General Exalted Thread

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I keep meaning to go through a bunch of third circle demons and imagine how they would function as antagonists if stripped from the wider context of Exalted and transplanted (alongside their second circles) to a hypothetical epic fantasy series.

Edit: Ligier is very Sauron. The ones who would be keen on conquest are easy to figure our. Others such as Orabilis would be a bit harder.

Edit: Orabilis is tricky I think because the secrets he protects shouldn't be his secrets? A solution might be something like the antagonist Pillars of Eternity.
 
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Grytorm said:
Edit: Orabilis is tricky I think because the secrets he protects shouldn't be his secrets? A solution might be something like the antagonist Pillars of Eternity.
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Orabilis: The Young Gods created him to keep the secrets of the Old Gods from being discovered by mortals, so that the Old Gods will stay where the Young Gods put them.
 
Gazetteer said:
She was only added for 2e and so has no 1e version. I would be very surprised if she ever got ported into 3e, both because 3e content uses 1e as its primary source and rarely takes anything directly from 2e, but also because god do some things from that era ever make you go "wow, fifteen years ago was a really different time" in a very bad way.
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It was years ago, but there was mention of possibility revisiting Ipythimia to make her something less problematic.
 
Do expand the dreaming sea, I have added some Greek/Vikings to the west of Volivant. They have a really interesting (imo) approach to reincarnation and citizenship. Take a look!

docs.google.com

The Epikaros.docx

docs.google.com docs.google.com
 
To those who remember my Cosmic Exalted parody splat, I'm planning on a reprise for April Fools (or later, depending on whether or not life comes at me). This time, as a fully-(un)playable 3e character type. They're a love letter to the long history of Exalted's community, its highs and lows, its embarrassing and funny moments, and its long running arguments.

As one person, however, I can't possible remember all of the relevant things to include. So if anyone has any particular gags, incidents, discourses, etc. etc. that they'd like to possibly see depicted, please submit them here!
 
Thinking about the idea I have seen a few times which compares the Yozi to Mt. Olympus and the Unquestionable to the Olympians. And that makes me wonder about how the Titanomachy fits into that metaphor. Gives me the idea of Gaia having a weird soul structure that had the capacity to violently restructure itself without any risk to Gaia.
 
TenfoldShields said:
I completely breezed past this on first skim but making moral character hereditary as an antidote to perceived problematic elements is a fucking wild proposition.

Like what the shit.
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Ah, but moral character wouldn't be hereditary. It wouldn't be a question of morality at all, and the thing being inherited would be power rather than personality.

The Scarlet Empress is a monster among monsters, and that very monstrousness would make Exalts of her descendants.
 
Sanctaphrax said:
Ah, but moral character wouldn't be hereditary. It wouldn't be a question of morality at all, and the thing being inherited would be power rather than personality.

The Scarlet Empress is a monster among monsters, and that very monstrousness would make Exalts of her descendants.
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The takeaway would be "therefore everything she did was Right and Based because it empowered her bloodline", generally speaking. It's not a good framing to use, because all it really gets across is that if you Go Out And Do Colonialism, your ingroup will profit massively and your descendants will become a breed apart, inherently superior to the unwashed masses they're brutally exploiting.

"What if the racial justifications for colonialism were just true" is a bad move, basically.
 
Reading Abyssals (might be the book that gets me into 3e) and have a bunch of unrelated thoughts so here you go:

Random thought brought about by me coming up with the most basic bitch Abyssal exalted idea, but I've always struggled to make exalted in the fallen hero/defector from evil mold

Like the idea of a Solar who *was* a paragon of the realm until he realized it was evil and turned against it and that caused him to exalt was probably the first character idea I ever had for exalted (and id bet good money it was the same for others) but the nature of exalted as a game line means you can't really do that. It doesn't make sense to have Arthas Mendel, greatest hero and general of the realm, be a mortal.

It's not impossible to work around, but the game does make it hard and that's a shame
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Brainwave on ExEss's decision to link each Intimacy into a Virtue. Its meant to represent how deep emotional needs are manifested in specific behaviors. So someone's deep and abiding need to be loved/have companionship might manifest in the *specific* intimacy of "Member of the Realm Legions" and when they kicked out the *need* will still be there so they will try to fulfill it by joining another group or forming a family or something.

Which is neat, but I think it could be done better.

