Exalted Second Edition front cover, featuring the images of the characters (from left to right) Arianna, Swan, Panther, Harmonious Jade, and Dace. |
|
| Designer(s) | Robert Hatch, Justin Achilli, Stephan Wieck, Andrew Bates, Dana Habecker, Sheri M. Johnson, Chris McDonough and Richard Thomas Robert Hatch and Geoffrey C. Grabowski (game direction first edition) John Chambers (game direction second edition) |
|---|---|
| Illustrator(s) | Brian Glass (art direction), UDON Comics and many others |
| Publisher(s) | White Wolf Publishing |
| Publication date | 2001 (1st edition) March 13, 2006 (2nd edition) |
| Genre(s) | High fantasy |
| System(s) | Storyteller Game System Design by Mark Rein•Hagen |
| Age range | 12+ |
| Website | [1] |
Exalted is a role-playing game published by White Wolf Publishing. The game is classified as high fantasy, but may be more accurately described as "mythic fantasy", as the developer specifically avoided drawing on J. R. R. Tolkien, but rather turned to a mixture of world mythologies, as well as manga for inspiration.[1] The game is currently in its second edition, and with revised and expanded second edition supplementary materials being released. First Edition is no longer in development, but was originally created by Robert Hatch, Justin Achilli and Stephan Wieck. The original core rulebook was published in July 2001.
The basic premise of the game is that the player characters are chosen by a deity and imbued with the powers of a demigod (thus, "exalted", or "raised high"). There are numerous varieties of Exalted, each chosen by a different deity or group of deities; however, the core game is based around the Solar Exalted, Chosen of the Unconquered Sun, with the Core Rulebook covering the Solars' abilities, powers, and place within the setting. While the core rulebook mentions and discusses the other Exalted to the extent necessary for them to appear as supporting characters in Solar-themed games, additional sourcebooks provide the depth of detail necessary to stage other Exalted as playable characters.
According to the core sourcebooks and the supplementary materials, the history of the setting begins with "Time Before", where there were the Primordials: vast, unfathomably multifarious eternals similar to the Prôtogenoi of Greek mythology or the Outer Gods of H.P. Lovecraft's works, even going so far as to use similar epithets to the latter. The Primordials brought the Unshaped Chaos that was at the time, and formed it into the Creation – a flat world of finite extent, dominated by five elemental forces organised into poles in the furthest reaches of the four cardinal directions, as well as one pole in the centre of the others. The elements: Air (north), Fire (south), Water (west), Wood (east) and Earth (center). The Primordials created all life, and created the gods, numberless immortal spirits resembling the Kami of Shinto, to watch over all that they had made. Foremost amongst the gods were the Celestial Incarnae, or Celestines; seven deities representing the sun, moon, and major planets who were charged with the government of Creation as a whole while the Primordials abdicated to Yu-Shan, an abstract paradisical realm also of their devising, to play the mysterious Games of Divinity. These Celestial Incarnae are the chief deities involved in exalting mortals.
Peace reigned for millennia, but in time, the gods grew to despise the Primordials. The Primordials, particularly The Dragon's Shadow; Adrián, the River of All Torments; Isidoros, the Black Boar That Twists the Skies; and the Empyreal Chaos, the Primordial Tyrant-King, were callous and hazardous rulers, whose all-consuming, incorrigible egos and inability to see their Creation as other than solely a reflection of themselves wrought immense suffering across the world they had made. The breaks from the Games of Divinity that brought them into Creation left nothing but destruction and terror for the mortals and gods who toiled thanklessly to sustain the reality shaped by their makers. The Incarnae thus meant to end Primordial rule and claim the Games of Divinity for their own, but they could not. The Primordial Cecelyne, the Desert That Marched Against the Flame, at the behest of The Dragon's Shadow and others, had writ a Great Geas, preventing their divine servitors from raising arms against their makers.
Hearing their seditious whispers, a curious and empathetic Primordial, Autochthon, the Great Maker of Brass and Shadow, the inventor of life and art, sympathised with the plight of the creatures and contrived to assist them. With great knowledge of spiritual metaphysics, Autochthon devised a way to invest human souls with miraculous potency that could not be stripped away by the other Primordials, and took the gods into his confidence. In order to strike at their creators, the Celestial Incarnae selected mortal humans, the lowest of all souled creatures and quite beneath the Primordial's fear, to be their Chosen. The gods Exalted these mortals, giving them divine power reflective of the purview of their respective patron deity. Meanwhile, the many-faced trickster god Luna convinced her Primordial lover, Gaia, the Spirit of Creation, to lend several of her component souls to the effort, Exalting each their own group of humans. Armed with terrible metaphysical weapons by Autochthon, the Exalted thus stood before the elemental pole of earth, in the very centre of the world, and declared war on Heaven. After a cataclysmic struggle in which Creation shook to its foundations, the Exalted finally triumphed over the Primordials, slaying many of their number and the extracting the surrender of all else who had fought against them.
