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General Exalted Thread

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EarthScorpion said:
Simple answer; the currency system of Creation was invented before the Order-Conferring Trade Pattern was retconned in. The Order-Conferring Trade Pattern is rather a bloated tumour on the setting that people keep on trying to make into more than a mild curiosity.

Moreover, I note, silver currency is an insistence of the Guild in canon. The Realm wants everyone using their jade currency as the international currency of commerce because it gives them power over them. So, no, even there it's not the Realm's fault.
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Well, actually, in such a case I think the Realm would still have at least some share of the blame. "I politicized an important action to hold back the Wyld [If you accept the retcon] so much that people will use silver rather than becoming even more beholden to me" doesn't exactly speak volumes in your favor?

That said, the simplest explanation is the best: it's something retconned in, so should be ignored unless you want to for some reason. Or downplayed at least.
 
Leingod said:
Yeah, but there's selfish and then there's "I will literally put the very existence of the world itself in danger so that I can have all the jade forever" kind of selfish. It's especially galling since her rise to power was precipitated by the Balorian Crusade swallowing about half of Creation back into the Wyld. You'd think if anyone would be willing to take the Fae seriously, it' be her.
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Well if you want an actual reason...
If you accept that the OCTP is an actual thing, that the Scarlet Empress knows about it, and that she is doing this purposefully, then it's possible that she wants the world to suffer.
So that her empire can act like conquering heroes and the mundane people will beg to be placed into servitude.

Of course this only works if the Empress values the parts of Creation and it's people outside the Blessed Island as being worth less than dirt, and only really cares about ruling the entire world or watching it be destroyed if she can't.
But Elder Exalted do have a nasty tendency of going insane, and she has lived much longer than a Terrestrial normally should.

Not that I would want to have that as a part of a game I played in, it's just an example.
 
Sanctaphrax said:
Simulations are very difficult. Games rules aren't so hard.

If your players are experts, or if they have strong ideological opinions about what should work, that can cause issues. But with most groups maintaining SOD shouldn't be too hard.
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My issue comes down to the trade offs between complexity, so that the system matters to at least the extent that social and mass combat do; verisimilitude, feeling like it makes sense within setting; and fun. The last of those tends to be the sticking point because I've found that few people really get excited about political rules that don't involve their pet political theories being successful.

One of the hardest issues within the fun category is avoiding the decker problem. The system should have enough inputs and outputs that other players care about the results and can assist in some way, but not being mandatory for them.

Regarding SoD... my gaming groups probably have an unusually large number of history buffs, physicists/engineers, and economists. Which makes maintaining SoD difficult at times.

Bursting Eagerness Soul said:
Could we get a threadmark on this please?
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I would be happy to do that, though have no idea how it happens.
 
The Laurent said:
That said, the simplest explanation is the best: it's something retconned in, so should be ignored unless you want to for some reason. Or downplayed at least.
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And that's why the OCTP required regular Bureaucracy based ACS support.

It collapsed, it did so thousands of years ago, and it was only useful for making unreal things real over the course of a few decades, and there's no more Solars making partially real bits of Creation for the Pattern to realize anyway.
 
Sydonai said:
Of course this only works if the Empress values the parts of Creation and it's people outside the Blessed Island as being worth less than dirt, and only really cares about ruling the entire world or watching it be destroyed if she can't.
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Considering the way the Realm treats its colonies on the Threshold, i.e. nakedly using them to extract vast amounts of wealth via the threat of force, caring about their infrastructure only insomuch as it can then proceed to extract greater wealth from the populace, that doesn't seem to be an invalid interpretation.

Unless someone's going to come in and tell me that's also 2e's fault and in 1e the Realm was a benevolent (or at least willing to act as such for greater long-term stability and profit) force for stability and prosperity that its colonies were eternally loyal an grateful for.
 
