2d4chan - User contributions [en]

Orc

2016-11-14T11:42:09Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:F0D5:ED98:F7E2:9E06: /* Tolkien */

[[File:Orc.jpg|right|400px|]]
'''Orcs''' are a fantasy race that is used in a number of settings. Compare to [[Ork]]. They are generally depicted as barbaric humanoids with green skin. Typically, they are stronger than an average [[human]], though generally less intelligent as well (except in Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40,000, Lord of the Rings and the Elder Scrolls, where they are, amusingly, physically inferior to the human race that is a facsimile of the [[Vikings]]. Thus proving that beards and axes end all things and that the Vikings can rape anyone).

They enjoy molesting, eating and generally mistreating the goblins, their smaller cousins. They have longstanding relationships with trolls and ogres, their larger and stupider neighbors, whom they con into performing demeaning menial tasks and press into service in wartime. Their relations with more distant races are more variable - some may work for humans as mercenaries, for example, while others will attack humans on sight. They are also interfertile with many other races, leading to the existence of [[half-orc]]s. The long-standing exception to this is [[elves]]. All orcs hate elves, and this makes them good people.

Historically, the term was used to describe the Normans invading the Saxon occupiers of Britain in 1066. It is also an Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'demon', according to Tolkien, who lifted the word from Beowulf.

== The Master Template ==
===Tolkien===
[[File:Origin Of Orcs Tolkien.JPG|thumb|right|350px|The origin of the original Orcs.]]
Orcs as we know them have their beginnings with Tolkien's works. The first orcs were created by Melkor shortly after the first elves awoke. Some of these elves wandered about exploring this world that they had awoken in and were captured by some of Melkor's maiar and were taken to Angband, his base of operations. There they were tortured, abused, cursed, mutated and selectively bred until you got orcs. The result was a species of ugly, bad smelling, ape like, long armed, claw handed, hairy humanoids which were brown, grey and black in coloration, had an aversion to sunlight, and ranged in size from smaller than a hobbit to as large as a man. These creatures would make up the bulk of Melkor and Sauron's armies.

For the sake of clarity, in Arda, [[Goblin]] is just another word for Orc (although in practice it refers mainly to the [[gretchin|smaller types used most often as menial laborers]]). "Uruk" means orc in Black Speech. Most fantasy fiction typically distinguishes between goblins and orcs: most of Tolkein's orcs would resemble other works' goblins (Frodo and Pippin disguised themselves as Orcs, so we can assume at least some are Hobbit height), whereas what something like D&D would call an Orc would more closely resemble Tolkein's "Uruk-hai", which are basically super-orcs crossbred between "orcs and goblin-men"... [[/d/|whatever that means]].

Tolkien's orcs are not stupid. They are capable of making weapons (bows, spears, daggers, shields and curved swords), armor (helmets and mail), good (if unpleasant) medicine and are pretty good engineers. They are almost as good at mining as Dwarves are. Nor are all orcs identical. There are variations among orcs both in terms of individual personalities and differences between groups. Orcs from the Misty Mountains are described as being fairly tribal while those of Mordor are regimented. There are also different breeds of orcs, besides the garden variety orc you also have 'snufflers' bred for following scent trails and the larger and more sun resistant Uruk-Hai bred by Sauron and Saruman, supposedly made by crossbreeding orcs with humans and specialized to act as commanders. However they are violent, sadistic, spiteful, enjoy breaking stuff, have no concern for aesthetics and are as a rule hateful and miserable. Fighting, killing, eating, drinking, looting, gaining power, bossing their subordinates, torturing and presumably raping captives can only give temporary reprieve. They hate Sauron and especially Melkor, but serve them out of fear and their psychic influence over them. They are capable of internal loyalty and do have some social taboos (being accused of eating other orcs is a considerable insult even though they are perfectly fine with eating non-orcs) which are enough to let them act together as groups, although these groups tend to collapse due to infighting after reaching a certain size in the absence of a leader who can terrify them into submission.