It also gives me the idea of a social system where you define both your Greater and Lesser intimacies, with the former being your deep emotional needs and the lesser the specific manifestations thereof. In most situations a person is only aware of their lesser intimacies, and invoking it counts as invoking the greater since the two are conflated (characters not knowing the difference between wants and needs, etc). But when the two are in disagreement you can force someone to betray the lesser intimacy in service to the greater or else take some sort of social/mental consequence as they try to square the two. In this system the greater intimacies would be inviolate and couldn't really be targeted with social

So, taking the earlier example, a person may have "I need to be loved" manifested as both "Love: My Wife" and "Member: Realm Legions". And when the Realm punishes them by demoting them you can convince them to quiet by saying the group doesn't appreciate them, or if their wife asks them to spy on the legion you can use the conflict between the two to attack the Wife Intimacy or something.

But you can't make them *stop* wanting to be loved or act in a way that they think will make everyone hate them
 
BossFight said:
Like the idea of a Solar who *was* a paragon of the realm until he realized it was evil and turned against it and that caused him to exalt was probably the first character idea I ever had for exalted (and id bet good money it was the same for others) but the nature of exalted as a game line means you can't really do that. It doesn't make sense to have Arthas Mendel, greatest hero and general of the realm, be a mortal.

It's not impossible to work around, but the game does make it hard and that's a shame
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It's definitely true that you're not going to make a mortal be "the greatest general and hero of the Realm", but that has very little to do with the wider setting and a lot more to do with the nature of the Realm, specifically, as a large empire ruled by Dragon-Blooded Exalts and their families. This concept works completely fine if you use an empire that isn't stratified along Exalted/mortal lines like this, and there are a number of them that work great for it.

For the Realm, specifically, you can be a highly respected mortal Dynast who is like, a Dragonlord and has the trust of her house and who has earned the pride of her cold and hard to please Exalted mother through years of faithful and dutiful service, despite never having Exalted. This is completely doable, I think.
 
Kaiya said:
The takeaway would be "therefore everything she did was Right and Based because it empowered her bloodline", generally speaking. It's not a good framing to use, because all it really gets across is that if you Go Out And Do Colonialism, your ingroup will profit massively and your descendants will become a breed apart, inherently superior to the unwashed masses they're brutally exploiting.

"What if the racial justifications for colonialism were just true" is a bad move, basically.
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I suppose it could work if there is a crash when you can't do any more colonialism because you run out of places to colonize leaving the dynasty to eat itself because high-stakes political drama is the closest thing they can manage to territorial conquest while also being a very zero sum game. Perhaps as some sort of commentary on the long term unsustainability of colonialism?

Don't know, was just my first thought. Sorry.
 
Kaiya said:
The takeaway would be "therefore everything she did was Right and Based because it empowered her bloodline"
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Yeah, that is a worry. I'm trying to frame blood strength as morally neutral, but I'm not sure the fandom would read it that way if it was canonized. "Makes your team stronger" does tend to become "morally good" in the fanbase's mind. Especially since actual noble accomplishments would have the same effect on blood strength.

Kaiya said:
...all it really gets across is that if you Go Out And Do Colonialism, your ingroup will profit massively and your descendants will become a breed apart, inherently superior to the unwashed masses they're brutally exploiting.

"What if the racial justifications for colonialism were just true" is a bad move, basically.
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This, however, is just not accurate. Colonialism was not motivated by a belief in Lamarckian evolution; people weren't thinking that enslaving a bunch of people would increase the strength of their own genes. White people weren't worried that living an unexceptional life might reduce their children's chances of being white. They thought that they were already superior and would remain so as long as they didn't breed with their lessers.

In other words, their beliefs were a lot closer to the way it works in canon than to my proposal. And like I said before, under my proposal righteous heroism would also make your blood stronger. Important thing is to be powerful and impressive, for good or for ill.

Course, in Exalted the Dragonblooded actually are a breed apart, inherently superior to the masses they're brutally exploiting. And their ingroup really has profited massively from colonialism. So it's a bit hard to get away from that.

If your #1 priority is to avoid unfortunate implications, the best bet would almost certainly be to make blood strength a true mystery in-setting. People have theories, and some families seem clearly stronger, but nobody really knows what's going on.
 
