- Pronouns
- Reader
Lol. It's kind of amusing to see someone portray the dragonblood as solar hero cannon fodder when the only dragon blood pov we have thus far is of one of the more dangerous and murderous main characters of the last story.
A Vision in Bronze; A Sidereal quest
- Thread starter Gazetteer
- Start date
- Fantasy
- Location
- Vermont
Well, the thing there is that the Realm isn't really dying soon. It's going to fracture, and a lot of people are going to kill each other, but by the end of it there will still be thousands of dragonblooded on or around the Blessed Isle, and even several hundred of them will probably crush a Deathlord. And this is assuming there isn't an early, decisive crowning of a new Empress that preserves the majority of the Realm as-is.
We also don't have nearly as much material on the Yozi or Infernal Exalted due to the Infernal Exalted playbook being trapped in development hell for around 8 years now. That is a major source of Creation-wide threats that is largely missing from the existing setting.
Year 1, Arc 2, vote 04
New
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The 3e Infernals book has not been in development hell for eight years. It was only actually announced like six months ago after being pushed back behind Alchemicals after Abyssals got funded, it is in pre-development at the moment. The only main splat book that could really be described as having been in development hell since the corebook launched was Exigents, which was a perfect storm of being a new Exalt type, being a very difficult book to write, and COVID disrupting its development cycle. All of the main books since then have been coming along pretty smoothly, we can probably reasonably expect an Infernals crowdfunding campaign and manuscript sometime next year, at this current rate.
If you want to talk about like, some of the companions and supplements, that would be a different story, but this is probably not the thread for them.
Regardless, we know enough about the actual intended direction for Infernals to understand that a 2e style Reclamation plotline is not in the cards, and is not going to be a particular focus for this thread besides.
Last edited:
I would consider it least 8 years of development hell considering that we received the initial plans for 3e Infernals with the 2013 Kickstarter meeting a stretch goal and then a new development team showing previews of their plans in October 2017. This isn't active development but rather plans that were introduced and seemed to have never gone anywhere. I would consider this to fall under the heading of development hell. This seems like a question of semantics (and my admitted deep frustration over my favorite Exalted class not getting enough content) so lets just leave it here.
Last edited:
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The vote actually got called about an hour ago, the results are threadmarked a few posts up.
ZeldaFan
Thinker of Ideas
- Location
- Florida-Land of Madness and Sunshine
So are there Solar and Lunar Exalts actually interested in helping the people of the world, instead of massacring a village and its inhabitants for zombie fodder (still going what the absolute fuck at that one) or attempting to blow up a port city? Because the ones shown in the prior quest and this one are not really doing a good job of it.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He
In The Last Daughter the Solar and two Lunars were in the middle of escaping a Wyld Hunt and rationalized that realm villagers were part of the War against the Realm, thus making them (in their eyes, what with a Wyld Hunt breathing down their necks) acceptable targets.
In A Vision of Bronze, The Solar Circle about to annihilate Bittern rationalized that striking House Peleps (and thus jumpstarting the realm civil war) would either keep their home nations free of Peleps domination and would kill the greatest evil empire in the world.
In both cases, to them their actions can be justified if you're fine with civilian casualties. I'd imagine that to the Lunars of the Silver Pact, with all the centuries upon centuries of fighting the Realm, have long accepted the rational that the Solar's and Lunars we've seen in these quests displayed. That no matter the cost, the world is better without the Realm.
(Course I'd just make a winter wonderland, that's just me.)
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yes, many of them. However, not all of them are doing it in a way that others fully appreciate. There's at least two elder Lunars who are aiming for a sorcerous destruction of the Realm, but are fairly benign until and unless they can work such a terrible sorcery. There's a group of Lunars who are aiming to protect a continent that is sacred to Luna by getting rid of the Dragon-Bloods there (although said DBs see it in almost exactly reversed terms). There's Lunars who rule and are... at least reasonably enough good at it? Raksi's empire has some significant warts, including "Raksi herself doesn't feel like rules apply to Raksi", but also if you have problems Raksi will sometimes show up and work incredibly potent miracles and expect no reward save adoration because, like, you can't afford her.
There's others that aren't really outright bad in any specific way. Skandhar-Bhal and its patron Lunar is basically a land of religious hermits with just enough culture to function who aren't hurting anyone else. Aum-Ashatra has his mountain clans and isn't objectionable beyond fairly standard "pay or we'll raid you" sort of deals, unless you dislike spiders, which would be a problem because there's lots of spiders.
There's others who aren't bad save by necessity: the Bronze Tide is an amalgamation of refugee cultures fleeing an uncommonly powerful Wyld incursion. They attack others in their path because it's very much "it's you or us". They'd lose their families and cultural identities and probably not even be allowed in otherwise. The Lunars in charge here are trying to do right by their people.
There's more Lunar NPCs in Exalted than Solars, by full intention, so all the above are Lunars. There's one Solar from 2e that plausibly would be much the same this edition, too, but is in a place called Paragon, willingly working for the leader there because there's a magical law enforcement tool there which makes Paragon at least pretty decent to live.
