Making Getimians
One thing I have noticed in several conversations with about Getimians is
how to make them.
More precisely, in world of exalts, people have trouble conceptualizing heroes who would be capable of changing the world
without being exalted themselves.
Now, obviously, the best answer is that exalted are few and far between, and so their existence won't invalidate the average, every day heroism of mortals. Regular people still
can cause changes.
But that advice is also not very helpful to a lot of people, so I thought I would offer to alternative solutions to creating a concept for a Getimian.
Almost a Solar
At their core, both Solars and Getimians are
human heroes. They are the great men and women on whom the wheel of history turns. They are your Bismarks and Caesers and Lincolns and Solomons.
The difference is, when you make a Solar you are exalting one of these great people at the
beginning of their career and raising them to new heights, while a Getimian only received their exaltation when the world where their greatness had manifested was taken from them.
To take an example, Solar Alexander is exalted at the beginning of his career, and you the player now get to lead him on a path of conquest that far exceeds his historical achievements.
Getimian Alexander however, is exalted at his deathbed, when he is whisked away to a world where he never existed and is forced to see all his achievements undone.
So how do you use this knowledge to make a Getimian?
Simple, take a Solar Character concept (such as President Who Ended Slavery) and tone it down. Maybe they achived their goal, but only at significant cost or their heroic deeds were limited in scope to a single geographic area. Solar!Lincoln ended slavery by convincing the south of the immorality of slave ownership and convincing them to end the practice of their own free will. Getimian was merely a mortal, and was forced to resort to war. Solar!Alexander truly conquered the world, but Getimian Alexander never got further than India. Etc.
Example Characters: Alexander. Lincoln. Medea. Soloman. Bismark. Joan of Arc.
Small Acts Change History
Alternatively, maybe the Getimian is not a Great Man or Women at all.
Perhaps they are merely a good one, who was great when it mattered.
Instead of focusing on some great, epic change brought on by the Getimian's actions, you can focus instead on a single (or multiple) intimate act which changed the course of history.
The soldier who held the line when things looked bleak, and thus saved the battle that saved the war. The doctor who caught the plague early, and prevented its spread. The man who stood up to a tyrant, and inspired others to do the same.
Small acts individually, but the loss of any of them spirals out to change the world. Without the Getimian, a lost battle turns into a lost war into a lost country. A local disease turns into a plague which ravages a direction. A tyrant cements his grip on a people, and their hope dies.
Example Characters: There's lots, but honestly none will ever be as good as Dan Turpin standing up against Darkseid, so I will just link that here.
It's a Wonderful Life
Of course, a big touchstone of Getimians is the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" where a man wishes he was never born, and gets to see the terrible fallout of such a thing. In that movie, he performed no great deeds to shake the heavens, rather his small everyday kindness rippled out through the world and changed the course of history.
Following in that vein, rather than try and make the Getimian a Great Man of History, instead focus on who he helped, and the lives of the people he touched. Focus on his interpersonal relationships, and how those rippled out to change the world.
Maybe he was kind when cruelty was tolerated, and so inspired kindness in another. Maybe he gave food to a beggar boy, and that boy grew to stop an invasion.
In this case, the focus is not on the Getimian in general, but rather a meditation on the worth of
any life, and how the lost of even one person is a tragedy for the world.
Example Characters: Just go watch It's a Wonderful Life
I'm a Side Character in Someone Else's Fantasy?!
Lastly, if you like to view exalts as the "Main Characters" of the line, than one final origin comes to mind for Getimians. The side character. Rather than being a hero in your own right, maybe your Getimian was the heroic mortal friend/ally/lover of the "true" hero, and now they get to see a world where the two of them had never met.
Maybe that Dragonblood you served died young, because you weren't there to guard there back. Or maybe they're
better off and you have to live with your knowledge that your life made your friend's life worse.
Example Characters: Usopp from One Piece, one of the girls in a harem comedy, Casca from Berserk, Xander from Buffy.
One-in-A-Million Happens all the time
Sometimes, one in a million chances happen. Sometimes, people get lucky. Sometimes, everything just lines up and a Mortal Hero is able to do what even an Exalt can't accomplish.
For a normal mortal, conquering the Realm or defeating a deathlord in single combat or inventing or winning the games of divinity is impossible. Or,
nearly so at least.
Technically, if everything goes right anything
is possible. The Realm could be struck by a plague that miraculously only strikes down people opposed to our mortal hero. That Deathlord he is facign could slip and impale himself on his own sword. The Incarna may be so focused on stopping each other from winning that they completely ignore that ignorant mortal as he racks up points.
Ridiculous coincidences and strings of luck so consistent would never happen in
our creation.
But they
could. And the Getimian can be plucked from one of these hypothetical creations. From a world where by skill and cleverness and pure dumb luck, they have managed to achieve the impossible.
So make whatever character concept you want. As long as everyone at the table is fun then you can justify it as merely improbable, not impossible odds.
After all, we don't read about the hero who died from an unlucky arrow in the throat. We read about the one for whom everything went right. The one who emerged the victor.
Hey, I am putting together a infernal exalted based on Aleph and ES's game/hacks as a narrative exercise and I would like to know how Principles are sapposed to be worded/work for a character please and thanks.
I also do not have access to any source books for exalted just so people know.
Edit:is this the right place to ask this?
Principles are the same as intimacies, they represent something important to you. They could be love for your spouse, or a commitment to justice or anything else.
They are rated from 1-5, with 1 representing a passing fancy, and 5 representing something you would die for.
Here's a helpful list:
1: Passing Fancy
2: A preference.
3: Something as important as being comfortable to the average person.
4: Willing to suffer for this principle
5 Willing to die for this principle
All that said, you should probably get the books if you are going to make an infernal.
