I don't claim to know a whole lot about Exalted, but I have read more than a few of the books and absorbed quite a bit through following this thread and Kerisgame and even Keychain of Creation back in the day. Anyway, the discussion of Autochthon got me thinking about his nature once again, and I think we have to actually look at him through the same lens of the other Primordials to be able to better pin down his nature. What is Autochthon?

Autochthon is an inventor. By the standards of the other Primordials he is "sick". This aesthetics are associated with the mechanical. These are the big, core characterizations throughout the books. But the Primordials are more akin to cosmic forces than anything human. Malfeas is a star encased within his own flesh (possibly the most metal way of describing a Dyson shell ever). Cecylene is the speed of light and frames of reference. Adorjan is the hostility of the vacuum. Isidoros is a black hole. The Ebon Dragon is entropy. These aren't all they are, but they are frames to get across the sheer alien nature of these beings.

So where does Autochthon fit into all of this? He's an inventor, progressive, and imperfect. But to invent implies that there was some less advanced version before. Progress implies direction.

What is Autochthon?



Autochton is evolution, or more precisely he is cosmic horror story of entropy driven evolution. He is the rising complexity of the universe because atomic weapons increase the entropy of the universe faster than rocks basking in the sun. He is the blind watchmaker given sight but not foresight. Where the Ebon Dragon is more a metaphysical and moral entropy, Autochthon is the entropy of a steam engine. His "sickness" as far as his siblings were concerned was his own nature. Where their components parts were far more complete and unchanging, it was in his nature to be continuously tearing apart and remaking his Third Circle souls. Where they were constant and enduring, he was finite and frail, because nothing he made could last. He had to be able to cannibalize himself for fuel for his next iteration. But what is he progressing to?

Heat death. The cold blackness at the end of all things when all fuel has been expended. The Void.

In this light, the Primordial War is perhaps not the bullied Primordial just snapping, but the purest expression of Autochthon's nature. The Exalted are the invention by which the Primordials were rendered obsolete, the next step in the evolution of Creation.

I think if you look at Autochthon in this light, you can also break Voidtech and Gremlins and the like into two categories, of which the inhabitants might not actually know the difference. The first is the Old. These are the parts of Autochthon that are breaking down because they are past their expiry date, obsolete metabiology that needs to be replaced. They are vestigial organs and atavisms that no longer serve a purpose but still hang around, using resources. They are antiques that take up space. They are the dead things that still cling to their old life and rob the living of their existence to keep going. These things should be cobbled and patched together, post-apocalyptic steampunk undead monstrosities.

But those should not be Voidtech. No, Voidtech should be the New. Should be the pitiless drive of evolution and self-improvement at all cost. If the Old Gremlins are the parts of Autochthon that had reached the end of their operational lifespan and refuse to retire, the steampunk monstrosities in a dieselpunk world, then the Voidtech Gremlins should be the natural response to the constraints that displacing himself to Elsewhere Autochthon's metabiology would produce. Dark, sleek, solid-state beings able to run efficiently on the necrotic essence that is starting to fill up the Great Maker like the exhaust of a car running in an enclosed space. And if humans get in the way, well, in this latest iteration of the Great Maker there is no need for them. The systems they maintain are old and inefficient, and their elimination will simply make the upgrade process more efficient.

Because Autochthon is progress and evolution, and if the next step has no room for maintaining inefficient systems then it is as pitiless as an asteroid impact or a corporation buying up land for redevelopment. Even if its progressing to oblivion, even if its evolving to extinction.

Anyway, that's my thought on the matter anyway.

Oh dearie me.

First, replacing the 2e one-dimensional biomechanical monster antagonists with Xenomorphs is not an improvement.

Second, that music video (while really good, and pretty much mandatory if you want to listen to the song) isn't a terribly effective encapsulation of any Primordial. If I had to pick one, I'd actually go with Metagaos over anything - it's a picture of mindless self-indulgence, overconsuming and devouring and absorbing everything without regard for anything but your mad hunger, shamelessly reveling in your own venal nature of what you're doing all the while. There's a sort of dark Shashalme-ism to some of it as well - "admire me, admire what I have made, admire what I have taken for myself."

