any immaterial spirits of consequence.

Moon Claws

Saulanna can spring long claws of moonsilver from her hands, which deal high damage and can touch immaterial creatures.

Flowing Defense

Saulanna's body takes on a fluidity that allows it to ease itself around non-magical bludgeoning or cutting attacks, so long as she's aware of them.

Inner Den

Saulanna can store a limited number and size of objects in her Mindspace, increasing as her Soul Force does.

Mask Sneak

So long as her Soul Fire isn't showing, Saulanna can pull a shroud of unnoticeability about herself that will render her invisible to mundane perception, scaling up to thwart magical senses of increasing power as her Soul Force grows.

Black-stripe Thief

Saulanna can ease her way through nonmagical bonds and open nonmagical doors or containers. Scales up to manage magical versions with Soul Force.

Scent of Victory

Unknown.

Shapeshifting

A natural ability of a Moon Hero. There are three natural forms: the Human, Totem, and War Forms. A Moon Hero that is unsatisfied with the selection of forms, or desires another's shape, may drink a living creature's Heart's Blood to gain that form. In combat, this is done by pulling off a sufficiently impressive finishing move. Outside of combat, just eat it alive, or tear open the chest and drink the blood within the heart. To Shapeshift, Saulanna must spend a point of MP, though using Captured Forms requires Saulanna's Soul Fire to be very weak.

Human Form
Totem Form
War Form
Captured Form

Captured Forms:

• Pale Salmon

Titanic Magic

Power Words

-Wordblood, being grafted to Saulanna, allows her to use his magic. All Power Words require MP to use.

-STOP: This Word freezes motion, halting something that is moving, and at high levels, can freeze things for a while. It costs (3) MP.

Competencies

Master Repair
Master Smithing
Master Torture
Master Whipping

Expert Alchemy
Expert Deathlore
Expert Deception
Expert Enchanting
Expert Intimidation
Expert Knifework
Expert Metallurgy
Expert Ropes
Expert Soulcrafting
Expert Stickbashing
Expert Streetsmarts
Expert Tracking

Advanced Abjuration
Advanced Athleticism
Advanced Brawling
Advanced Concealment
Advanced Economics
Advanced Evasion
Advanced History
Advanced Horseriding
Advanced Infiltration
Advanced Jewelry
Advanced Leatherworking
Advanced Magelearning
Advanced Necrosurgery
Advanced Outdoorsiness
Advanced Physiciancy
Advanced Salesmanship
Advanced Worldliness

Average Alertness
Average Aristocracy
Average Ecomonics
Average Flautistry
Average Law
Average Logistics
Average Shooting
Average Sleuthing
Average Smoothtalking
Average Swordplay
Average Theft
Average Theurgy
Average Tutoring
Average Woodwork

Standard Environmancy

Basic Bow & Arrow
Basic Command
Basic Martial Arts
Basic Metaphysics
Basic Outdoorsyness
Basic Sass
Basic Straighttalking
Basic Tactics
Basic Theatre
Basic Tailoring

Saulanna's Stat Block

MIGHT: Remarkable | AGILITY: Remarkable | TOUGHNESS: Average
INSPIRATION: Astonishing | BEAUTY: Remarkable | DICKERY: Remarkable
SAVVY: Ridiculous | ACUITY: Astonishing | INTUITION: Astonishing

Wordblood's Capabilities

Wordblood, being a Titan Fragment, is able to empower Saulanna's attributes, grant Saulanna the ability to use and create Titanic Magic, to eat and absorb souls and knowledge in the form of the written word, gain Titan's Will by eating souls and Titan Fragments, and to turn the willing into akuma. Akuma are basically the hand-puppets of Titans, beings who sold their soul to a Titan and gained power from the Titan. The boost is two-way, the Titan gains the ability to use the magic of the akuma, and the akuma gains the magic of the Titan, if the Titan deigns to. The 'sell your soul' thing is very literal; the Titan gains their akuma's soul (which might be a bad thing, since, unlike fully grown Titans, Saulanna isn't spiritually vast enough yet for the soul to just vanish into her; if she makes akuma in her current state, she will be influenced and shaped by the personality of her akuma).

Wordblood, being a Fragment of a Titan embodying language, uses Titanic Magic linked to the concept of Language called Power Words. That magic allows him, and Saulanna, to speak a word and have that word affect the world in accordance to the meaning of that word. It also allows him to learn and know the True Names of Things, which grants mastery over that thing. Wordblood, through his connection to words and language, can fight off mental influence externally imposed on Saulanna, at great cost, by rendering the words nonsensical. Wordblood would be rather weak for some time until he recovers from the strain of (roughly) destroying a part of himself. It is likely that, as Wordblood grows in power, other powers linked to Language will be able to be used by Wordblood.

