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General Exalted Thread

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Giygas said:
Maybe it was to stop the raksha to go to an important place, but still: a little podunk in the middle of nowhere got an exalted level combatant from nothing but the sacrifice of a Terrestrial god. (And celestial politics.) Something like, maybe, the sacrifice of several wealth five things would make a lot rarer and valuable.
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I'd consider "an immortal life, willingly given" a greater sacrifice than "a really big pile of gold." And I don't see the use of making Gods of Having Loads of Dosh the biggest badasses on the block because they're the only ones who can spare the wealth to make Exigents.

I also think your assumption that "oh, these people's lives are meaningless so Janest must have been granted the Exigence to protect someone that actually matters" is silly. Mortals needed a hero, a god was ready to make the sacrifice. Why is that any stranger than a Dawn shard empowering Demetheus instead of skipping over some random strongman wandering small towns and Exalting someone important?
Dif said:
Yes, there is conceptual baggage to being a Lunar, or a Sidereal, or an Alchemical, etc, but the baggage is part of the draw to the primary Exalted types because it assures that somebody, somewhere, will be able to look at you and go "I know your kind, you're an X! And for that I must destroy you!" Meanwhile, Exigents get nothing. They're a nonentity, so specific and exclusive that they are utterly disconnected with the setting at large, the major factions, the historic conflicts, and well, Anything that typically drives an Exalted campaign which is not "everyone roll out running trumped-up D&D dungeon crawls with magical powers," which is a poor method of articulating just how meaningful the Exalted are intended to be on a setting-defining scale. Conceptually they are free-agents locked into a tiresome "what are you, Anathema, I have never seen your like before" "that's because I'm super-special and unique, unlike those Solars" narratives.
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First off, I will grant that it's possible that whatever god empowers any given Exigent is "utterly disconnected with the setting at large, the major factions, the historic conflicts, and well, Anything that typically drives an Exalted campaign," but given that gods make up not inconsiderable portions of the setting, factions, and conflicts, it certainly shouldn't be taken as a given.

Also, Creation has two different "what are you, Anathema, I have never seen your like before" types, and neither of them are Exigents. The learned of Creation know what Exigents are. The reaction's going to be more like "oh, your skin can turn into bricks and your anima banner shows the city skyline? Must be the City Father's fault, we'll have a talk with him later about his place and overstepping it." The guys who are, canonically, weird new bullshit that has never been seen before? Abyssals and Infernals. They're the ones invented not long before the default start of game, who also happen to be like Solars except with special edgy new powers.
Aaron Peori said:
The Unconquered Sun does not pick who gets to Exalt, ever.
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Which kinda makes those messages some Solars get upon Exalting hilarious. "Fuck me, a Skullstone privateer? Why the ass? Uh, shine my light into dark places or some shit, yeah that sounds good."
 
Maugan Ra said:
Hmm. How long has the Dragon-Blooded book been in second draft/editing now, anyway?

I ask because a quick check of the dates indicates that the core book shipped at the end of April, which now means it's been out for... well, six months, actually. Huh.

I appreciate that the dev team wants to get it right the first time around, but the Realm and the Dragon-Blooded are in many ways the 'default' enemy. There are extremely few plots that you can run in Creation without encountering them somewhere, and having almost no mechanics to use for them is rather stifling to a lot of campaigns that I might have otherwise seen fit to run.

I probably wouldn't even mind so much if they just included a quick 'here is what we're working on/what the hold up is' in the Monday Meeting notes or whatever. As it stands I have no idea when I might finally get my hands on the first major expansion to the game line, which makes actually playing third edition somewhat problematic at best...
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I believe the DB books is in "Development", which I'm given to understand means that all the content itself is final and they're "just" doing things like art and layout.
 
Maugan Ra said:
I probably wouldn't even mind so much if they just included a quick 'here is what we're working on/what the hold up is' in the Monday Meeting notes or whatever. As it stands I have no idea when I might finally get my hands on the first major expansion to the game line, which makes actually playing third edition somewhat problematic at best...
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I think we're all sort of dying for this, but I just don't know. I haven't seen Holden directly address any of this stuff in ages and the only way I've come to understand anything is getting done is because the Jumpstart and Arms of the Chosen moved up, and Rich Thomas mentioned he discussed things with Holden.

Why is it never "I discussed things with John" in these discussions? Is he too busy writing to be involved in these discussions, or is Holden just the preferred liason with management?

I would sincerely love it if they'd just say something. Anything.
 
Kuciwalker said:
I believe the DB books is in "Development", which I'm given to understand means that all the content itself is final and they're "just" doing things like art and layout.
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Nah, that's Arms of the Chosen. Dragonblooded and the realm are still second draft (though they should be moving forward soon I would hope).

Also random aside the 3E charm cards just went on sale if anybody wants a shit loads of cards and has a lot of cash laying around (so many charms its not just one deck).
 