If you accept the OCTP as a real thing, then it's entirely possible that the Empress simply judges that the world-defending utility of maintaining a ready supply of Jade to equip her elementally-powered warrior nobility with powerful artifacts outweighs the world-defending utility of whatever incomplete functionality she can get out of a centuries-broken system that was never intended to run without Solar oversight.

Or maybe she just wants to keep everybody reliant on that aforementioned elementally-powered warrior nobility. Who knows?
 
I mean, Creation wasn't designed with the OCTP in mind, so whatever effects it may or may not have had aren't actually necessary to keep it from collapsing, they're just helpful. Maybe 'be shipped around and used as a currency of all things' just wasn't an efficient use of Jade when you could use it for making artifacts.
 
Leingod said:
Considering the way the Realm treats its colonies on the Threshold, i.e. nakedly using them to extract vast amounts of wealth via the threat of force, caring about their infrastructure only insomuch as it can then proceed to extract greater wealth from the populace, that doesn't seem to be an invalid interpretation.

Unless someone's going to come in and tell me that's also 2e's fault and in 1e the Realm was a benevolent (or at least willing to act as such for greater long-term stability and profit) force for stability and prosperity that its colonies were eternally loyal an grateful for.
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As far as I can tell from hearsay? No.
 
Elero said:
I mean, Creation wasn't designed with the OCTP in mind, so whatever effects it may or may not have had aren't actually necessary to keep it from collapsing, they're just helpful. Maybe 'be shipped around and used as a currency of all things' just wasn't an efficient use of Jade when you could use it for making artifacts.
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Creation also wasn't designed with the Three Spheres Cataclysm in mind, or the Great Contagion, or the Balorian Crusade...
 
Sydonai said:
Creation also wasn't designed with the Three Spheres Cataclysm in mind, or the Great Contagion, or the Balorian Crusade...
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Or the overthrow of the Primordials and their being mutilated into the Yozis, the creation of the Neverborn throwing the cycle of reincarnation out of whack, the gods getting too hooked on the Cosmic Xbox or their own petty squabbles to do their jobs properly, etc.
 
ichypa said:
Is there any way to realistically prevent the Unconquered Sun and/or Luna from walking all over a give hostile force without involving the Games of Divinity or the Primordial Geas?

While full of lies in-universe, I've always found the Stormlight Archive's mythology, specifically the part where humanity started in heaven but got driven out by the forces of evil, to be a rather fascinating idea. I want to see if I can sketch out a version of Creation where, instead of being the god's weapons to overthrow their masters, the creation of the Exalted was defensive and/or retaliatory, a response to the threat of an overwhelming hostile force rather than a tool of aggression. Rather than trying to take Yu Shan for themselves, the gods/Exalts are trying to get it back.

The thing I'm stuck on atm is that I can't think of anything that could actually oust the Incarnae from Yu Shan, especially the Sun; I'm probably going to have to uproot a whole bunch of setting assumptions and end up doing to lot more remaking than adjusting, but I figured I ask and see if I've really exhausted all of my options before I do more work than I needed to.
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Turn the Unconquered Sun into Gwyn, Lord of Cinders; burning himself slowly so the sun can still shine. The game ends with the players entering the Jade Pleasure Dome, after having killed the Five Maidenly Seers in a super-annoying five-phase boss battle and having joined the Silver Hunters of Luna Covenant. They find the Jade Pleasure Dome empty and full of ashes, in the center of it is a bonfire, burning gold, the Godspear impaled through the chest of a figure slowly burning up.

As they close in, the figure pulls out the spear, grabs his shield and rises.

Time to prove yourself worthy of being the new sun. :V
Graveless said:
I would be happy to do that, though have no idea how it happens.
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They happen like this. :V

(Seriously, just tag me and I'll threadmark your shit. I'm doing the work that the people actually responsible for threadmarking should be doing.)
 