Saulanna's physical attributes (Might, Agility, Toughness, Beauty) can be raised by spending a measure of Titan's Will equal to the amount of Titan's Will spent in such a way (+1) so Wordblood can improve the chosen attribute. Wordblood can also modify Saulanna's physical form (e.g. adding wings, turning all her teeth into fangs) for some Titan's Will. Wordblood does these by taking advantage of Saulanna's natural capacity for shapeshifting as a Moon Hero.

Apparently, if Wordblood's Titan's senses were to be developed more, Wordblood could tell Saulanna if there are any Titans still alive.

Gevin's Capabilities

Gevin, being a ghost, has a number of Ghost Abilities. Unfortunately, he was not particularly powerful in life, so he is not powerful in death. Which means that the spread and strength of his Ghost Abilities is very, very, very limited. Happily, now that he is awake and aware, he can learn, develop himself and grow stronger. Even better, Wordblood can graft some of the knowledge of ghosts Saulanna has consumed onto Gevin to give him power, though Wordblood warns that to do so would be tricky unless Wordblood is improved.

Peregrin Kaan's Capabilities

Kaan, being an Abyssal, is able to utilize Death Magic, which likely focuses on killing and destroying things. He has demonstrated Necromancy usage, and has stated that he is able to use Sorcery as well. Having entered into a True Name Oath with Saulanna, he probably is now able to use Power Words.

He has demonstrated some flight ability, though if that comes from his staff, himself, or some other source is unknown. He also has demonstrated overt mental influence (likely to be this setting's form of UMI) transmitted through his voice, authority over the ghosts of his Shadowland, the ability to call his staff to his hand from a distance, and some method to wipe the identity and memories of people to gain a pure soul.

System Information

The system Jukashi is using is derived from Exalted, though greatly simplified so that it would be better suited to be used in the running of a quest. For simplicity, here are some of the modifications: Attributes has been modified into Talents, Abilities and Specialties have been folded into Competencies, Excellencies have been folded into the Boost system, Charms have been modified into the Magic and Abilities systems, Permanent Essence has been renamed Soul Force, the Essence Pools, both Personal and Peripheral have been replaced by the Power system, Willpower has been abstracted and folded into the Power system, the Stunts system has been modified into AWESOME DEEDS, and the XP/training time system has been abstracted and semi-replaced with and folded into Titan's Will.

Stats

Talents

Talents are a simple modified form of the Attributes of Exalted. The known ranks are, in order of least to greatest (the numbers within the parenthesis are the number of boxes on a character's stat sheet in an Attribute of that rank): Average(2), Remarkable(3), Astonishing(4), Ridiculous(5), Phenomenal(6), Incredible(7), Truly Superhuman(8).

Might
Might governs feats of strength, acts that rely on one's ability to use overwhelming physical force.

-Examples of Usage: Punching a cliff hard enough to cause a landslide, using a tree as a club, determine how much damage an attack does

Agility
Agility governs physical speed, acts that rely on one's ability to be quick.

-Examples of Usage: Climbing up a sheer cliff face, hitting or dodging attacks

Toughness
Toughness governs durability, acts that rely on one's ability to withstand injury or pain.

-Examples of Usage: Digging a hole in the ground, withstanding the effects of poison, determine how much damage one takes from an attack

Inspiration
Inspiration governs charisma, acts that rely on one's ability to instill passion in another.

-Examples of Usage: Getting a ghost stuck in memory loop out of his ennui, obtaining information from someone through sheer friendliness

Beauty
Beauty governs appearance, acts that rely on one's ability to look just that good.

-Examples of Usage: Seducing someone, out-prettying one's opponent

Dickery
Dickery governs [acts that please the Ebon Dragon], acts that rely on one's ability to fuck over someone's life.

-Examples of Usage: Ruin someone's life and make them suicidal, then rescue them and give them true immortality while insuring that they angst forever, lie to someone about some crucial information and convince them that the lie is true

Savvy
Savvy governs feats of deduction, acts the rely on one's ability to discover information through systematic observation.

-Examples of Usage: Gain Competencies, identify scents

Acuity
Acuity governs perception, acts that rely on one's ability to discern information through one's senses.