Upon electing themselves rulers of all from Heaven, the Celestines retreated to the city of Yu-Shan to oversee from on high and play in the Games of Divinity, and granted the Exalted the Creation-Ruling Mandate as a boon for their service to the new order. The surrendered Primordials were tortured, subjected to incarnation and soul death, and forced to swear unimpeachable oaths on their true names. Twisted and trapped inside the now-physical body of the former Empyreal Chaos by the Exalted, they were shunted out of Creation, becoming the Hell known as Malfeas, the Demon City and its unfortunate inmates; they are half-remembered only as the Yozis – primitive, ill-understood, and impersonal cosmic deities, and their continued worship is reckoned among the highest of heresies. The slain Primordials become the Neverborn, quiescent monsters without beginning whose impossible ending forever disordered the ordained cycle of life, death, reincarnation, resulting in the formation of the Underworld: a skyless, shrouded, shadowy effigy of the living Creation in which the souls of the dead linger and cling to their former identities rather than entering Lethe in order to be reborn.
Common to all of White Wolf's games, the primary character archetype, the Exalted, suffer from a systemic character flaw. In this case, this flaw is represented by a "Great Curse", uttered upon the dying breaths of the slain Primordials. This Great Curse manifests itself in a variety of ways and causes the "heroes" of the setting to be fatally flawed and thus more interesting than mere superpowered demigods. In the game's history, the Solars grew decadent and corrupt in their supernatural rule, eventually threatening the existence of the created world itself, and causing the Unconquered Sun to turn his face from Creation in shame and sorrow. After centuries of plotting, the Solars were slaughtered in a massive insurrection known as the Usurpation by the Terrestrial and Sidereal Exalted, whose own corrupt and banal rule has perpetrated its own form of, lesser, evil upon the world.
Each Exalted possesses a "spark" of divinity (sometimes called their "Exaltation") which leaves to exalt a new mortal when the Exalted passes from life. The Terrestrial Exalted (also known as the Dragon-Blooded) are an exception to this, as they do not possess an independent and unique spark. Rather, their Exaltation is passed down through their blood to their descendants. The spark is separate from the magical energy in the game, known as Essence, but it is what allows Exalted to utilize Essence to accomplish miraculous feats. After the Usurpation, the majority of the exaltations of the Solar Exalted were locked away in the Jade Prison, and a periodic event known as the Wyld Hunt was organized by agents of the Sidereals and Terrestrials to drive the Lunar Exalted from the civilised lands of Creation and prevent them from releasing the exaltations of their ancient companions. During the intervening age, the Terrestrial Exalted became the rulers of the world, ruling in a system not unlike the Shogunate of feudal Japan. After the Great Contagion (a plague engineered by the Neverborn to swell the population of the underworld and weaken Creation) and the Balorian Crusade (a war with the Fair Folk, manifestations of the Unshaped Chaos trapped in Creation, similar in some ways to the faeries of mythology) wrought devastation across Creation, a strong leader of the Dragon-Blooded, the Scarlet Empress, emerged and forged the Scarlet Empire. Five years prior to the present of the Exalted setting, the Scarlet Empress disappeared, casting the Scarlet Empire to the brink of civil war. Not coincidentally, the Solar exaltations held in the Jade Prison have been released by agents of the Yozis, and with no recent Wyld Hunts due to the calamities, new Solar Exalted are being born into Creation, their numbers slowly growing. Thus, the backdrop to the setting sees the newly-arisen Solar Exalted (among various other heroes and villains) struggling to survive their enemies in this time of tumult long enough to make their mark upon the fate of Creation, for good or for ill.[1]
The flat world of Creation is the primary setting of Exalted. Creation has two continents, the Blessed Isle and the unnamed super-continent which covers the northern, eastern and southern edges of Creation, populated by many nations and tribes, with the settled regions along the inner coast of this super-continent being known collectively as the threshold. The Blessed Isle is located in the center of Creation. The Realm, a loose term for the disparate remnants of the Scarlet Empire, rule the Blessed Isle and its proximate archipelago directly, and indirectly rules numerous tributary states known as satrapies along the threshold. The frigid North is divided by the White Sea. The heavily forested East is the most densely populated region of Creation other than the Blessed Isle. The Scavenger Lands, formally