So I’ve been in a bit of a MoodTM lately, and I wanted to channel it into talking about a game far and… dar from my heart, Exalted. Exalted second edition, specifically, which I’m sure is prompting a few of y’all to recoil in horror, as well you should. It’s rough. It sucks. But I wanted to talk about the bits I think are neat and cool, because, positivity is good.
(That means the setting. Just the setting. Every other part of the game is kind of terrible. Honestly, even the setting has a lot of terrible elements, but, still. It’s a very cool instance of the kind of metaphysics that makes my brain juice happy, and it manages a cool fantasy superheroes premise on top of that.)
(I might get some things wrong here. If I do, shut up, I probably know more than you, maybe it’s you who’s wrong. And the book you’ve got open that directly contradicts me. That’s wrong too.)
So in Exalted, you play a bunch of divinely-ordained chosen ones who are literally perfect and ultimate lifeforms, born to rule all. You’re also the weakest fish in the ultimate lifeform pond, and literally every other fish hates you personally. Also the world is about to explode and your one job nowadays is to make sure the world does not explode. You just woke up and need to act now, and your whole thing is you grow your ridiculous power over time as you live, like, millennia, millennia you do not have.
Good luck!
Let’s back up a bit
So back in the beginning, a bunch of cosmically powerful jerks called Primordials created reality because they wanted to play video games. This pissed off the fairies that were existing where reality was, and, fairyland essentially infinitely expands in all directions around the world. (Oh yeah, the earth is flat. Just like real life.
They had to create reality to support the complicated infrastructure that video games require. It’s like an incredibly inefficient gaming PC. Listen, they had to have the RGB light-up keyboard, okay? So the screen is inside of Yu-Shan, the perfect city of heaven, with fountains of ambrosia and a bunch of gods running about and everything’s nice. Outside of it, reality’s there, and fucking superpowered dragon-people and shark-people and whatnot run around and humans are dumbass prey species that are also pray species. Their whole existence is to be scared, pray to gods for help, and then the prayer becomes ambrosia that the gods can eat. It’s a raw deal.
There’re a few chief gods, called the Incarnae. The sun is one – the Unconquered Sun, he’s a mystical super-powerful warrior, and he literally cannot lose a fight. He’s Unconquered! That’s his thing. There’s also Luna, the moon. She was made by compiling from the bubbling possibilities of fairyland every single possible version of her, and then they got put into a battle royale minecraft blitz survival games where they all ate each other. Five came out on top, but all are in there, and she can shapeshift and eat stuff and is a fucking nightmare. Then there’s the five maidens, who are essentially all a package deal as one Incarna total. They, uh… they just showed up? Like, Creation (that’s the world) got made, and, hey presto, they popped up. They can control fate and be cryptic and they’re masters of like Secrets and Endings and Journeys and I gotta say, nobody appears as concerned about this situation as they should be.
There’s a couple more, too, but, spoiler alert, they fucking die. Those three (or seven, depends how you count) are the ones that matter.
The Incarnae are pissed. Life is good, they get to hang out in the cool perfect heaven city, but, dammit, that RGB lighting looks real styling, and mom says it’s their turn to game! The Primordials don’t give them the time of day, they don’t view anything other than them as important, except for two – Gaia, who is essentially the whole realm of Creation, there are magical poles of her five elements (five, it’s a wonk mishmash of water-earth-fire-air and wood-metal-water-earth-fire because wood is an element but air is and metal isn’t) through the world, and Autochthon, who’s like the bullied nerd who makes wind-up toys that everyone breaks but his wind-up toys are absurdly complex. Just, y’know, it’s a gamer friend group, obviously they’re assholes, and they bully him and break his stuff.
Those two, both of them, don’t give a shit about gaming. Autochthon just wants his Etsy craft store to take off, and Gaia is a perpetual tourist who wants to explore scenic fairyland. They kinda can’t leave while the other Primordials are roping them into another fucking round of spleef, so, they figure, fuck it. Looking for the crappiest ingredients so there’s no way anyone will see it coming, they settle on depressed panicking humanity to be their weapon.
