General Exalted Thread

[Gazetteer]

I can safely say that the 3e setting content that has come out recently is far more interested in mortals and mortal-led polities mattering than the majority of the previous edition, which was certainly worse about it in a lot of ways than 1e was, and trying to get people familiar with the 2e version of the setting to not just reflexively dismiss mortals as having any importance at all when they try to familiarise themselves with the current material is a perennial source of frustration in community discussion. It's not even like 3e has removed non-Exalts with magical powers from the setting, what it's done is remove "enlightened mortal" as a one-size-fits-all category, and this framing I see from people trying to say that this has the effect of making mortals matter less compared Exalts is bizarre bordering on deliberately inaccurate.

On an individual level, just from Adversaries of the Righteous, which just came out in its collected format, we've got like... Ashana Ikatu, a mortal martial artist blessed with snake powers by a snake spirit, Eldran Tabrar, the ruler of a far-southern polity who has been empowered by the pieces of an ancient monument he's compelled to rebuild, and Ku Nenaveya, who is a mercenary with a cursed ice sword whose heart was frozen by a Deathlord as a punishment for betraying him. These are all, obviously, mortals with magic and charms of some kind, they're just also bespoke weirdos with distinct natures and powers arising from very different sources that don't really fit neatly into one category. There are also obviously still mortal sorcerers and numerous places with some kind of supernatural tradition that isn't just "they have Exalts".

 

[mothematics]

I feel like 3e Lunars are a mixed bag with a much better charmset (with a few changes I did not like), but with changes to the lore that do not actually fix any of the issues I have with it.

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How do you mean?

 

[Nightdream]

I can safely say that the 3e setting content that has come out recently is far more interested in mortals and mortal-led polities mattering than the majority of the previous edition, which was certainly worse about it in a lot of ways than 1e was, and trying to get people familiar with the 2e version of the setting to not just reflexively dismiss mortals as having any importance at all when they try to familiarise themselves with the current material is a perennial source of frustration in community discussion. It's not even like 3e has removed non-Exalts with magical powers from the setting, what it's done is remove "enlightened mortal" as a one-size-fits-all category, and this framing I see from people trying to say that this has the effect of making mortals matter less compared Exalts is bizarre bordering on deliberately inaccurate.

On an individual level, just from Adversaries of the Righteous, which just came out in its collected format, we've got like... Ashana Ikatu, a mortal martial artist blessed with snake powers by a snake spirit, Eldran Tabrar, the ruler of a far-southern polity who has been empowered by the pieces of an ancient monument he's compelled to rebuild, and Ku Nenaveya, who is a mercenary with a cursed ice sword whose heart was frozen by a Deathlord as a punishment for betraying him. These are all, obviously, mortals with magic and charms of some kind, they're just also bespoke weirdos with distinct natures and powers arising from very different sources that don't really fit neatly into one category. There are also obviously still mortal sorcerers and numerous places with some kind of supernatural tradition that isn't just "they have Exalts".

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I do like all that, 2e was very flawed and got too absorbed in only Solars mattering, but it does not change the fact that with the removal of enlightened essence and the nerfing of thaumaturgy, mortals were still crippled. The social and societal gains they made were good, but combat is a big part of the game and they lost what little they had to make them relevant. Sure, mortal martial artists were very weak, but they could still be fun early game antagonists. This could just be my bias towards liking the idea of martial arts schools without the baggage that Dragon-Blooded bring though.

Finally, if I remember correctly, those things in Adversaries of the Rightious were done after the developers changed.

How do you mean?

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As far as powers go, I liked their connection to the Wyld and ability to turn into things that are not animals. As for the lore, Lunars still feel largely irrelevant to the history of Creation. Also, I liked the Solar Bond, it was one of the things I found interesting about Lunars, and Lunars were my favorite Exalted before Infernals was released. I think a better way to have handled it rather than partially cutting it out and making it weird and oppressive from the start rather than something that was well-intentioned by Luna, but got twisted into something ugly by the Solars, would be to make it so the Solar Bond gave an advantage to the Lunar in both helping and opposing their Solar. If you do not want to engage with it at all, just make it a character choice.