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Aaron Peori said:
You know what? I never liked that term. The Exalted are, explicitly, not the Chosen of anyone. In fact, The Unconquered Sun had no choice at all over who did or did not get picked for an Exaltation. The only way the Exalted were chosen is that their species was chosen becomes it did not have the gaes. Further, the Exalted, once they are empowered, are not beholden to the Gods in any way shape or form.

The Unconquered Sun does not pick who gets to Exalt, ever. Nor does Luna or the Maidens or Gaia or the Elemental Dragons. They are not chosen. They are champions, in that they represent the gods, but they are not chosen by those gods and their powers are given to them by the Exalt individual deeds or Destiny.
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The idea that the Exalted are not chosen is explicitly contradicted numerous places in canon, not least of which is the original core book.
 
Well, I can't exactly tell my player 'Okay, dude, your special-snowflake-DT is technically not Infernal Exalted, he is some kind of behemoth-thing that's roughly equivalent to Infernal...'

I mean, I can't imagine it'll be well-received.
 
Broken25 said:
The 1e DB manual and the aspect books and are pretty good too).
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Speaking of 1e DBs, I've been meaning to ask: I've read the 2e DB MoEP, but not the 1e book. What makes the first edition version better? Like, specifically is it dumbass plot hooks, or bad detailing of the inter-house politics or what? I'm assuming people are talking about the fluff parts when they say its better written.

Leetsepeak said:
I think we're all sort of dying for this, but I just don't know. I haven't seen Holden directly address any of this stuff in ages and the only way I've come to understand anything is getting done is because the Jumpstart and Arms of the Chosen moved up, and Rich Thomas mentioned he discussed things with Holden.

Why is it never "I discussed things with John" in these discussions? Is he too busy writing to be involved in these discussions, or is Holden just the preferred liason with management?

I would sincerely love it if they'd just say something. Anything.
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Given how antagonistic the relationship is between the devs and certain parts of the fanbase (the fact that a good chunk of it is deserved given how often they stick their feet in their mouths notwithstanding), I can't exactly blame them for staying on the down-low. I just wish we had more to go on.
 
Revlid said:
You're not going to convince anyone that Exigents fit the original definition of Exalted, because they clearly don't. They exist as a beach head for expanding that definition (or diluting it, if you prefer) into a very broad and vague conceit of "someone given power by something", which is absolutely distinct from the laser-focused conceit of "warriors of the gods whose war was over".
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The Exigents as a class are very literally "warriors of the gods who fought the Primordials at the beginning of time." If that somehow doesn't fit the original definition of Exalted then I don't see how the Alchemical's "repurposed previously-unproduced prototypes that didn't even fight in the war" could possibly fit.
 
SerGregness said:
Speaking of 1e DBs, I've been meaning to ask: I've read the 2e DB MoEP, but not the 1e book. What makes the first edition version better? Like, specifically is it dumbass plot hooks, or bad detailing of the inter-house politics or what? I'm assuming people are talking about the fluff parts when they say its better written.
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The 2E book's charms were written partway through the 2E corebook's development and it shows. Missing keywords, badly balanced, etc, etc.
 
Anasurimbor said:
The Exigents as a class are very literally "warriors of the gods who fought the Primordials at the beginning of time."
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...unless I'm badly misremembering my reading of the core and a number of dev statements, no they're not.

Indeed, one of the stated reasons behind the Exigents was to open the door for new Exalted untied to the Primordial War and prehistory.
 
I'm pretty sure Holden or SLS said they've been around since the Primordial War, and that what happened was that the UCS stopped handing out exigences when he turned away from Creation, but that he started handing them out again now in the Age of Sorrows.
 
Maugan Ra said:
Well, yes. By what right do the Alchemicals get to call themselves 'Exalted'?
[...]
If the Alchemicals qualify as Exalted, then the Exigents most certainly do as well.
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I'll be straight with you, as much as I love Alchemicals and their design, they have more in common with Dragon Kings or Mountain Folk in terms of how far their thematics and development differs from literally anyother Exalted, and by all metaphysical accounts baring being made by the same guy who made the others, they don't truly align with Creation's Exalts in any way except by having "Charms," an Anima banner and being divided into Castes. So no, if you want to codify "being an Exalt" into a set standard informed purely by Creation's Exalted, Alchemicals barely qualify for the title.

But, by being called Exalted, the Alchemical condition gives lie to the idea that Exalts must act or be a given way, that it is the nature of power to Rule, that mere mortals mean Nothing in the grand scheme of a world of overmen, and a variety of other factors which give the conflicts of Creation more depth by not being universal than simply being the default. They show an alternate branch of what could-have-been, and even without interacting with Creation directly show there are possibilities outside of those baseline assumptions, and forces you to ask Why.