(Okay, there’s actually a good reason. See, humans are built to have infinite imagination, so they can imagine really scary things and pray harder. But that also means they can imagine fucking nonsense ideas and weapons and whatnot! Since the Primordials are, like, infinitely cosmically powerful, essentially they need as much of a long-shot gambling build as they can get, and, infinite imagination sure helps there.)
So, they invent the Exalted. Hey, that’s you! You’re in this show. Gaia makes a batch called Terrestrials, who essentially have Secret Bloodline Techniiiiiiiques, and breed like rabbits. They get to work as magic shock troops, and are affiliated with one of the five elements! You’re the cooler ones, though. Autochthon makes the Celestials, each of which is directly affiliated with one of the Incarnae. 300 Solars, who are good at everything and have an aura of constant smugness and hero complexes, 300 Lunars, who are shapeshifters that can turn into whatever the fuck as long as they eat it (including bugs, plagues, rocks, soul parts of Primordials, the giant apocalypse beasts that roam the landscape, what have you), and 100 Sidereals, for the maidens.
…Geez, five times the Incarnae and a third the Exalted? Talk about the short end of the stick.
Sidereals get to fuck with reality and fate and say that um actually they were across the street when you attacked and actually you weren’t allowed to take that action at all so you didn’t. Unlike the Solars and Lunars, and also unlike the whole reason they picked humans in the first place, Sidereals can’t build their own magic powers. They have what the maidens gave them, and that’s it. So instead they design ridiculous martial arts and become Immortal Hot Jackie Chan That Punches A Plague Into Your Heart With A Gun. (Is Jackie Chan hot? Should I have said “Immortal Hotter etcetera etcetera”? Who knows.)
Oh yeah, those other two Incarnae get Celestial Exalted, too, but then they get killed in the rebellion and their Exalted go insane so Autochthon takes them all and locks them up. They never come up again. But, that’s a plothook sitting right there!
So the Exalted are set up, given enough time to, like, start fermenting their power and thinking of terrible ideas, and then, fuck it, it’s war time.
Turns out, gambling pays off! Especially if part of your side contains the perfect warrior whose whole existence is predicated on an inability to ever lose.
Yes I am skipping the whole war. What, did you want to see it? Well, you kinda can’t. See, Exalted reincarnate after they die, and most of them did die a lot. When they did, they got their memories cleaned off. And, like… so, a bunch of the Primordials do legit die during the war. One of them that doesn’t, blows up enough of herself in a fit of pique to destroy 90% of the possibility of things that exist in Creation. So 9/10ths of the things that existed then do not anymore. Essentially, Creation went through a lot of changes then, you just get to see the after picture.
The living Primordials surrender, becoming the Yozis, turning their subcomponent souls into demons, and agreeing to go fuck off inside of Malfeas. Like Gaia, and a lot of the Primordials, he’s a place as well as a person. The Exalted, and everyone in Creation, earn the right to magically summon demons! Which sounds like a great plan! What do you mean they will obviously be enacting revenge as agents of the Yozi? Nahhhhh.
The dead Primordials become the Neverborn, and the Underworld comes into existence as an edgy Shadow-the-Hedgehog-style reflection of Creation. Instead of the screen for gaming, it’s centered around the Void, a big pit of oblivion that kills things. It’s where the Neverborn were gonna go, but, they invented being ghosts, so they also invented what defines a ghost here – their fetters. What they were attached to in life. They will stay ghosts, and cannot pass on, until Creation is un-Creationed.
Oopsie!
I’m sure everything will be fine now
The Primordials are definitely out of the way for sure and not a problem anymore. The Incarnae are finally getting to find out what this “mined craft” all the cool kids are talking about is. Humanity has gone from the bottom of the food chain to 700 perfect idiots, some very large Terrestrial families, and the rest, who kind of still are the bottom of the food chain. Everything’s perfect! Time to party!
