Yes, it does! The Aurorals were a thing in the Divine Revolution, but Bad Things happened when Aurora died. One of the options is that they got twisted into Hearteaters, an optionally canon Exalt type notable for being absolutely impossible to find an ethical way to be one. (Alternatives are not really explored; just the one)
Aurora's corpse also still has tremendous power; the Sovereigns are born from a combination of his corpse and their own patron god who catalyzed the whole thing with an Exigency to make a somewhat-reliable Exaltation tool, the Fount of Glories.
The line 3e is taking with Aurora and his hypothetical chosen is that he canonically existed, and was slain during the Divine Revolution, which down the line has resulted in the whole thing with Uluiru and the Sovereigns. The Aurorals and the Heart-eaters are free for you to include or exclude as you deem best for the game. By default the setting is written assuming the Heart-eaters don't exist, the same as the other optional Exalted included in the Exigent manuscript's appendix.
It's not just that he died being the problem. The Primordials killed him and used his still beating heart to curse the Aurorals, which in turn made them the Heart Eaters.
Honestly, I really like Heart Eaters but I do wish there was more play for them not being horrifying monsters. As is, I can't really work out a role for them other than being a pure antagonist splat.
I like having Heart Eaters around cause its kinda useful to have a exalt that is so bad that it causes unlikely alliances. It doesn't really half step with how awful they can be. Literally just put one pawn in front of your players that accidentally exposes themselves (Or deliberately!). And then suddenly there wracked with paranoia. Now these great heroes are looking over their shoulders every moment and scrutinizing every person they met. This can of course be very annoying if your players start massively wasting time due to this
Of course while I think they are a fun tool for ST'ing. Others might no quite see it that way. Still would be up for playing one eventually. I adore the tone of horror they have about them.
Honestly, I really like Heart Eaters but I do wish there was more play for them not being horrifying monsters. As is, I can't really work out a role for them other than being a pure antagonist splat.
Can't speak for anyone else but for me it's mostly this line:
One notoriously disorganized division head just shoves every memo into an ornate cherrywood chest, using sorcery to make it bigger and bigger until he can "find the time" to sort it.
Honestly, I really like Heart Eaters but I do wish there was more play for them not being horrifying monsters. As is, I can't really work out a role for them other than being a pure antagonist splat.
I think that is their main deal, yeah! You could have a tragic Hearteater PC struggling to do good in the right group, but their powers and compulsions make that feel sort of inherently doomed. The XS companion, despite having player rules for Umbrals and Dream-Souled listed in the Kickstarter stretch goals, is only going to have antagonist rules for Hearteaters.
It's a very compelling setup for antagonists and very specific more sympathetic characters, so I'm glad we have that, although I think it's definitely not a direction we would have seen if they had ended up as like, an actual player facing splat in the vein of Getimians, versus this horrifying niche setting element. Their being optional setting elements makes this approach make more sense. This being the case was the line we had on them for years leading up to getting the Exigents manuscript.
Every time I look at Hearteaters, I think they'd be better as a non-Exalted setting element. Sometimes the E-word demands concessions that aren't good for a splat, and sometimes nothing about the splat really benefits from being "Exalted". Hearteaters feel that way to me; ability-wise, their "one amazing superpower" deal is much more monstrous than Exalted; theme-wise, they don't have the heroic potential or the protagonism that being Exalted is usually about; lore-wise, their connection to the broader Exalted milieu is tacked-on as an optional element must be.
In particular, if they were a breed of monster rather than an Exalt type, they could just be a normal level of optional rather than extra-optional-handle-with-care.
Wun Ja has long remained independent from the Fivescore Fellowship's factional intrigues, but the Gold Faction's revitalization and the Solars' return has brought her into the fray. A return to the First Age's glories seems a distant hope, but the Bureau of Humanity isn't in a position to turn down the opportunity — though it's far from her first priority. This involvement has complicated her personal life. She's long been romantically entangled with Jagalza, Satrap of the Realm, who oversees the Blessed Isle's city fathers. Jagalza has long had dealings with the Bronze Faction, but the Realm's mounting instability has driven her further into their camp in hopes of preserving her office. Their relationship's grown increasingly strained as they dance around the matter, a tension that's spilled out into those branches of the Bureau of Humanity that regular interact with the two goddesses.
