General Exalted Thread
- Location
- NYC
Sol Invictus has been exalting people since the end of the Primordial War, though. This didn't stop when the Usurpation happened, he just had fewer Exaltations to give around. He Exalts people, gives them no support, and then apparently doesn't get too sad when they die, like every single Solar has post-Usurpation (until the Bull, at least) without making a meaningful difference. He's still doing that now. Any changes aren't a change in Sol's behavior, they're a change in things unrelated to him, that he had nothing to do with.
And Sol Invictus hiding behind legal technicalities about specific mandates when talking to someone born thousands of years after all of that went down, who doesn't even understand the foundational principles of said mandate, in a world where said mandate has been eroded, corrupted, and seized... is exactly in character, but not exactly something one ought to respect, especially from someone saying that they're returning their gaze to creation.
And, like, if his role is to be a king in heaven and heaven's problems have only gotten worse over time, and his trusted servants aren't helping, maybe he's just a bad king? Like, historically one of the big things that Kings actually did was get involved in the bureaucracy. Or any number of other day to day management operations that couldn't be effectively delegated. Sol doesn't appear to be doing that, at least from the older books, and if he is he's doing a bad job. The buck stops with the man in charge, and Sol very clearly is that guy, but he would rather play the Games of Divinity than try to figure out how to improve things.
But he can't bring himself to admit defeat nor to actually stop being involved, even though he also can't bring himself to care enough to take the enormous amount of effort it would take to fix anything, so instead he just says aspirational platitudes, does the best he can with minimal involvement, and then hopes it'll work out. He trusts in subordinates equipped and ill-trained to deal with the problems because he thought they were righteous at one point in time. Because if he did get invested he's afraid, in his heart of hearts, that he would fail, and he can't bring himself to face that risk.
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The impression I get is that he, like the rest of the Incarnae, is well and truly addicted to the Games of Divinity.
Sol ,like the rest of the incarna, is retired so mostly they play the games of divinity.
AshenFox
Copy Control, we are a go.
- Location
- Sector 13
You seem to be operating under a lot of delusions.
Namely that just because Sol is now paying attention that he's going to go literally do all the fucking work when he literally made the Solars and won a war so he didn't have to.
Paying attention does not mean going and fixing shit personally, or would you argue that every world leader should physically go wander around with a gun (and their military behind them) solving every problem ever.
So far as we know, the same thing he's done for a long ass time, only now with less implication of him being an angst filled teenager.
IE: Playing the games of Divinity and overseeing things while talking to 1/5 of the people who become his chosen.
Sol is literally the king of Yu Shan. He has a city that's one quarter of a continent that's literally his direct domain. He personally made the Celestial Lions who go around enforcing the law. His personal forge his literally the greatest forge in all of existence save Autochthon's. Also, again, he's literally the King and literally the most powerful warrior in existence. Mars might be a greater tactician and therefore General, but in actual direct combat the Unconquered Sun lives up to the first part of his name.
So, in short, he does whatever the hell he wants to do because he's a capricious god king who overthrew the previous kings in a titanic war that destroyed who knows how much plus nine out of every ten things on a conceptual level, and if he didn't go out and personally try to fix literally fucking everything during the First Age why in the hell should he go out and personally fix everything now just because things aren't perfect.
Sol doesn't personally exalt every exalt under his aegis. That job literally belongs to Lytek, who does inform Sol, Luna, and the Five Maidens when such an event is about to occur in accordance with Fate so that they can know and, if they so choose, converse with their latest chosen. But the gods don't literally sit around waiting and watching personally. That's boring and some have a great deal of work to do. As far as I'm aware only Luna personally attends to each of her chosen, and Luna is Luna and spends a lot of time with the part of Gaia that's still in Yu Shan.
Alright, you go tell him that.
First you need to get past the defenses of the Jade Pleasure palace, which keeps out all mortals less they gaze upon the Games of Divinity in get ideas like the gods did.
Then you just have to tell the most powerful being in all of Creation, who's whole thing is being amazing and perfect, that he actually sucks at his job.
I'm sure he won't smite you into a puddle of not existence in like 3 seconds flat.
Like, no one is saying the Unconquered Sun is the best king ever. He literally isn't and takes after his super ultimate father in that regard and his chosen/children also take after him in that regard. And all of this is before we even get into the fact that if he WAS perfect and rooted out corruption and was amazing and utterly perfect then Exalted wouldn't be how it is because fucking Deus would have never been allowed to have an Exaltation.