 

[Gazetteer]

In a 3e context Lunars are presented as a constant and serious antagonist toward first the Shogunate and then to the Realm and its other successor states. There are large Lunar dominions scattered around the Threshold. Lunars have been instrumental in defining the Realm's sphere of influence as it currently exists, and in the gradual depletion of many irreplaceable artifacts and infrastructure controlled by the Realm. House Ledaal was founded after Ledaal's mother's house allied with a Lunar, and Ledaal informed on them to the Empress. Several centuries ago, Lookshy outright razed a city state in the Scavenger Lands for openly harbouring a Lunar. These are just random, scattershot examples of the top of my head -- the ongoing blood feud between Dragon-Blooded and Lunars, which the 3e treatment of the splat foregrounded, is a major presence in the history of the Second Age, and is prominent in the setting as currently depicted.

The Lunar-Solar bond very obviously still exists, and even has beneficial mechanical effects in the form of bond tags in the Lunar charmset. It's now far more flexible and mutual than it was before, and allows individual players to simply opt out without removing it as a setting element. I don't really know how else to respond to this.

Finally, if I remember correctly, those things in Adversaries of the Rightious were done after the developers changed.

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Everything aside from the corebook and Miracles of the Solar Exalted, that is, the vast majority of 3e content, was published after the developers changed, so that's not exactly a disqualifying characteristic?

 

[Sucal]

Forgot Elements-Sculpted Avatar was a charm.

So it's Appearance 8 that solars can pretend to have right?

 

[SunnySprings]

Forgot Elements-Sculpted Avatar was a charm.

So it's Appearance 8 that solars can pretend to have right?

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Yup. Fun fact: With Sidereals, if you manage to trigger all the effects that add a bonus dot of Appearance, you can get up to +4. Takes Essence 5 to get that last extra dot from Harmonic Completion, though.

 

[Nightdream]

In a 3e context Lunars are presented as a constant and serious antagonist toward first the Shogunate and then to the Realm and its other successor states. There are large Lunar dominions scattered around the Threshold. Lunars have been instrumental in defining the Realm's sphere of influence as it currently exists, and in the gradual depletion of many irreplaceable artifacts and infrastructure controlled by the Realm. House Ledaal was founded after Ledaal's mother's house allied with a Lunar, and Ledaal informed on them to the Empress. Several centuries ago, Lookshy outright razed a city state in the Scavenger Lands for openly harbouring a Lunar. These are just random, scattershot examples of the top of my head -- the ongoing blood feud between Dragon-Blooded and Lunars, which the 3e treatment of the splat foregrounded, is a major presence in the history of the Second Age, and is prominent in the setting as currently depicted.

The Lunar-Solar bond very obviously still exists, and even has beneficial mechanical effects in the form of bond tags in the Lunar charmset. It's now far more flexible and mutual than it was before, and allows individual players to simply opt out without removing it as a setting element. I don't really know how else to respond to this.

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And we still have elders squatting around not accomplishing anything remarkable. I would need to double check the Lookshy thing since I do not recall it, but from what you just said, it is a bad example because the only thing the Lunar accomplished was existing.

I want examples of powerful nations ruled by Lunars at the edge of the world and carved out of the Underworld. I want more important historical events, like at one point during the Shogunate era everyone freaking out when they realize an Anthema has conned them all into making them Shogun. I want examples of how Lunars have hampered and hurt the Realm's attempts at expanding, not to just be told that they do. Things like Realm Houses being driven to extinction by Lunars, military losses, and major assassinations. What little stuff is provided feels anemic. More non-Dragon-Blooded stuff is always nice as well.

The easiest thing I could see being done is just straight up give control of the Caul to the Lunars since it would not just be background information, but an active example of Lunar success.

A big complaint I have about the bond is how in 3e it was implemented after a war between Solars and Lunars instead of Luna wanting it from the beginning and explicitly making it so there were more Lunars than Solars. Just not caring about the bond should 100% be an option of course, but I would still rather it exist for flavor reasons.

Everything aside from the corebook and Miracles of the Solar Exalted, that is, the vast majority of 3e content, was published after the developers changed, so that's not exactly a disqualifying characteristic?

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I was not trying to disqualify it. It was more of an example of how I felt the intention during the development of Exalted 3e to make mortals matter more while also weakening them in other ways was a bad idea.

 

[Kaiya]

I have always been one of those people who prefer the Exalted setting as a whole to be incredibly powerful, so 3e was a bit disapointing with its lower power scale. I felt like the higher power was one of the things that set it apart from other games and settings.

One of the weird things about 3e to me is the power level was lowered, but then it seemed to double down on the Exalted being the only thing that matter by removing enlightened mortals and introducing new Exalted. I think a lot of this can be laid at the feet of Holden since most of the new Exalted he came up with were literally designed to be borderline unplayable antagonists.

