- Location
- Spain
Ruling the world?
General Exalted Thread
Ruling the world?
Which is going to implode now that the Empress has disappeared, making it an Etch-A-Sketch contribution.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
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- He/They
That the Roman Empire eventually fell doesn't erase its accomplishments while it stood.
That the Realm is falling apart doesn't erase the things it built, the people who survived under its aegis or by the support of its infrastructure, or that it was born in the wake of the Empress stopping the Balorian Crusade in its tracks.
The immediate evidence of her work going away doesn't mean that the consequences of that work will disappear.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
... No, it's going to implode now that the Empress has disappeared, the Solars are back, the Abyssals and Infernals are moving, and probably a few other things I've forgotten. Like, if you'd dropped 300 Adamant Circle Exalted on the Realm before the Empress vanished, it probably would have come apart then, too.
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If I was going to set it up, (and I am cause I'm running a quest you should all totally vote on so I can actually get the character to exalt) I'd set it up like this
1: Tepets Ejava, is a noble heroine who has a really bad objective (Military rule)
2: Mnenon Mnenon is a terrible human being with a really good agenda (reform the scarlet empire into a functional state)
3: V'Neef V'Neef is an okay human being with a fairly bad objective (Scarlet Empress 2.0)
That is because Rome contributed things to the world. It built infrastructure and innovated new methods to create it, innovated and used new and robust legal and political systems, wrote enough tomes on political philosophy and rhetoric to kill someone if you dropped it all on them, trailblazed new models of recording history, wrote books on warfare that rival Sun Tzu in their influence, and much, much more. Things that were enduring and useful enough that they left a mark that endured for millennia. The Realm has done none of these things. They have taken things from earlier, better civilizations and then coasted on it, innovating, advancing, and overall adding nothing to the body of human culture or knowledge.
The First Age is Rome. The Shogunate is Rome post-Constantine. The Scarlet Dynasty is Rome in the 1400s, when it was basically one city and had only lasted as long as it had because of some really, really good walls that earlier generations had built when their civilization had more power and prestige.
Given that the Adamant Circle requires Essence 5, I don't doubt that this would be true even if they didn't even know any Solar Circle spells.
But, Solars, Abyssals, and Infernals don't start out at Essence 5, nor do they start out on the Blessed Isle, so the Realm wouldn't have just ended if the Empress was still around. Instead, since there would be too many of them for the Empress to just smite, and the Wyld Hunt in its current state would be unable to handle all of them, I imagine that the Realm would have been forced to change. Shit like the Tepet Legion debacle would stop, because every soldier would be needed. Pitting the Great Houses against each other would end, because the Realm would need to present a united front. It would be force to adapt and innovate, pushing it to become something more than what it was or die.
If the Realm had generated anything useful, enduring, or valuable during its existence, then those things would have been adapted by the many cultures it has hefty influence over, and those cultures would act as the legacies of the Realm, and Dynasts fleeing the civil war could probably flee to those places to make a fresh start, like how people fleeing Eastern Rome sought refuge in western Europe; because there was a shared cultural heritage.
Instead, the Realms main cultural exports to its satrapies and protectorates seems to have been increased nationalism and hatred of foreigners, those from the Realm in particular.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Citation needed.
No, Adamant Circle Exalted. Solars, Abyssals and Infernals, akin to how Lunars and Sidereals are both Celestials. If three hundred A.C.E.'s suddenly turned up, I quite believe the Realm would have been overwhelmed. Not all at once perhaps, but it would've happened.
Edit: What was here was not really civil, upon reflection. I apologize.
*sigh* You know what, whatever. I'm going to drop this before I can't keep myself marginally polite.
It baffles me how so many are willing to decry the Lunars for doing nothing, but the Realm? No, the Realm is a shining model of Dragon-Blooded accomplishment.
Who else would I have meant?
Also, Solars are Celestial Exalts too. They are called that because they, the Lunars, and the Sidereals were Exalted by the Celestial Incarnae, not because of what Circle of Sorcery they can use.
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Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
/me rolls eyes
The Realm is a jackbooted empire and one of the principle villains of the game, a driving force for the current shape of the world. The Realm has done things (mostly terrible things), as opposed to the Lunars, who barely have a presence in the game. The two are not comparable. If you want to say that the Realm does not innovate or create anything then, yeah, that claim needs backing up.
You seemed to mean only those Exalted wielding Adamant Circle Sorcery. I don't see that as necessary.