Despite this, little is said by Tolkien about how orcs live their lives on a day to day basis as their role in the story is as a force which threatens the heroes and those around them. It can be extrapolated, however that it is usually nasty, brutish and short. Some of the interactions between different groups of orcs frequently results in back-stabbing and violent power struggles, so we can assume that they operate on a grimdark version of Klingon politics. The question of whether they are intrinsically evil is never brought up, and several of Tolkien's unpublished works suggest that this was due to his own misgivings with the concept of a wholly evil race; Melkor had no power to create other beings himself, but the fact that elves could be corrupted would also imply Eru had either made the souls of some elves either inherently evil or easily corrupted to become evil. This in turn contradicted his own views on the nature of Eru as a wholly good deity while also opening up some thorny questions of faith for Tolkien himself, and even in his last writings it appears he could not come up with a satisfactory explanation for how they could be universally evil by nature.

In any case these guys served as the inspiration of a whole lot of spin offs that to various degrees A: took the idea and ran with it and expanded on it filling in the blanks, B: took the basic idea a gave it a few tweaks or C: deliberately subverted what people expected from orcs, making it possible for them to be the good guys.

<gallery>
</gallery>

===Dungeons & Dragons===
[[File:DnD Original Orc.jpg|thumb|right|350px|The first D&D Orcs, now commonly referred to by some variation of "P'Orcs" by fans.]]
In the first edition of [[Dungeons & Dragons]], Orcs were among the first monsters inspired by folklore and fantasy literature added to the game in a reissue set. They became the primary antagonists out of the many enemies in the game due primarily to their statline rather than their iconic nature, since they were the best "always an enemy" humanoid to accompany a [[Big Bad Evil Guy|BBEG]]. Early DnD Orcs were pig-like monsters resulting from savage tribals that bred with all other races they warred with (so reproducing via rape) with no unified culture or language, but interestingly were also described as having a "reputation for cruelty that is deserved, but humans are just as capable of evil as orcs" which suggests they weren't anything extraordinary to the setting.
Half a decade after their introduction, they were given a more neanderthal appearance as well as being given a size-increase to that of a gorilla, were made able to breed with humans resulting in the [[Half-Orc]] playable race, and given their own mythology (which in most D&D settings is the explanation for why a race behaves the way it does). The leader god is named [[Gruumsh]], who was screwed over in inheritance of the world by the gods of the fairer races causing him to be a bitter asshole and make his race into entitled "might makes right" pricks like a father passing on their shitty life to their kids. Gruumsh's family are below him in importance and include his wife [[Luthic]], goddess of the submission of Orc females as the inferior gender, who goes barefoot and never wields a weapon and just serves to run the home and [[Meme|make babby]], and their son [[Bahgtru]] who's pretty much the god of "stupid, but strong", along with Gruumsh's second in command [[Ilneval]] who is the Orc god of war that directly guides mortal Orcs, with the four together representing the Neutral and "Lawful" (as in they are willing to take orders and respect their place in society) side of the pantheon. Also added were [[Shargaas]] the god of general bad magic and spooky things, and [[Yurtrus]] the god of ruin and death, neither of whom have any loyalty to Gruumsh's side of the pantheon and represent the truly Chaotic "for the evulz" aspect of Orcs.

An article for [[Dragon Magazine]] later gave the option of making the traditionally evil races like Orcs and [[Kobolds]] player characters of any alignment. This lead to the [[Forgotten Realms]] setting having two races of Orcs that are capable of any alignment, the pacifistic Ondonti who culturally are closer to Hobbit than Orruk, and the Gray Orcs who are treated as another among the fair races. All other D&D Orcs remained stupid-evil.

Dungeons & Dragons became the standard for most fantasy that came after, but ultimately for Orcs the only purpose was to move forward to the next step in the master template.

<gallery>
</gallery>

===Warhammer===
[[File:Black Orc.jpg|thumb|right|350px|The modern interpretation of Orcs.]]
[[Games Workshop]] was originally a company that produced quality boards for games like Chess, but after two out of three of the original team fell in love with Dungeons & Dragons after [[Gary Gygax]] sent them a copy (believing they were a legitimate company based on their name, rather than three guys in an apartment sending out stuff through the mail) they began distributing licensed games and later producing miniatures for use in these games under the brand [[Citadel Miniatures]].