Why are things as they are, and how could it all have gone differently from the start? Alchemicals, for all their weirdness, put a face on the idea that "Exaltation" can simply be more than who flavors your Charms which color and sets up your ancillary character gimmick, and that becoming an Elder Exalt can change the way your character even approaches the game and world around her across different ages (the Champion-Colossus-City transition) in ways besides "being more powerful." The addition enriches Exalted by having the differences be so stark, that you Can draw those contrasts, and use them to spin new narratives by themselves or where those narratives clash against eachother.

Exigents, if anything, double-down on "what players know the Exalted Are." They don't add any new dimensions to the concept of Exaltation which couldn't be explored through existing types, they don't fundamentally change the role of the Exalted to their people or the world around them, they don't show a new way an Exaltation can relate to its wielder, they don't ask questions of the setting, or set up compelling enough comparisons between themselves and the core-Five they supposedly stand apart from, and the most proudly-proclaimed narratives they are intended to lead are ones which we have already seen, but now you can call yourself an Exalt in the process of playing it out.

If we are creating some kind of zero-sum standard which says that Alchemicals are inherently less-worthy to be called Exalted than Exigents are on the basis of not checking all the metaphysical boxes, then the Exigent narrative and core premise needs to be at least equal, if not exceed the Alchemicals in significance as far as terms of "storytelling about Exalts" potential it can bring to the table by owning that title.

And to be honest, I am not seeing that.
 
Revlid said:
He has no more need to be an objectively great guy, Superman cast in gold, than Jupiter, Ra, or Indra. The latter is particularly relevant, given he's sometimes depicted as using thunder to interrupt meditating monks, lest they achieve enlightenment and become more powerful than him.
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Given that "kick Indra's ass to prove what a badass I am" is AIUI a non-unique element of Indian mythic heroes' narratives, pre-emptively preventing people becoming badass seems like self-defence on Indra's part :)
 
grommile said:
Given that "kick Indra's ass to prove what a badass I am" is AIUI a non-unique element of Indian mythic heroes' narratives, pre-emptively preventing people becoming badass seems like self-defence on Indra's part :)
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Note that as per GoD, the Exalted fighting among themselves and causing their own downfal is "All as planned" as far as the Incarna are concerned.
 
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EarthScorpion Charm Homebrew: Serpent’s Titanic Flesh
  • Threadmarks
    • Serpent's Titanic Flesh
    Cost:     20m, 1wp, 1lhl; Mins: Essence 4; Type: Simple (Dramatic Action)
    Keywords: Unwoven (1), Combo-OK, Shaping, Sorcerous, Geomantic, Desecration
    Duration: Indefinite
    Prerequisites: (Yozi) World-Shaping Cosmogony, Blossoms of the Tiger Empire, God-Beast's Mantle

    Unwinding her god-mantle, the Infernal lays it upon the bedrock and proclaims her supremacy over other worlds. As part of a personal ritual that takes no fewer than four hours and flares her anima to totemic, the warlock extrudes a fragment of her inner reality which proudly subsumes the world within (Essence x 100) yards over the course of the next day. If used in the Wyld, it instead subsumes the entire waypoint it is activated in. The local geography, architecture, fauna and flora is twisted within the titanic flesh to conform to the aesthetics of the Infernal's Tiger Empire, though it retains its essential form. Any wyld-tainted land within the area immediately becomes part of Creation.

    This titanic flesh is the Infernal's body. Prayers to the Infernal or attempts to beckon her demons within the affected land reduce their difficulty by (cultist's Essence). It is a sorcerous connection to her, and the Infernal and her souls may wyld-shape it as if it was a bordermarch using (Yozi) World-Shaping Cosmogony. Any changes must be within the themes permitted by their soul-world as well as by the Yozi's excellency, and she may not create demesnes within her titanic flesh. The character may have no more than (Essence/2) instances of this Charm active at once, though should two instances overlap they will fuse into one.

    Only through raw power may the titan flesh grow. Each week, the boundaries expand by 25 yards per dot of uncapped demesnes within its area. This value is halved if there are any necrotic-aspected demesnes within its borders, while demesnes aspected to Yozis or Primordials count double. These modifiers stack. The titan flesh becomes a persistent Blasphemy upon exceeding five miles in radius.

    Countermagic kills the titanic flesh, converting it into a mundane though twisted landscape that remains until removed by active effort or environmental factors. Emerald countermagic cleanses an area with a radius of up to 250 yards, while Sapphire and Adamant cleanse a radius of up to 500 and 1000 yards, respectively. On the cleaning of an entire region of titanic flesh, the Infernal takes one level of aggravated damage.
     
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    • rikalous said:
    Which kinda makes those messages some Solars get upon Exalting hilarious. "Fuck me, a Skullstone privateer? Why the ass? Uh, shine my light into dark places or some shit, yeah that sounds good."
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    There is a martial art charm that tears out a persons heart and offers it to him as a automatically successful prayer.
    We don't know if he appreciates it or not.
     
    ..... if you knew precisely what words to convince someone, is it mind control, or really good persuasion?
     
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