Sol literally doesn't pick champions of virtue and valor. He picks people that will USE his power to do Great Things, or at least attempt such things.
- Location
- NYC
My understanding (which is from Dev statements as I've forgotten what 3E core says) is that Sol now does actually pick every Exalt—that the new canon is that you Exalt because Sol chooses you, not because of autonomous seeking algorithms or mid-level bureaucrats. Also this is in no way responsive to my actual point—at the very least Sol made the same level of effort and involvement [for Zeniths] from Usurpation to now. This isn't him returning his face to Creation, this is him doing the same thing he's always done.
Like, the core issue you don't seem to be engaging with is that Sol's behavior isn't responsible kingship for any reasonable definition of the term, that Exalting random ambitious people and telling them to do righteous things in his name isn't actually returning his face to creation, it's a weak punt that lets him claim to be doing something while doing almost literally nothing, and that by all evidence he's doing similar things in Heaven, because it's easier and more enjoyable to spend all of his time playing the Games of Divinity where (presumably) problems have satisfying solutions and he doesn't need to deal with all of the shit.
And that's fine, but Sol doesn't get credit for anything your character (or another Solar) does to fix Creation, because this isn't actually part of some plan to fix things, it's him saving face and rationalizing his decisions.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
Our world leaders are not capable of telling famines and plagues to cut that shit out, killing liches with a single backhand, and rebuilding infrastructure from nothing in a matter of months.
Our world is not a smoldering ruin where all possible restraints against a total Hobbesian dystopia are absent, the Dead walk the earth, and alien horrors from beyond coherent reality have spent centuries gnawing away at the corners of our universe.
His city is one-third criminal enterprises, one-half squalid slum housing, and one-fifth opulent mansions inhabited by the obscenely wealthy and obscenely corrupt. It's "his direct domain" only in the sense that nobody's bothered striking his name from the legal documentation, because there's no need to do so when the various divine mafia dons already wipe their ass with said documentation on the regular without reprisal.
His Celestial Lions are the only organization left in Yu Shan that actually give a fuck about anything other than personal power, and weren't able to do much of anything to stop Heaven's fall from grace because Sol Invictus (and the rest of the Incarnae, to be fair) refused to change the laws to address the many, many problems that were emerging in the wake of the Usurpation, instead relying on a hideously outdated legal framework that presumed the existence of several hundred Solar Exalted actively contributing to it, or at the very least direct involvement from the Incarnae.
His personal forge has spent centuries gathering dust, because Sol is too busy with his new career of mindless self-indulgence and the aforementioned obsolete legal code mean that nobody can use it without his express permission, which he's no longer able to give because it would involve paying attention to something besides the Games.
His power as a warrior is meaningless when he actively refuses to use it, and your argument is heavily predicated on the idea that his ability to crush evil is meaningless and shouldn't be used as an argument for him going out to make Creation a less horrible place.
Wait, what?
Okay, so are we agreeing then that Sol Invictus is a deconstruction of the omnipotent, non-interventionalist, benevolent god-figure? That he's one of the major contributing factors to the Age of Sorrows coming about, and his petulant, self-absorbed refusal to do anything but reap the rewards of his position while ignoring its responsibilities like an EA executive marks him a being that nobody should expect anything but platitudes and indifference from?
Because my argument is that Sol Invictus being a good person willing to do anything for the sake of others isn't really reconcilable with the bulk of Exalted's lore and history, and it sounds like you're agreeing?
I'm officially confused, because this segment comes across more as an endorsement of him being a tyrannical man-baby. I'll address this when I've had some actual sleep.Alright, you go tell him that.
First you need to get past the defenses of the Jade Pleasure palace, which keeps out all mortals less they gaze upon the Games of Divinity in get ideas like the gods did.
Then you just have to tell the most powerful being in all of Creation, who's whole thing is being amazing and perfect, that he actually sucks at his job.
I'm sure he won't smite you into a puddle of not existence in like 3 seconds flat.
- Location
- Singapore
Can't we all agree that Sol Invictus' opinions on morality counts for shit, and that he is in no way a moral paragon?
Queshire
Wants a pink flamingo for their lawn.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
- Location
- Singapore
Aw man.
- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
Purifying Flames is more or less exactly what I was thinking about when mentioning purification spells.
Since we're mentioning courting gods and demons... I think the closest a Sorcerer comes to a heal-HL-spell is Demon of the First Circle, with a Sesselja, Stomach Bottle Bug, as the demon in question.
