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General Exalted Thread

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Graypairofsocks said:
I was relistening to some songs and this one's themes kind of reminded me of Exalted:
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Relevant:

(Thanks @Aleph)

You ask what it needs to save Creation? You propose schemes, solutions, stratagems to put it beyond risk or threat of destruction, to safeguard it from harm and deliver it into eternal and harmonious accord?

Then I say this to you, you labour in futility. What you seek to do is, in its entirety, impossible. You cannot create a permanent peace, set Creation beyond the spectre of war and conflict forever. For nothing lasts forever, save for the Exaltations, and perhaps not even those. Who can say what will come ere the dawn of the new Age, or the next? No, however high and strong you build your tower, in time its foundations will wear away to nothing, and it will fall.

But. But.

An eternal peace cannot be reached, not by man or god or even, I think, by Exalted Host. Too many forces stand opposed to such, not the least of which are time and humanity itself. But a lasting peace, now - one that will carry the years well, and remain after you have gone, long enough for another to, perhaps, take up its reins... that, now, that can be done. It will not guarantee an eternity for Creation, for your legacy will still crumble in time. But you will be dust by then, and must trust those who come after you. Eventually, all must step back and allow their children to carry their torch, and to think you can arrange matters such that they never need to is arrogance - do you truly think that none but you can defend Creation, even past your death?

So. A lasting peace. One that will not remain forever, but which will safeguard Creation for a time, before it fades away for others to take up its mantle and build kingdoms of their own. They may do so. They may not. For us ancestors, we can do naught but trust in their judgement, and build what we can now. But even a lasting peace is not an easy, or simple affair. Not in all the history of Creation has such a thing been done, for scuffles marked the First Age to the point of breaking time itself, and the warring of the Shogunate against itself is legendary. There is no simple path to peace, no stratagem that can be encapsulated in a single line, or even a single tome. It is perhaps the most complex undertaking imaginable, dependent on all who aid and oppose it. To think that such a goal could be sought and summarised in a single course of action - however lofty a goal it might be, even to the level of destroying the Exaltations or curing the Great Curse - is madness. These things will not bring peace in and of themselves.

No. I shall tell you the cost of a lasting peace. It costs work. Every day. Every week. Every year, it costs work. It costs battles and betrayals. Choices and challenges. Dilemmas and dichotomies. You must make decisions that seem unsolvable, while never losing sight of your path. You must face down enemies and allies both, while still being admitting to your errors. You must listen to those you govern, without letting them set the course to anarchy. You must take every individual obstacle and find the right path through it, even when the path is murky and what is right is unclear.

The Exalted can rule effectively. The Exalted can rule efficiently. But no Charm, no magic, nothing in all existence can tell one how to rule wisely. There is no ability, magic or mundane, that will reveal to you the wisest course of action - only the most effective. One is not the other, and it is important to remember this. For what you need to create a lasting peace is the wisdom to rule well, and that cannot be taught or bought or caught by any means, even experience. It is a challenge to one's own soul, and one in which the Exalted are no better equipped than any mortal, for wisdom guides one in what they use their power for, rather than merely in using it.

You speak of "saving Creation" as if it is something you plan out in a day, or a week, or a year. As if one can simply find the right thing to do, the right button to press, and all will be well. But there is no such thing, and if you think otherwise, you fail to appreciate the magnitude of the task you set yourself. It is not something you can plan out in advance, for so very much of it must be done in reaction to what you find as you do it. It is not something that will hinge on a single quest or set-up, for it must change in reaction to every force that seeks to destabilise it. The way to save Creation is not some great undertaking or strategy or plan to accomplish. It is simply to rule wisely and well, and never falter in either.

And that cannot be done in anything less - or for anything more - than a lifetime.
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It's pretty obvious that the early inspirations for the Exalted were Biblical figures because The Book of Three Circles could have been renamed "And This Is How You Exodus" and had no loss of meaning. Parting seas? Yup. Rivers of blood? Got that. Pillars of flame at night and smoke in the day? Gotcha covered.
 
on the note of the Incarnae- one of the fundamental problems with... really any 'big name' deity character in Exalted has a sort of problem of being this lightning rod for player appropriation.