That feeling when you think that maybe letting a bunch of Solars carve out kingdoms and build wondrous cities would be cool, but your GF is the goddess of the Realm and also you're her boss 😔
Side note, I really hope that Wun Ja keeps her gloriously silly old design if we get art of her here or in Exigents.
Anyways another character I got commissioned. A Lunar who came from a order of assassins in Paragon. Those who strike down dissidents and protect Paragons interests abroad. They wear a single bell that they train to keep completely silent as they hunt their query. A tradition and method of training in the acts of silence among the order.
That is until Miss 'Rame' (Her title in this line of work) grew tired of her work. Not that she hated the killing, blackmailing, and all around skullduggery. But that the order was weak and she was not. The jobs were to simple, the pay was to bad, and at times she wasn't even paid! So she packed her things and left, seeking out somewhere that would properly appreciate her skills. Of course they sent people after her, which she now wears their bells with pride, and now blessed by Luna. Sometimes she swing by the city of Paragon. Among the old haunts where she knows her once allies roamed, letting the bells ring loud and true. Just to remind them that their continued existence is mercy derived from whimsy.
(Pardon me this are fun to write out. Character who are just kinda awful are great sometimes. And a abject lesson to pay better wages
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Apologies if this isn't the appropriate venue, but I just wanted to pop in and say hi! I'm Fitter Happier, I used to be active on the old White Wolf Exalted forums, I wrote some homebrew, and after many years I've decided to try and break back into the whole Exalted-sphere.
Anyway, how 'bout them Sidereals? Now that I've actually worked in and around the civil service, I have a whole new appreciation and glee for the chapter on the Celestial Bureaucracy. Working for the government does kinda feel like that! Well, with fewer lion-dogs, but still.
Wun Ja has long remained independent from the Fivescore Fellowship's factional intrigues, but the Gold Faction's revitalization and the Solars' return has brought her into the fray. A return to the First Age's glories seems a distant hope, but the Bureau of Humanity isn't in a position to turn down the opportunity — though it's far from her first priority. This involvement has complicated her personal life. She's long been romantically entangled with Jagalza, Satrap of the Realm, who oversees the Blessed Isle's city fathers. Jagalza has long had dealings with the Bronze Faction, but the Realm's mounting instability has driven her further into their camp in hopes of preserving her office. Their relationship's grown increasingly strained as they dance around the matter, a tension that's spilled out into those branches of the Bureau of Humanity that regular interact with the two goddesses.
That feeling when you think that maybe letting a bunch of Solars carve out kingdoms and build wondrous cities would be cool, but your GF is the goddess of the Realm and also you're her boss 😔
Side note, I really hope that Wun Ja keeps her gloriously silly old design if we get art of her here or in Exigents.
I love Wun Ja's whole deal honestly, like she is just neck deep in conspiracy and corruption but you can actually 100% understand how she got there. The Bureau of Heaven metaphorically tore out entire chunks of her organization and forcibly reassigned significant portions of her portfolio, the choicest bits and the most influential purviews, to their own Division of Abstract Matters (and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it was literally and Ryzala, Supreme Minister of Celestial Concerns just straight up Stole a number of office blocks). Subordinated the gods from her Bureau into lower ranking positions with less prestige, respect, and worse pay. And then basically strong-armed the Bureau of Humanity into continuing to play ball with the Bureau of Heaven if they wanted to actually accomplish anything because otherwise a shitload of their staff are now under the mantis-lady.
So in an effort to keep something together, to fund her Bureau and try to keep what remains of her power and influence together, to protect Her People (and that's a lovely detail tbh, her subordinates genuinely love her and many of them who were forcibly reassigned to the Bureau of Heaven work to deliberately spite it) Wun Ja's started cutting all kinds of corrupt deals with Terrestrial Gods. Giving them cover, support, and resources for their cults and theocratic organizations in exchange for loyalty and a share of worship, laundering the ambrosia from all that prayer for bribes, and, especially, drawing together a web of city-fathers and numerous Architects across Creation.