I feel the ideal solution would have been to create more non-Exalted antagonists that are strong enough to pose a challenge. Liminals would have been fine as a playable non-Exalted splat. I am not necessarily against new Exalts either, I like the non-canon Heart-Eaters in Exigents for example.

Ignoring my power level perferences, I am feeling cautiously optimistic for the future of the series after seeing the Sidereal previews. It feels like the current developers have finally found there footing. Dragon-Blooded are pretty bad, and I feel like 3e Lunars are a mixed bag with a much better charmset (with a few changes I did not like), but with changes to the lore that do not actually fix any of the issues I have with it. With Sidereals, I feel like the changes were more positive than negative.

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...uh, Ex3's Exalted are still extremely powerful. The mechanics changed so that the combat system didn't suck, but they're only less powerful in that the system doesn't function on them being literally invincible until, oops, out of mana, and they explode into little bloody chunks.

I also feel like you're going on second or third hand information? Only the Heart-Eaters are villain splat. Liminals are ghost-hunting weirdoes asking what does it mean to be human, Umbrals are dealing with their weird shadow selves, Dream Souled are just artsy wanderers, ect.

 

[Potato Anarchy]

nd we still have elders squatting around not accomplishing anything remarkable. I would need to double check the Lookshy thing since I do not recall it, but from what you just said, it is a bad example because the only thing the Lunar accomplished was existing.

I want examples of powerful nations ruled by Lunars at the edge of the world and carved out of the Underworld. I want more important historical events, like at one point during the Shogunate era everyone freaking out when they realize an Anthema has conned them all into making them Shogun. I want examples of how Lunars have hampered and hurt the Realm's attempts at expanding, not to just be told that they do. Things like Realm Houses being driven to extinction by Lunars, military losses, and major assassinations. What little stuff is provided feels anemic. More non-Dragon-Blooded stuff is always nice as well.

The easiest thing I could see being done is just straight up give control of the Caul to the Lunars since it would not just be background information, but an active example of Lunar success.

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You are listing off as potential improvements things that are already in the books. I feel like you might be responding more to old Holden lore that was never actually published (and/or fanon and the initial impressions of the 3e core) then more recent publications, but some of this stuff is also already in core!

A Lunar literally already did reign as Shogun and when they were caught by a Sidereal, the following battle destroyed half the palace and devastated the government. There are many Lunar dominions detailed in multiple books, and not stuck by a restriction to the edges of things or the underworld; those dominions resist the Realm actively, wherever they pop up, not just by being too far away to crush. There are military losses and assassinations packed throughout the Realm and Fangs at the Gate and Heirs, way too many for me to repeat with the fingers on two hands and the time I'm willing to spend on this post. Like Gaz mentioned, House Jurul was fully suborned by Lunars before it was taken down - it's not the Lunars purging a House directly but it's if anything a greater feat for them. A Lunar caused an Immaculate schism. There's regions of the Blessed Isle that lie in desert and ruin (or more secretly cursed) because Lunars sabotaged local geomancy.

For that matter, I'm not really sure what about the Caul is "background information" and not success. They control almost all of it! There is a great deal of material about the Lunar holdings on the Caul and how weird and mythic and dope they are! But there being One City that the Realm still holds means there is conflict and hooks there rather than just a statement of power. That seems more interesting and useful than an All-Lunar Caul.

The clear stance of the 3e lore is, to quote the Realm, "Enough such pyrrhic Realm victories will see Lunars win the war. Before the Empress' disappearance and the Solars' return, the Silver Pact's victory seemed inevitable to its elders. Now Creation is thrust into chaos, and nothing is certain." The Lunars were winning - are winning. There's nothing anemic about it.

 

[Cetashwayo]

Yeah I mean this is literally all in Fangs at the Gate. We have a list of many different Lunar Dominions, we have a list of major territories and Shahan-Yas, the operation of the creation-spanning anti-realm Lunar secret society of the Silver Pact...I'm not sure how much more is required besides perhaps have a specific large named kingdom like Prasad ruled by Lunars (that would be cool).

 

[Gazetteer]

At some point it's like, either someone is not reading the same text as I am, or they're doing so in such an utterly uncharitable way as to be indistinguishable. Unfortunately, no one else can read a book for you.