Regarding Sorcery, if I were to create "Healing Sorcery", I would do the same thing 2E did and crib the notes from an appropriate Dragon-Blooded Charm. They did that, with several spells doing verbatim the same thing Dragon-Blooded Charms do. Then combine it with 2E Alchemy that can make remedies that make extras considered heroics and (probably, can't remember off the top of my head) can make remedies that let mortals recover from ailments as Exalts do... Use logic, and invoke the Wood Aspect for life.
And make a spell that allows one to brew a large medicinal bath of rare and mysterious herbal remedies, into which a wounded soldier is lain. While the motes are committed (sorcery can do that too), the one laying within recovers from ailments as an Exalt (or doubles the rate of healing if they already were like that), and additional mote expediture converts lethal damage to bashing, rapidly closing wounds.
- Location
- Ottawa
It's kind of reasonable to say that Creation is not the Sun's responsibility anymore. But Heaven very clearly is, and he's very clearly failing in his responsibilities there. Which has pretty terrible consequences for mortals and gods alike.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Gotta remember that this is the same Unconquered Sun who did absolutely jack and shit to help the Dragon Kings after they got essentially crippled as a species for helping his little revolution. It'd be completely within his capabilities to make some new souls so that more of them could be born and their culture could continue to grow.
- Location
- Singapore
.... wasn't it because they weren't the Dragon kings who were there since the beginning of their race.
- Location
- Singapore
.... huh?
I thought exalted did not do 'lost elf technology'?
I thought exalted did not do 'lost elf technology'?
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
At the absolute least, he could have sponsored a small group of gods to go and round up the "feral" Dragon Kings who remain in Creation and try to help them, or at least put them somewhere where they can be at peace.
Instead, he abandoned them to squat in the fetid ruins of their world, mad and broken and lesser than animals. Lifetimes of piety, of faithful service and self-sacrifice to the holy Sun - all repaid with pain and darkness and utter abandonment.
Judge a man by the way he treats those he no longer has need for.
EDIT: Also, the creation of new souls, and the healing of existing ones, isn't some sort of lost wonder that nobody could ever replicate.
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From the 3E Core, p. 241
There are things that once made cannot be made again and so once destroyed cannot be brought back. Just like once someone is dead, they are dead and there is no resurrection. Just like once something is done there is no time travel or reset button to undo it.
A: You moved the goalposts. I was specifically responding to your assertion it is within his capabilities to do.
B: The Solars did all the nice things you suggested in the First Age. The DK chose to regress into greater savagery so they didn't have to think about the ruin of their culture.
C: There is a mechanism in place to make new human and animal souls. No new dragon king souls have ever been made since the creation of their race.
D: The DK souls are entirely gone, there is nothing to repair even if it were possible.
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- Location
- Singapore
Good god. I hate that. Almost as much as 3e thaumaturgy.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Holy Father in Heaven, I can't believe I'm using a Christmas day for this. God have mercy on my soul.
How would you feel if all electricity and data technology around you suddenly began acting on its own accord or because a man told it to? We need to remember that superstition is not xenophobic fearfulness of anything different and belief in quaint and absurd little acts. Tradition is a defining pillar of pre-modern society, to the point that lawmakers of the medieval would hire old, wise-looking dudes specifically to assure them that yes, the law they were making was definitely in tune with How Things Were When They Were Young. It still is, but in a different way. We like the world acting as we expect it to and the cycle of the harvest is literally the definition of how the year is supposed to go in a traditionally agrarian society. If a sorcerer simply wills the corn to grow, that is yes, a miracle of unprecedented scale, but it is also terrifying. It is a fundamental defiance of one of the most fundamental laws of time, a direct display of power and majesty that is scarcely comprehendable. And think, if a figure can do that, what can he not do?
Remember, sorcerers are not hated.
They are feared.
And with very good reason.
No.
We do not agree.
The Sun is not omnipotent, nor is he necessarily benevolent. He is not one of the major contributing factors to the Age of Sorrows coming about.
The Sun is powerful, yes, warlords often are. He is just a warlord on divine scale. A heavenly general, if you will. He is not necessarily benevolent, because again, he was a divine warlord, and at the end still bade Autochthon lay the Great Geas on the Mountain Folk. All that about benevolence and him being willing to lay down his life for a single mortal? That's 2e. Not even 2e, it's late Ink Monkeys 2e that came into the line with Glories. It doesn't have shit to do with his original character.
He is not a major contributing factor of the Age of Sorrows coming about. The Solars did that, the Dragon-Blooded did that, the Sidereals did that, the Lunars did that. The Exalted did that.