If you want pitiless evolution, then you go to Ramethus. He's the Primordial that proclaimed that to exist is to be in conflict, that the weak either become strong or become food for the strong, and was so dedicated to his vision of eternal Darwinian apotheosis that when the Exalted Host came to tear the titans from their thrones, he happily took arms against them and died laughing, for by destroying Theion's rule and casting Creation into chaos by force of arms, his killers had only proved him right.

@Dif put this better in one of his earlier Autochthon posts, but the theme of the Great Maker is better described as "technological progress". His imperfection is partially a product of that, because technology is made by failing again and again and learning each time, or even just bludgeoning away at a problem until a solution presents itself through serendipity. He lived and died a billion times just to be born at all, as his Mythos struggled to create itself, failed, and then tried again. Now, the actual process of natural selection definitely has strong parallels with that, but the term evolution as it exists in our lexicon really doesn't. It's the whole "not saying wizards" thing.

Still, the idea of the Void manifesting as both grinding obsolescence and the dangerous road to progress is definitely a good one.

My only problem with this line of thought is that it risks attaching Morality to technology the way that 2e's kinda-goony Order/Chaos dynamic attempted too, when Exalted doesn't really try to handle the morality of its actions at all, or when it does, the language used is presented as a position of Power and Might being exerted over a Lesser/Inferior than some sort of objectively-derived Truth. Power over others being used to say what is true or not is always the stronger narrative than a black/white dynamic.
The counterargument for "the Octet is right" is that in terms of actually securing mankind's future in Autochthonia, then no, they're horrifically, dangerously wrong. The old way, the safe path of steady gains and logic-driven decision making, no longer leads to anything but an open grave in the long term unless something further is done. Autochthonia is dying and no amount of well-designed, well-assembled mundane thaumaturgy or Patterning can stop it. Now, one way to fix things would be to find some means of awakening the Great Maker and having him deal with the problem - but 99.9999% of Autochthonians do not consider that a viable option (quite rightly), so once you become aware of the truth of things, you either give up and await death or start feverishly looking for a third option.

Voidtech is pretty much the only hope of survival when "kosher" means prove insufficient or infeasible; not everywhere is as well-stocked as the Octet (and yes, the major Autochthonian cities being considered "well-stocked" is meant to be upsetting), so once you get a certain ways out from the center of civilization, Apostasy is everywhere - not because of some moral laxity or supernatural creeping corruption, but because fuck you Octet, we're asphyxiating out here, don't give us shit for repairing our conventionally unrepairable atmospheric scrubbers by whatever means necessary. The attachment of morality to technology should definitely be there, but as an in-universe belief of the Octet, just like how the main setting has "demons" that the average inhabitant treats like the D&D variety when the truth is much more complex.

Adding another layer of complexity, consider that the stereotypical Apostate behavior - dismantling old things to jury-rig new ones, scrabbling with their neighbors over resources, repurposing & recycling to create living space or arable land or other necessities where none exists, constricting their worldview to let them focus on their monkeysphere or their spiritual beliefs over all other things - are perfectly normal for Second Age Creation. If a bunch of Apostates ended up in the Scavenger Lands, they'd fit right in; it'd be the Octet guys who'd come across as unsettling and weird to the people of the Age of Sorrows.

So yeah, the Octet could totally use "Apostasy" as just a blanket term for "person we think is wasting resources we could use better, a filthy squatter obstructing our maintenance work, and/or disrespecting the Great Maker", so that actual use of the Void (let alone dangerous, irresponsible, or otherwise assholish use of the Void) is less important for determining who's a heretic and who isn't in actual practice than whether or not the Octet says you're one of the "bad guys".