 

[Chehrazad]

I want examples of powerful nations ruled by Lunars at the edge of the world and carved out of the Underworld. I want more important historical events, like at one point during the Shogunate era everyone freaking out when they realize an Anthema has conned them all into making them Shogun. I want examples of how Lunars have hampered and hurt the Realm's attempts at expanding, not to just be told that they do. Things like Realm Houses being driven to extinction by Lunars, military losses, and major assassinations. What little stuff is provided feels anemic. More non-Dragon-Blooded stuff is always nice as well.

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Fangs at the Gate actively has this? Iscomay is a powerful regional empire. I don't get it. Fangs at the Gate has many practical examples of how Lunars have harried the Realm and assassinated important figures. It's full of it.

The easiest thing I could see being done is just straight up give control of the Caul to the Lunars since it would not just be background information, but an active example of Lunar success.

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The Caul is fully controlled by Lunars barring a single exclave, that as per the write-up, is going to fall any day now unless the Realm seriously gets its shit together. All of this is already present.

 

[Nightdream]

I have not looked at Fangs at the Gate since it came out. From the sound of it, they did fix some of the problems I had and I thought I came up with it. That is both embarrassing and kind of hilarious. I am going to blame my poor memory and my disappointment with the elders and the Caul.

 

[SunnySprings]

Fangs at the Gate actively has this? Iscomay is a powerful regional empire. I don't get it. Fangs at the Gate has many practical examples of how Lunars have harried the Realm and assassinated important figures. It's full of it.

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Ehhh, I wouldn't call Iscomay a domain, all things considered; the Lunar who founded it peaced out for like five-six centuries to do her own thing and then came back just now to demand they wage war against the Realm while the current rulers ask, "Well why would we do that?" At that point, its various accomplishments and crimes are its own. Iscomay's presence in the book is thus kind of weird to me. The other domains have their local Lunar as either its ruler or a very important figure within it, but here, its very tertiary to everything. Its a neat location, but it should have been one of those domains that gets a single paragraph mention later on and maybe expanded later in a different book. If I could have had my pick of the ones that didn't get a big write-up, I'd either pick that one Northern domain ruled by a Lunar necromancer or the one closest to the Dreaming Sea on Mt. Namas.

 

[Kymme]

Fangs At The Gate has a lot of great stuff in it. The only thing I might have wanted to see more of was examples of Lunars successfully forcing the Realm out of a location and claiming it as a dominion - an example of how the Lunar Host's mission to chip away at the Realm's grasp have caused their borders to really shrink. I know this is what's happening with the Caul, but a couple factors (its relative remoteness, its seemingly unkillable Shayan-ya, etc) make it feel kind of like Designated PVP Island.

Sometimes I just wish the 3e writers had been like "fuck it" and made the Bull of the North a Lunar, too.

 

[Blaque]

I can safely say that the 3e setting content that has come out recently is far more interested in mortals and mortal-led polities mattering than the majority of the previous edition, which was certainly worse about it in a lot of ways than 1e was, and trying to get people familiar with the 2e version of the setting to not just reflexively dismiss mortals as having any importance at all when they try to familiarise themselves with the current material is a perennial source of frustration in community discussion. It's not even like 3e has removed non-Exalts with magical powers from the setting, what it's done is remove "enlightened mortal" as a one-size-fits-all category, and this framing I see from people trying to say that this has the effect of making mortals matter less compared Exalts is bizarre bordering on deliberately inaccurate.

On an individual level, just from Adversaries of the Righteous, which just came out in its collected format, we've got like... Ashana Ikatu, a mortal martial artist blessed with snake powers by a snake spirit, Eldran Tabrar, the ruler of a far-southern polity who has been empowered by the pieces of an ancient monument he's compelled to rebuild, and Ku Nenaveya, who is a mercenary with a cursed ice sword whose heart was frozen by a Deathlord as a punishment for betraying him. These are all, obviously, mortals with magic and charms of some kind, they're just also bespoke weirdos with distinct natures and powers arising from very different sources that don't really fit neatly into one category. There are also obviously still mortal sorcerers and numerous places with some kind of supernatural tradition that isn't just "they have Exalts".

Click to shrink...

I will kind of note also a bit, enlightened mortals even whent hey were around, didn't to me actually do much.

Like, seriously, what did they get? Access to Terrestrial MAs up to Essence 3, artifacts that didn't have anything but stat stick powers usually, and sorcery or necromancy, in an edition that outright disparaged them. Save some kind of weird emeraldstreak-inspired minmax build, enlightened mortals had the exact same tools as the Exlated, with smaller pools, worse limits,a nd worst versions often. It was a patch-over to make folks feel good they "earned" power, evne weaker power. The appeal to me honestly reminded me of folks hwo play games with the hardest difficulty, or without using tools as developer intende,d to show they're "real" players.

