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General Exalted Thread

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HamSandLich said:
Dragonguard of The Paths of Hesiesh Triumphant
In the mountains east of Goldenseal resides the remote Immaculate Xima Lo Monastery, a fortified complex jutting from the side of an extinct volcano that towers over the surrounding jungle. The warrior-monks and lay residents of the monastery are the Dragonguard of The Paths of Hesiesh Trimuphant, a martial order founded to guard several demesnes and manses deemed sacred to Hesiesh. Their warrior monks go to battle in flame patterned scale armor and wearing robes covered in Immaculate calligraphy. Many of their sets of armor are potent artifacts, their evocations providing protection from the harsh environment and enabling their wearers to move as fast as burning winds and cover their surroundings in burning ash or toxic gases. In addition to the Immaculate Dragon Styles, many warrior monks are proficient in Righteous Devil style. Their ascetic practices involve meditating in the extreme heat of the southern sun and the demesnes they guard, communing with the primal essence of fire. They have long been the protectors of the surrounding village states, defending them from bandits, wyld barbarians, and the raksha in return for supplies and obeisance to the Immaculate Texts. The Order also guards tribute caravans from satrapies and pilgrims visiting holy sites across the far Southwest. When the Scarlet Empress reigned, the Dragonguard were exemplars of Immaculate piety and loyalty to the Realm, but now, the Realm rots from within. With the neighboring satrapies recalling more and more of their garrisons and the Mouth of Peace nearing death, the Dragonguard of the Paths find themselves more and more isolated from their homeland. Once merely custodians, they find themselves as the de facto rulers of their region, Xima Lo Monastery being only true source of the Realm's authority for miles. Some monks are uncomfortable with this reality, and try to remain aloof from the secular world as they always have. A few see the writing on the walls, that the Realm will soon descend into chaos and the faithful will have to forge their own paths in a new age of turmoil. Slowly but surely, heresies are beginning to take root in the Dragonguard without their conscious notice. Hesiesh, their patron, is being revered with heterodox frequency and intensity, as are Pasiap and Sextes Jylis. The monks have increased the tithes they ask of the locals and caravans, in case of civil war on the Blessed Isle cutting off their funding(or so they tell themselves). The local prayer calendar is being altered to favor spirits the Dragonguard have pacted with to defend caravans and towns. Their sacred calligraphy, once done in moderation, is beginning to consume more and more of their daily lives, some monks wearing clothing with every inch covered by devotional script. Legate-Abbot Mirthful Grin is developing a new martial arts style from visions he believes come from the Dragons themselves, naming his creation the Burning Veins Style, for it evokes the devastation of Hesiesh and Pasiap's primordial volcanism through overwhelming rushes and explosive haymakers.
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I'd suggest dividing this into more paragraphs. It's a bit of a pain to read.
 
Earthly Destroyer School
In the northeastern scavenger lands, a warrior prodigy has arisen and shattered the status quo of the martial arts world, R'yong K'ang, The King of Earthly Destruction. His followers, the Earthly Destroyer School, are legion, formed from the shattered remnants of martial arts societies R'yong has personally destroyed. Their banners set the princes of the scavenger lands scrambling to gather tribute to fill the school's coffers, lest the King of Earthly Destruction destroy their cities with his unnatural martial skill. The Earthly Destruction Style, taught only to R'yong's most trusted followers(and even then incompletely) focuses on the raging might of the body's essence, wreaking havoc by projecting waves of force from one's own pressure points and ravaging the chakras of opponents. The Star-Chosen of Yu-Shan notice that the style is a crude, blunt approximation of the most basic principles of Sidereal Martial Arts, unleashing essence as unsubtle waves of destruction rather than the more skilled and esoteric techniques of their own styles. Despite this, Earthly Destruction Style is a terror to behold, shattering stone and metal with ease and turning its wielder into an avatar of devastation.