named the Confederation of Rivers, is an organization of allied nations within the East. The South is a hot, arid region. The West consists largely of the Great Western Ocean and various major and minor island nations. Creation has five Elemental Poles, the five powerful elementally charged hubs of Creation's dragon line network. The Elemental Pole of Earth, the least dangerous of the five, is located at the top of the Imperial Mountain in the centre of the Blessed Isle, and the Elemental Poles of Air, Wood, Fire and Water are located at the far northern, eastern, southern and western edges of Creation respectively. Beyond the Elemental Poles of Creation is the multidimensional, infinite ocean of Pure Chaos from which Creation was forged as an island of stability and comprehensibility. The "shore" in which Creation and the Unshaped Chaos overlap is known as the Wyld, and is roughly divided into the Bordermarches, a region in which Creation becomes increasingly magical and queer; the Middlemarches, in which the world becomes progressively more illogical, paradoxical, and otherwise deranged; and the Deep Wyld, where reality begins to fundamentally disintegrate, subliming into the unfathomable vacuum beyond it - it is a place where ordinary mortals generally lose their sanity if they survive from moment to moment. The cosmology of Exalted also includes the Underworld, the celestial city of Yu-Shan, the demon realm of Malfeas, the machine world of Autochthonia, and Elsewhere.
At the core of the setting, there are several different types of Exaltation, which largely determine both background and point of view for the various protagonists and antagonists of the game. Each different type of Exalted will often have certain predispositions toward or against other Exalt types, and may be viewed differently by the various mortals of Creation; for instance, either as monsters or demigods. The Exalted of Creation can be divided into two categories: Terrestrial Exalted and Celestial Exalted. Celestial Exalted, being the chosen of the Celestial Incarnae, are significantly more powerful than Terrestrial Exalted, and can live for millennia, but their numbers are limited by a fixed number of Exaltations passing from mortal life to mortal life at any given time. Terrestrial Exalted are the chosen of the Elemental Dragons, aspects of the primordial Gaia, who govern the elemental underpinnings of Creation. While less powerful, Terrestrial Exalted, or Dragon-Blooded, can pass on their Exaltation to their children, much like one would pass on other genetic features. The Abyssal and Alchemical Exalted technically fall outside of the two categories, as do the Green Sun Princes, though their power level is comparable to that of Celestial Exalted. A brief synopsis of each type is given here, organized by relative power and significance within the game.
The default protagonists of Exalted and the champions of the chief of the gods, a being known as the Unconquered Sun.[2] There are five castes (similar in nature to the Portuguese "caste") of Solar Exalted: Dawn (the warriors and generals), Zenith (the priest-kings of the Unconquered Sun), Twilight (the scholars and sorcerers), Night (the spies and assassins) and Eclipse (the ambassadors, diplomats, and negotiators).
In the era that the game is set, known as the Second Age of Man, the Solar Exalted are returning to the world in numbers for the first time in thousands of years, and their actions and choices have the potential to shape the fate of nations due to the nature and potency of their birthright. The Solar Exalted are the most powerful of the Exalted and during the First Age of Man, they were the rulers of the world. Their achievements were a beacon to humanity, yet as their accomplishments grew so did their hubris and detachment from the mortals they ruled over. This was furthered by the insanity of the Great Curse, leading the Solars to commit countless atrocities of an unspecified nature. Because of these actions, the Terrestrial Exalted who served them were convinced by the Sidereal Exalted to murder the Solars at the close of the First Age. In order to prevent mass reincarnations, nearly all Solar essences were systematically captured and imprisoned with the assistance of the Sidereal Exalted. However, those that were not imprisoned continued to reincarnate again and again through the ages. Each time a Solar re-emerged into the world by reincarnating in a mortal, they were hunted down and killed by the armies of the Terrestrial Exalted, who used their greater numbers and experience to overcome the newly-Exalted person in a crusade known as the Wyld Hunt.
Considered to be anathema by the mortal world of the Second Age, the Solars are regarded as monstrous demons and few remember their former greatness. This is due to a prolonged and widespread campaign of propaganda orchestrated by the Terrestrials, via a now firmly established religion known as the Immaculate Order.