As noted, 3e actually in giving mortals power, gives htem not just a pool of generic powers, but things that make them stand-out, be notable,a nd be something that can actually be a challenge to the Exalted as needed. Enlightened mortal as a category in 2e to me just was platitutdes. Mortals in 3e when they are something more, are pretty often something bespoke and unique. I think it is a bit of a general vibe wiht 3e's current development including "Keep Creation weird". Make sure that if you intorduce a new thing, make sure it's a notable, cool new thing, rather than something template-built.

 

[SerGregness]

Fangs At The Gate has a lot of great stuff in it. The only thing I might have wanted to see more of was examples of Lunars successfully forcing the Realm out of a location and claiming it as a dominion - an example of how the Lunar Host's mission to chip away at the Realm's grasp have caused their borders to really shrink. I know this is what's happening with the Caul, but a couple factors (its relative remoteness, its seemingly unkillable Shayan-ya, etc) make it feel kind of like Designated PVP Island.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I think the thing Fangs really needed to drive the point home was an example of somewhere that had Realm presence in 2e and have THAT be a Lunar dominion in Ex3. There were a lot of cool Lunar dominions in that book, but they're all new places and so it doesn't feel to us players (particularly the old hands) like an example of somewhere the Lunars pushed back in the way that it would if, say, An-Teng was no longer a satrapy.

There are probably better options than An-Teng, but you get my point.

What we got of the Caul is cool and all, but I still kind of miss the original pitch that the place had been freed of the Loom and the Lunars had built a replacement for it somehow.

 

[Lioness]

The Caul is fully controlled by Lunars barring a single exclave, that as per the write-up, is going to fall any day now unless the Realm seriously gets its shit together. All of this is already present.

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And a Caul that's already fallen to the Lunars has its own risks of being minimalised as a background event, especially since the Dragon-Blooded and Realm books would probably handle it more like Thorns than a place for the PCs to visit.

 

[Nightdream]

And a Caul that's already fallen to the Lunars has its own risks of being minimalised as a background event, especially since the Dragon-Blooded and Realm books would probably handle it more like Thorns than a place for the PCs to visit.

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The Caul is a holy site that provides them material benefits. I do not think they could afford to ignore that Anathema violently seized control of it.

 

[Lioness]

Retaking it feels beyond the scale of most Dragon-Blooded games. Liberating Thorns and Kill Bull Volume 2 feel like much more modest undertakings.

 

[Blaque]

Yeah, I think the thing Fangs really needed to drive the point home was an example of somewhere that had Realm presence in 2e and have THAT be a Lunar dominion in Ex3. There were a lot of cool Lunar dominions in that book, but they're all new places and so it doesn't feel to us players (particularly the old hands) like an example of somewhere the Lunars pushed back in the way that it would if, say, An-Teng was no longer a satrapy.

There are probably better options than An-Teng, but you get my point.
...

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This is generally bad for two reasons and kind of antithetical to the deisgne thos of the current devs for them also.

The first is that all told, the Realm was presented as a paper tiger in 1e and 2e when it comes to its imperialism. Out of An-Teng and the Deshen, there weren't all that many polities presented as solidly under Realm contorl. In fact, Chiaroscuro was presented as much a Lunar thing through Tamuz as a Realm thing. This means there's not a lot to like, actually use that would feel significant. Especially in a context where the Deshen colonies are probably not coming back.

The second is there's a desire not to present Lunars as strong by shwoing their enemies as weak. That the Lunars on their own manage to have been a problem like they have for the Realm is impressive. That the despite the generally unified might of as many as eight-score Celestial Exalted against it, the Shogunate and its successor states still stand. This is kind of undermined when in a setting reboot (which editions of Exalted are) one of the places are shown as basically gone before they are ever shown on screen.

This is actually in any case shown in 3e already. The West in 1e and especially 2e was shown as being more or less dominated by the Realm, especially teh Neck and Wavecrest. 3e's take is that thse are recent conquests, within the last century, gained mostly through the passification of Wu-Jian and the inattention of Leviathan. It's there to show as much a back-in-forth on the conflict, where the Realm when a restraint was let off broke-through and this cuased the extremley high rise of House Peleps in a way that's interesitng, complex, and impactful on the world.