As time went on, they had a surplus of unsold miniatures and had trouble retaining the rights to sell their products, so they began to have members of their team create new games owned by Games Workshop to use the models they produced (which unfortunately made many of the early Warhammer designs that survive [[Broo|extreme]] [[Daemon|ripoffs]]). The most successful of these was [[Warhammer Fantasy]], then just Warhammer, which was a wargame version of Dungeons & Dragons that existed mostly just to sell models. Warhammer didn't get its own setting and story until 3rd edition, where [[Orcs & Goblins|its Orcs]] were described as having green skin and red eyes with tusks in their mouths as well as being savage brutes that gathered in hordes and attacked civilization, or just about anything capable of fighting, every so often. Although later on this lore became more complex with Warhammer greenskins becoming genderless mushroom-apes with the creation of [[Warhammer 40000]] which was ported back into Fantasy, the prototype Warhammer Orc still had females and Half-Orcs.

With this, the master template of Orcs was completed. Almost every fantasy setting to use Orcs after Warhammer made them green and sometimes gave them red eyes with tusks, which eventually migrated back into Dungeons & Dragons and even the Lord Of The Rings movies.

<gallery>
</gallery>

==Mold-Breakers==
As the above suggests, orcs are typically your generic barbarian rapine-horde of bad-guys in most fantasy settings. However, there are a couple of notable exceptions.

'''[[Al-Qadim]]''' is notable for being probably the first full-on retooling of the orcs from "rampaging barbarian tribes" to "just one more fantasy race that mostly gets along with the others." This is mostly because, rather than having all the races living in their own corners of the world with their own cultures, the deserts of Al-Qadim saw lots of racial mixing around the few oases, and thus a single unified culture comprised of multiple races formed. The only enemies who ''are'' always evil are explicitly supernatural, like the YAKMEN! Also, the most likely setting ever for [[/d/|elf-orc crossbreeding]].

'''[[Eberron]]''' gave its orcs a status as a relatively peaceful race who were once responsible for combating the threat of [[aberration]] hordes from beyond the stars, as well as founders of the tradition of druidism in-setting. Even in the present, they tend to live in the swamp-regions and do no harm; they freely mingle with humans and adopt them into their tribes, so [[half-orc]]s are not only common, but have an expectation of being born from consensual relationships, rather than the "orc man raping a human woman" expectation of most other D&D settings. The Demon Wastes are even full of human, orc, and half-orc [[barbarian]] clans all living and fighting and drinking together for the glory of Kalok Shash, an incarnation of the Silver Flame, in an endless war to make sure nothing ''else'' in the Demon Wastes ever gets out. ''And winning.''

'''[[Forgotten Realms]]''', although certainly playing it straight, had an exception too, in the form of the AD&D-only orc subspecies known as the Ondonti. A ''Lawful Good'' race of peaceful, quiet, contemplative, gentle orcs who devote themselves to [[Eldath]] (a minor Goddess of Peace and Quiet Places) and live a humble life as farmers in a hidden valley. They have several Priestly spell-like abilities (Sanctuary (Self) and Purify Food & Water 3/day, Barkskin 1/day and Tree 1/week), are resistant to poison and immune to Charm spells. The general belief of their origin is that they are an example of option 3 in the infamous [[The Orc Baby Dilemma]], with a bunch of Eldathi priests taking orphaned orc infants into seclusion and bringing them up into their cult, causing them to forsake their ancestral barbarity and embrace peace, quiet and advanced hygiene. You can check out their AD&D stats [http://www.lomion.de/cmm/orcondon.php here].
: There was also a brief but interesting period in which Gruumush experimented with building an orcish civilization, the Kingdom of Many Arrows, Mongol-style. It was fun while it lasted, but was inevitably swept away to restore the infinite status quo.

'''[[Spelljammer]]''' is an unusual entry on this list, because its unique orcs, or ''Scro'', are still bad guys. It's just that, in [[AD&D|an era where orcs were defined as being chaotic, anarchic, disorganized hordes]] scro were defined by being cultured, intelligent, disciplined and well-organized soldierly regiments. They are even bigger than normal orcs, pimp out their teeth with much bling, and [[Nazi|wear black leather uniforms when not in battle armor]]. You can check out their AD&D stats [http://www.lomion.de/cmm/scro.php here].