What I mean is, a great many players believe that their ideal narrative is getting the Sun back to work, of redeeming him, destroying the games or otherwise putting the Gods back into working order.

The problem is, with all the memes surrounding Exalted, it's hard to convey that for all of its corruption, Heaven does work. It could work better yes, but for most plots as mentioned, it's irrelevant. Exalted functions best when campaigns and narratives are restrained to personal projects and more intimate challenges like saving a city-state, building a dam, or curing a plague.

Basically a lot of people come into Exalted wanting to play a specific story... and they don't know that the stories they want to play are actually unhealthy for the game. See all 'Fix the Yozi' chatter, for example.
 
ManusDomine said:
I disagree completely.

The 1e chapter fictions were masterful, and especially the introductory story of Aesha in Chiaroscuro captures the setting perfectly. The setting chapter is wonderful and explains what you can use different organizations and characters for, as well as have excellent introductions to the various fiefdoms and empires throughout Creation, such as the Realm or the Scavenger Lands.

But then, I had my introduction to Exalted in First Edition, so it may look different to me.
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I mean, so did I; I think I played a Twilight doctor out of the 1e core back in... '04? It was a running joke for my group at the time that the game was impossible to fit together - that you could never find anything, that books blatantly contradicted each other as to how the setting (and the different Exalted types) worked, that the terminology seemed designed deliberately to confuse, etc.

I can see where, as Dif suggests, that might be part of the Charm, making play spaces for certain kinds of groups - but man, it just kinda drove us bananas. It was really nice in 2e that if you wanted to know about, say, gods, that there was a Big Book o' Gods that would do that for you; if you were trying to set a story in the Realm, well, grab the book on that subject!

Again, 2e had its own (very deep) flaws, but I think "one clear description of the world, where you can predict what book has the information you want, and where the core gives a relatively complete look at what's to come" is probably its strength. 1e hadn't figured all that out yet, and 3e is deliberately obscure; for clarity, 2e does pretty well.
 
Omicron said:
Malfeas-as-YHVH
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Well, for one thing we're talking about THEION, who became Malfeas when the Exalted decided to brutally murder his non-murdery fetich. There's a rather significant difference.

Omicron said:
There is no Covenant,
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Well, yes there was, it was just simpler than YHWH's itemized list. Theion went for something more like "And ye shall obey me and honor me in all things, and in exchange ye shall be permitted to dwell upon my Creation."

Omicron said:
there is no chosen people,
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There were, actually - we just don't know much about them, because the Exalted Host butchered them all for daring to side with their own creators over a passel of disgruntled managerial robots and their pet aphids.

Omicron said:
there is no guidance to freedom out of the desert (on a journey made arbitrarily longer as a punishment for apostasy), there are no prophets send to save their people from extermination (by exterminating the other guy instead),
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Um, Omicron, Theion isn't literally YHWH. White Wolf is not, in fact, claiming that they built a time machine, went back to the founding of Judaism, and brought back photo evidence that Theion masterminded it all. Yes, these two insanely specific examples are not, in fact, things Theion did, but they're also not exactly defining elements of the dogma. You might as well be arguing that the lack of Theion-crumping iron chariots proves you right.

Omicron said:
there are no tablets of law (which combine crucial foundations of society and self-serving worship).
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Again, I guess you're right? Still not sure how that matters. Also, as somebody pointed out, Cecelyne does things like that and was also very close to Theion before the Exalted Host decided to work out their repressed torture porn fetishes on him.

Omicron said:
There's no complexity.
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See, the thing here is that you can have as much or as little ambiguity/complexity as you're willing to credit the Primordials with, because the only sources of information on what really happened are highly opinionated and distorted by time/madness.

Omicron said:
This is fine if you want Malfeas to just be, well, Malfeas. Malfeas doesn't have these nuanced sides. He was a ruthless, cruel, uncaring tyrant. But if you want Malfeas as a commentary on the Biblical God then you're just constructing the kind of cheap strawman I'd expect out of a Philip Pullman story. It would be a more nuanced story if Malfeas actually had the complexity of a relationship with mankind where humanity eventually decides that this isn't worth it and it wants freedom, and rises up to fight God; but then the game would be a lot more risky, and a lot more in-your-face about its politics, than it wants to be. And that's saying something.
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Again, Malfeas =/= Theion, any more than Adorjan = Adrian.

