General Exalted Thread
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think something that often gets overlooked in these discussions looking at the setting from an abstract power perspective is that part and parcel of the Age of Sorrows is that the world isn't in fact ruled by Celestial Exalts, and the world outside the Realm is broken up into thousands of dominions ruled by Exalts, sorcerers, spirit-bloods, people who found a powerful Artifact and used it to carve a kingdom, and countless other weirdos who got to where they are with their own idiosyncratic methods of obtaining supernatural power.
In fact, as a returning Solar, such people will likely be your primary source of antagonists other than the Realm! The whole 'underdog' paradigm is twisted around by the fact that the guys with the most powerful supernatural abilities start out from the weakest social position.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
That also is very true- a lot of people in discussion get hung up on the 'simulationist' angle where they only assume that an Exalt or similar class of character can reasonably achieve a leadership position. Nevermind that a given exalt might not want to be king or lord or boss. It's great to assume they're competent or even brilliant at their chosen disciplines, but they don't need to invariably fall into a proper leadership position.
A great doctor doesn't need to lead a hospital, so long as the 'theming' of them being a leader in their field is maintained.
HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
Dr.House?
Brilliant, trusted, good at his job, but doesn't actually lead the hospital, mostly because he's uninterested and partly because he's a massive dick.
In a sense this is correct, but I'd personally phrase this from the other direction: we're talking about vulnerability.
It's not that mortals should somehow match the exalts in a capacity for violence and be threatening in that respect, but that exalts should always be vulnerable to violence such that they can never fully write-off any adversary, including mortals. (Except, perhaps, to their peril.)
Umberto Eco wrote a fascinating essay on the Superman comics (1972, The Myth of Superman) where he argues that the major difference between a superhero story and that of a classical hero is that myths about classical heroes eventually end. When we read Hercules or Achilles or Odysseus we do so knowing their ultimate fate, and their stories are able to build towards that.
Superman (and most other superheroes) by contrast, are perpetual. Superman is a not a public myth but a product of DC. There can be Elseworlds and Crisis's, but there can't be a story where his story concludes for good. Umberto Eco argues this means that Superman can't really "grow older," that is, to have consequences that can't be rolled back or ignored in later issues. Superheroism never leads anywhere, narratively. Nothing can build up toward an ultimate fate because there is none.
Superman is invulnerable.
(A less-than-gracious description of certain parts of 2e might find some similarity.)
Now, I like (some) superhero comics and stories just fine, but -- speaking personally -- this isn't what I want in Exalted. Solars et al. maybe be a heightened, exaggerated expression of what Achilles represented, but I don't want them to be so exaggerated that they can thug through their heel-stabbing. Ultimate doom's are too important! (/ebon dragon)
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@Maugan Ra and @emeralis00 are in fact quite preoccupied with a faery kingdom at Creation's far south-eastern border on the Dreaming Sea, having spent the last seven and a half months dealing with one particular court within it!
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You know what would be a fun au shard? Failed Usurpation. The Solars continue to rule, falling into ever greater acts of hubris, replacing the Terrestrial Exalted with blasphemies of Genesis and summoning as Yu-Shan turns its face from them, while players are Dragon-Blooded and Sidereal guerillas struggling to find a way to end the madness. And deep within the Labyrinth, the undying victims of ever-greater tortures and indignities inflicted by insane priest-kings offer power for a price...
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
I made a decently large change to the Usurpation. But I kinda like the concept? Basically Aurora was not killed by the Yozi, but by the champions of the Solar Exalted towards the end of the First Age. The results of their actions ending up with the Heart Eaters. It would have been one of the bigger reasons why the Usurpation happened in my creation. That the greatest heroes of the first age would do something horrid like this.
Gives something for the Bronze and other factions to point at and go 'Look at this shit, they brought this unto the world.'. It would make Heart Eaters the greatest sin of the First Age that still lingers onto the Fallen Age. A frank showing why the usurpation happened.
What I want to do is immediately reveal this fact to my players after their first Heart Eater encounter. I think it would have a strong impact.
Gives something for the Bronze and other factions to point at and go 'Look at this shit, they brought this unto the world.'. It would make Heart Eaters the greatest sin of the First Age that still lingers onto the Fallen Age. A frank showing why the usurpation happened.
What I want to do is immediately reveal this fact to my players after their first Heart Eater encounter. I think it would have a strong impact.
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HalfTangible
Only half sane (it's less cringe)
- Location
- Valkyrie, Primus
I mean, you can (All Star Superman and Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow come to mind) but they keep making stories about him anyway.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think that's the point; because Superman isn't a mythic hero, but a superheroic intellectual property owned by a company, that there is no 'end' to his story. Both of your examples for 'ends' of Superman's story weren't actual ends, they were hypothetical could be's that ultimately were meaningless 'in canon'*. Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow came out during the run of The Man Of Steel which was just the new origin story for Superman; his 'end' couldn't even escape a concurrent beginning, let alone become an actual end. This exact same cycle has happened to Superman time after time, because as something owned by a company extracting value, telling his story can't be allowed to end.
