Exalted 2e Allies & Amalgams (Adult or Mature)
I'm broadening my original request to a more socially connected character. A level 5 in one (or more) of the following; Mentor, Ally, Backing or Influence. I have concepts and characters for each, plural for each. They do bottleneck, for the sake of selling a commonality, what I call a "mode".
I will withdraw the need for amalgams. It'd be nice to have, if the above is enough of shift, but I'm fine to abandon the spell if it's the problematic component.
Adult → Mature please. I'm looking for the freedom not the focus. Smut is fine if it's adult and it comes up organically in the narrative and it doesn't feel "Wrong" or out of place. On the adult spectrum being so broad, Brutality might be very satisfying or cathartic and still repulsive. If adult, it should often feel like a mature game, most of the time. If it's mature that really shouldn't affect the core though. I am really wanting both the meat and bones to be something more robust and reliable; the plot to be about something bigger and yet smaller than the two vices of humans, sex ans violence. I want some nuance but also some grander purpose.
My characters have sexual, and separately violent, impulses, but these traits can be implicit in narrative. Even if explicit (in an adult game) I don't want to be jaded, I want a lot more time away from that. It'd be too intense otherwise. My limit breaks should by themself be a point of measurement you (the ST) have.
I'm broadening my concept to wanting to play an Eclipse or Fiend, both anti-heroic but virtuous. The aggregate of the concepts have the mode (the most commonality) of thinking the celestians and yozis, demons and gods, all worthy of what their power and actions dictate; both derision and respect. As one might a ruler of immense power but tyranny or authoritarian regime.
Again, the commonality is the Fiend would be more Punisher or Rorschach vigilante, with a dim view of anything sentient, and deep resentment of authoritarian regime. A highly compassionate but somewhat sexist person. Honorable, caring, but flawed romantic at heart. Their Compassion would mirror their conviction and eventually (if I get more than 10 XP a RL year) Valor as well. I'm thinking of the Urge to Command. My hope for background is SWLIHN wanted to override this temperament, and was "promised" this (Urge) by Ebon Dragon, but ultimately the Ebon dragon reneged on that when the bill came due. The Endless Desert was instead given the Urge but would, however, have her own poetic justice, to have the Warlock (my character) have an Urge that would help to betray the great traitor itself. The "black heart knave" designed intended to cheat their own master of cheating....by not being a blackheart knave, but a revolutionary commander and how best to foil a mortal than to find vigilante that is urged to become an authority. When my character would have the chance to dethrone a corrupt capitol, to be instilled to take that throne; so to speak. I think it also pleases the Ebon Dragon and SHLIHN to know my character will lose those he cares about because despite the Endless Desert's Urge, my character will still go against it, and that is savoring for the Ebon Dragon, amongst the other (later mentioned) atonements that honor not the Endless Desert, but the Ebon Dragon himself. It's dreadfully ironic but bitterness at its sweetest.
I say this because I think my character would have been in Hell long enough, plotting his betrayal slowly, to know how his limit is combated. If flaws were allowed, I'd get Vice (Sex) and they'd be an idealist along the lines of the movie Pretty Woman, but always looking forward to marriage, like many do, as a sealing the deal, the end, not the beginning of a commitment. It always goes downhill for them, being a frequent occurence to marry again, and again and again. Whether they have s harem, raise bastards, kill their spouse, or just remain friends with their spouse with distance between them, even if just geographical distance. That will depend on the character I settle on and you (well the ST "you") putting work into or letting fade into background, the STCs.
My Eclipse would be more Jigsaw as an antihero. Flaw would be Deliberate Cruelty. Again, deeply Compassionate but overall Convicted to see the ultimate good served. A Jigsaw as an antihero though, not a villain, who has the same Desus version, where he sees kindness fail, and eventually goes into fits of "testing" people indiscriminately and having to reconcile that far too soon after.
Unlike Desus, he seeks redemption by atoning in futile but sincere ways. If he simply maimed someone, he'd act to repair their limb, and tell them he's sick, using his linguistics is appropriate to convey his deep concern for the "Spreading" that like disease (In exalted which comes from spirits!) that he is contagious and has been infected by what kinds of monsters he aims to fight. He sees it as a sickness that he knows darkens his soul.
This character also questions authority. Actually believes he is partly an Anathema, for the very curse that makes him do these things was never present prior. Yet his will to live is there, and like the T-800 in Terminator 2, he cannot put himself into a suicidal march. So instead learns to create barriers from himself and against the multitude of other monsters in the many worlds. So he attempts to give back, often through vicarious redemption. Appeasing a surviving relative, or even just someone that reminds him of the one he senselessly harmed and probably killed or drove to traumatic ruin.
The Eclipse would have Twilight favored abilities except for Investigation. Instead he'd have something based on the character as the fifth favored ability. I know he'd want to build, fix, and engineer. That he's skilled and not just talented. If flaws are allowed he'd have the trifecta of; the code of honor for his allies, and an intolerance of recreational drug users, the phobia of orphanages, and Vice of sex for money. He'd have a 0 point flaw of a ward that is well behaved and responsible. If need be, a follower, but more likely a charge he wants to mentor into becoming a better person that he can help give (through Lore charms) solar magic, with the ability to "turn it off". That is the biggest intimacy that falls in contrast to my Fiend, he isn't interested in the consummation, or recreation, but procreation. He'd have a rooting of Immaculate Philosophy close to Lookshy's romanticized virtues. That, for my character, is what atonement will require first, to face his fear, undergo the same knife, choose child over child, and otherwise serve the people in the cracks of the world, even at the expense of the surface. He is hopefully, staunchly committed to helping those that fell into the cracks, and making wicked people pay.
All the above ties into their social position. I'd want to talk about that with the ST, to get the specifics and chistel away any parts that I mentioned that don't fit, or fit really well and need to be extended further.
