Ugh I know I read this information somewhere but I can't find it. Does anybody know in the fandom of exalted who was the developer/writer considered the one with the blatant solar, what's the term?, fixation? To the point where all other writing from lore and mechanics were just basically. Bow down to your bright golden overlords?
Currently that is most of them, because they self-selected their own team and the majority of them have a "Solars should be flatly-better in all respects" bias, but the two egregious outliers for the moment include Morke, for whom the Unconquered Sun is both a brotastic loving-God and occasional Christ-figure whose only flaw is being too much like Superman, instead of his typical characterization as Lucifer/Zeus, because there is this idea that Solars need to have The Best Incarna or else no one would play Solars, right. And then we have Holden who simply considers Solar Primacy to be a pillar of the setting on the level of "if there's no Solars present, everyone should be asking 'what are the Solars doing?'", which also entails them doing the thing you do better than you ever could at all times because they're the Exalted of Protagonism and as Corebook Exalt means everyone plays them and your Sidereal or Lunar is an also-ran sidekick which people use to add variety to their Solar games, not actually have whole campaigns about.

None of the rest have stood out nearly so strongly in their biases because they usually don't get as many chances to make big sweeping declarations of intent about the setting or the future plans thereof, unless its something Morke/Holden have personally signed off on.
 
And second, being unable to do your job is the very definition of incompetence.
By that uncharitable standard, isn't every Exalted Splat incompetent? Neither the DBs nor the Lunars managed to prevent the Great Contagion, after all. Sure, they accomplished some of their other objectives like 'annoy the Realm' for Lunars, but so did the Sids by keeping Fate working. In fact, keeping Fate working is pretty much their primary mission.

'Defend Creation' is more a mission for the entire Exalted host. Someone's not incompetent for not managing to do a job that needs ten people to do properly.
 
'Defend Creation' is more a mission for the entire Exalted host. Someone's not incompetent for not managing to do a job that needs ten people to do properly.
More than that, but it's a job so difficult that failures should, in some sense, be expected.

Look a surgeons or lawyers. Thay can lose paitients or cases and not be incompetent. I don't think a case or surgery really ranks up there with saving the world in difficulty, either. Especially not in Exalted.
 
which also entails them doing the thing you do better than you ever could at all times because they're the Exalted of Protagonism and as Corebook Exalt means everyone plays them and your Sidereal or Lunar is an also-ran sidekick which people use to add variety to their Solar games, not actually have whole campaigns about.

While I, conversely, honestly regard them as the most boring of all the Exalted, because their powers tend to be straightforward 'I win' buttons, and the only narrative enrichment they intrinsically bring to the table are the Great Curse, them being hunted as Anathema by the Realm, and being ancient God-Kings making their grand reentrance onto the scene, all of which are by no means unique to them, which means for the most part them being interesting hinges entirely on a good character concept.

Compare this to the Terrestials and Sidereals, which have interesting story hooks already baked in by default via the societies and environments those Exalted will move in, or the Infernals, Abyssals, and TAW Lunars, who always have to balance their power growth with weird or even harmful sideeffects so they don't move too far away from being recognizably human. All of these are in addition to any interesting character concepts, and will generally supplement one to make it even more interesting.

About the only role that I can see a Solar Exaltation having genuine advantages over the others, narratively speaking, is if you want to concentrate fully on the character concept itself without the baggage attached to all the other types.
 
I don't care because if I attempt to apply modern sensibilities to any characters from Antiquity they'll look like assholes.

I usually do my best not to judge them and just take them at face value without applying any judgement at all.

Exalted isn't designed to be a world where we do not judge people by modern sensibilities. It is designed to be a world that makes very specific moral judgments of everyone involved. Judgments such as 'power corrupts' and 'slavery is fucking horrible'. Mainly by being very, very explicit about how much everything in Creation sucks.

So yeah, if a situation has a elder mentor figure seducing a young teenager we're not supposed to shrug and say "Welp, that just happens in Creation" we're supposed to say "That's fucking messed up".

Then it gives you a glowly nuclear status quo destroying protagonism reactor and say "So what ya gonna do about it then?"
 