Various sourcebooks for Exalted state that Solars lack the specialized abilities of the other Exalted: the shapeshifting magic of the Lunars, the raw entropic and destructive force of the Abyssals, the elemental manipulation of the Terrestrial Exalted, or the Fate-manipulation of the Sidereals. The nature of their charms tends to express itself instead through human excellence taken to superhuman extremes, and as such their raw prowess in most skills easily exceeds any of the others. Their three greatest advantages are their large Essence pools that give them more raw power to work with, their powerful, efficient, straightforward charms, and their ability to use the highest of all forms of sorcery, the Adamant Circle – also called the Solar Circle due to the Solars alone being able to access that circle of sorcery.
Twisted souls that are loyal servants of the Deathlords, powerful spirits of long-dead Exalts, who in turn serve the Neverborn, the dead husks of what were once the ancient Primordials slain by the Exalted before the First Age.[3] The Abyssal castes are a dark reflection of their Solar counterparts; Dusk (soldiers, generals, and martial champions), Midnight (priests and leaders), Daybreak (scholars and artisans), Day (assassins and spies), and Moonshadow (bureaucrats, diplomats, and couriers).
The source materials, primarily the second-edition sourcebook The Manual of Exalted Power: Abyssals, present the Deathlords as the largely insane ghosts of First Age Solars slaughtered in the Usurpation, who are easily among the most powerful beings in the Underworld of Exalted. The Deathlords have varied goals, but most strive not to conquer or corrupt Creation but rather to wipe it and everything else out of existence, although conquest and corruption are among their strategies in this regard.
In the present of Exalted, the Neverborn sow their revenge from beyond the grave through their Deathlord servants. The named agents of the Deathlords in the world of the living are the Abyssal Exalted, also known as Deathknights; these antagonists are dark reflections of the Solar Exalted and are presented as being their equal in power. They were created by the Deathlords through powerful sorcery taught them by the Neverborn, using Solar Exaltations stolen from the Jade Prison. Deathknights are described as finding themselves bound to their dark fate; holding onto the trappings of life inevitably spells disaster for those who rebel. Within the last five years of the game's fictional history, they and their Deathlord masters have begun to corrupt Creation with the power of the Underworld. They field vast undead armies, bolstered by ancient knowledge long since lost in the world of the living but still readily available in the long memoried dead, and a powerful form of magic known as necromancy. Several sourcebooks present the Abyssals and the Deathlords as having a tentative foothold in Creation, likely representing its gravest threat
Abyssals cannot draw Essence from Creation as other Exalts do and can only replenish their Essence in the Underworld or with powerful artifacts. The easiest way for an Abyssal to restore Essence away from the Underworld is by feeding on the living. Willing Solar Exalted can be converted to Abyssal Exalted with a powerful necromantic spell. Abyssal Exalted are exceptionally powerful in the necromantic school of sorcery, which represents the arcane knowledge of death and the Void, knowledge which was originally brought into Creation by a coterie of First Age Exalted who stole it by plundering the crypt-worlds of the Neverborn beneath the Underworld.
Presented as most anarchistic and chaotic of the Exalted. In the sourcebooks, they are often referred to as cunning shapeshifters, skilled fighters, and capable generals.[4] Their history and characteristics are described in the first-edition book Exalted: The Lunars and the second-edition book The Manual of Exalted Power: Lunars.
Within the game's history, they were very tightly bound to the First Age Solars; each Lunar Exaltation is bound to a singular corresponding Solar one in such a way that that Lunar instantly feels a connection to the Lawgiver, though how they act upon this bond depends on the inclinations of the Exalts involved. While many stood and died beside their Solar mates in the Usurpation, those that were not killed along with their companions fled to the edges of Creation.
At the borders of the order of Creation and the chaotic turbulence of the Wyld, their natures were changed over a great many years. Lunars follow at best a loose tribal hierarchy and ritually tattoo each other to protect themselves from the warping effects of the Wyld. This further serves to mark them as different from the rest of humanity, as the tattoos are often visible over much of the Lunar's body. In addition to their self-inflicted distinguishing marks, each Lunar has a "Tell" that manifests as an animal-like characteristic that is visible to some degree or another in their human forms, further setting them apart from mortals. Lunar castes are not predetermined and inflexible, but rather are associations with phases of the moon chosen by individuals before their ritual tattooing brings them fully into Lunar society under these associations.
Lunars often shun civilization, or rather, they shun forms of civilization characterised by Dragon-Blooded oppression and exploitation, preferring society with humans and spirits far beyond the borders of the satrapies; some of these Stewards lead or guide and sometimes breed tribes of anthropomorphic animals known as Beastmen and teach them self-sufficiency. Others go into deep seclusion in their territories to absorb themselves in primitive, hand-to-mouth freedoms and commune with the small, simple gods of the natural environment. Finally, some even revel in the unaccountable warping effects of the Wyld and, forgoing the characteristic silvered tattoos, become increasingly unstable until ending up as inhuman beings known as "chimera" with no unifying form, akin to both Fair Folk and Creation-born.
