General Exalted Thread

[Blaque]

Generally, I think that regular gods are more than enough to cover most needs.

If you want something more eldritch, but don't want to get a demon involved though, I do think it could be possible to have those in Yu-Shan. They wouldn't be gods proper, not in the way Ahlat or Ryzala are. Just something weird and bespoke, something that the Primordials made for a specific purpose. Whatever they are or do, they sided with the gods and the Exalted in the war and were rewarded for that. They may have official position with the Bureaucracy, but if they don't spend their time in the Jade Pleasure Dome like the Incarnae they're probably focused on whatever they were made for. ...

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I kind of think to an extent, the Incarna themselves have a bit of that and are notably retired.

And on some things, I think it's okay to just consider that the Bureau can't do a lot actionable on some things, so doesn't bother. There's not a God of Fire since it's kind of just not something that needs maintaining or which can be managed that way, since it's one of the five building blocks of the universe, which seems to extend beyond Creation itself. I'm not sure what such a god even would do. Save maybe be the one you go to as a go-between between it and the Dragon of Fire (the latter of which I kind of headcanon long ago as being the gods of their elements on paper, and kind of the Platonic Embodiment of "Being Made from that Element" in another).

... Likely, the Celestial Bureaucracy has a number of unenviable positions and jobs that mostly entail keeping those things happy and out of everyone else's hair.

I would stress though, that these things should be rare if they appear at all. While I do like reminders that Yu-Shan was made by the Primordials for the Primordials and their souls, the gods have spent thousands of years taming the place. They'll never get rid of every remnant of the Age of Glory, that doesn't mean they haven't made a very spirited attempt at just that.

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I think notably, the gods aren't seemingly meant to be where that kind of eldritch stuff lives. That's more the realm of titanic spirits I think. Hell, souls of Gaia are out there still. Nothing really stops them from being all cosmic horrory. Kind of honestly would be interesting if the Door of the Temple of Metamorphosis was a Gaian spirit as I think on it.

 

[Lioness]

Like, I'll start out with a strong premise for a game, something I'm really excited about. The first story or two will go along fine. Then after a while, I end up petering out. The game stops being fun and I feel like I spend the entire time scrambling to try and keep up with the players and try to give them something fun. Even with players I friggen adore and gladly put in the work for it never seems to stay and I end up making everything up on the spot which is not conducive to long-term fun.

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So in what way are you not keeping up with your players? Identifying exactly what's making running the game stop being fun for you seems important.

 

[Kaiya]

She's more of a very large, very unpleasant environmental hazard in her regular shape and it feels weird to compare her against like, a guy with a sword or something in the state.

Her weaker human shape can like, participate in combat, but like... Not reliably beat a combat Exalt. She doesn't necessarily need to beat you to tag you with infinite suffering Venom or something, but that's not like, disputing the point.

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This is on the money on all counts, yeah.

 

[Mosshadow95]

I was wondering how far would the Silver Pact go to defeat the Realm/Immaculacy.

For example a Circle finds some ancient remote control station for part of the Realm Defense Grid that if activated would generate a massive Tsunami in the inland sea; so they start sending out messages in meetings saying something along the lines of : " With this weapon we can wipe out all of the realm's major port cities with a great wall of water, sink nearly every ship in the inland sea and inundate the various DB held cities such as Chiaroscuro, Lookshy and Calin. Even better, triggering this will probably disable the RDG in the blessed isles and cause untold devastation in the interior. With nearly of the Realm's fleets not at Wujian sunk almost none of the garrisons can be resupplied and the merchant fleets will be gone, not to mention that the farm land around the coastal cities will be spoiled with salt water. In a few decades our armies can march towards the Inland sea as the Realm withers and the threshold can be ours. All we need is some help in breaching the control station and artifice to repair it in a few years while the Realm gets on with its civil war. "

Is this an amount of mass death lots of Lunar elders would accept? I would think people like Raksi and MHS would be fine with that, they've been fighting the realm forever and their empires would be safest. Ul is an absolute no since he wants to surgically kill the DBs. Sha'oka probably a yes because that would cripple the Realms efforts in the Caul as everyone who is a DB probably abandons the war to run home to find out what is left of their House. Leviathan, probably a no? Aqadar absolutely, probably rushes in himself and tries to take over the project, probably turns everyone off if he gets control because they think he would over do it. Shadow Fang Vanguard, probably a yes. Amatha No. Golden Leaf also no.