Exalted isn't designed to be a world where we do not judge people by modern sensibilities. It is designed to be a world that makes very specific moral judgments of everyone involved. Judgments such as 'power corrupts' and 'slavery is fucking horrible'. Mainly by being very, very explicit about how much everything in Creation sucks.

So yeah, if a situation has a elder mentor figure seducing a young teenager we're not supposed to shrug and say "Welp, that just happens in Creation" we're supposed to say "That's fucking messed up".

Then it gives you a glowly nuclear status quo destroying protagonism reactor and say "So what ya gonna do about it then?"

I honestly don't care.

I judge characters based on how my character thinks of them.
 
Having character in Creation react to their surroundings with modern first world sensibilities? Perish the thought! It's not as if one of the framing devices of the power and personality of the game's main splat was memories of a time when Creation was in fact more prosperous and utopian than the modern first world.
 
By that uncharitable standard, isn't every Exalted Splat incompetent? Neither the DBs nor the Lunars managed to prevent the Great Contagion, after all.

Sure.

I was comparing the Bronze faction with the Technocracy, not Sids with other Exalts, remember?

Look a surgeons or lawyers. Thay can lose paitients or cases and not be incompetent. I don't think a case or surgery really ranks up there with saving the world in difficulty, either. Especially not in Exalted.

I assure you though, that a surgeon that loses 90% of his patients will certainly be considered incompetent.
 
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While I, conversely, honestly regard them as the most boring of all the Exalted, because their powers tend to be straightforward 'I win' buttons, and the only narrative enrichment they intrinsically bring to the table are the Great Curse, them being hunted as Anathema by the Realm, and being ancient God-Kings making their grand reentrance onto the scene, all of which are by no means unique to them, which means for the most part them being interesting hinges entirely on a good character concept.

Compare this to the Terrestials and Sidereals, which have interesting story hooks already baked in by default via the societies and environments those Exalted will move in, or the Infernals, Abyssals, and TAW Lunars, who always have to balance their power growth with weird or even harmful sideeffects so they don't move too far away from being recognizably human. All of these are in addition to any interesting character concepts, and will generally supplement one to make it even more interesting.

About the only role that I can see a Solar Exaltation having genuine advantages over the others, narratively speaking, is if you want to concentrate fully on the character concept itself without the baggage attached to all the other types.

I want to build on this, though it's not really about convincing you or anything.

Okay- so the 'problem' with Solars is that they require more work from players and storytellers to build up the hooks that make people care about them. DBs start wtih family and political drama, and Sidereals start with government/workplace drama.

Solars start with "The world things you're a demon/above two factions want to kill you" drama.

Abyssals and Infernals have their own thematic 'stuff' to hook on to, and in a lot of ways all of the non-solar splats come pre-built wtih plothooks by design. Solars don't, because they are intended functionally to grab any plot they like. Not entitled to every plot, but instead "Hey, I want to do this,and I don't have in-setting responsibilities holding me back."

Now, you cite their 'I win' buttons. As I've pointed out a few times in this thread, what you're dealing with is the deeper root question of what kind of game do I want to play? Solars are all about the results and consequences of actions, magically assisted or otherwise. Spycraft 'Metal Gear Solid' style games are better suited to DBs, because their Charms are more intended to make those kinds of engagements 'Games' instead of 'And then montage'.
 
Having character in Creation react to their surroundings with modern first world sensibilities? Perish the thought! It's not as if one of the framing devices of the power and personality of the game's main splat was memories of a time when Creation was in fact more prosperous and utopian than the modern first world.

Sure, if I'm playing a Solar I might do that.

But I tend to play Sidereals, Terrestrials and Infernals, so I don't really encounter it that much.

Besides, being more utopian doesn't necessarily give it modern first world morality.
 
Cosar: I think he's referring to the part where SHLIHN as a 'fuck you' shattered one of her spears during the war against the Yozi's.
 
About the only role that I can see a Solar Exaltation having genuine advantages over the others, narratively speaking, is if you want to concentrate fully on the character concept itself without the baggage attached to all the other types.
Well you are in luck then, because Ex3 seems to have this weird mindset that if Solars cannot have a set theme informing them as a type, then by god they will archetype your character by hyper-specific niche Charms which only make sense to one or two kinds of characters but are still The Best for what they do, and therefore go about informing your character indirectly through a series of contradictory behaviors which either have to be justified out by your character-concept or simply ignored to fit a Solar theme, like this entire tree which exists to make you Specifically Mirror Flag.