So, the bad news, which nobody actually knows about, is that everything is already screwed. (I mean, you coulda guessed that, but, still.) When the Neverborn died, their big thing was Creation still being there, but they were specifically pissed at, like… hey, what the fuck, are those humans? Those losers? Fuck you, you don’t get to kill me! So they placed a death curse on the Celestial Exalted. The Great Curse. (Not to be confused with the Great Geas, which you don’t need to know about. But, the Great Geas probably happened because of the Great Curse, so, hey. Maybe the confusingly-similar names can be useful.)
Essentially, the Great Curse turns Exalted into assholes over time. It amplifies their shittiest traits, the narcissism, the hubris, etcetera. For Sidereals, it makes them convinced they’re right about everything and can’t trust anyone. For Solars, it makes them convinced they’re shining golden gods that can do no wrong and the world is their playground to fuck about in. For Lunars, each one is bound to one Solar, and essentially the Great Curse traps them in an abusive relationship. As in, the Great Curse on Lunars specifically both makes them trapped in the relationship and makes it bad.
…Yeah. It’s, uh… I won’t mince words, it’s fucking gross. And I wish it was not in my fun stressed out magic superheroes game. Magically enforced abusive relationships are a fucking terrible worldbuilding concept unless you want to write specifically a game about how shitty that is, and White Wolf did not have the tact to do that. Randomly scrolling through Solar charms (that’s what the superpowers are called) and seeing ones that are about controlling and manipulating their paired Lunar (called their “mate”, too, which, ewww) is FunTM, too.
But anyway. The Lunars also get kinda hubris-y, so, let’s focus on that, yeah?
The Exalted essentially split up the world and start running bits of it. Mostly the Sidereals stay in Yu-Shan, but the Solars and Lunars pop the fuck off. They invent the internet, they make it sentient, it names itself “I Am” after its first words (like “Hello World” but self-centered), they make a flying airship that has a gun that deals an infinite number of damage with a hit, a group of Solar nerds called the Cauldronists propose to demolish Creation and rebuild a new one just because they reckon they can do a better job, it’s like everyone is going “oh, you think that’s hubris? Here, watch this!” It’s fucking great.
During this time, Gaia leaves to go wander fairyland. Since, y’know, that’s what she wants to do. Autochthon leaves a bit later, when the Exalted start breaking his toys (with the Great Geas, remember that? No you don’t, I didn’t explain anything about it), and becomes his own realm like Gaia and Malfeas are. Then he goes into a coma because his depression and self-loathing are physically manifesting as a terminal illness, since, that’s how Primordial bodies work, they’re also their minds, and he’s the only one who isn’t completely self-assured. Inside of him is a cool sci-fi setting with lightsabers and robot spiders and his own kind of Exalted, Alchemicals, who are physically made of a magical metal and grown in a tub with the gem containing a human soul.
That doesn’t matter, though. It’s golden age time for Creation! Life for humans is way better except when an Exalted decides to kill all of them for giggles, and the tech is improving massively. They’ve got mechs made of magic supergold, shit’s wild.
But, you know how this story goes. Can’t have a lost ancient super-powerful civilization with a lot of scattered relics without losing that civilization and scattering the relics.
So the Sidereals are tired of the Solars’ shit. They’re getting too hubristic, they’re mangling fate by sinking parts of reality into fairyland just to practice fighting it (which is so dumb, they can just walk outside and fairyland’s right there), and they’re right dicks to be around. They all get a prophecy that they need to do something about the Solars, and, it is about time. So, they hatch a plan. During a big feast where everyone shows up (it’s enforced, because it’s also the one week you can summon the most powerful demons, strong enough that only Solars can call them, and you know if they weren’t demanded here they would do the stupidest shit imaginable with them), they recruit the Terrestrials, murder every single Solar, and trap their reincarnating Exaltation in a box so no new ones come about. And also murder the Lunars by association. They don’t get trapped, though.