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ManusDomine said:
urn the Unconquered Sun into Gwyn, Lord of Cinders; burning himself slowly so the sun can still shine. The game ends with the players entering the Jade Pleasure Dome, after having killed the Five Maidenly Seers in a super-annoying five-phase boss battle and having joined the Silver Hunters of Luna Covenant. They find the Jade Pleasure Dome empty and full of ashes, in the center of it is a bonfire, burning gold, the Godspear impaled through the chest of a figure slowly burning up.

As they close in, the figure pulls out the spear, grabs his shield and rises.

Time to prove yourself worthy of being the new sun. :V
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See, in an Exalted Modern setting I've toyed with the idea that the Incarnae are basically dead; nobody wants to go into the Jade Pleasure Dome to be certain, because they'd either potentially piss off the most powerful beings in Creation for interrupting their games or create mass hysteria by proving that yes, the Rulers of Heaven are all lying in there dead, their withered hands clenched forever around some piece with which they attempted to make one last move.

Mind you, my approach to the Incarnae is that they're all massively depressed (most of all Sol) because they burned down the world and overthrew their makers and created a new order of men and women who would make the world beautiful... then got to sit and watch as everything continued to be kind of shitty and people continued to be kind of shitty, so they've gradually retreated into the JPD and the Games as a way to forget about how much everything sucks and how unhappy they are; in that case, adding a few thousand years for the world to continue crawling along in a state of miserable Darwinian self-destruction would definitely end in them either smashing open the Dome and rising up to make one final, desperate effort to fix the world and justify all the shit that's gone down up till now - or as mentioned, just gradually fading away at the game board because holy fuck what is even the point.
 
ManusDomine said:
Turn the Unconquered Sun into Gwyn, Lord of Cinders; burning himself slowly so the sun can still shine. The game ends with the players entering the Jade Pleasure Dome, after having killed the Five Maidenly Seers in a super-annoying five-phase boss battle and having joined the Silver Hunters of Luna Covenant. They find the Jade Pleasure Dome empty and full of ashes, in the center of it is a bonfire, burning gold, the Godspear impaled through the chest of a figure slowly burning up.

As they close in, the figure pulls out the spear, grabs his shield and rises.

Time to prove yourself worthy of being the new sun. :V
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Of course, there may also be five old women sitting among the ashes, endlessly weaving and re-weaving a mourning shroud. Or possibly four old women, and the transfixed corpse of the Maiden of Endings - for the gods denied that there could be an Ending to their rule.
 
ManusDomine said:
Turn the Unconquered Sun into Gwyn, Lord of Cinders; burning himself slowly so the sun can still shine. The game ends with the players entering the Jade Pleasure Dome, after having killed the Five Maidenly Seers in a super-annoying five-phase boss battle and having joined the Silver Hunters of Luna Covenant. They find the Jade Pleasure Dome empty and full of ashes, in the center of it is a bonfire, burning gold, the Godspear impaled through the chest of a figure slowly burning up.

As they close in, the figure pulls out the spear, grabs his shield and rises.

Time to prove yourself worthy of being the new sun. :V
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EarthScorpion said:
Of course, there may also be five old women sitting among the ashes, endlessly weaving and re-weaving a mourning shroud. Or possibly four old women, and the transfixed corpse of the Maiden of Endings - for the gods denied that there could be an Ending to their rule.
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Ideas on how to deal with Luna and the Sun are still kinda vague (though I think them needing to stay in a possibly re-worked Underworld for one of four and counting reasons has the most potential), but I've got something more concrete ideas for the Maiden; the one I'm most inclined towards is that they create/maintain/repair the seals on The Gate of Yu Shan (there'd only be the one in this world, at the top of Mount Meru), which keeps the Bad Guys from constantly shitting out armies to wreck the Good Guys's shit. This would create something akin to the cycle of Desolations in the history of The Stormlight Archives, which I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from.
 
Actually, @EarthScorpion, didn't you mention something in this thread about how if Creation was destroyed, it would also mean that the Unconquered Sun would have died too, since he'd refuse to abandon the Games? It was in response to someone trying to figure out what would happen if the main setting went kaput and the gods/Exalts/etc tried to seek asylum for the survivors in Malfeas.