Second edition materials detailed the Lunar Exalted's subversive influence on Creation's societies and revealed the Thousand Streams River Project, a complicated system of social engineering designed to create self-sufficient human societies that do not require Exalted leadership to function. Several major societies within the game were declared the results of centuries of subtle, behind-the-scenes guidance, with varying degrees of success.
With the return of the Solar Exalted, the uncertainty of the imperial rule of the Dragon-Blooded, the encroaching influence of the Wyld and its Fair Folk manifestations, and the new threat of the Deathlords, the Lunar Exalted face a Creation that has changed as much as they have – though this is entirely at the discretion of the Storyteller (see Storytelling System).
These Celestial Exalted are the least numerous of all the Exalted types (with the exception of the newly created Infernals), yet are described as major players in the fate of Creation. Sidereals, in addition to their unparalleled mastery of martial arts, evidenced by their access to the highest forms of martial-arts magical abilities (known as Sidereal martial arts), excel at foreseeing and manipulating fate.[5] Within the Exalted universe, they are often presented as celestial bureaucrats who often work in the Bureau of Fate of the Celestial City of Yu-Shan, the home of the gods, directing events in the mortal world from behind the scenes.
They were the viziers, prophets and cunning advisers of the First Age. Toward the end of the First Age, a prophecy came to them that seemed to offer three options: attempt an uncertain reform of their maddening kings, sit back and watch Creation be destroyed, or destroy the Solar Exalted. The arrogant and prideful Sidereals, possibly under the effects of the Great Curse laid upon them by the Neverborn, elected the path that offered a guaranteed future for Creation, if one less marvelous than the current age. As such, they orchestrated the end of the First Age, known as the Great Usurpation. It was with their behind-the-scenes guidance that the Dragon-Blooded were able to completely wipe out the Solar Exalted and effectively direct the Wyld Hunt to the predicted Exaltation of new Solars. Since their prophecy, the Sidereal Exalted have split into two factions: The Bronze Faction of the Sidereal Exalted supported and orchestrated the purge of the Solar Exalted from Creation, and continues to do so with the Wyld Hunt of the Realm; and the Gold Faction, which supported the Solars and has had little in the way of power and influence at the end of the First Age.
Because of a partially botched attempt at some astrological subterfuge involving the constellation of the Mask, Sidereals slip from the minds of those who meet them, mortal and Exalt alike, which can be beneficial to Sidereal characters or harmful, depending on their intended goals as player characters and non-player characters. Some events prior to the "present" setting of Exalted, such as a devastating plague known as the Great Contagion which eluded their predictions, have jarred their faith in their precognitive abilities. Meanwhile, the loss of the Scarlet Empress, their secret ally at the top of the Scarlet Dynasty, has greatly weakened their influence.
With the emergence of the Deathlords (who, as the authors describe them, are inscrutable to their power of prediction), the return of the Solars, and a growing rift between the Bronze Faction and the Gold Faction, who are now gathering their power and directing it into an organization known as the Cult of the Illuminated, the Sidereal Exalted are uncertain of their future.
[6] In the history of Exalted, they were the elite infantry and servants to the rest of the Exalted in the First Age. They are less powerful than other types of Exalted, but most of their strength lies in their inheritance – rather than being chosen by a god, the Dragon-Blooded have the potential to pass their Exaltation on to their children; although most Dragon-Blooded are easily able to trace their heritage back through generations, some Dragon-Blooded—called the "Lost Eggs"--Exalt into families that have no Dragon-Blooded in their recent genealogy. The Dragon-Blooded are not limited by a set amount of "Exalted essences" like Celestial Exalted. Due to their overwhelming numbers in comparison with the Celestial Exalted (Terrestrial Exalted numbering in the millions as compared to the hundreds of Celestial Exalted), they were able to usurp the Solar Exalted at the height of their power with the help and guidance of the Sidereal Exalted, thus ending the First Age.