-Examples of Usage: Hear faint music from a music box, discover scents

Intuition
Intuition governs instincts, acts that rely on one's ability to act without time to think.

-Examples of Usage: Determining the order in which one goes in combat

Miscellanea

Things that feel like they belong under stats, but Jukashi hasn't seen to clarify (nor anyone has seen fit to ask). I don't actually know where to put these! Someone help?

Arousal
Seems to be governing one's desire to have sex.

Emotion
Emotions are feelings, desires, etc. that give bonuses to the character when the character acts in accordance to the emotion. This... may or may not be a good thing, as because Saulanna is a blank slate, she has no deep-running emotions to help her out, so the suggesters need to create emotions for her to feel, but once she develops her emotional range, she will be harder to control by the suggesters. And if the suggesters create two or more valid and conflicting emotions, Saulanna will suffer from Emotional Confusion and be temporarily paralyzed.

Smell, Hearing, Sight, Touch, Taste, Health Point, Natural Attack, Damage
These should be obvious.

Spirit
Presumably one's ability to discern the immaterial.

Hunger
Seems pretty obvious, but what are the effects?

Soul Force
The depth of one's power. Greater Soul Force means more power can be taken from one's abilities.

(Element) Power
The pool of energy used to power magic. It recharges over time, though places may boost or hinder the recharge. If too much is used to quickly, one's Soul Fire will flare up.

SCHNOZZLEPOINTS
Saulanna gained two when she memorized Ruive's scent. Schnozzle is slang for the human nose, the exact purpose of this stat and whether it was a joke or not is unknown

Inventory Space
How much one can carry without becoming overly encumbered.

Challenges

Challenges are what is done when characters have to do a difficult task. The character compares their Skill Number (i.e. their relevant (Talent rank) plus any relevant (Competencies)) to the level of the Challenge. Simple, easy actions have a level of (2).

Combat

Combat is handled with basically a set of Challenges.

Initiative is determined by one's INTUITION (and relevant bonuses), in order by highest.

Attack accuracy is determined by one's AGILITY (and relevant bonuses) against the defender's AGILITY (and relevant bonuses).

Attack damage is determined by one's MIGHT (with a accuracy bonus and other relevant bonuses), with the defender's TOUGHNESS (and relevant bonuses) subtracted from that number (Exalts get the entire rank, supernatural creatures get half rank rounded up, ordinary mortals get half rank rounded down).

Titans and Devas

The following are the known elements of the Lordly Devas of a select few Titans. With the exception of Wordblood and Kairosa, the associated purposes are unknown. The element and purpose of Saulanna's own deva-self are also unknown.

Format: Element:Purpose (Name)

Gaia: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Wood, Time and Aether
Autochthon: Steam, Metal, Lightning, Oil, Crystal, Smoke
He Who Bleeds the Unknown Word: Words, Blood, Thought, Legacy, Beauty, Creation, &others?
The Dragon's Shadow: Darkness, Deception, Freedom, Fear, Desire, Cunning, Change, Death, &others?
Saulanna: ?:? (Saulanna) , Words:Aide (Word Blood), Time:Feeding (Kairosa), ?:? (greenie), Moon?:Weapon? (Lunar Exaltation)

ITQ

Appearances by the cast Inside the Quest, sorted by the threads they ran concurrent to, between, and after. For reader convenience, the devas' ITQ-like appearances in the discussion threads have also been included.

Chapter 1:	Saulanna 1, Wordblood 1
Between Chapters 1 & 2:	Saulanna 2
Chapter 2:	Wordblood 2, Wordblood 3, Wordblood 4, Wordblood 5
Internal Phase 1:	Kairosa 1, Kairosa 2, Wordblood 6, Worblood 7, Wordblood 8, Wordblood 9, Wordblood 10, Wordblood 11, Wordblood 12
After Internal Phase 1:	The Dragon's Shadow 1, Kairosa 3, Wordblood 13, Kairosa 4, Kairosa 5, Wordlblood 14

Gallery

Official

• 

  Saulanna in the beginning

• 

  Saulanna at the end of Thread 1

• 

  Saluanna coloring

Fanart

• 

  Razielanna. By TestPattern

Quests by Jukashi

TGchan: Solo quests: Lunar Quest | Will of the Undermind | The Sword | Polokoa Quest | Dragon Boner | Easter Fools' Quest | Oceans Uprising | Three Wishes Collaborations: Battle Quest Other notable creations: Keychain of Creation