The King of Earthly Destruction himself is a strange fellow. Young, chubby, and seemingly amicable, his affable nature hides a burning ambition that tolerates no obstacles. He is determined against all reason to prove himself and his style as the pinnacle of earthly martial skill. The outcastes who he has defeated swear that he fights with might rivalling that of the Anathema, but his brow holds no shining daemon-brand. The true secret of his strength lies in his method of training, for his now deceased sifu used forbidden magics to impart his own martial essence unto his student, as the masters of the Earthly Destruction style have done for centuries, cultivating and concentrating their collective might into a single vessel. R'yong is motivated as much by the subconscious urgings of his predecessors as he is by his own will. K'ang R'yong's command of essence now approaches that of the Exalted, though his use of it is limited to the realm of combat and athletics.

The surviving martial arts schools of the region have allied against R'yong K'ang. The coalition contains pussiant warriors such as the once despised assassin sect of Pale Horse Squad, the Stone and Cloud Society and its skilled but unstable heir, and the sole living practitioner of Truthful Blade Style. Time will tell if their efforts will succeed.
 
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Mendicant Order of The Beatific Argument
Not all of the Shining Path's wars are amongst its own followers, The Bishop of The Chalcedony Thurible sends groups some of his most enlightened followers, those who have felt the touch of the Labyrinth and the Neverborn, across the North on a variety of tasks. Across the Middle North wanders one such group, The Mendicant Order of the Beatific Argument. A modest congregation, its passing is signalled by censer bearers and penitent flagellants softly chanting the wisdoms that Whispers deliver to them. The mendicants are humble and generous, accepting alms but never pressuring others into donating, for to do so would be to sin against their fellow man and they exult in the sublime oneness of the Abyss. It is only when they encounter hostile forces or offer their services to warlords in exchange for supplies that their true faces show.

As the Order takes to battle, a disturbing transformation occurs. Kindly monks turn into frenzied killing machines, their chain scourges flaying their foes to the bone, their iron capped walking staves shattering helms and skulls with equal ease. The mendicants who die in battle return as vengeful spectres in mere moments, having achieved the next step in their path to dark transcendance. The monks howl elegies for their undead comrades and sing paeans of the Abyss from their war altars, holding aloft icons of The Shining One in his monstrous destroyer aspect, enabling their spectral brothers and sisters to materialize as long as they continue the ceremony. Living thaumaturge-paladins ritually devour hungry ghosts and leverage their savage might in service of the Dead Things of the Abyss. And when the battle is done, the mendicants exit their berserk trance, once again peaceful and kindly. They gather the dead of both sides and perform funerary rites, taking what they need to survive and moving on to spread the Word of the Neverborn through their deeds of charity and annihilation. This task, this violence, this wandering pilgrimage to nowhere, is the Beatific Argument that the order takes its name from. It is their sacrosanct mystery, a paradoxical fusion of kindness and murder.

The fallen mendicants are adored as patron saints of the Order, their images sewn and painted on the banners of the congregation and their remains enshrined within their reliquary carts. They follow their living counterparts across the North, ritually slaying each other again and again in a cycle of battle and torpor. Some fuse together in imitation of the paradise described in The Tome of Endless Night, becoming godly avatars of the void.
 
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HamSandLich said:
Mendicant Order of The Beatific Argument
Not all of the Shining Path's wars are amongst its own followers, The Bishop of The Chalcedony Thurible sends groups some of his most enlightened followers, those who have felt the touch of the Labyrinth and the Neverborn, across the North on a variety of tasks. Across the Middle North wanders one such group, The Mendicant Order of the Beatific Argument. A modest congregation, its passing is signalled by censer bearers and penitent flagellants softly chanting the wisdoms that Whispers deliver to them. The mendicants are humble and generous, accepting alms but never pressuring others into donating, for to do so would be to sin against their fellow man and they exult in the sublime oneness of the Abyss. It is only when they encounter hostile forces or offer their services to warlords in exchange for supplies that their true faces show.

