General Exalted Thread
In Directions: Yu-Shan, Ambrosia is described as:
Walker of the Yellow Path
Ho There!
- Location
- The Land of Memes
Thanks. Since I apparently got Quintessece confused with Nectar, do you know what Quintessence looks like?
It's described as a shining liquid.
Roadie
A plate full of blins and a cat nearby.
The Investigation one claims to be a memory-archive Charm, but the actual effect of it, after you get past the paragraph worth of air-breathing mermaid "you can compile and reconsider evidence super-fast" (when that's not actually required anywhere), is "once per story, you instantly solve a riddle or mystery".
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samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
Raw Ambrosia is often made into the shape of coins and wrapped in foils of precious metals. Like so. It is also important to note that newly-Exalted Sidereals have been known to literally eat all of their shoestring operational budget.
dash931
Conil
So. I'm trying to get into Exalted as a setting, with reading the books and this thread.
It's alarmingly obvious that there's problems that need addressing, vis-a-vis the first two chapters the Infernals splatbooks, the only endgames for the agency-stripped abyssals as being to be onboard with plunging Creation into oblivion or trying to become Solars again, the Guild being bunk as written, trying to balance mortals mattering, what to slot in from Terrifying Argent Witches, Power Levels (TM) for Exaltations, consistent Solar thematics-
And, uh. Well.
I'd like to ask for advice on things to look at, what's good to rely on, and generally where to start. Because there's holes big enough to ride a yeddim through.
It's alarmingly obvious that there's problems that need addressing, vis-a-vis the first two chapters the Infernals splatbooks, the only endgames for the agency-stripped abyssals as being to be onboard with plunging Creation into oblivion or trying to become Solars again, the Guild being bunk as written, trying to balance mortals mattering, what to slot in from Terrifying Argent Witches, Power Levels (TM) for Exaltations, consistent Solar thematics-
And, uh. Well.
I'd like to ask for advice on things to look at, what's good to rely on, and generally where to start. Because there's holes big enough to ride a yeddim through.
I've generally found that the various Compasses make pretty good and inspiring texts that manage to paint a very evocative picture of the late Second Age of Creation, although there's (of course) bunk in all of them.
From what I've heard the 1st Edition books about the same areas are even better, but I haven't looked into them.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Read Games of Divinity and then Scavenger Sons, or vice versa.
After that, well, it depends.
Jon Chung
=][=
Good list. I would add one to make the core: Games of Divinity, Scavenger Sons and the original Exalted: the Dragon-Blooded.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
I avoided that because its much less... rules neutral than the other two. There are no rules in Scavenger Sons and the rules in Games of Divinity are minimal. Exalted: The Dragonblooded is, very much, a rulebook. If you're going to get that, you should have 1st edition to be able to make sense of it and what those two giant chapters of game rules are saying.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Without spoiling anything, is it just me or is Fallout 4 one of the best Creation simulators out there. I mean You've got the power armour (Warstriders), which practically makes you immune to small arms and makes you a god of the battlefield but is incredibly difficult to keep running at times (so requires plenty of infrastructure), you've got the random scavenging of various pre-war (or first age) parts to use them for things they weren't quite designed for (nice pre-war fridge... I'm gonna melt it down and make a chair) and you've got the towns based in first age (prewar) ruins. Plus all the random automata that some unthinking solar or sorceror messing with things he didn't understand left lying around).
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
Creation is far, far more post apocalyptic. The First Age is gone, long gone, and while in some places its relics still shape the surroundings... for the vast majority it just doesn't matter. Civilization fell, then rose, then fell again, and has built itself up all anew.
Fallout is too wrapped up in the pre-war era to really be much like Creation.
And honestly, both of Exalted's falls left more societies and the like than Fallout's did.
…and now I'm having ideas for a Shard where the Solar Exalted return to a world that's just been through a Fallout-style apocalypse.
…and now I'm having ideas for a Shard where the Solar Exalted return to a world that's just been through a Fallout-style apocalypse.
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
I do think that justification of the MC system might have something to do with this setting element . . . but I also think that the choice of handling this phenomenon in the MC system stems from wanting to support certain setting phenomena and prevent others. Notably, if you don't do it the way it's done in the corebook, you make the epic clashes of armies lead by great swordsmen impossible, because everything becomes a War Of Obsidian Butterflies (substitute Silent Wind or other attacks that trivially pinkmist hundreds of standalone mortals/Extras, as appropriate).
Which brings me to another observation:
Exalted seems to be an endgoals-first game, as opposed to principles-first: if a setting element looks cool, then the setting designers try to find a way adding it and of handwaving a justification for it, not the other way around. That's not the style of worldbuilding I'm used to, and normally I don't like it, don't approve it etc. But this is what is. A case of 'one stupid organisation' can be explained as a lone oversight on the behalf of the world designers/authors/WW/OPP. But when there is a whole trend of such things, I can do nothing but conclude that this is seen as normal/acceptable/written-as-intended by designers/authors/WW/OPP.
The authors seemed to want to give Exalted a mythic feel, and I've seen people criticise myths for likewise weird psychologies of its characters (e.g. Kronos eating a dressed-up rock instead of one of his kids, because he was told it's his Zeus).