The majority of the Dragon-Blooded in Creation make up the ruling class of the Realm, currently the most powerful empire in Creation, although the Old Realm ruled over by the Solars was far more advanced and successful than the current Realm ruled over by the Dragon-Blooded. The state-sanctioned faith known as the Immaculate Order paints the Solar and Lunar Exalted as dangerous anathema who will bring ruin to the world if allowed to exist, thus encompassing the propaganda against Celestial Exalts. Because of this, the Realm organizes the Wyld Hunt, which actively seeks out newly Exalted Celestials (Solars and Lunars, although they also hunt Abyssals and fair folk as well) and overwhelms them before they can master their new powers. This practice, which had effectively kept the Solars from rising to power again since the end of the First Age, has faltered in the Exalted timeline because of the recent disappearance of the Scarlet Empress – the absolute monarch of the Realm – and the stability and leadership that she was able to bring to the Dragon-Blooded. The power struggle by the great Dragon-Blooded houses to fill the resulting power vacuum has destabilized the Scarlet Empire and allowed the Solar Exalted to escape the purges of the Wyld Hunt and rise in Creation once more.
The greatest advantages of the Dragon-Blooded are the considerable resources granted to them by their noble status and their ability to work cooperatively with each other to create greater effects with their Essence. There are five elemental aspects to the Dragon-Blooded: Air (the Azure Children of Mela), Earth (the Ivory Children of Pasiap), Fire (the Scarlet Offspring of Hesiesh), Water (the Ebon Offspring of Daana'd) and Wood (the Verdant Children of Sextes Jylis). The ruling Dragon-Blooded of the Realm are made up of the eleven Great Houses. Most houses were founded by and named after one of the Scarlet Empress's Exalted offspring, though at least two are descended from the Empress' late husbands, and three unspecified houses are descended from adopted children of the Empress. Of the 13 former Great Houses, only two, Jerah and Manosque, have been named. The prominent Dragon-Blooded families of the rival city-state of Lookshy, across the Inner Sea, are known as Gentes. There are five major or great Gentes: Amilar (Air), Karal (Fire), Maheka (Earth), Teresu (Water) and Yushoto (Wood), as well as approximately a dozen minor Gentes.
[7] Android creations made from clay and the Five Magical Materials, built in the world of Autochthonia. They were introduced in the supplement "Time of Tumult".[8] They are the only type of playable characters besides the Dragon Kings that were designed after the first-edition core rulebook was released, and are occasionally referenced in subsequent materials, though they play a much more prominent and integrated role in the stories and setting of the second edition. Alchemicals serve the Great Maker Autochthon, one of only two primordials that was not imprisoned or killed in the Primordial War, and are infused with the souls of dead Autochthonian heroes. Within the context of the game, they serve as protectors of the inhabitants of a parallel world made up of the body of Autochthon himself, and enforce the will of the Tripartite, the theocratic government of this world. They divide themselves into castes according to which material was mainly used in their construction: there are five canon castes, one for each of the Five Magical Materials, as well as the optional Adamant caste. Autochthon designed them before the other four original types of Exalted, but they were not constructed until after the Primordials were overthrown and Autochthon retreated from Creation. Instead of wielding Essence directly and using their Charms in a "magical" fashion like other Exalted do, the Alchemicals have Charms "installed" like peripheral parts and fuel these machine implants with Essence from their own bodies. Unlike the Celestial Exalted, there is no hard cap on the number of Alchemicals, the main limiting factor on their numbers being the immense resource investment required for their construction. As Alchemical Exalted raise their Permanent Essence, they increase in size, eventually joining with Autochthon and growing into cities. The Alchemicals are not subject to the Great Curse, as they did not fight in the Primordial War. In gameplay, in place of curse driven insanity, they have a Clarity track which measures their distance from humanity. Those Alchemicals who have been infected with Autocthon's illness have a Dissonance track in place of a Clarity track, with Dissonance measuring their madness, corruption, and drive to violate boundaries. Willing non-Alchemical Exalted can become "Akuma" of Autochthon, gaining the ability to have Alchemical charms installed and gaining a Clarity track. A brief tour of the world of Autochthonia can be found on the game's website.[9]
They currently have less published material covering their nature, back-story and abilities than other Exalts. There are two types of Infernal Exalted, the Akuma and the Green Sun Princes. Akuma are Exalted of another type who have given themselves over to the cause of the Yozis and have been remade according to their masters' desires. They retain access to their native charm set and gain the ability to learn and use their patron Yozi's Infernal charms. The Green Sun Princes are made with the fifty Essences of Solar Exalts which the Yozis took in payment from the Neverborn and altered to emulate themselves in exchange for teaching the Neverborn to corrupt Solar Essences to create the Abyssals. The Green Sun Princes were created by a cadre of five of the Yozis; Malfeas, She Who Lives In Her Name, Cecylene, Adorjan, and the Ebon Dragon. Each of these Yozis is responsible for the creation of one caste of Green Sun Princes and the charms associated with that caste, Malfeas created the Slayers, Cecylene created the Malefactors, She Who Lives in Her Name created the Defilers, Adorjan created the Scourges and the Ebon Dragon created the Fiends. Green Sun Princes of any caste can learn the charms of all five castes, as well as the charms of any other Yozis who have opened up access to their charms to the Green Sun Princes; in the default setting, Kimbery is the only other Yozi who has done so. The Yozis have tasked the Green Sun Princes with transforming Creation into a mirror of Malfeas, which they believe will break their bonds and reverse their disfiguring imprisonment. They call this effort the Reclamation.