Which is where I blend in the idea of Voidtech as phone phreaking or other outdated tech from your post, as a particularly common form of "apostasy" that most people who live outside of mainstream Autochthonian society have to make use of if they want any sort of security or comfort in their lives. It's not harmful, and it's not really connected to "proper Voidtech" in any metaphysical way, but it's been lumped in with it because the conditions that push people to use outdated tech often also push people to start doing things to the Great Maker's insides that the Octet would rather they didn't.
 
First, replacing the 2e one-dimensional biomechanical monster antagonists with Xenomorphs is not an improvement.

I don't know how you got xenomorphs out of that. If Old Gremlins are steampunk-Fallout monstrosities, then the intent of New Gremlins was that of sleek, compact things. Solid state cybernetics, everything tightly put together without any industrial aesthetics because those are all inefficient and obsolete. They would be out there taking apart all obsolete things and replacing them with new, alien, and inscrutable parts that don't work with the old components, but the New don't care because that is all old cruft that needs to be swept away. Their breaking things just accelerates the replacement schedule.

Second, that music video (while really good, and pretty much mandatory if you want to listen to the song) isn't a terribly effective encapsulation of any Primordial. If I had to pick one, I'd actually go with Metagaos over anything - it's a picture of mindless self-indulgence, overconsuming and devouring and absorbing everything without regard for anything but your mad hunger, shamelessly reveling in your own venal nature of what you're doing all the while. There's a sort of dark Shashalme-ism to some of it as well - "admire me, admire what I have made, admire what I have taken for myself."

While true, the Primordials can have some overlap in areas so long as different themes are emphasized. Metagaos is overconsumption and can thus fit into themes of consumerism, industrial growth at all costs, and the rapacious plundering of the environment. Autochthon as the cosmic horror of entropy driven evolution is a bit different (if anything Autochthon is Death in the music video, driving 'progress' onward towards oblivion). Consumption and indulgence are a byproduct of the function of the factories, and if they can function without the mess of the worker or the consumer then all the better. And if the people who make up the society that runs and uses the factory can be used for parts/fuel in the next iteration? Well, if that is more efficient, that is more efficient, and that's progress.
 
Now, one way to fix things would be to find some means of awakening the Great Maker and having him deal with the problem - but 99.9999% of Autochthonians do not consider that a viable option (quite rightly), so once you become aware of the truth of things, you either give up and await death or start feverishly looking for a third option.

I like the rest of your post, but I feel like this is an important thing to pull out and discuss- people, the fanbase, players of games, love this solution. People adore talking to Primordials, invoking them as actors on stage. I don't know why, though. It generally confounds me, because as a player, I want the game I'm in to be about the people playing it, not the vast backdrop of supernatural characters who support the narrative. Like... I have met players who believed that waking Autochthon is the easiest solution to solving the problem, for no other reason than it was presented as a solution. Or generally the Only Solution.

The other factor is that 'Waking Autochthon' is... a complex statement. His main problem isn't just being asleep, it's being in Elsewhere and having fashioned himself into a closed system. Now sure, you could argue that a fully awake Autochthon can ex nihlo solve his problems with miraculous primordial powers, but that's... kind of a non-starter? Or better to say, a story-ender. Much like the plot of 'Yozis Escape', when the Incarnae or a Primordial get pushed on as an actor and allowed to use their great powers,

This is the same basic phenomenom that leads to 'Incarnae is your daddy'. These great and vast powerful beings are meant to be distant, and if encountered in character, meant to be a meaningful one.
 