The myths associated with heroes in antiquity may not have been told via comics but they were told, and presumably people could extract a living by telling them, or acting them out, or making paintings of them or writing versions of them in times and places where literacy was a thing. But because these mythic heroes didn't 'belong' to anyone, the need for the stasis of superheroic characters didn't exist. There didn't need to be an Illiad Issue #513. DC can't allow someone like Superman to lapse, and for his comics to stop existing. If nothing else, it's part and parcel of a colossal cross-promotional edifice; the comics tie into the games tie into the TV shows etc. etc.
*Canon in comics tends to just be whatever stuff fans like to the point where it makes sense for the companies that are taking their money to declare to be canon, but this is superseded by their desire to keep making money off of the characters in perpetuity.
I would actually put forward the example of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table to contrast that. Nobody 'owned' the idea of King Arthur but there was definitely a lot of recursive fan fiction going around over centuries as the stories were added to, rewritten, changed, gathered etc. New characters were introduced who were basically OP insertions, character shilling was certainly a thing. In fact the legends of King Arthur have a lot of similarities with a modern superhero run, save the fact nobody was in charge of Arthur's brand.
I mean, Arthur ended too? Arthur died, the end of Arthur and the fall of Camelot is probably the most elaborately detailed part of his myths. And there's an 'Unless?' appended to that of his messianic return but stories of that return were only ever told as prophecy.
Stories continued to be told but they AUed and added detail to the middle parts and the details of the ending. The fact that he ended was never, ever in doubt.
I wouldn't ascribe the unending nature of superheroes to The Fact That They're Property, though. There are huge swathes of intellectual property that are stories that have an ending, and quite a definitive one, sometimes-tragic. The unending property is much more a product of particularities in (mostly-American) media corporate culture. This was a thing with a lot of American media properties, from superheroes to sitcoms to more serious shows. Star Trek has run for 43 seasons so far, with three of its subseries making 7 seasons apiece. Stargate SG-1 did 10 seasons, with 17 for the whole franchise. And you can see this across the board, it's only relatively recently that short-run shows have become reasonably spread. Compare anime - most individual series last half a season to one season, rarely more than two. Even juggernaut franchises like Gundam never spend more than, like, 11 seasons in the same universe, and never more than two on the same cast.
So this isn't a product of media ownership as such. It's a product of specific corporate cultures that are really dominant locally.
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GhanjRho
Acanthus
I mean, "I don't want to be a Sorcerer" is a perfectly good reason. And honestly, I shy away from Summon Demon as a new player tool. I tend to emphasize spells like Cirrus Skiff, Death of Obsidian Butterflies, Invulnerable Skin of Bronze, Infallible Messenger, Stormwind Rider, or Wood Dragon's Claws. @Kaiya is right, demons add complications and a lot of narrative overhead.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
I like summoning only a handful of demons and being buds with them. Either that or not giving a flying fuck and summoning unbound second circles cause I'm a Infernalist yolo.
I think the last time I had a character become a sorcerer it was mostly for the utilitarian spells. He didn't even consider himself a sorcerer, really, it was a skill he had picked up rather than a part of his identity - even with the sacrifice.
Which made it somewhat ironic that in the campaign finale he became one of the very few Dragonblooded ever to manage celestial magic, which was kind of tangential - he didn't want it for its own sake, it was just a necessary tool.
The sacrifices felt organic to him, it was very well handled by the storyteller and felt like choices he would make: that however willing he was, there was a weight to what he was giving up. He was sacrificing something he cared about first and that happened to involve sorcery. Particularly the second time he was giving something up because of a goal, he'd have made the same sacrifice even if sorcery wasn't involved - so it felt right for the character as part of his path.
Someday I might play someone focused on sorcery. It'd be an interesting change.
Which made it somewhat ironic that in the campaign finale he became one of the very few Dragonblooded ever to manage celestial magic, which was kind of tangential - he didn't want it for its own sake, it was just a necessary tool.
The sacrifices felt organic to him, it was very well handled by the storyteller and felt like choices he would make: that however willing he was, there was a weight to what he was giving up. He was sacrificing something he cared about first and that happened to involve sorcery. Particularly the second time he was giving something up because of a goal, he'd have made the same sacrifice even if sorcery wasn't involved - so it felt right for the character as part of his path.
Someday I might play someone focused on sorcery. It'd be an interesting change.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Demons can be good for new players, but only if you've got a real good ST-player relationship where they're not gonna freak out if the demons are well, demons. They can be useful tool to teach the core themes of Exalted such as 'you can but have you thought about if you should' and 'actions have consequences'.