The Green Sun Princes' disadvantage is they are few in number; only 50 infernal essences are controlled by the Yozis, and they do not, as of yet, have the ability to corrupt further Solar Essences as the Deathlords can. On the other hand, the Infernals have the full resources of the demon realm at their disposal, along with numerous Yozi cults which already exist in creation. The Infernals are closely tied to their Yozi masters, and experience Urge, psychological motivations towards missions set by their patrons. Unlike Abyssals, Infernals rarely regret their state, and instead revel in their mission to overthrow the upstart gods and return creation to its original rulers. It is implied, however, that due to the inherently poor treatment by the Yozis (being unable to fully comprehend things outside of their domain and thus with little respect for anything else) and obvious insanity, the vast majority will grow dissatisfied and go rogue, using their link to Primordial power to mutate into new Titans themselves, not bound by the same shortness of vision they possess.
Alongside the various types of Exalts found in Creation, there are also other magical creatures that use the same Essence that Exalts use to power their magical effects. The following are the most prominent types of magical beings.
The influence of the shinma is relative rather than absolute, and the existences of alien shinma who define categories that have no influence on Creation have been mentioned, as have areas of the Wyld which are Beyond the influence of various named shinma. A particularly clever and subtle Raksha Ishvara, Prince Laashe the Morning Star, was even banished to the Beyond by Luna when he tricked the Unconquered Sun into allowing Laashe to become his equal and to supplant the Daystar in the sky.
Essence is the mystical force which the Exalted and gods manipulate to gain their supernatural powers. It is similar to the philosophical terms "Essence" or "Quintessence". Within the game, the mystical force "Essence" is always capitalized to distinguish from other uses of the word.
The Five Magical Materials are used to forge artifacts and weapons. Each material is associated with a type of Exalted, as well as one of the castes of Alchemical Exalted, who are partially constructed from that material. These materials are all easily enchanted, and each one resonates with a particular type of Exalted.[18][19] This resonance makes any item that is both constructed from one of the magical materials and attuned to an Exalt's anima preternaturally deft and sure in that Exalt's hands. It also gives the Exalt access to the powers of any hearthstone mounted on the item.
First Edition Exalted hints at a sixth magical material, but it is not presented in full until the Second Edition release of Dreams of the First Age.
The setting is strongly influenced by Tanith Lee's Tales from the Flat Earth, Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon, Lord Dunsany's Gods of Pegana and Yoshiaki Kawajiri's Ninja Scroll. Other influences include Glen Cook's Black Company; Sean Stewart's Resurrection Man, The Night Watch and Galveston; Homer's Odyssey and Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West.[20][21]
The game uses ten-sided dice and a rules system similar to the Storytelling System[22] to arbitrate the action, and, as with many other RPGs, requires little beyond the rulebooks themselves, dice, pencil, and paper. The ten-sided die storyteller system is one where the storyteller (or game master) is the person setting up a story and creating the adventure. The players create their characters using a pre-assigned number of points (as opposed to games like Dungeons and Dragons where an element of randomness can be introduced into character creation) and begin to interact with the story that the storyteller presents them with, much like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, although the possible actions are limited only to the imagination of the players and the discretion of the storyteller. When a challenge presents itself to the characters, they roll a number of dice determined by the statistics of their character with a difficulty assigned by the storyteller. If they gain the required number of successes (7 or higher on any given die, 10's usually counting as double), they succeed in their efforts. If they do not gain the required number of successes, they fail. The storyteller describes the nature of the success or failure and the game and story continue on. Since the stories are player-created (by the storyteller, of course), there is no one way to "win" the game, except to achieve the goals set out in each individual story.