Based on what I know of Theion, he was, if anything, slightly less of a dick than the Old Testament god, if only because he was usually too busy playing cosmic Xbox or exulting in his own gloriousness to bother incinerating random men for not knocking up their dead brothers' wives. Any significant interactions between the Holy Tyrant and anything as miniscule as a human cult was likely run through Ruvelia, his lost fetich who represented Theion's capacity for benevolence and mercy. Malfeas is an insane ball of hatefire because the Exalted butchered all that was good in him and paraded the pieces before him, then tore him inside out and sewed up his own siblings/subjects inside him.
 
So when a Solar uses an excellency, she is being supernaturally skilled at the task. Her speeches put FDR's to shame, her skill allows her to react to her enemies moves before they even start etc.

When an Infernal uses one their channeling the essence of the Yozis, right? So they aren't necessarily getting more skilled are they? If an Infernal channels Malfeas to convince someone She simply orders it and they recognize they obey as She is the rightful ruler. Cecelyne tells you to do something and you do so because you believe it to be a de facto or de jure law of society etc.

Is this the correct way of looking at it?
 
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rogthnor said:
So when a Solar uses an excellency, she is being supernaturally skilled at the task. Her speeches put FDR's to shame, her skill allows her to react to her enemies moves before they even start etc.

When an Infernal uses one their channeling the essence of the Yozis, right? So they aren't necessarily getting more skilled are they? If an Infernal channels Malfeas to convince someone She simply orders it and they recognize they obey as She is the rightful ruler. Cecelyne tells you to do something and you do so because you believe it to be a de facto or de jure law of society etc.

Is this the correct way of looking at it?
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No, what you're describing is how Malfean and Cecelynian UMI work. The infernal excellency makes you better by tapping into the well of Yozi Essence inside you, much like the solar excellency makes you better by tapping into the well of Solar Essence inside you.
 
rogthnor said:
So when a Solar uses an excellency, she is being supernaturally skilled at the task. Her speeches put FDR's to shame, her skill allows her to react to her enemies moves before they even start etc.

When an Infernal uses one their channeling the essence of the Yozis, right? So they aren't necessarily getting more skilled are they? If an Infernal channels Malfeas to convince someone She simply orders it and they recognize they obey as She is the rightful ruler. Cecelyne tells you to do something and you do so because you believe it to be a de facto or de jure law of society etc.

Is this the correct way of looking at it?
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Sorta? Infernal Excellencies are basically drawing upon their Yozi's skill at a thing because they're a certain way. Your not incredibly intimidating because Malfeas is the Tyrant. Malfeas is very skilled at intimidation because he needs to be to be a proper Tyrant, and you're drawing on that skill of being intimidating. Similarly, Cecelyne isn't good at law and such because she's the Lawgiver of the Yozi. She needs to be good at making laws because that's her job and you draw upon that when using her excellency.

Basically, Excellencies don't draw on conceptual stuff like that. They are expressions of extreme skill that draw from their patrons skill.

Stuff like "people listen to me because I'm the embodiment of being a king" and so on is more Charms territory than Excellencies.
 
ManusDomine said:
Yes, exactly.

First Edition had a coherent design vision and an idea of what it actually wanted to do, while Second Edition was mostly mindless repetition and pointless, trite detail.



Large parts of the Sufficient Velocity Exalted community don't like Third (me included), though some think it's great (most notably @Omicron, who has done all the awesome 3e homebrew and who can tell you all sorts of things).
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Wait...

ManusDomine said:
(most notably @Omicron, who has done all the awesome 3e homebrew and who can tell you all sorts of things).
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:cry:
 
Omicron said:
My problem with Malfeas-as-YHVH is that this reading tends to stop at "pillars of salt" and "Sodom and Gomhora" and discards all the nuance of the character. It's not really a critical look at an Old Testament God figure, it's just a take-down. There is no Covenant, there is no chosen people, there is no guidance to freedom out of the desert (on a journey made arbitrarily longer as a punishment for apostasy), there are no prophets send to save their people from extermination (by exterminating the other guy instead), there are no tablets of law (which combine crucial foundations of society and self-serving worship). There's no complexity.
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I'm not sure anyone wants Theion to be a commentary on monotheistic gods.