Nevermind the part about this devaluing Mirror Flag as an example of ways you could take the straight forward broad-base powers of Solar Charms and use them in exotic ways to create unique characters, it just so happens that Mirror Flag was any old Eclipse who just favored Socialize Super-Hard.
 
Cosar: I think he's referring to the part where SHLIHN as a 'fuck you' shattered one of her spears during the war against the Yozi's.
I doubt that: the Exalted as a whole arguably weren't in charge at that point. Given how the discussion is framed around the Sidereals/Bronze Faction, going that far back doesn't make sense. It would be more germane to go to the Crusade/Contagion, but my point was that he is missing the point of my analogy.

Hell, at the core his argument is that having outside forces working against you and not being able to counter everything that they do makes you incompetent, which is an extremely odd definition, and basically makes it so the word loses all meaning (I would struggle to find any organization under this metric which is not incompetent).
 
Honestly, I have absolutely no problems with the idea that Kejak got in a relationship with his student. Once you discard the hysterical screaming about "roofies", it's just an absolutely mundane relationship with a sizeable power and age disparity. Shit like that happens with normal human beings in teacher-student relationships. Shit like that will happen with Sidereals in teacher-student relationships.

It shouldn't happen, but it will.

(In fact, it'll probably happen more with Sidereals, because of a combination of Arcane Fate seriously limiting the Sidereal social interaction pool and the lack of peers for Sidereal children, which means they wind up interacting with centuries old Sidereals from a young age. Oh, and of course, the fact that Yu Shan is a super-decadent and indulgent place full of unhealthy power relationships [1].)

Remember, this is post-Breaking-of-the-Mask. In fact, it's relatively soon post-Breaking-of-the-Mask. Sidereal Society at this point is likely a) super-young, because of all the Sidereals who died in the Usurpation, b) super-emotionally-fucked-up, because they haven't developed coping methods for Arcane Fate yet, and c) the ones who aren't young will have a lot of PTSD.

It's probably a really unhealthy period for the Sidereals, especially when they're probably at half strength, more than double work, and heaven is being outright mutinous. There's going to be all kinds of fucked up relationships between Sidereals that are Not Spoken About a century later.

[1] Still better than Malfeas, though! Well done, Yu Shan, you're better there than Literally Hell.
 
Honestly, I have absolutely no problems with the idea that Kejak got in a relationship with his student. Once you discard the hysterical screaming about "roofies", it's just an absolutely mundane relationship with a sizeable power and age disparity. Shit like that happens with normal human beings in teacher-student relationships. Shit like that will happen with Sidereals in teacher-student relationships.

It shouldn't happen, but it will.

(In fact, it'll probably happen more with Sidereals, because of a combination of Arcane Fate seriously limiting the Sidereal social interaction pool and the lack of peers for Sidereal children, which means they wind up interacting with centuries old Sidereals from a young age. Oh, and of course, the fact that Yu Shan is a super-decadent and indulgent place full of unhealthy power relationships [1].)

Remember, this is post-Breaking-of-the-Mask. In fact, it's relatively soon post-Breaking-of-the-Mask. Sidereal Society at this point is likely a) super-young, because of all the Sidereals who died in the Usurpation, b) super-emotionally-fucked-up, because they haven't developed coping methods for Arcane Fate yet, and c) the ones who aren't young will have a lot of PTSD.

It's probably a really unhealthy period for the Sidereals, especially when they're probably at half strength, more than double work, and heaven is being outright mutinous. There's going to be all kinds of fucked up relationships between Sidereals that are Not Spoken About a century later.

[1] Still better than Malfeas, though! Well done, Yu Shan, you're better there than Literally Hell.

I like this, it totally makes sense for the Sidereals to have all these weird student-mentor relationships with each other given that the only ones they can actually open up to would be each other, meaning that they would need an outlet for their inner feelings, and that outlet just happens to be other Sidereals.