The plan works! And we enter…
The finding out step
Turns out, bad news, people in power can be shitty even if they’re not magically compelled to do so. The gods, now not having to deal with the oversight of Primordials, Incarnae, or even most of the Exalted, get to pop off and be corrupt as hell. The Sidereals are busy trying to do all of the Solar’s jobs, fighting against the straggler Lunars that survived (and that, since they’re not trapped, they regularly reincarnate), and trying to set up a Terrestrial government they can control. They spread a religion that basically teaches all the hot shit the Celestial Exalted said about themselves, they’re chosen ones and super smart and deserve to rule everything, but about the Terrestrials. They teach that other Exalted are bad and should be murdered – but mostly they just describe Lunars and (just in case) Solars.
The Sidereals have star magic. (If you know what “sidereal” means, you probably guessed that!) When they did the whole murder plot, they knew, if they got caught for it, they were screwed. So, they did a thing! There was a constellation called the Mask, which they broke, making it the Broken Mask. (Duh.) This made it physically impossible to prove in a court of law that the Sidereals did it. Like, as a law of physics for the world. I love this dumb mess where you can do things like that. But it also kinda broke all their identities? Sidereals now swap between lives and histories like masks, and people will forget who they were and that they were there once they left. Which is real handy for hiding within Terrestrials and none of them noticing! Terrestrial hunting parties for magical stuff, usually Exalted, are kind of screwed even with their magic supertech left over, so, Sidereals will often be tagging along in the guise of one of the members to even the odds. (Well, more to uneven, the deck is super stacked and they make it even moreso.)
All that, and they still can’t run the world on their own. Huh! I was so sure a hundred politics-minded backstabbing schemers could do the job. Wild.
So, anyway. It’s time for you to meet a Deathlord.
That’s the name for the ghost of a Solar that died at the big betrayal. There’s 13 of ’em. They’re edgy and whiny and goth, and they work for the Neverborn. Sorta. They hate each other, but, they’re both groups of ghosts and they’re both working to destroy Creation, so, they collaborate in that “I’m gonna kill you/you’ll die trying” sort of way.
They engineer a super-plague that murders a fuckton of people, including Exalted. Who aren’t supposed to be able to get sick.
Strong start. But let’s see if the fairies can’t do one better.
Yeah, remember them? So they’ve been a regular menace, taking bites out of Creation and eating people for stories. Consistent jerks. But, see, they kind of want Creation gone, not just munched a bit. And Creation has lost a lot of its protections lately. Plus, the Exalted that are left are worrying about a super-plague! And, above all else, the fairies are creatures of drama. What’s more dramatic than an army cutting right through to Creation’s heart to destroy it?
Well, there isn’t actually much resistance Creation can mount. So, like, they get through Creation. Shit’s fucked. That’s it. Everyone’s doomed. And then we find out the answer – a grand betrayal, of course! Having fun, Sidereals in the audience? The leader’s second-in-command dramatically stabs him, everyone gets to ham it up, and, bam, invasion over, they got their melodrama and that’s all they were really after. But, with so few powerful anythings left to defend Creation… you know they could, now.
So, the Sidereals redouble their efforts.
They set up, like, a real Terrestrial hegemony. Throughout Creation. Ruled by a Terrestrial called the Scarlet Empress, who the guy who originally thought of the big betrayal is confident he has under his thumb. They preach the religion hard, crack down on shit a lot, and get some semblance of control back. It’s recovery, it’s a vulnerable state for the world, seizing power works. Whatever. Politics is boring, you don’t care.
The Ebon Dragon cares, though. You remember, Snidely Whiplash? He’s here to treason things up and cause problems. But, see, he’s not dead. He’s not a Neverborn, he’s not a Yozi. He doesn’t want Creation destroyed, he wants it back. Xx_tied2traintra_xX has gotta get another win under his belt, baby.