All the Sun did was to turn his face. In shame, in revulsion.
The mandate was given to the Exalted, and the Exalted can tell famines and plagues to cut that shit out, the Exalted can kill liches with a single backhand and rebuild infrastructure from nothing in a matter of months.
And then they failed.
They failed, the Sun didn't play any part.
But I'm not even interested in justifying, because if the Sun isn't omni-benevolent, all I can say is good. That's a good thing, because Creation's on you, fucker, not on the Sun's shoulders. That's the premise of the game, and there ain't no Heavenly Father waiting for you to break down the doors of the Jade Pleasure Dome and beseech Him for help. There is the here and the now, there are your comrades and your allies, there is Creation and there is you. Blessed with heavenly power, invested with the holy Exaltation that is a sign of his favour, given mandate and invitation to go out and make of the world a righteous place as you see fit.
What more do you need? Why do you blame him for not helping. You are right there and he gave you the power to make the world a better place.
How would you feel if all electricity and data technology around you suddenly began acting on its own accord or because a man told it to? We need to remember that superstition is not xenophobic fearfulness of anything different and belief in quaint and absurd little acts. Tradition is a defining pillar of pre-modern society, to the point that lawmakers of the medieval would hire old, wise-looking dudes specifically to assure them that yes, the law they were making was definitely in tune with How Things Were When They Were Young. It still is, but in a different way. We like the world acting as we expect it to and the cycle of the harvest is literally the definition of how the year is supposed to go in a traditionally agrarian society. If a sorcerer simply wills the corn to grow, that is yes, a miracle of unprecedented scale, but it is also terrifying. It is a fundamental defiance of one of the most fundamental laws of time, a direct display of power and majesty that is scarcely comprehendable. And think, if a figure can do that, what can he not do?
Remember, sorcerers are not hated.
They are feared.
And with very good reason.
No.
We do not agree.
The Sun is not omnipotent, nor is he necessarily benevolent. He is not one of the major contributing factors to the Age of Sorrows coming about.
The Sun is powerful, yes, warlords often are. He is just a warlord on divine scale. A heavenly general, if you will. He is not necessarily benevolent, because again, he was a divine warlord, and at the end still bade Autochthon lay the Great Geas on the Mountain Folk. All that about benevolence and him being willing to lay down his life for a single mortal? That's 2e. Not even 2e, it's late Ink Monkeys 2e that came into the line with Glories. It doesn't have shit to do with his original character.
He is not a major contributing factor of the Age of Sorrows coming about. The Solars did that, the Dragon-Blooded did that, the Sidereals did that, the Lunars did that. The Exalted did that.
All the Sun did was to turn his face. In shame, in revulsion.
The mandate was given to the Exalted, and the Exalted can tell famines and plagues to cut that shit out, the Exalted can kill liches with a single backhand and rebuild infrastructure from nothing in a matter of months.
And then they failed.
They failed, the Sun didn't play any part.
But I'm not even interested in justifying, because if the Sun isn't omni-benevolent, all I can say is good. That's a good thing, because Creation's on you, fucker, not on the Sun's shoulders. That's the premise of the game, and there ain't no Heavenly Father waiting for you to break down the doors of the Jade Pleasure Dome and beseech Him for help. There is the here and the now, there are your comrades and your allies, there is Creation and there is you. Blessed with heavenly power, invested with the holy Exaltation that is a sign of his favour, given mandate and invitation to go out and make of the world a righteous place as you see fit.
What more do you need? Why do you blame him for not helping. You are right there and he gave you the power to make the world a better place.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
@ManusDomini, I can say that we're in agreement on everything besides the idea that Sol sending out Solar Exaltations again (which is honestly an idea I have multiple issues with, but anyways) in any way reduces his culpability.
My handling of Sol Invictus is to make him, well, a colossal piece of shit. If you went into the Jade Pleasure Dome seeking his aid, it would end with him blowing open the wall of the building and butchering thousands of Yu Shan's inhabitants in his frenzied, psychotic efforts to murder you, because the only way you'd get any reaction out of him is by shattering the board for the Games; at that point, either you kill him, or he kills you and then commits suicide*, because literally the only thing that matters to him anymore is diddling himself inside the Jade Pleasure Dome, and if he can't have that, then he goes irretrievably insane.