I don't know how you got xenomorphs out of that. If Old Gremlins are steampunk-Fallout monstrosities, then the intent of New Gremlins was that of sleek, compact things. Solid state cybernetics, everything tightly put together without any industrial aesthetics because those are all inefficient and obsolete. They would be out there taking apart all obsolete things and replacing them with new, alien, and inscrutable parts that don't work with the old components, but the New don't care because that is all old cruft that needs to be swept away. Their breaking things just accelerates the replacement schedule.
Okay, so they're canon 2E Voidspawn with a fresh coat of paint - I don't know about others, but my issue with the original depiction of the Void was that it was about as morally nuanced as the Star Wars prequels. Making the oogie-boogies into Necrons instead of Necromorphs doesn't actually address that problem. I wasn't even bothering with the Old Gremlins, because they're pretty tangential to the thrust of your post - but for reference, those are a perfectly fine idea, because I can imagine varied plot threads or story hooks you could string off of them. I can imagine them being things you could hold a conversation with, or try to bargain with, or otherwise have multiple possible interactions & outcomes with.

By comparison, "the New", from what I can gather from your post, would flatly ignore the PCs until one of them interfered with their plan to flood a city with toxic fumes For Great Progress, at which point they would attack until destroyed, quite possibly saying things like "YOU ARE INFERIOR. AUTOCHTHONIA WILL BE UPGRADED. ROGUE ELEMENTS WILL BE DELETED. DELETE. DELETE. DELETE." as they did so.

Autochthon as the cosmic horror of entropy driven evolution is a bit different (if anything Autochthon is Death in the music video, driving 'progress' onward towards oblivion). Consumption and indulgence are a byproduct of the function of the factories, and if they can function without the mess of the worker or the consumer then all the better. And if the people who make up the society that runs and uses the factory can be used for parts/fuel in the next iteration? Well, if that is more efficient, that is more efficient, and that's progress.
The first half of this paragraph, to the best of my ability to interpret it, describes Autochthon as a fundamentally omnicidal being that uses technology and progress as a means of accomplishing ultimate total deathmurderoblivion. This is... weird in a bad way, since it pretty much means that no, Autochthon is basically a sapient, animate Neverborn, can we maybe layer some extra bindings on the Seal of Eight Divinities to lessen the odds of it escaping and incinerating the universe? Also, everyone in Autochthonia has been dead for quite some time, because this version of Autochthon's baleful Mythos would have crushed them all to atoms within minutes of impinging upon his world-body.

The second half goes with a much more understandable interpretation of Autochthon as the merciless, blood-slicked hand of Progress with a capital P, a heartless, soulless engine with no concerns beyond ensuring the next phase of its endless development cycle is completed within schedule. Still weird - I never expected a version of Autochthon that would have Grand Moff Tarkin and Henry Frick as Second Circle Souls - but definitely more usable for something other than a black-hat antagonist.
 
I don't think @Academia Nut's vision is at all like that, and I think your treatment of them is reductionistic at best; they have absolutely nothing to do with flooding cities with toxic fumes because that's inefficient, they're The Future and they're here to stay. They're so your Alchemical can become independent of his handlers, slowly turning himself into a rogue element at the cost of anything resembling humanity, they're like normal machine spirits but sleek and dark and advanced so the Divine Ministers can think to themselves whether they really are obsolete.

...Frankly I really want to play an Alchemical game in @Academia Nut's Autochthonia now. :V

(You owe me this! I took care of Paths of Civilization for you! :mad:)
 
Easy, long distance teleportation breaks the setting when it's given free access to PCs. A city god might know a Portal charm that lets them open a portal to anywhere in their city and that's cool and thematic and fine because they aren't running around doing stuff all over creation, but a PC who learns that charm for multiple cities has just made themselves into a long range portal network.

If you can't think up a dozen ways to exploit the potential of extremely long range instant teleportation in a setting where the most accessible form of it is a 2nd circle sorcery spell that moves up to (essence) magnitude people to a place the caster has seen before up to 10 miles away per point of the caster's essence at the cost of a moderate action penalty that lasts for probably somwhere between 3-7 hours, then you aren't trying hard enough.
 
People you talk to. Allies that do stuff on your behalf in exchange for reciprocal obligation or out of shared goals or ideology. Enemies to oppose you for whatever reason. Of varying levels of power and ability ranging from a statless little god to Sol bloody Invictus the big cheese Celestial Incarna. Like, you know, pretty much every other NPC in the damn game. What are you trying to argue for, here?