Where is that exchange in the thread?
 
Leingod said:
So... is there ever an explanation given for why the Empress doesn't know that jade currency has to circulate in the Threshold for the Order-Conferring Trade Pattern to help keep the Wyld at bay and thus her deliberate and aggressive attempts to rip it all out of the Threshold and put it in her own hands is literally harming the stability and prosperity of the world, despite the fact that her #1 adviser is Chejop Kejak, a guy who was born basically right after the Primordial War and who should thus know this little tidbit?

Or is this one of those things where we're supposed to expect that these explicitly beyond-human minds with hundreds of years of experience are just that stupid and/or selfish?
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Jade is a magic material and even if the Empress knows about the OCTP, it doesn't follow that everyone else in the threshold knows about it, or even everyone in the Realm. Free-floating Jade is going to be worth more to people who can use it to make Artifacts as Artifact materials than as plain cash. For her redness to be able to enforce the use of jade as currency all over creation, the Realm would need to have direct control over all of Creation, which is something it can't do. The best it can do is influence everyone and even then the further away from it's centers of control, the more sharply limited it's influence becomes.
 
You know, I'm kind of curious as to what the relationships between the Incarnae are like. Luna was made specifically to be the equal and opposite of the Unconquered Sun; her mercurial, ever-changing nature was meant to balance out his unbending righteousness, just as her moon gives Creation a respite from the nurturing but harsh light of his sun. In fact, the first time the two met, they exchanged words that no one knows and then the Unconquered Sun, for the first time in his existence, stood down and let his sun fall below the horizon. In most mythologies, they'd be married or lovers, but Luna's greatest lover was always Gaia, and the Unconquered Sun has nearly married the Maidens at least once (stopped by Jupiter, I believe). So what do the Unconquered Sun and Luna think of each other? Are they friends or siblings who trust each other completely, or do their differences make them resent each other and only work together because they recognize they each need the other? Why exactly did the Unconquered Sun demand that Luna bond her Exalted to his own; was it for the sake of the Solars, the Lunars, or both? The normal interpretation seems to be that he demanded that Luna suborn the Lunars to the Solars, but while it's not entirely equal the Solar/Lunar Bond is mutual, so could it be that he thought that the Solars might need the Lunars to balance them out, just like he needs Luna?

For that matter, what about the Maidens? They often act as one, but they all have their own interests and personalities. Do the Unocnquered Sun and Luna have better relationships with some than others? Like, does the Unconquered Sun resent that Jupiter keeps secrets from him, while Luna is more understanding of that? The Maidens sans Jupiter were apparently open to all marrying the Unconquered Sun at some point; why was that?

I mean, the game is about the Chosen of the Incarnae rather than the Incarnae themselves, so I get why it's not elaborated on. Not to mention how difficult it would be to portray them, what with how abhuman they can be in a lot of ways. It's kind of interesting to speculate, though.
 
Leingod said:
So what do the Unconquered Sun and Luna think of each other? Are they friends or siblings who trust each other completely, or do their differences make them resent each other and only work together because they recognize they each need the other?
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Well, according to their respective Glories splats, Luna has an Intimacy of Friendly Rivalry with Sol, while he has an Intimacy of Affection towards Luna (and the Maidens as well).
 
landcollector said:
Well, according to their respective Glories splats, Luna has an Intimacy of Friendly Rivalry with Sol, while he has an Intimacy of Affection towards Luna (and the Maidens as well).
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Huh, that's interesting. That at least gives a basic outline, though now I'm wondering about specifics.

horngeek said:
Doesn't he also have a Specialty of Luna in Ride? :V
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Now, I know that's probably supposed to be something like Luna transforming into a massive steed and the Unconquered Sun riding her into battle, but now I wonder if Gaia's jotun has the same Specialty?
 
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