@Hazard said it: there's bunk in them all.
Calling them 'blargs' would merely play on the onomatopoeia, giving a generic bad thing impression. But using 'demon' implies that not only that the publically-accepted ideas about them are the sort of europeoid bad thing, but also that the context in which the word sprung, and the bad traits for which the demons are seen as bad things, are Greco-Abrahamic in flavour. It's the difference between using 'rogue' and 'ninja', or 'warrior' and 'bogatyr', or 'prison' and 'gulag'. The former in each pair a descriptor which can still be subverted. The latter, in addition, also establishes a surrounding cultural framework and context; it carries more baggage than the former.
'Underworld' is a good subversible word: it kinda implies this broad concept of a world of the dead lying below Creation, only turns out that it's more like a reflection existing in parallel of Creation. But if you use, say, 'cossack' in place of 'soldier', suddenly I know that the setting surrounding said warrior has cavalry and gunpowder and distillation and rebellious attitude.
There's a difference between making the public opinion in a setting untrue, and misleading readers about what the public opinion is.
Anyway, FO4 power armour is far closer to my model of Shogunate armour. Big, heavy, tankish, and something that modern Creation savants can look at and understand the operating principles even if they can't replicate them. And yes, there's totally places in the Scavenger Lands where people use Shogunate Armour with no power core and wrecked systems as superheavy armour, in the same manner as the way the NCR uses wrecked power armour.
I use Warframes for my High First Age armour, with their lithe, organic appearance and really hard to understand ways of working.
(Your modern Twilight might be able to slowly and laboriously make new suits of Shogunate armour. You will not, in any way, be able to make new High First Age armour. You probably won't even be able to understand how it works for decades, even with your Solar power. Which means you probably should go invade other people who have any scraps of it so you can slowly assemble one from bits.)
I use Warframes for my High First Age armour, with their lithe, organic appearance and really hard to understand ways of working.
(Your modern Twilight might be able to slowly and laboriously make new suits of Shogunate armour. You will not, in any way, be able to make new High First Age armour. You probably won't even be able to understand how it works for decades, even with your Solar power. Which means you probably should go invade other people who have any scraps of it so you can slowly assemble one from bits.)
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vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
Soulbreakers?
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Solar Level sorcery,
The Sidereals Failed, and the world suffered for it. Though the Solar Exaltions were eventually trapped in mammoth underground vaults, the world was too devastated for the Great Plague to have much effect... there wasn't a Shogunnate around to pick up the pieces or spread it further.
Well, this is just an alt-Shogunate where the Great Contagion never happens and thus the Shogunate wipes itself out with various Weapons of Elemental Destruction (plus high-tech High First Age stuff left over).
So I'd make up something which uses pure essence harvested from an Elemental Pole which converts everything around it into more of it. Earth versions petrify everything in the blast area and leave a circular dome of stone. Wood ones even turn the air to poisonous spores. Water ones just leave a circular lake. Air ones explode in a storm which dissolves everything and leaves a circular crater. And Fire ones set the world on fire.
Of course, overuse of them destabilised the dragonlines, and send essence rushing from all five poles which left Creation an essence-irradiated mess (which was at least fortified against the Wyld by the experience).
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
I mean, I may not be able to "trivially pinkmist" mortals, but it's pretty easy to make their existence utterly irrelevant with less than a dozen Melee charms at Essence 3.
Dipping Swallow Defense, Bulwark Stance, Fivefold Bulwark Stance, Protection of Celestial Bliss, and First or Second Melee Excellency; optional charms for extra Fuck You [not all Melee] include Infinite Melee Mastery, Perfect Blade Aegis, an Awareness Excellency, Panoptic Fusion Discipline, Reflex Sidestep Technique, Shadow Over Water, and Leaping Dodge Method for a round 12. All together, Dex 4, Melee 5, Specialty +3 with a Staff will give you a DV of (4+5+3+4+3)/2 + 1 + 2 = 9.5+3= 13 for your no-cost DV, a flurry breaker, an attack pool of 20 dice and no DV penalty for attacks, 1m surprise-negation, and a flurry-breaker. Just the first four I listed give a no-cost DV of 10.
Mortal dice pools are going to max out at 16 dice (these are mortals who are very good candidates for Exaltation, who have likely devoted most of their lives to learning a single weapon that they are naturally talented with, and that weapon happens to have Accuracy +3 - i.e. an Exceptional Knife, Straight Sword, Staff, or Short Spear).
Also, 15m, 1wp and a Speed 5, DV -2 action isn't trivial. That's 1/4 of my (pretty optimized) Solar's total mote pool, before looking at motes committed to artifacts (after which it becomes 1/3 of her mote pool).
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
The Sword of Creation. Turns out, Big Red didn't have control over it like she thought. Welp, at least the Fair Folk are all dead!
Aleph
Princess of Stabbity
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ah, I should probably point out here. Sasi isn't his ex. She's his current. They're together, just separated by work. Keris is her mistress. Hence the awkwardness.
greensun
You shall all burn beneath my light!!!
Solar level sorcery, Soul-Breaker orbs and Thousand Forged Dragons. They're all WMD class weapons and abilities and more importantly, they leave the regions they effect utterly devastated for decades to come.