How in the fucking world does charmshare removal prevent spirits from attacking your Exalt, or attacking your Exalt's enemies, or trying to prevent your Exalt from being gangbanged by Wyld Hunter grand killsticks?



Principle of Motion is the most common example because anecdotally it's usually the first "what the fuck?" event a GM encounters with an Eclipse using their charmshare power, it is not the sole problem with the Eclipse charmshare power. Remember that the sample demons in the back of the corebook have Principle of Motion, there are no rider conditions on its use, and you can compel them to teach it with Demon of the First Circle.

The other common funny one used to be Portal or Hurry Home. Shit caused lulz. And broken games.
The thing is if this charm exists at the benefits of the characters its going to be the same as if an eclipse learned it. A spirit in your party or demon with them and able to use it on or for your benefit? SURPRISE! Its the same as if the eclipse had it.
 
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The thing is if this charm exists at the benefits of the characters its going to be the same as if an eclipse learned it. A spirit in your party or demon with them and able to use it on or for your benefit? SURPRISE! Its the same as if the eclipse had it.

No its not.

Because spirits don't get Solar Charms.

Principle of motion is balanced when a Dog of Unbroken Earth is making 6 bite attacks.

Not when Invincible Sword Princess is throwing out 10 attacks with no penalty, each of them with twenty dice and being able to do hundreds of damage each.
 
@Darmani @Sucal

The way I'm reading it, Darmani seems to think that a spirit with Principle of Motion can activate it to give extra attacks to exalts it is allied with. It can't, but if it could, all charmshare would add to that is being able to use it even if someone managed to kill off or separate you from your spirit allies.
 
This is the same basic phenomenom that leads to 'Incarnae is your daddy'. These great and vast powerful beings are meant to be distant, and if encountered in character, meant to be a meaningful one.
Aren't Sidereals the exception to this, since the Maidens are their bosses? Sure they don't show up that much to give actual orders but I got the impression from the reading the books that the Sidereal higher ups do meet with them semiregular basis and considering how few Sidereals there; pretty much everyone of them is important; just to varying degrees.
 
Aren't Sidereals the exception to this, since the Maidens are their bosses? Sure they don't show up that much to give actual orders but I got the impression from the reading the books that the Sidereal higher ups do meet with them semiregular basis and considering how few Sidereals there; pretty much everyone of them is important; just to varying degrees.

That's correct, but Sidereals by their nature are supposed to invert the vast majority of the setting conceits- they have The Swankiest Homes, The Most Support, and by extension the Most Oversight. The Maidens are present, but not overwhelmingly so, and the game takes great effort to play up how cryptic and alien they are, even before late 2e introduced the concept of Creation's Samsara. So yes, Sidereals are supposed to be that exception, but it's the difference between going full Space Sphere, and more like having a department head you receive more cryptic memos from than you do meet in person.

This is not to say the Maidens or the Incarnae are meant to be impersonal or impenetrable ciphers, just that narratively speaking it's a common problem for players and storytellers to over-value their involvement. Much like young children, they monopolize screentime. Screen time that is better spend on following the players and playing up their awesomeness. The Sun already had his chance to be awesome. Now it's our turn!
 
That's correct, but Sidereals by their nature are supposed to invert the vast majority of the setting conceits- they have The Swankiest Homes, The Most Support, and by extension the Most Oversight. The Maidens are present, but not overwhelmingly so, and the game takes great effort to play up how cryptic and alien they are, even before late 2e introduced the concept of Creation's Samsara. So yes, Sidereals are supposed to be that exception, but it's the difference between going full Space Sphere, and more like having a department head you receive more cryptic memos from than you do meet in person.