Also, the Caul situation is as it is to facilitate this. The Realm use to have it contorlled, and Sha'a Oka is bleeding its last few scions dry to hold what's left. The Caul being a point of conflict right now is there to as much present it as a place to do games there of the last battle for Faxal, the retaking of the island, or any number of you know, interesting stories on the conflcit, rather htan pure historicla footnote. A lot of 3e's setting and location design is as much "Make this a place to run a game in" rather than "Make this place purely to support setting encyclopedia history."

 

[mantovani]

...uh, Ex3's Exalted are still extremely powerful. The mechanics changed so that the combat system didn't suck, but they're only less powerful in that the system doesn't function on them being literally invincible until, oops, out of mana, and they explode into little bloody chunks.

I also feel like you're going on second or third hand information? Only the Heart-Eaters are villain splat. Liminals are ghost-hunting weirdoes asking what does it mean to be human, Umbrals are dealing with their weird shadow selves, Dream Souled are just artsy wanderers, ect.

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The problem is the Solar Charm Bloat, it makes it harder for Solars to get stuff they want even with the Supernal.

...uh, Ex3's Exalted are still extremely powerful. The mechanics changed so that the combat system didn't suck, but they're only less powerful in that the system doesn't function on them being literally invincible until, oops, out of mana, and they explode into little bloody chunks.

I also feel like you're going on second or third hand information? Only the Heart-Eaters are villain splat. Liminals are ghost-hunting weirdoes asking what does it mean to be human, Umbrals are dealing with their weird shadow selves, Dream Souled are just artsy wanderers, ect.

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Holden released the sale pitches of the proto versions of the Apocryphal Trio.


●Nightmares (proto Umbrals): don't want to use their powers.

●Revelers (proto Dream-Souled): are one note cultists.

●Heart-Eaters: can't travel.

 

[Yama951]

The whole mention of the other Incarna makes it all interesting on a world building angle.

Nibiru - Umbrals
Aurora - Hearteaters
Neptune? - Nioborans

makes one wonder about other Incarna and what they could have created or made...

 

[mantovani]

I think Neptune was the god of communication.

 

[VagueZ]

A big complaint I have about the bond is how in 3e it was implemented after a war between Solars and Lunars instead of Luna wanting it from the beginning and explicitly making it so there were more Lunars than Solars. Just not caring about the bond should 100% be an option of course, but I would still rather it exist for flavor reasons.

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I'm just going to single this part out, because the rest of this I think has been addressed pretty well. The problem here is that if you mandate that the bond exists, you've stuck it to the rest of the Lunar concept. "I want to play a cunning shapeshifting trickster, or a warrior who transforms into a gargantuan warform and has her magic sword grow with her, or a forest witch who levels curses and prophecies on the local potentate and then turns into a bird to fly away from the throneroom while shrieking horrible laughter" is already enough on its own; all of these have a lot of support and fun mechanics to back them up. Lunars in this edition have a strong and interesting set of story hooks and powers all on their own. Lunars are the champions of Lunar stories. There is no need for the bond to make a Lunar matter, because it's not just Solars and their mirrors who matter.

Every single thing about the bond that was in 2e can still be there in 3e, if desired. You want to have a bond? Sure, it's there. You want to have it so the bond is the thing that can make an Abyssal or Infernal give up the path of evil and come back to protecting Creation? Well, Abyssals and Infernals are less automatically villainous, but there's certainly redeemable villains among them, and the bond is an easy in for caring about each other and doing something with it. Interested in playing a Lunar dominated by his bond, so he's acting specifically at the whim of the Solar because of reasons beyond his control or understanding? Sure, Solars can be incredibly good at being convincing.

It doesn't matter what parts you do or don't like; that's not the point. The point is that all potential plot hooks and basic relationship templates are still available. 3e only expands the options. Interested in playing a friendly rival, with the two of you always striving to outdo the other in any field from cooking to footraces to martial arts? We can do that. Interested in playing a vicious enmity where the two of you hate each other's guts at first sight and it turns out that she's a monster so your destined foe is truly as despicable as you think and you just have to convince everyone else of that fact? Go wild. Interested in that but inverting the end so you realize that your gut feeling of hatred is meaningless echoes of your previous lives when you were other people, and this feeling should be abandoned? Still works. This isn't right for your character? Then it's not even a possibility; you have no bondmate. There's no upside and some potential downside to keeping the bond as mandatory; if it's kept as something like "you just haven't met the right one yet", that's a dangling plot hook that can color a character concept.

Lunars can stand on their own without the bond. They don't need it. If a specific character benefits from it, all previous options and some additional ones are on the table.