So, yeah, there's plenty of unobjectionable Solars and Lunars out there, from our POV as players. But they're not as likely to show up in this story, because this is the story of a Sidereal trying to keep destinies generally debugged and sliding into a nice Lunar's backyard isn't normally Grace's job.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
One of the things with Wyld Hunts, which are the circumstances under which the previous Solars and Lunars have shown up in these quests, is that they are very extreme situations that tend to expose both sides to the opposing Exalt types at their absolute worst. Anathema backed into a corner or viciously striking back, Dragon-Blooded hunting them down like animals because of religious zealotry etc. It's a vicious cycle.
- Pronouns
- He
Truly, to prevent further suffering we should consign Creation to Oblivion.
It's also worth noting that the two The Last Daughter Exalted whose idea it was to massacre and raise dead had been imprisoned and tortured by the Scarlet Empress for years at that point.
- Location
- GTM-3
If not longer, considering the lifespans of all the direct actors involved
Sure, but they're not making mischief on the Blessed Isle such that Dynasts still in secondary school, or junior Bronze Faction Sidereals, get roped into Wyld Hunts against them.
Leaving aside the obvious point that fighting the Realm is "helping the people of the world" from a very justifiable perspective, anyone who's running around slaying behemoths or fae or undead in the Threshold, or ruling a kingdom justly and well, or quietly inventing, I dunno, ball bearings or something, simply isn't going to come into conflict with characters operating at the heart of the Realm and the (lower rungs of the) heights of Heaven. Anyone who can afford to spend their time on that sort of thing is outside the reach of, or actively keeping ahead of, Dragon-Blooded/Immaculate attention, and is more likely to have a Gold Faction supporter than a Bronze Faction nemesis. (And for Grace specifically, it's very likely - I forget whether someone else, or Gazetteer herself possibly IC, has commented as much - that Kejak is assigning her jobs calculated to expose her to exactly the kind of Anathema behaviour that reinforces his perspective about the correctness and necessity of the Bronze Faction. You don't send your mentee to assassinate the mousy, likeable Twilight who really wants to improve the sanitation system of Great Forks, you send her to handle the folks who want to blow up the warstrider depot that happens to have the town her favourite tea is grown in right above it.)
And yes, as pointed out, the Solars and Lunars we've seen so far have been:
- two prisoners of the Scarlet Empress, caged and tortured for years (I want to say something like twenty years, I'm not sure), with no information I can recall as to their actions before their capture, who escaped and fled for their lives;
- one Lunar sent by her own mentor specifically to exfiltrate one of those escapees, who was aiming for quick in-and-out operation, only to get stuck between her duty and her morals and pragmatism when she discovered her target had a buddy who couldn't turn into a bird;
- four Solars (and one as-yet-unseen Lunar ally) who by all indications had been helping the people of the West until they decided the best way to do so was to strike directly at the largest single source of harm to the West.
Also that both her target and said buddy were interested as much in revenge as they were in escaping the Isle.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Even then, there's priorities. Even if you find out that the mousy twilight who's focused on improving sanitation in Great Forks is doing their thing, when Killfuck Soulshitter and his murdersquad are cutting a swath through the South because chaos and mayhem is just what they do, one of these are a more pressing problem than the other.
Back before the Jade Prison broke, the Bronze Faction could afford to drop on any discovered Solar with the fist of god. Now? They have to prioritize, and that means that there's a world of difference between "Well meaning civil engineer" and "Murderous barbarian warlord" or even "Iconoclast who wants to tear down the current order--which while it isn't great, most of the present alternatives are a hell of a lot worse".
Issue is that nobody told this to the Solars, so they're still acting like "Just existing is a capital offense.", because that's what the propaganda says. And so the cycle has become self-sustaining.
Back before the Jade Prison broke, the Bronze Faction could afford to drop on any discovered Solar with the fist of god. Now? They have to prioritize, and that means that there's a world of difference between "Well meaning civil engineer" and "Murderous barbarian warlord" or even "Iconoclast who wants to tear down the current order--which while it isn't great, most of the present alternatives are a hell of a lot worse".
Issue is that nobody told this to the Solars, so they're still acting like "Just existing is a capital offense.", because that's what the propaganda says. And so the cycle has become self-sustaining.
Also, lower on the priority list doesn't mean off it, so if there's an opportunity that well meaning civil engineer is still a target.
To be honest, civil engineer is going to be a more tempting target in many ways because it means they can kill her *now* instead of when she becomes a threat (as the Immaculate Philosophy says all Solars will) and far more difficult to take out.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The main thing the civil engineer in Great Forks has to worry about is like, Lookshy absolutely will kill her if they know she exists. Great Forks does not like Immaculacy and they will not directly assist such a Wyld Hunt, but Lookshy is their most important military ally and they know what the Seventh Legion has done in the past to Scavenger states that openly shelter Anathema.
The Thearchs would be like, what, she's a Solar? Damn, that's crazy, who knew.
The Thearchs would be like, what, she's a Solar? Damn, that's crazy, who knew.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
It's probably relatively easier to remain 'ethical' the further you are from Realm dominance as anathema.
And Lookshy will want to kill her asap before she a) becomes important enough to and b) strengthens Great Forks enough that the calculus for the Thearchs changes.