I think this would cause a deep young Lunar vs elder split as I would think the young people would be less keen on wiping out lots of cities to destroy the Realm when they are more interested in keeping the Realm away from where they live.

 

[SentientPebble]

I suspect such a discovery might tear the Silver Pact apart more than anything. Someone discovering such a powerful weapon and proposing its liberal use would become one of the single most important situations in a heart beat, and there would be multiple people Wanting it for themselves, Wanting to prevent its use, Wanting to destroy it, etc. Multiple mutually incompatible elder lunars suddenly gaining a new number 1 priority and heading to the same place at the same time.

I also suspect that infosec could not be maintained on this for long, and various other factions would also immeidately make it their number one priority.
Edit:
It really doesn't help the Silver Pact that they're not really an organisation that comes to universal consensus. Everyone does their own thing and supports each other as desired/as necessary, and as long as you're not actively obstructing or sabotaging another elder, you're mostly free to do whatever you want. This would fly directly in the face of that, and very few Elders could take an attitude of 'live and let live' with this artifact.

 

[akoboldskobold]

In 3e, Smiling Rat was expelled for opening up shadowlands across the North, though I could see someone arguing that it was a tactical issue rather than a moral or ethical one.

The Pact is still not above fucking over a lot of people in order to get their revenge—half of Radimiel's Seat is fucked due to Lunar sabotage, for example.

The Pact, as ever, remains loose and heterogenous—and a scenario on the scale that Mosshadow is proposing might cleave the Pact in two, permanently.

 

[Walker]

Are there entities other than exalts who display anima, or are anima banners and caste marks unique to the Exalted?

 

[Omicron]

Are there entities other than exalts who display anima, or are anima banners and caste marks unique to the Exalted?

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Anima banners and caste marks are specific to the Exalted. However, other kinds of beings may start to glow when using certain powers, or even develop a full blown DBZ aura pillar of light stuff, which an onlooker could mistake for an anima but which technically isn't. Ligier, for instance, is said to reveal a green radiance in battle that annihilates lesser foes and blinds greater ones.

There were early signs in Ex3 that "anima" was a broader term for a kind of emitted energy that could occur from a variety of sources; Arms mentions that starmetal is born of the "anima" of stars gathering over time. I don't think anything was done with this long term, though.

 

[SinisterPorpoise]

There were early signs in Ex3 that "anima" was a broader term for a kind of emitted energy that could occur from a variety of sources; Arms mentions that starmetal is born of the "anima" of stars gathering over time. I don't think anything was done with this long term, though.

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IIRC in 2E it mentioned that Mortals that somehow got to higher Essence ratings, ...so 3, started to have a faint anima with a chiarusco effect?
IE, making light things brighter and shaded things darker.
edit:
I can't find where it says that right now, because I have work tomorrow and need to sleep, but have found additional info on the general subject, 2E Corebook P.15;

anima: A normally invisible aura that surrounds all living things. When an Exalted uses Essence, that Essence often spills into his anima, making it visible. Therefore, Exalted who expend a great deal of Essence are often surrounded by a brilliant display of power that can be visible miles distant.

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[Lioness]

In 1st and 2nd edition there used to be a god-blooded flaw called beacon of power that made their essence pool split into personal and peripheral like an Exalt, my general understanding was that Ex3 had moved away from this as it was needlessly muddying the waters between god-blooded and Exalts.

 

[Blaque]

There were also some things in Creatures of the Wyld which displayed animas. The undead things that were created by Mother Bog and the shards of Mokrelus the Hundred-handed. They were specifically not human, but had magic that replicated Charms a bit and the use of that seemed to generate animas.