This is not to say the Maidens or the Incarnae are meant to be impersonal or impenetrable ciphers, just that narratively speaking it's a common problem for players and storytellers to over-value their involvement. Much like young children, they monopolize screentime. Screen time that is better spend on following the players and playing up their awesomeness. The Sun already had his chance to be awesome. Now it's our turn!
I agree; however unlike a lot of people it seems; I actually like the presentation of the Incarna in Glories; I really liked the presentation of mechanically the Sun being a virtue bot that both illustrates why he's awesome and why can't/doesn't just fix everything himself a lot more elegantly then what I always found to be a lame excuse that is the Games of Divinity.
 
That's correct, but Sidereals by their nature are supposed to invert the vast majority of the setting conceits- they have The Swankiest Homes, The Most Support, and by extension the Most Oversight. The Maidens are present, but not overwhelmingly so, and the game takes great effort to play up how cryptic and alien they are, even before late 2e introduced the concept of Creation's Samsara. So yes, Sidereals are supposed to be that exception, but it's the difference between going full Space Sphere, and more like having a department head you receive more cryptic memos from than you do meet in person.

I think the difference between the Maidens and the Sun is that the Maidens appear to have little interest in "fixing" the world, in a moral sense. By that, I mean that while they of course want the Sidereals to fix the world, it's purely at a Loom-based level of "make it keep working" and "make sure gravity doesn't invert".

To put it another way, the Maidens have proven from their behaviour and the orders they give the Sidereals that the main thing they're interested in when a giant plague hits a city is that everyone who dies is meant to and that the disease doesn't turn into a sudden 100% fatal thing when it was just meant to be bubonic plague. Thus, given how Sidereals are encouraged by the narrative to bend and twist their missions to further their own personal goals, getting the Maidens involved has... issues.
 
With crossover, you need to decide which setting has primacy. If Exalted has primacy, if some experiment or conflict shunts some Guardians and their enemies into Exalted's setting, then the Exalted setting's assumptions have primacy. If it's a case of some exaltations making their way into the Destiny universe, then the Destiny setting and it's assumptions have primacy.

The real question, since you're the one wanting to do a crossover, is how YOU would handle it. You're the one who wants to write it, after all.
 
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Well... Destiny is interesting because it tackles core game mechanics as in-setting, diegetic effects. Fundamentally though, you tell the Exact Same Stories- Destiny is archetypical, all of the Guardians are meant to be interchangable hero archetypes, narratively speaking. You can do the same thing with Dragonblooded or Solars and so on.

THat's not actually addressing your question which is 'how to cross them over'. The core question is, is it a fusion, where one setting mixes metaphysics with another? Is it a crossover, where characters meet in one world or another but do not share underlying 'physics'?

The issue about time travel in Exalted is two-fold, as previously mentioned upthread- Exalted do not get time travel as to preserve the meaningfulness of consequences. It's also notable that Exalted are meant to be Greek Heroes, not Modern Heroes, so again, if they get pissed and kill a guard, that guard is staying dead. The other, more directly metaphysical note, is that 'time' in Creation is more like 'all of existence is inexorably ticking forward, and that which Was can no longer be visisted. The past is Past. If you're familiar with the animation term onion-skinning, it's kind of like that. You can see where you've BEEN, but you can't scrub back and forth on the timeline.

So your first question is this: Does one setting Beget the Other? That'll determine who has primacy.
 
I see very little reason for considering guns taboo in Creation.

Extremely difficult to manufacture, given the bronze age early iron age tech levels for the majority of creation.

But gunpowder as an handmade alchemical creation is perfectly reasonable. Industrial production requires the Realm or Lookshy.

However the Realm having rocket powered arrow swarms and a plethora of signal flares would work quite well.

Going beyond late 18th century or Napleonic warfare would be too unbalancing. If only because of the industrial base that level of warfare requires
 
And really, you can do Exalted: Destiny edition by running it as a Heaven's Reach setting with Destiny lore instead of regular Heaven's Reach lore. Solar exaltations as a manifestation of the Traveller's Light isn't that much of a reach in setting
 
Well... Destiny is interesting because it tackles core game mechanics as in-setting, diegetic effects. Fundamentally though, you tell the Exact Same Stories- Destiny is archetypical, all of the Guardians are meant to be interchangable hero archetypes, narratively speaking. You can do the same thing with Dragonblooded or Solars and so on.