Gazetteer said:
It's definitely true that you're not going to make a mortal be "the greatest general and hero of the Realm", but that has very little to do with the wider setting and a lot more to do with the nature of the Realm, specifically, as a large empire ruled by Dragon-Blooded Exalts and their families. This concept works completely fine if you use an empire that isn't stratified along Exalted/mortal lines like this, and there are a number of them that work great for it.
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This is actually how I ended up brain-storming the Infernal I made as a test-character for Essence, in fact. Whole story arch of being the top commander of a general working to overthrow a dictator who abolished their country's republic. She rose in the ranks form a peasant joining in for food to the greatest strategist and commander, restoring the republic. Only to see that general use the systems to set herself up as dictator, become paranoid and arrest the character. Though instead of Abyssal Exalting just as the execution happens and surviving its' ab it more going Infernal, breaking the executioner's axe on her neck, and from there leading an uprising to set herself up as Protector of the Nation and going on hellfire-fueled reconquest.

Gazetteer said:
For the Realm, specifically, you can be a highly respected mortal Dynast who is like, a Dragonlord and has the trust of her house and who has earned the pride of her cold and hard to please Exalted mother through years of faithful and dutiful service, despite never having Exalted. This is completely doable, I think.
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Yeah. The big thing is that if you are playing in the Dynasty, there's a bit of taking into account that mortals, even high achieving ones, have a bit of deference to folks up in the hierarchy presented as a value in itself. Doing the best in the station you are is still something folks will at least give kudos to you.
 
Encounters in Yu Shan

Yu-Shan, Heaven, that sprawling metropolis so far removed from Creation. A gilded paradise, a wretched abomination, if there is anything a city can be, Yu-Shan is it. Here in the city of gods, millions of stories play out across millions of immortal lifetimes. The following are but a few of them:
  1. Public demonstrations by Heaven's Dragon families, elementals, and minor godlings against plans to build a canal over their tenements.
  2. Failed votive-squid drug bust. Lion-dogs stumble out of the drug den covered in mind-altering ink as the squid dealers escape with their illicit cephalopods in tow.
  3. You meet an indolent aristocrat godling descended from Taru-Han. Wearing expensive clothes in a bad neighborhood. Trying very hard to pretend he isn't lost. Failing miserably.
  4. You come upon a well tended but out of the way memorial to a god who died in the Divine Revolution. Votive candles are still lit.
  5. Moon god assassination game, disrupts business meetings, markets, and nightlife throughout the district.
  6. Wandered into syndicate fiefdom toll road, now surrounded by Unfavored Sons Triad members.
  7. Local weather systems undergoing surprise maintenance after reports of sabotage, clouds brought low into scaffolded dry docks so bureau specialists can examine them for tampering. Hard hats recommended.
  8. Censor conducting a surprise audit on the Subdivision of Amphibious Troglobytes. The lesser wood dragon's body coils about the building housing the subdivision's offices.
  9. You see an immaculate monk somehow stranded in the celestial city. Lost and deeply confused, unsuccessfully attempting to proselytize to nearby Heaven's Dragon enclave.
  10. You're saved from an altercation in a lawless area by Damascened Venatrix, renegade celestial lion vigilante. A third of her body has been replaced with first age prosthetics.
  11. Dueling noodle restaurants run by ascended chicken familiar and a set of sapient artifact cookware. Mercenaries sought for culinary espionage and staged complaints.
  12. A construction project unearths a structure built by the Ancients. Foreman has been overtaken by the antediluvian consciousness of The Shivering Sultan.
  13. Flying Counting House of the Triple Jawed Croupier, currently moored to a shopping complex.
  14. Artifact inkwell mishap has released paper-borne self-replicating memetic patterns. Nearby office spaces quarantined.
  15. Cicada god beckons to you from the alleyway asking if you want to buy dreamstones
  16. Prominent mortal activist suddenly vanishes from public view. Most assume she was disappeared by the local householder court, more furtive rumors say she Exalted as a Solar and was subsequently murdered by the Bronze Faction, or that she had to flee to Creation to escape them.
  17. Visiting astral spirits from the Firmament, they bring with them painful geometries.
  18. Exigent adventurer attempting to visit their patron, who, unbeknownst to them, is currently embroiled in political scandal.
  19. Political demonstration by gods from wildly different social classes. A pamphlet titled "The Law of Celestial Succession: A Case for A New Pantheon" is shoved into your hands by eager demonstrators.
  20. Elder Sidereal dies of old age in a barbershop. The whole street is abandoned as his terrifyingly powerful hungry ghost begins to haunt the area.
 
evtrax said:
what is a Votive Squid? in fact, what does votive mean, given prompt 4 mentions votive candles
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In this context, votive refers to items that are given solely for religious purposes with no intention of retrieval. Votive Candles are a style of candles that were originally produced for religious offerings. They have since become a distinctive style in themselves and are now used for other purposes.