Likewise, he doesn't have anything to do with the Solar Exaltations beyond contributing Essence for their creation, and even if he could contact the Lawgivers through them, he wouldn't bother. The Unconquered Sun is no more, and all that remains is an emaciated wretch who'd let the world die rather than miss a single turn at the Games of Divinity. The most benefit you could derive from him would be carving him up and using his Essence to perform some sort of insane Solar Circle Sorcerous Working, or possibly placing some sort of geas on him (...somehow) and using him as a WMD against Princes of Chaos & the nastier sort of deathlord.
* Potentially after ordering the entirety of the Celestial Court to kill themselves as well out of deranged spite, triggering mass chaos as lesser divinities are wiped out and the greater ones are left shivering and near-catatonic in the bloodsoaked streets of Yu Shan, their servants and sycophants dead to the last.
My handling of Sol Invictus is to make him, well, a colossal piece of shit. If you went into the Jade Pleasure Dome seeking his aid, it would end with him blowing open the wall of the building and butchering thousands of Yu Shan's inhabitants in his frenzied, psychotic efforts to murder you, because the only way you'd get any reaction out of him is by shattering the board for the Games; at that point, either you kill him, or he kills you and then commits suicide*, because literally the only thing that matters to him anymore is diddling himself inside the Jade Pleasure Dome, and if he can't have that, then he goes irretrievably insane.
Likewise, he doesn't have anything to do with the Solar Exaltations beyond contributing Essence for their creation, and even if he could contact the Lawgivers through them, he wouldn't bother. The Unconquered Sun is no more, and all that remains is an emaciated wretch who'd let the world die rather than miss a single turn at the Games of Divinity. The most benefit you could derive from him would be carving him up and using his Essence to perform some sort of insane Solar Circle Sorcerous Working, or possibly placing some sort of geas on him (...somehow) and using him as a WMD against Princes of Chaos & the nastier sort of deathlord.
* Potentially after ordering the entirety of the Celestial Court to kill themselves as well out of deranged spite, triggering mass chaos as lesser divinities are wiped out and the greater ones are left shivering and near-catatonic in the bloodsoaked streets of Yu Shan, their servants and sycophants dead to the last.
Then why are you even using him when your motivation seems to be some sort of revenge fantasy because he isn't Jesus?
The whole "rip the mask off to reveal the rot beneath" deconstruction doesn't actually add anything. It just makes the world more grimdark and often to no end other than edginess for edginess' sake.
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- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I mean yes, you can remove all moral complexity and nuance and just paint a giant ass over the Unconquered Sun and write "dum fuk" but you could also just play Warhammer 40.000, yet the reasons I play Exalted are not usually the reasons I play Warhammer.
My personal thought on UCS not being more active was a combination of:
-He was literally bound by his word to leave Creation to the Exalted, he couldn't just go "you guys are useless, I'm going back on the job" without going against his nature.
-He couldn't just reform Heaven in his image on his own. The other Incarna have their own agendas and by THEIR own nature, they would resist efforts to carve Heaven's bureaucracy into the Sun's image alone. Corruption thrives in the gaps between these images, particularly with the Terrestrial endpoint subordinated to the Exalted.
-The Games of Divinity may or may not be as addictive as the common perception of them are, but they DO at least offer a very good distraction, and perhaps even a rationalization to achieve point 2(i.e. instead of "I must keep playing Games, they're fun" it becomes "I must beat Jupiter in this round so I can get her cooperation with implementing this reform she'd otherwise resist, wait fuck what are you doing Luna?!").
-He does not exactly share mortal morality. From what I can tell he's perfect like a perfect Greek Hero. Theres no obligation to go save everyone and everything.
I.e. its not that he's just sitting there jacking off, for all his power he's constrained by his nature like other spirits.
-He was literally bound by his word to leave Creation to the Exalted, he couldn't just go "you guys are useless, I'm going back on the job" without going against his nature.
-He couldn't just reform Heaven in his image on his own. The other Incarna have their own agendas and by THEIR own nature, they would resist efforts to carve Heaven's bureaucracy into the Sun's image alone. Corruption thrives in the gaps between these images, particularly with the Terrestrial endpoint subordinated to the Exalted.
-The Games of Divinity may or may not be as addictive as the common perception of them are, but they DO at least offer a very good distraction, and perhaps even a rationalization to achieve point 2(i.e. instead of "I must keep playing Games, they're fun" it becomes "I must beat Jupiter in this round so I can get her cooperation with implementing this reform she'd otherwise resist, wait fuck what are you doing Luna?!").
-He does not exactly share mortal morality. From what I can tell he's perfect like a perfect Greek Hero. Theres no obligation to go save everyone and everything.
I.e. its not that he's just sitting there jacking off, for all his power he's constrained by his nature like other spirits.