'''[[Warcraft]]''' may be the iconic example of a mold-breaker when it comes to orcs. After making them fairly bog-standard bad guy invaders in the first two games (if a little unusual in that they were also invaders from another planet), the third game offered the revelation that orcs had once been a [[noblebright]] culture of shamans and honorable warriors, but were corrupted into savage, bloodthirsty conquerors by an evil shaman and the setting's demonic BBEG. As a result, the third game focused on their drive to draw their beaten clans out of human territory and found a new nation for themselves where they could try and rediscover their past. This led to the formation of the Horde faction in [[World of Warcraft]], which took off hugely in popularity because of its then-novel idea of traditionally brutal monster races (orcs, [[troll]]s, [[undead]], and [[minotaur]]s) as an ordinary, viably civilized (relatively speaking) faction in its own right. There was even a short-lived tabletop RPG (first a D&D 3.5 spin off, then a more "customized" but still fundamentally D&D-cloned WoW version) as a result. They still fight, bicker, and war with the "good" races, but now it's because of [[Blizzard]]'s refusal to [[Advancing the Storyline|give up the "dual faction" mechanic and let the story progress]] along with long-standing prejudices between both the Alliance and the Horde rather than because they're the bad guys.

'''[[Elder Scrolls]]''' Orcs (or Orsimer, if you wish to use their proper name) are very intelligent and generally known to be the best smiths in the setting besides the long-extinct Dwarves, as well as crazy good soldiers next to the Nords and Redguards. Their skill in fighting with heavy armor has lent them a place as heavy shock legionaries in the Imperial Legions. One Orc even became the continent's best chef. Technically, they're a subspecies of Elf which were transformed into their current state after the Daedric Prince Boethiah ate (and shat out) their greatest champion, who was himself turned into the Daedric Prince Malacath.

'''[[Wicked Fantasy]]''' Orks ''were'' originally the standard Always Chaotic Evil raider types, having been created by malevolent gods for the purpose of fighting for their amusement. And then, one day, thirteen great orkish heroes realized that their race had always been nothing more than slaves, and chose to take a new path. They fought their gods and slew them, and though they still struggle with the lingering blood-rage they were created with, they are now a comparatively peaceful race. They're still a ''dark'' race, but not an evil one. For example, they worship pain as a sacred concept... because, by their understanding of it, pain is ultimately on the side of life and it is the giver of strength. Pain warns you when you are hurt, when you are about to die, but it also pushes you to fight harder, to try and survive. Orks prize battle scars as near-sacred objects; nothing comes without sacrifice, and without a scar, the physical symbol of pain, for reference, a victory is ultimately meaningless.

It's not very common, as one can see, but some DMs have been known to revamp orcs for their own homebrew settings as well.

==Orcs in D&D==
From 3rd edition on, Orcs have been a playable race in the vast list for [[Dungeons & Dragons]], though their stats and standard portrayal have usually been bad enough to keep most people from ever bothering. Even in [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition|4e]], most would probably recommend using [[half-orc]] or [[goliath]] stats and "reskinning" them into orcs. The Players Handbook in [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition|5e]] outright states that it's not ''impossible'' for an orc to not be chaotic evil, but that Gruumsh, the god that created them, didn't give them as much free will as the normal races, making it ''more'' difficult for orcs to avoid being evil. (Half-orcs feel it too, but not as strongly, and it primarily manifests as extremely passionate emotions.)

===AD&D Orc:===
* +1 Strength
* -2 Charisma
* Strength: Minimum 6, Maximum 18
* Dexterity: Minimum 3, Maximum 17
* Constitution: Minimum 8, Maximum 18
* Intelligence: Minimum 3, Maximum 16
* Wisdom: Minimum 3, Maximum 16
* Charisma: Minimum 3, Maximum 12
* Available Classes & Max Levels: Fighter 10, Cleric 9, Shaman 6, Witch Doctor 6, Thief 11
* 35% chance to spot new and unusual constructions
* 25% chance to spot sloping passages
* Infravision 60 feet
* -1 penalty to attack rolls and morale when in direct sunlight
* Weapon Proficiencies: Battle axe, crossbow, flail, hand axe, spear, any bow, any pole arm, any sword.
* Nonweapon Proficiencies: Alertness, armorer, blacksmithing, bowyer/fletcher, carpentry, chanting, close-quarter fighting, hunting, intimidation, looting, religion, set snares, spellcraft, tracking, weaponsmithing.