THat's not actually addressing your question which is 'how to cross them over'. The core question is, is it a fusion, where one setting mixes metaphysics with another? Is it a crossover, where characters meet in one world or another but do not share underlying 'physics'?

The issue about time travel in Exalted is two-fold, as previously mentioned upthread- Exalted do not get time travel as to preserve the meaningfulness of consequences. It's also notable that Exalted are meant to be Greek Heroes, not Modern Heroes, so again, if they get pissed and kill a guard, that guard is staying dead. The other, more directly metaphysical note, is that 'time' in Creation is more like 'all of existence is inexorably ticking forward, and that which Was can no longer be visisted. The past is Past. If you're familiar with the animation term onion-skinning, it's kind of like that. You can see where you've BEEN, but you can't scrub back and forth on the timeline.

So your first question is this: Does one setting Beget the Other? That'll determine who has primacy.
Ideally I would write it as a setting fusion. Maybe have Destiny meta- physics coming out on top, but only if a call in that regard had to be made.
 
We've had the gun discussion a billion times before, so let's self-police a little. The main reason why it's curtailed is that 'industrialization fantasy' does not jive well with Exalted's themes.

Ideally I would write it as a setting fusion. Maybe have Destiny meta- physics coming out on top, but only if a call in that regard had to be made.

You would make a lot of people upset- one of Exalted's core conceits has been it's inherent primacy. There are more powerful beings in fiction, but most of them are deific gods or things like Planeswalkers. To elaborate, in context of Creation, if it was unkillable, the Exalted could kill it. Not easily, not casually, but when dealing with beings that do not die as mortal men do, exalted can put a sword to their necks, say 'die', and it will stick.

Like, if it were me, based on everything I know of Destiny metaphysics, if a Solar used Ghost-Eating technique on a Guardian, they'd Stay Dead. That's the point of the Charm. And you aren't supposed to make an arms race out of it either. While their might be 'levels' of immortality, they don't matter against effects like Ghost Eating. Now obviously you don't want the Destiny side to be chumped, as it's cool and everyone has a favorite somewhere. Not sure where I'd personally draw a line, but a line can be drawn where all sides get their moments to shine.

To really pin it down, Exalted as a game and a setting, is about how this subset of empowered beings/weaponized souls can take an unconventional conflict and make it awesomely conventional. Exalted is the game where you are supposed to be able to choke the river into submission, not entitled to, not guaranteed to succeed, but able to. A great deal of Exalted Charms exist to 'pull' conflict, including combat, into managable, on-camera chunks for players to engage with. The Solar speed boosters, the perfect defenses, all exist to make fights comprehensible.

Being riddled with arrows by ten thousand archers and no chance to respond = lame. Running along those arrows and slicing a path through to the enemy commander for an epic kung fu duel atop the soldier's heads = Awesome.
 
Then it sounds like you want a Destiny story with some Exalted stuff mixed in, not an Exalted game with Destiny elements. Have some Guardians exalt, write about how they deal with that and how their actions change the setting. But if Destiny is primary, then Destiny in fact needs to be primary. You can't have it cut both ways.
 
Then it sounds like you want a Destiny story with some Exalted stuff mixed in, not an Exalted game with Destiny elements. Have some Guardians exalt, write about how they deal with that and how their actions change the setting. But if Destiny is primary, then Destiny in fact needs to be primary. You can't have it cut both ways.
Of course you'd have to ask if a guardian can even qualify for Exaltation, which means 'are they human' 'do they have free will' 'are they willing and able to use their powers'?
 
Of course you'd have to ask if a guardian can even qualify for Exaltation, which means 'are they human' 'do they have free will' 'are they willing and able to use their powers'?

Lets assume that the "light of the Traveller" that makes guardians what they are is related to solar exaltations somehow.