Also, speaking as an ST, you do need players who can engage with the "you are using slave labor" side of it, since that's a fairly important part of demon summoning that I think a lot of people miss. That being in Creation is genuinely uncomfortable for a lot of First Circles, and that their relationships with Sorcerers are almost universally "slave mind-controlled into being okay with it, but still accustomed to a really nasty power dynamic situation". It can be fraught on both sides, unfortunately.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
So yesterday I have a meandering conversation and somehow be reminded someone writes Ultimate Madoka as Primordial, a long time ago. Or perhaps clearly-inspired-by-ultimate-madoka/law-of-cycle, I forgot. Anyone remember that and have the link/save the write-up?
I don't expect I'll find it because it's so long ago, but the thought persist so I might as well ask.
I don't expect I'll find it because it's so long ago, but the thought persist so I might as well ask.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Interesting. I always saw that aspect of Exalted as one of its most Western traits - that, as opposed to cultivation of qi or ascendancy through hard work, the highest echelons of power are reserved for the destined few that are elevated, not by their own efforts, but the grace of the gods.
I think that using Demons for the "Actions have consequences" teaching is a bit....well.
Demon summoning is something that gets a lot of play throughout fiction and when it shows up, people expect consequences. They expect the demons to be perfectly happy to turn on their summoner if they ever get the chance, they expect demons to pay a lot of attention to the letter of their commands and only pay the spirit heed to subvert it, and they expect a dire price to be paid to this malicious entity.
The metaphorical devil is in the details, of course, with different works having different rules for demons, deals, etc.
In Exalted, the summoning of a demon is dangerous, yes but mostly if you fail to bind or banish them. Once you've bound the demon to service, they're bound. They won't look for loop holes or malicious readings of your instructions. They're going to approach it as a thing they want to do, filtered of course, through the perspective of "I'm a Demon of Malfeas."
If you summon a Blood Ape and tell it to guard a child, for whatever kooky reason you as a sorcerer have, they are gonna guard that child with their life! They're probably going to do so by brutally killing or maiming anything that they think may pose a threat to them, loom ominously, and probably exterminate the local cat population. If you summon Lucien to guard them, he's going to go through a list of everyone who knows about the child's location and starting checking off those names with his knives so people can't leak that information(save, maybe, for your allies) and start producing a horde of demon assassins or conscript a cult of mortal assassins to help him in keeping watch for any signs that someone knows about them and ruthlessly suppressing that information when it shows up all the while training the child into one of deadliest assassins Creation has ever known. Etc.
There's no malice there. They have weird priorities because they're demons with different needs and desires from humans and further they're often terrible because Malfeas is a terrible place.
Someone new to Exalted though, is probably expecting both malice and consequences because of how demon summoning usually rolls and they're okay with that or they wouldn't be summoning demons to begin with.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
So your saying Lucien is an excellent babysitter and child educator then!
- Location
- United States
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Trying to think of a good idea for what might have been contained inside a First Age prison that could severely inconvenience the various powers that be in the Northeast if it were to be released. The gist of it is that the party explored a manse and, before they arrived, a scepter (the key to this prison) was stolen by one of the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears' deathknights. The Lover, seeing an opportunity with the arrival of the Autochthonians, wants to unleash whatever horrible thing that lays within to destabilize the region and force conflicts between the Autochthonians (who, led by the players, skipped the Locust Crusade nonsense and went straight to diplomacy and trading) and other nations. Any ideas would be welcome. Might just go with a Hearteater, but I feel like a new one at starting Essence wouldn't be too much of an urgent threat.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Okay! So when I say 'western exceptionalism', I tend to mean the very specific North American perspective of 'if you work hard you can make it' meritocracy. A great meme, a great ideal... if and when it works. Except there's all the more and more apparent oligarchy and inherited wealth and head-starting that really separates the various social classes. (This is an extremely basic take so don't assume I know the topic deeply)
All of the Exaltations are defined by an external factor- The 'do you get them' quality. You can't as a mortal sit and cultivate your chances to Exalt. You can't game the system. You either get one, or you don't. And there are only so many to go around. With the Dragonblooded, this is even more obviously meant to parallel and deconstruct the idea of inherited wealth and power and the idea of bloodline nobility.
So when I say 'Exalted is hostile to that exceptionalism', what I mean to say is that the audience has changed over the past decade. Back in mid to late 2e, people were more enthusiastic about being the Chosen Elite as part of their power fantasy. Now as political and social awareness and ideals have changed, we saw a trend towards the idea of tearing down the Exalted.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, this is basically my attitude. As an ST running a Solar game (@Shyft's Solar game, in fact), I have the situation that I don't want to just sprinkle Celestials atop every major local faction, and nor do I want the entire region to be a completely trivial pushover that provides no tactical or strategic thought to take over, so instead I need ways for mortals, enlightened mortals, godblooded and the occasional Dragonblood to provide interesting and narratively appropriate opposition for a Solar to have solid odds of triumphing over if they decide to play the conquerer and to be neighbours and trading partners and friendly economic rivals who don't just devolve into meaningless, inconsequential, powerless side-notes if they choose not to.