Likewise, Sidereals are probably a lot more open about their relationships with each other than most mortals are about their relationships with each other, because there aren't that many Sidereals and they all need each other so I guess it doesn't matter if Radiant Eyes is sleeping with my wife and she is confiding in Joyous Presence, because they need the help they can get.

Except for Chosen of Serenity.

Damn them, and their "being chosen of the literal sex-maiden"-antics! :V
 
Well, the thing about Sidereals is that there's few enough of them that they can all fit into each other's monkeyspheres.

And unlike Infernals, they probably see quite a lot more of each other so they can fit into the monkeyspheres, because Infernals spend less time in Hell than Sidereals do in Heaven.

So, honestly, the Sidereal community probably resembles one of those farming villages where everyone knows each other and there are grudges stretching back centuries, but no one says anything in public (but gossips and is passive aggressive) because there are Standards and the only way to cope with being around someone you don't like for centuries is for everyone to have very clear lines about what you do and don't say.

(then they all turn on outsiders who show up, because they don't appreciate them darn furriners interfering wit' their busy-ness)

Except for Chosen of Serenity.

Damn them, and their "being chosen of the literal sex-maiden"-antics!

You joke, but Venus isn't a constructive presence here.

Venus encourages seriously unhealthy views of relationships and power structures. She'd consider student-teacher relationships where one is clearly dominant to be the natural way of things.
 
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The Lovers is a pretty bad view of relationships, but the House of Serenity as a whole is more complex.
 
OFFICE POLITICS HO!

Radiant Eyes: "So, heard you were talking with Dancer of The Mountain Peaks yesterday."

Crimson Hood: "Yeah, he was considering proposing to Black Iris."

Radiant Eyes: "Really? That's retarded, no one sleeps with Black Iris, she's the most Endings-like Sidereal I know, and she's not even Chosen by that Maiden. Is he mad?"

Crimson Hood: "Well, you know him..."

Joyous Presence: "I think Black Iris is pretty cute actually!"

Crimson Hood and Radiant Eyes: "Well, yeah but you're chosen by the Blue Maiden."

Crimson Hood and Radiant Eyes: "Sluuuuuut."

[One Usurpation later]

Joyous Presence: "HA! SUCK IT GOLD FACTION BASTARDS! WHO'S LAUGHING NOW!?"
 
The trick about Love in Creation, as far as Venus embodies it, is that it is inherently inequal. Functionally, love is a Servitude effect that is roughly described as "I put the needs of those I love ahead of my own."

The interesting part here, is that generally Venus and other Gods are really only worried about any given case of love, not connected cases. Someone always tops, in the eyes of Heaven. It's a deliberately cynical perspective on the concept.

Now, this isn't to say that inequal relationships are unheard of in Creation, but I've run into what I feel is a common misconception from players once they're told how 'Love' works in Yu-Shan.

Alice loves Bob, and will put Bob's interests before her own. Heaven sees this as a perfectly understandable arrangement.

Bob Loves Alice, and will put Alice's interests before his own. Heaven sees this as a perfectly understandable arrangement.

Mind you this applies to any sort of loyalty or fealty. One person can think someone else is a friend, but the other person doesn't. Back in 1e, before we really had Initmacies, friendship was governed by a persistent pool of successes, with like 1-10 being 'acquaintence' and 100+ being 'Would die for you'. And neither party were expected to have matching values.

What Heaven rarely explicitly acknowledges, is when two people love each other. Metaphysicaly it's exactly the same, one person tops the other... in both directions. On the 'ground level', day to day of Creation, two people who are in love really don't sweat this stuff; it's not important.

This is also why Love is not always a Servitude Effect; Husband Seducing Demon Dance creates an Illusion effect for a reason, which is the belief that someone loves the Solar or a cause she supports.
 
It could be either or neither.
My point wasn't that it was one of those two but neither (no roofies needed, not a decent relationship). Its certainly very questionable but also likely the outcome of making it so 100 people can only hope to socially interact with each other in any meaningful way as if same.
I get the Kejak's relation with Ayn isn't necessarily sex slavery. but its still a very high superior involved with a subordinate who he has waaay too much control for them to hope to begin to be equals on. Him pursuing the relationship out of transference and regret for his old friend makes his actions somewhat easier to empathize with, but doesn't change, older guy who's job it is to guide this girl who likely has access to her psych and destiny records and so on ends up in a relationship with him that awakens the spirit he sought reunion with but instead instilled bitter disdain and hatred.