You could say that Creation's setting is some kind of hyper real simulation within the Traveller and it's purpose is to produce the "Light" that empowers Guardians in the "real" Destiny setting. So Exaltations are embrionic blessings that have to propogate and mature within "Creation" for a length of time before they can go and empower a new guardian, but the Darkness damaged the Traveller ages ago, causing the current state of affairs inside Creation to manifest as well as making it impossible for the Traveller to retrieve the Exaltations at the appropiate level of development. So the Exaltations are bloated and overcharged with potential compared to what the Guardians can do with their powers.

So there's a battle over the City and the Traveller gets damaged. This punches a hole into "Creation" that lets any free solar exaltations escape and latch onto Guardians because solars. Maybe the Hive makes contact with the Deathlords and get some Abyssal Exaltations. Some of the Fallen become Lunars. You have to deal with people that want to move out of the City into Creation because it's a whole world, but it's full of everything that Creation is already filled with and some of that nastyness wants out. And what happens when regular people on Earth exalt but aren't Guardians? As is the Guardians are facing a long loosing battle against all the forces arrayed against them in the solar system. They won't have the manpower to just sweep over and conquer Creation, so they have to deal with them through diplomacy.
 
We've had the gun discussion a billion times before, so let's self-police a little. The main reason why it's curtailed is that 'industrialization fantasy' does not jive well with Exalted's themes.



You would make a lot of people upset- one of Exalted's core conceits has been it's inherent primacy. There are more powerful beings in fiction, but most of them are deific gods or things like Planeswalkers. To elaborate, in context of Creation, if it was unkillable, the Exalted could kill it. Not easily, not casually, but when dealing with beings that do not die as mortal men do, exalted can put a sword to their necks, say 'die', and it will stick.

Like, if it were me, based on everything I know of Destiny metaphysics, if a Solar used Ghost-Eating technique on a Guardian, they'd Stay Dead. That's the point of the Charm. And you aren't supposed to make an arms race out of it either. While their might be 'levels' of immortality, they don't matter against effects like Ghost Eating. Now obviously you don't want the Destiny side to be chumped, as it's cool and everyone has a favorite somewhere. Not sure where I'd personally draw a line, but a line can be drawn where all sides get their moments to shine.

To really pin it down, Exalted as a game and a setting, is about how this subset of empowered beings/weaponized souls can take an unconventional conflict and make it awesomely conventional. Exalted is the game where you are supposed to be able to choke the river into submission, not entitled to, not guaranteed to succeed, but able to. A great deal of Exalted Charms exist to 'pull' conflict, including combat, into managable, on-camera chunks for players to engage with. The Solar speed boosters, the perfect defenses, all exist to make fights comprehensible.

Being riddled with arrows by ten thousand archers and no chance to respond = lame. Running along those arrows and slicing a path through to the enemy commander for an epic kung fu duel atop the soldier's heads = Awesome.
Fair points, and its not like Guardian un-killable in the base setting.
Part of what made me want to bring this up was the fight scene in this trailer.

This is more or less how I envision exalted gunplay would look like.

OK let me brake this down into something more writeable. Drop Chejop Kejak, Mnemon ,Sulumor (The iconic Malefactor infernal) , Typhon, the Wink of the Storm's Eye , and Lilith (becuse I really need to read more about Lunar exalted if she is all I can think of.) at different parts of The Last City. What do you think their thoughts and impressions would be of A: The Traveler, B:The City itself, C: Guardians and their Ghosts, D:Humanity in the City, and finally E: Humanity enemy's?

Then it sounds like you want a Destiny story with some Exalted stuff mixed in, not an Exalted game with Destiny elements. Have some Guardians exalt, write about how they deal with that and how their actions change the setting. But if Destiny is primary, then Destiny in fact needs to be primary. You can't have it cut both ways.
Something I had considere , but at the same time wouldn't it make more since to say a Guardian are already a type Exalted?
 
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