What I want, and what I think other people want, is to borrow a few themes from monotheistic gods in much the same way that Solars borrow from sun gods and superheroes without really resembling them.

For me, the most appealing bits to borrow are the bodilessness and the claim to be synonymous with good. Some Christians will tell you that being good without God is not just impossible but logically contradictory; I'd like Malfeas and some of his sympathizers to say the same about Theion. And I like the irony of a being who was once too perfect to be touched now having toilets and junkyards as an actual part of his body.
 
ManusDomine said:
Ha!

(To be honest, I interact with Omicron more than you, so I kinda forgot. You do some nice homebrew too. :smile:)
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ManusDomine said:
To be honest, @Omicron basically won me over with The Mourning Queen's Regalia, which I maintain as one of the best pieces of homebrew (hell, one of the best pieces of Exalted writing) I have seen.
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Oh yeah, I agree Omicron's stuff is better than anything I've put out yet (though, I actually am kind of proud of Veshenzi), but not getting any comments is bad enough without people literally forgetting it exists. :V
 
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Maugan Ra said:
[warning=Piracy is a crime]As has been mentioned by several other posters, discussions of how to commit digital piracy are not permitted here.
[/warning]

(Also, I'm Staff now. This warning may have been an excuse to play around with all these fancy new buttons I have on my screen.)
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No this is the first time i saw this policy in this thread since i only been here once before.
And the only one i know that is a policy is this thing call celestial bliss trick that get thread-ban
 
Duburu said:
No this is the first time i saw this policy in this thread since i only been here once before.
And the only one i know that is a policy is this thing call celestial bliss trick that get thread-ban
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SV has rules.

SV also has moderators who enforce these rules (don't think i can't see you @horngeek and @Aleph)

(admittedly, i don't think they moderate in threads they post in due to that being bad policy and carrying a greater risk of bias)
 
Duburu said:
No this is the first time i saw this policy in this thread since i only been here once before.
And the only one i know that is a policy is this thing call celestial bliss trick that get thread-ban
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You have a thousand posts on this site, and you never read the rules? The ones which are literally linked at the top of every single page?

Tip.

It's Rule 1.

  • Illegal Material is Prohibited.

    You can't post anything which, in the opinion of a Director, exposes anyone or the forum itself to legal liability in the United States, Australia, or Canada.
    For example:
    • Child pornography, including fictional or written material;
    • Slander or libel, or any false or malicious statement against a person;
    • Hate speech: advocating genocide, incitement of hatred, and similar things;
    • Harassment, such as stalking, threatening behavior, or exposing another person's personal information;
    • Copyright infringement, like linking to illegal torrents or scans or posting anything like that on this site.
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ManusDomine said:
SV has rules.

SV also has moderators who enforce these rules (don't think i can't see you @horngeek and @Aleph)

(admittedly, i don't think they moderate in threads they post in due to that being bad policy and carrying a greater risk of bias)
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Do drivethru accept gift card?

Also yes i havent read the rule on this site or SB if ever
The only i know off is dont flame and dont troll your fellow SV/SB
Also no porn
 
horngeek said:
The rule is 'dont moderate arguments you're involved with'. We generally don't moderate threads we're involved with, but that isn't a hard rule.
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Hmm, I suspected as much.

EarthScorpion said:
You have a thousand posts on this site, and you never read the rules? The ones which are literally linked at the top of every single page?
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man thats kind of amazing tbh

this is like a moment out of a dream

presumably a nightmare for people who care about the rules

like our staff :V
 
Duburu said:
Also yes i havent read the rule on this site or SB if ever
The only i know off is dont flame and dont troll your fellow SV/SB
Also no porn
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Well, it might behove you to familiarise yourself with them, because both SB and SV consistently hold that ignorance of the rules is not actually a defence. And when you have over a thousand posts, you burned through your "new user" credit a long time ago.
 
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