Its also an excellent metaphor for Creation or the Solars or any of Kejak's chosen-by-him-their-opinion-may-be-taken-into-account charges. He's giving them the best he can allowing them to benefit from his wisdom and even loves them, intimately, but they remember and feels they are being held back, lied to, and were betrayed (see. end of Madoka Rebellion) Even if Kejak operates out of a very valid rational the means he chooses are corrupt and corrupting and so we should see that corruption not just make him, oddly, walking talking hypothetical benevolent shadow tyrant
 
Hmm...

That reminds me. Anybody still have old GreggHL writeup about possible scenario where Auto-kun become Engine of Extinction during primordial age, who proceed to corrupt most Incarna - or maybe just Sol? - which turn The Dragon's Shadow into Shining Dragon, and proceed to massively change the setting so much?

I tried to remember the title, but I honestly forgot. Elysium? Hmm.
 
The Ebon Dragon is ironically pleased?

Now this is a general question, has anybody have any exalted stories of ambiguous syntax in charm wording leading to hilarity? Honestly I felt the 2.5 errata didn't go far enough.
That hte Ebon Dragon came to embody the greatest aims to villain doesn't mean Exalted didn't or shouldn't have villains. Kejak is man who means well but so did Taylor Herbert and Light Yagami and Akemi Homura. but the actions taken and the philisophy espoused damns them. And morever than that they aren't motivated by pure unfettered philosophical logic but rushes of power, pangs of sadness, needs to be validated and do stupid human things humans do often with god like tools. Untle she reformed them the Gold faction was not a thing in Heaven. Kejak's attempts to make sure the one Gold faction member he deeply wanted in Bronze back and loving him and backing his vision ended up recreating it.

We don't have this issue with The Green Lady? The idea that, perhaps beneath all this metaphysical talk is just blind human hubris undermining things assisted with divine tools and logical/cosmic paradoxes is, kind of, a part of the Sidereal splats thing. They talk a big game about a safer and proper world and thier singular enlightened entitlement to shape it. And they fight for it, suffer for it, are isolated for it. And also do Celstial cocain, get in petty office wars, and use people like.. .well things. Because they know What's Best. While still having petty, human, pathetic, and venal drives but masked with their self inflated opinions also helped along they keep everything critical hidden from everyone and edned up the most important specialty evar. Some of this isn't even their fault. They didn't make the Solar's tyrannical assholes who drove their loyal gens to want to rebel. They didn't create the first Akuma/infernalists. They didn't start the Black Nadir Concordant. Early on its implied the Celestials instigated the inter-Exalted war as a means to avoid their creations getting to powerful to control. and regardless Heaven and the Terrestrial courts fell to corruption UNDER the the Solar's watch. They just made it so they thrived the best in it.
But thrive the best in it means they are a part of it. Not from it. And so Kejak engaging in his power imbalanced relationship with a protege helping to egg her to choose rebellion as the only hope of an alternative to his way of doing things (which he spreads and affirms as much as he can)

This is necessary as no action in exalted won't involve you killing people, undermining peace, and risking the balance of the world, as an exalt (hell as a mortal). It also needs to show these actions are done as much for ideals as desires.

Hence why I'm okay with a UCS who very very much feels entitled to enjoy the Games of Divinity and desired it truly and the pleasures of heaven. And also was mistreated by his parents, came to despise the wstruggles caused by and abuses of certain ones and hated he and his were enslaved and treated as little servitors to be subject to ruin or toying at the whims of his creators with no seeming moral reasoning or need to consistently or 'fairly' do so. Zeus was committing patricide yes. And even seduced his way to feed the vomit inducer to Cronos. but it wasn't out of sheer greed. The guy was out to kill him and would be out for him all his life if he didn't take the fight to him AND rescue his siblings AND fulfill the long lasting promise to free the Cyclops and Hundred-handed ones. though he certainly wanted to beat his dad and get to rule high inthe sky too. humanity and its elevation isn't his priority beyond being holders of his Exaltation which he delights in...and also is disgusted as became so grotesque as well. Ignoring his own faults and addictions.
 
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