As the Order takes to battle, a disturbing transformation occurs. Kindly monks turn into frenzied killing machines, their chain scourges flaying their foes to the bone, their iron capped walking staves shattering helms and skulls with equal ease. The mendicants who die in battle return as vengeful spectres in mere moments, having achieved the next step in their path to dark transcendance. The monks howl elegies for their undead comrades and sing paeans of the Abyss from their war altars, holding aloft icons of The Shining One in his monstrous destroyer aspect, enabling their spectral brothers and sisters to materialize as long as they continue the ceremony. Living thaumaturge-paladins ritually devour hungry ghosts and leverage their savage might in service of the Dead Things of the Abyss. And when the battle is done, the mendicants exit their berserk trance, once again peaceful and kindly. They gather the dead of both sides and perform funerary rites, taking what they need to survive and moving on to spread the Word of the Neverborn through their deeds of charity and annihilation. This task, this violence, this wandering pilgrimage to nowhere, is the Beatific Argument that the order takes its name from. It is their sacrosanct mystery, a paradoxical fusion of kindness and murder.

The fallen mendicants are adored as patron saints of the Order, their images sewn and painted on the banners of the congregation and their remains enshrined within their reliquary carts. They follow their living counterparts across the North, ritually slaying each other again and again in a cycle of battle and torpor. Some fuse together in imitation of the paradise described in The Tome of Endless Night, becoming godly avatars of the void.
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Do you have a homebrew hub where you store these?
 
Hey what time period and country is WhiteWall pulling from concept wise? I'm trying to find stuff on clothing and architecture for a thing I'm working on.

Edit: Or if there are not any direct ones to be pointed towards. Give me a good suggestion.
 
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MiracleGrow said:
Hey what time period and country is WhiteWall pulling from concept wise? I'm trying to find stuff on clothing and architecture for a thing I'm working on.

Edit: Or if there are not any direct ones to be pointed towards. Give me a good suggestion.
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Like most parts of Exalted's setting, it borrows from a variety of disparate sources rather than just a single inspiration. It's linguistically based on the Tibetan Shambhala legend (its OG name being Ondor Shambal), but its current culture borrows heavily from a highly fictionalized version of the various superstitious hysterias and inquisitions that wracked parts of Europe throughout the middle ages and early modern period, since Whitewallers are super paranoid regarding anything they suspect of being connected to the fae or undead.
 
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HamSandLich said:
Like most parts of Exalted's setting, it borrows from a variety of disparate sources rather than just a single inspiration. It's linguistically based on the Tibetan Shambhala legend (its OG name being Ondor Shambal), but its current culture borrows heavily from a highly fictionalized version of the various superstitious hysterias and inquisitions that wracked parts of Europe throughout the middle ages and early modern period, since Whitewallers are super paranoid regarding anything they suspect of being connected to the fae or undead.
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So I'm hearing Yharnam from bloodborne
 
It's The Potala Palace from Tibet ~

MiracleGrow said:
Hey what time period and country is WhiteWall pulling from concept wise? I'm trying to find stuff on clothing and architecture for a thing I'm working on.

Edit: Or if there are not any direct ones to be pointed towards. Give me a good suggestion.
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Compass: North is super sparsed on what the city look like aside from the citizen really like teahouse and public bath, Scavenger Sons does have some details about the city's architecture:
-Can't expanse the city due to the wall so the city is quite packed.
-Most buildings are made from gray-white stone.
-Not much ornament on the outside due to the inhabitant's siege mentality, but the interior is decorated with heavy tapestries in rich and bright color hues.

The art of the citizen's clothing is pretty generic fantasy North with tunic, boots and fur.
 
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Jen said:
Compass: North is super sparsed on what the city look like aside from the citizen really like teahouse and public bath, Scavenger Sons does have some details about the city's architecture:
-Can't expanse the city due to the wall so the city is quite packed.
-Most buildings are made from gray-white stone.
-Not much ornament on the outside due to the inhabitant's siege mentality, but the interior is decorated with heavy tapestries in rich and bright color hues.

The art of the citizen's clothing is pretty generic fantasy North with tunic, boots and fur.
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Just to add a little, there apparently used to be art that glorified the sun which the Immaculates literally plastered over with art glorifying the dragons.
 
Jen said:
It's The Potala Palace from Tibet ~



Compass: North is super sparsed on what the city look like aside from the citizen really like teahouse and public bath, Scavenger Sons does have some details about the city's architecture:
-Can't expanse the city due to the wall so the city is quite packed.
-Most buildings are made from gray-white stone.
-Not much ornament on the outside due to the inhabitant's siege mentality, but the interior is decorated with heavy tapestries in rich and bright color hues.