So, long story shot, he convinces the Scarlet Empress to work with him, and, like, when I say “work with him”, I mean “they legally get married and she makes a demonic pact for power”. Which… relationship goals? I think? But bad news for Creation, for sure. And the Sidereals just don’t notice.
Time for phase 2 of his plan – diplomacy! With the Neverborn. Specifically, hey, how’d they like some Exalted? Remember the Solars, from back in the bad old days? So, Autochthon is a genius inventor. Everything he makes is perfect, and he made the Exalted extra perfect. There is no way to smash the Exaltations, nor to infect them.
But you can just put stuff on top of them. Autochthon didn’t plan for that.
So Snidely (that’s his official name now) designs magic hats for them – ones made of demons for the Yozis, and ones made of ghost stuff for the Neverborn. If the Neverborn cooperate in snagging the Solar Exaltations, they can keep a hundred of them.
And they do! But, Snidely wasn’t super smart. They only caught half the Exaltations – so instead of the Yozis having 200 to the Neverborn’s 100, they instead only have 50. And there are 150 actual Solars floating about again.
Odds are, that’s you! Welcome back to reality.
Whoop there goes gravity
Hope you had fun in your party time, ’cause shit is disorienting around here now. For one, the cops want you dead. “The cops” being Terrestrials, who may or may not have a Sidereal mixed in to make sure they kill you, and definitely have pew pew laser guns that you’re pretty sure you may have made last life. Whenever you start doing your magic and get the cool glowy aura, a bunch of people scream and call you a demon. Obviously, you also had a human life here, so you know some of what’s going on with that, but, like… the hell happened?
No time for that, though. The Lunars, which have had a rough time of it and had to hang out near fairyland (which, fun fact, is bad to you in extended periods of exposure), are mixed about the whole “hey remember the magically enforced abusive relationships thing”, and may very well maul you on principle. The Sidereals are too committed to stop murdering you now, and they’ve got a lot of gods in line with that (and not much else, the gods are running wild and corrupt). The local government sucks and the Terrestrials suck more. Half of the Solars aren’t coming back as Solars, but are appearing as edgy ghostly asshole ones called Abyssals (the ones the Neverborn got) or real gross demony ones called Infernals (Yozi flavor). If you follow the metaplot (which you shouldn’t), the Yozis utilize the gamer wedding with the Scarlet Empress to invade Creation in like 40 years, win, and take it back over.
Shit’s fucked.
And, as much as I’ve laid all the history out – this is where the game starts! The beginning note! “Hi, welcome to being a Solar Exalted! You are a hero chosen for your determination and vision, made a perfect being in flesh, and burdened with glorious purpose. The world is a complete fucking mess and everyone with any power hates you personally, and it was your job to make sure nothing like this ever happens. It’s currently your job to fix it. Plus, you’ve got people from this life you care about, and the government being corrupt and the world being on the brink of apocalypse isn’t doing them any favors, either. Good fucking luck.”
Honestly, this is what I like about Exalted. White Wolf’s fare has a very constant trend of “the people who are more powerful than you decide everything that happens, and they decide that it’s bad, fuck you, sit around and mope”, and, I’ll confess, it doesn’t do it for me. I think that’s a lame fantasy. Exalted has a fair bit of that, and it’s clearly them trying to shoehorn their house special ethos into a setup where it really doesn’t quite fit. But, the end result isn’t that! Exalted stares you in the eye, drops the power level and complete mistakes of the past on your lap, and tells you that at your height, you could’ve killed any of the strongest assholes in this clusterfuck. You’re not at your height. The world is against you. Everything’s falling apart, and you’ve got a whole confusing world to take care of, and people to try to connect to. This is an impossible task, that you’re guaranteed to fail.
But you’re a Solar. An Exalted of the Unconquered Sun. The Sun doesn’t fail. Neither do you.
So what are you gonna do about it?
Ru's Roleplay Rants 