And it's like-
There are lot of ramifications from this, some of them pretty bad. But at the same time it's hard not to root for her at least a little y'know? To want this to somehow work out for her. Because Ryzala did her dirty and precious few people had her back. Amoth City-Smiter is actively undermining her with an eye on her position and Ruvia is Suspicious, running his own investigations.
And its hard to say she's a meaningfully worse person than Amoth or Ryzala, to say nothing of Fucking Taru-Han, chilling out in her big office in Abstract Matters with her collection of stolen souls.
I kind of hated the stolen souls thing in previous incarnations because it felt pointlessly grim and kind of out of step with how death gods actually work in exalted, but this version while not actually being that different just feels like much more of a plot hook in practice and I found myself nodding along to it.
I've found a lot of the lore in this book so far to be really good for that - like Wun Ja's whole deal naturally produces hooks even for games that don't go to heaven, because it portrays a clear heavenly conflict that your local kingdom's deal can be affected by. And it's one that isn't really about bronze or gold or ancient exalted or anything! It's very good.
I kind of hated the stolen souls thing in previous incarnations because it felt pointlessly grim and kind of out of step with how death gods actually work in exalted, but this version while not actually being that different just feels like much more of a plot hook in practice and I found myself nodding along to it.
It works so well imo because the book points out that not only is this pretty much morally atrocious, it's incredibly illegal, illegal in a way that many people (especially Sidereals) will Care About and she's doing it for what are enormously petty reasons of like- vanity and ego. Its a volatile situation, personally and politically. For characters and the system and it fits entirely with the kind of character Taru-Han is styled as I think. She got her (incredibly prestigious) post because she's a Daughter of Saturn and her sisters in the spirit court pulled strings, she keeps her post because Ryzala likes not having any real competition for control and like-
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She takes great pleasure in handling her stolen souls, imagining herself in her mother's place, presiding over life and death. She keeps her most prized souls in a heavily-warded cabinet in her offices, each sealed within a crystalline urn.
Removing souls from the cycle of reincarnation is highly illegal. Taru-Han's gone to great lengths to ensure she isn't caught: paying off censors and the Division of Inevitable Reckoning, dispatching soul collectors to spy on her rivals, and calling in favors with Saturn's spirit court. She's currently most concerned by Varsoi of the Mournful Thurible, the Division of Endings' god of funereal incense. Once a direct subordinate of Taru-Han's, she derailed his political career by foisting him off on the Violet Bier after one thoughtful follow-up question too many. He's familiar enough with the nature of her work to have pieced together clues lost on others, and Tara-Han's worried that he may have already brought his suspicions to his superiors. She's begun cultivating contacts within the Bureau of Destiny, hoping to quash this before it grows into a threat to even her nigh-unassailable position.
There's death and death associated gods who are firmly set against her, and even Lytek (former head of the Division, knowledgeable, well-liked and respected by many of the older hands) absolutely detests her. So it strikes this great balance of like- she's powerful and influential, but you know she's not invulnerable, there's real motivation to tear her down, and how she falls and then What Happens Next when the Bureau of Heaven is blown open by a colossal scandal is all incredibly enticing.
I've found a lot of the lore in this book so far to be really good for that - like Wun Ja's whole deal naturally produces hooks even for games that don't go to heaven, because it portrays a clear heavenly conflict that your local kingdom's deal can be affected by. And it's one that isn't really about bronzer gold or ancient exalted or anything! It's very good.
That's particularly important with her, I think, because out of the canon Exigents, her Architects are probably the most prominent across a swathe of the setting and it's very easy to imagine this element of her political situation coming up in a game with an Architect PC, or even just one with a prominent Architect NPC.
But, yeah, a thing I love here, as well as in the more recent setting content in general, is how much it's written with an eye toward tossing the reader as many dangling plot and character hooks as possible. It's the kind of thing that some of the better regarded 1e content did when it was on point.
I also really like how it is pointed out how Wun Ja's situation is effecting her relationship with Jagalza, it's one of those things that was technically present in previous editions, but is given more focus here, and I think it is something else that really helps to humanize them, for lack of a better word.
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