The rules system used in Exalted uses the attributes from an earlier version of the World of Darkness system. These are Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Charisma, Manipulation, Appearance, Intelligence, Wits and Perception. There are many differences in abilities (Exalted's counterpart to the Storytelling system's skills), in line with the difference in setting. For example, while the standard Storytelling system uses the skills Academics, Firearms, and Politics, the Exalted system uses the skills Lore, Archery, and Bureaucracy. For these and other reasons, the two systems are not directly compatible without adaptations. White Wolf's Scion game uses the same attributes, but not the same skills / abilities, as Exalted.[23] Time within combat is divided into units called ticks, most actions in combat have speed values, which indicate the number of ticks which must pass before the character's next turn, if multiple characters take turns on the same tick, their actions are considered to take place simultaneously.
The Exalted version of the rules were derived from the trilogy of white wolf games Aeon(Trinity), Aberrant, and Adventure where the idea of a fixed target number of 7 or higher was first introduced. It has since been carried on into Scion. Thus there are two distinct but similar versions of the system derived from the original storyteller system. The rules underwent numerous changes with the introduction of Exalted 2nd Edition. Changes include the removal of the Brawl and Endurance abilities (which were merged into Martial Arts and Resistance respectively), the addition of the Integrity and War abilities and the addition of mass combat and social combat systems and clearer, more detailed combo rules.
The Storytelling System itself has been applied both to tabletop and video gaming systems, and has been a subject of note to gaming enthusiasts such as Chris Crawford, who wrote a book entitled Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling which details many elements similar to the Storytelling System in use in Exalted.[24]
Innovative to World of Darkness systems is the concept of stunting, whereby a player will describe their action in detail in order to receive a bonus to the number of dice they roll (determined by the Storyteller) and recovering a number of motes of Essence or points of Willpower back in accordance with the level of their stunt. This encourages players to become more active participants in the story by rewarding them for taking a more active role in the description of action.[25]
Exalted has mechanical and thematic similarities to White Wolf's previous game series, the old World of Darkness, but exists in its own product line, called the Age of Sorrows. The game has an excellent sales record, on par with the company's flagship title, Vampire: The Masquerade, the second edition core rulebook achieving a sales ranking at #23,558 on Amazon.com[26] with a 4.5-star mean user review rating based on 13 user reviews as of January 2009. Exalted, being White Wolf's second largest franchise, has helped White Wolf Publishing to grow and maintain an average 26% market between 1991 and 2003.[27] As of November 11, 2006, White Wolf Publishing had averaged a 22% market share since 1991,[28] with the Exalted line maintaining second place behind the New World of Darkness line, and RPG.net also confirms White Wolf Publishing as one of the biggest trends in the roleplaying industry since the 1990s,[29] which can partially be attributed to the success of the Exalted line.
The First Edition published material initially designed the Age of Sorrows as the pre-history of the old World of Darkness — however, this has not been dropped in the second edition. It should be noted that White Wolf has still continually inserted names and themes familiar to players of their previous World of Darkness line into the material. However, the Developer has commented that the connections are tenuous, allowing players to be free to treat it as a prehistory or as its own world as it may suit their individual game. The similarities between Exalted and the new edition of the World of Darkness are even weaker. Exalted Second Edition seems to imply that its story is the prehistory of our own world.
For players that are interested in the prehistory idea, some oWoD supplements supported the prehistory. The Hunter Apocrypha gave a vision of the past that said that Hunters gained their power from the broken shards of the souls of great heroes of a lost age. which seems to suggest that hunters carry broken shards of Solar Essences. While the Kindred of the East supplement gave a structure of the Wheel of Ages (mirrored in Exalted first edition books as the Ages of Man) that seemed to accommodate the integration of Exalted, oWoD. Exalted being the first and second age, oWoD being the fifth age. Some players have incorporated the nWoD into this scheme, having it occur somewhere after the 6th Age.
In March 2008, White Wolf Publishing, Inc. unveiled a promotion that would allow 2,500 Dungeons & Dragons players to exchange their copy of their Edition 3.5 Player's Handbook for a copy of the Exalted Second Edition Core Rulebook. The promotion was called "Graduate your Game" and has received mixed reviews from fans of both games. The success of this promotion has yet to be revealed.
In March 2009, White Wolf Publishing, Inc. authorized the Exalted Wiki Contribution Contest, where users could come and edit the Official Exalted Wiki, contributing information in a month-long contest to win one of seven copies of an unannounced book signed by Exalted developer John Chambers and Exalted art director Brian Glass. The contest is not run by White Wolf employees, but rather, fans and freelance writers for the Exalted line.[30]
See the list of Exalted sourcebooks for further information.
|
|||||