I assume that a Votive squid would be a variety of squid that was bred for religious service. The mind-altering ink would be produced by the squids as an element of a ceremony that was intended to alter the minds of the participants for spiritual or hedonistic purposes.

In the context of the Exalted setting, this can be connected to some kind of illicit cult revolving around Kimbery (The Sea that Marched Against the Flame!) or her Third Circle Souls. The aquatic elements and fantasy take on drug abuse are themes that are central to her worldbuilding and charms.
 
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Encounters in Whitewall

The fortress-city of Whitewall, its alabaster ramparts towering over the cold prairies of the middle north, has stood since far antiquity. Its gleaming walls protect it from snow, siege, and spectre alike, and thus within its precincts huddle tens of thousands. The increasingly cramped conditions breed resentment and disease, even as the walls defend against more otherworldly perils. Here are just some of the stories to be told in and around this flawed bastion of humanity.
  1. Rumors of nightwalker incursion, angry mob congregating in the city outskirts. Impromptu torch and farming implement sellers are making a killing.
  2. Shortage of freshwater in the poorer quarters. Local sewer god's cult swells with desperate postulants from among the thrall and refugee population.
  3. Veteran monster hunter giving public lessons on how to defend against hungry ghosts to an audience of awestruck children.
  4. Syndics organize a festival dedicated to local disease gods in the hopes of warding off cholera outbreaks in the more impoverished and crowded districts.
  5. You encounter a half-naked man with wild eyes on the Traveler's Road, his arms bound in chains. Nearby, one of the pillars where sacrifices to the nightwalkers are hung lies empty.
  6. You are summoned to an audience with one of the Syndics. Curiously, they wish to meet you without the presence of the other two.
  7. Government seeks mercenaries and monster hunters to defend a new outlying settlement over the winter, promises citizenship of Tiun rank to those who survive and elevation to Boyar rank for the bravest.
  8. Refugee child exhibits oracular powers, begins prophesying the death of stars whilst in a trance.
  9. Victorious monster hunters parade corpse of a slain wyld abomination through the streets
  10. Thrall youth takes the Second Breath, his former master scrambles to buy not only his forgiveness, but his loyalty through copious amounts of luxury and intoxicants
  11. Influx of refugees from satrapies abandoned by the Realm. Local immaculate temples work overtime to provide alms and support.
  12. Prominent Boyar family throws a masquerade ball. Sudden blizzard keeps the guests inside the estate longer than planned.
  13. Arguments break out in Congregation Hall over settlement charters with overlapping land grants. Wry commentators note that, as the contested land is currently overrun with nightwalkers, the argument seems to be over who gets stuck with the land rather than who gets to claim it.
  14. Vast throng of walking dead sighted to the south, herded by skeletal horsemen. Hinterland settlements on guard.
  15. Harvest festival, hay bale effigy of local field god animated to defend farmland over the winter.
  16. Entire staff of a boyar's estate collapses, unconscious. The aristocrat's priceless scrollwork egg collection is found to be missing immediately after.
  17. Mutant giant wanders out of the wyldmarches. Monstrously strong, but docile and simpleminded, it appears fascinated by the "pretty walls" of the city.
  18. Rumors that an outlying settlement has begun trading with the fair folk. The ruling boyar furiously denies the allegations and challenges any accusers to duels. Represented by her outcaste champion, she turns the poor reputation into an asset by depriving political opponents of wealth, face, and valuable warriors.
  19. Serfs and Thralls rebel against harsh landowners on an outlying settlement, spurred by Shining Way missionaries who reject Whitewall's caste system, citing that all beings are equal before oblivion's maw.
  20. Earthquake damages a section of the Traveler's Road. The Syndics scramble to organize reconstruction.
 
Decide to make a genderbend version of my Zenith in case he drinks something glowing in the wyld. All the muscle is stored in elsewhere in this form.

 
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