And yes, Solars are technically Celestials. But since the game started they and their variants have been reckoned above the other Celestials, the mightiest of the Exalted host, and given there's three types... Well, A.C.E. is at least a respectful nickname.
Well, I suppose I can't, after some searching. But it certainly comes off that way, when there are are number of civilizations in all directions (Coral, Paragon, the Haslanti League, Lookshy) that are all growing, developing, and generally pushing the boundaries of what they're capable of (even Lookshy built the Skywolf, which is better than the other Kireki-class's they had on hand), and they make no equivalent strides as a nation.
Like, it feels like saying that imperial Spain and Victorian England had equally profound and enduring impacts IRL.
...Now I am deeply confused.
- Location
- Singapore
Adamant circle exalted don't exist.
Solars are still celestial.
Solars are still celestial.
- Location
- Denmark
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Solars have access to Adamant Circle magic, Infernals have access to Adamant Circle magic, Abyssals have access to... well they have something, thus since most other Celestials don't have this, @Imrix referred to them as Adamant Circle Exalted to specify their specific numbers.
Imrix is classifying all Solars, Abyssals, and Infernals as Adamant circle exalted. This includes everyone from a newly Exalted one to a veteran. Not only essence 5+ ones, which is what you were claiming.
Jon Chung
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Backstory: The Solars are Important. They're more powerful than the other two Celestial types. The return of the Solars is a Big Deal, and all that. The Abyssals and the Infernals are jailbroken (or perfected, heh) Solars, operating on the Solar level of power. Convenient shorthand for "The Solars and their modified variants": Solaroid, Adamant Exalt, whatever.
I actually suggested that a couple of pages ago. It makes sense to me too. Maybe even say Infernals are actually corrupted Lunars instead of Solars. It kind of makes sense that Lunar exaltations would adapt to a primordial essence better than Solars as they take on the power of things they eat without modifications. The shift from attribute based to yozi based is also smaller than ability to yozi.
The lunar exaltations taking too well to yozi essence could explain the unintended results of devil-tigers/tiger empires*.
Fluff wise Solar's should be better at nation building and making infrastructure to change the world. Lunars on the other hand should be great at breaking those kingdoms when it suits them. Killed by a vengeful Lunar should be a major cause of death for all exalt splats. Sure the Solars will win in a fair fight but they really didn't expect their beloved pet cat to kill them in a single strike.
*Kerisgame hombrew by Earthscorpion.
Jon Chung
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Someone didn't buy their paranoia combo.
Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
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Somebody else bought FFDFB.
I like "Solar-Pattern Exalt," myself.
Generally in universe only Solar's who have both dodge and a perfect defense capable combat ability favored/caste would have any chance of having a paranoia combo. That is a pretty small minority and even then it probably won't be something they pick up until they get used to peer level threats. Narratively they won't ever get one unless paranoia or being a ninja is part of their character themes.
Jon Chung
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Well, no. That's the fun thing about the paranoia combo: Creation is full of things that want to kill you no matter how non-combative your powers are. In fact, they want to kill you more if you're a Solar-level diplomat or sorcerer, because the non-combat foci tend to have more geopolitical impact. Solar Bob the Murderhobo is a bit further down the priority list than Solar Bob the Demagogue or Solar Bob the Daemonologist. So if the paranoia combo is the only way to not die when sneezed on by five extras, and if Creation remains as hostile as it should be, all living Celestials should have it regardless of concept, as we can assume that everyone who doesn't have it has been murdered and their shard sent to respawn.
This is obviously not good, but hey, Exalted system, lol.
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But unless they had a mentor to teach them about all the Charms they could learn, I don't think they would know that the paranoia combo was possible, on account of Charms not being on a convenient list you can look through in-universe? They are, I believe, instead things that develop as extensions of stuff you try to do? Like, you don't get Heavenly Guardian Defense by investing in a Charm tree which you know leads to a perfect defense, you get it by constantly trying to parry harder, until one day you can parry perfectly.
So someone who fights at range would not go out of their way to develop Melee charms to get a perfect parry, and someone who runs around in superheavy plate would not go out of their way to learn dodge charms to get a perfect dodge, no matter how optimal it might be to do so.
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Jon's point isn't that everyone has a Paranoia Combo because it's an obvious choice of charms to learn, it's that everyone who didn't have a Paranoia Combo is dead, so everyone who's left has one.