The art of the citizen's clothing is pretty generic fantasy North with tunic, boots and fur.
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I say again: Yharnam!
 
Exthalion said:
Just to add a little, there apparently used to be art that glorified the sun which the Immaculates literally plastered over with art glorifying the dragons.
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Aren't they suppose to be aniconism though? Unless this is before Realm's Immaculate starts to adopt that trait.

rogthnor said:
I say again: Yharnam!
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It seems to be dark gothic architecture from a quick google search which doesn't seem to scream Holy City of the Sun for me.
 
Warning: AHOY THAR
  • Staff Post
    • ahoy thar
    I wanted to briefly chat with you about threadmarks.



    Moving forward, every user will be entitled to one threadmark for their homebrew, which will all go under the Apocrypha tab. So we will have "Homebrew - ManusDomini", "Homebrew - Aleph", etc etc.

    This will make it easier for everyone to find what they're looking for.

    but in order for that to happen you need to participate. That means that you need to create a post that will serve as your 'homebrew hub' creating all the necessary links to it. If you don't do that, your homebrew will not be appropriately threadmarked.

    Going forward, new threadmarks will only be added to hubs, one per participant, and I will be removing all threadmarks to old homebrew in a week or so.
     
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  • Staff Post
    • Jen said:
    Aren't they suppose to be aniconism though? Unless this is before Realm's Immaculate starts to adopt that trait.
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    I looked it up. You are correct. In 2E it wasn't art they covered it over with but white concrete. In 1E it was a combination of things including banners and plaques as well as using white clay and plaster. It was before the Immaculate faith was the state religion but it was done to appease them.
     
    Jen said:
    Aren't they suppose to be aniconism though? Unless this is before Realm's Immaculate starts to adopt that trait.



    It seems to be dark gothic architecture from a quick google search which doesn't seem to scream Holy City of the Sun for me.
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    I mean Gothic architecture is noted for its extensive use of stained and rose glass windows to bring light into the interior. The reason Yharnam seems so dark is because the brightest time of day shown is sunset.

    Gothic architecture is actually really interesting because it's big and imposing stonework which tends to make the area around it very claustrophobic, and at the same time there is a sort of chiaroscuro effect.

    The bigger issue is all those representative statues


    Unrelated: Madame Cheng, where should I put her? My first instinct is the west but that seems too easy. Are there any policies that could use a badass pirate queen?
     
    Jen said:
    It seems to be dark gothic architecture from a quick google search which doesn't seem to scream Holy City of the Sun for me.
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    It really doesn't. Yharnim is a dark, brooding, xenophobic hellscape that worships the blood of some unknown elder gods. By the events of the game, they are a paranoid, mutant people who are destroying their city through their addiction to the Blood.

    White Wall by comparison is made of bright marble and gold, blessed by the sun kings of old and made to honor the holiest of gods, the Unconquered sun. The people are by all accounts sane, legitimately paranoid of their inhuman neighbors, and are quite proactive in ensuring that their city survives all the bullshit around them.

    The only similarity they have going is that they're Xenophobic.
     
    rogthnor said:
    I mean Gothic architecture is noted for its extensive use of stained and rose glass windows to bring light into the interior. The reason Yharnam seems so dark is because the brightest time of day shown is sunset.

    Gothic architecture is actually really interesting because it's big and imposing stonework which tends to make the area around it very claustrophobic, and at the same time there is a sort of chiaroscuro effect.

    The bigger issue is all those representative statues


    Unrelated: Madame Cheng, where should I put her? My first instinct is the west but that seems too easy. Are there any policies that could use a badass pirate queen?
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    Gothic was actually incredibly bright, "light", and colorful for its time.

    Compare the preceding Romanesque with its thick stone:

    And gothic:


    The term gothic was an insult applied after the fact by those of the Renaissance. At the time people raved about how it was practically a vision of Heaven.
     
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    I would go with a holy city that isn't Christian in aesthetic since I saw plenty of those in fictions.

    Though combining gothic and Tibetan Unconquer Sun doesn't sound too bad.
     
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