===3.x Orc:===
* +4 Strength
* -2 Intelligence
* -2 Wisdom
* -2 Charisma
* Medium size
* Base land speed 30 feet
* Darkvision out to 60 feet
* Light Sensitivity (automatically suffer Dazzled condition in daylight)
* Favored Class: Barbarian

===3.5 Scro===
* +4 Strength
* +2 Dexterity
* +2 Constitution
* Medium size
* Base land speed 30 feet
* Darkvision out to 60 feet
* Orc Blood (count as orcs for all effect related to race)
* +1 racial bonus to attack rolls vs. Elves of all kinds
* Favored Class: Monk
* Level Adjustment: +2

===Warcraft the RPG Orc===
* +2 Constitution
* -2 Intelligence
* Medium size
* Base land speed 30 feet
* Low-Light Vison
* Battle Rage: Can Rage once per day as per a Barbarian, or adds +1 to rages per day if a Barbarian
* Weapon Familiarity: Orc Claws are a Martial Weapon rather than an Exotic Weapon
* Weapon Proficiency: Automatically receive Martial Weapon Proficiency (Battleaxe) as a bonus feat
* +2 racial bonus to Handle Animal (Wolf) checks and Intimidate checks. Handle Animal (Wolf) and Intimidate are always Class Skills for orcs.
* +1 racial bonus to attack rolls against humans
* Favored Class: Fighter

===World of Warcraft the RPG Orc===
* +2 Stamina
* -2 Intellect
* Medium size
* Base land speed 30 feet
* Low-Light Vison
* Battle Rage: Can Rage once per day as per a Barbarian, or adds +1 to rages per day if a Barbarian
* Weapon Familiarity: Orc Claws are a Martial Weapon rather than an Exotic Weapon
* Weapon Proficiency: Automatically receive Martial Weapon Proficiency (Battleaxe) as a bonus feat
* +2 racial bonus to Handle Animal (Wolf) checks and Intimidate checks. Intimidate is always a Class Skill for orcs.
* +1 racial bonus to attack rolls against humans
* Favored Class: Barbarian

===4e Orc===
* +2 Strength
* +2 Constitution
* Size: Medium
* Speed: 6 squares
* Vision: Low-light
* Running Charge (+2 to Speed when charging)
* Warrior's Surge (racial encounter power; make a 1[W] + Strength modifier attack with a melee weapon against an opponent's AC and get to spend a healing surge)

===Pathfinder Orc===
* +4 Strength
* -2 Intelligence
* -2 Wisdom
* -2 Charisma
* Medium size
* Base land speed 30 feet
* Darkvision out to 60 feet
* Ferocity (can keep fighting at zero HP, but is Staggered and loses 1 HP each round automatically)
* Light Sensitivity (automatically suffer Dazzled condition in daylight)
* Weapon Familiarity: Automatically proficient with Greataxe and Falchion, treat any weapon with "Orc" in its name as a Martial weapon.

==Green Skin==
One usually wonders where the green coloration of Orcish skin came from, in the old myths (i.e., Lord of the Rings) the orcs were established as barbaric, crude brutes, true; but the approximate skin color was never truly established, the Orcs were generally described as filthy and mucky, with darkened skin and bestial countenances. (Similarly, in the films their skin shades are in varying shades of ash-black and dirty-brown, the occasional bit of face-painting notwithstanding.) It wasn't until the advent of the Hulk comics, and GW deciding to make their orcs different, that the common skin of the orc became green. Because Warhammer's orcs became so memorable, thousands of copycats have followed suit.

This of course may not truly explain why some orcs in DnD have green skin as well, DnD being around before Warhammer, but the a more precise green coloration in its orcs may have come later. Indeed, earlier DnD art shows a variety of skin colors, some of them sallow yellow and earthy reds. Green may have come about because all the other possible colors simply have clashing connotations, such as a calming blue, or offensive real world racial connotations (black, red, brown, and yellow are right out for a barbaric and evil race of XP bags.) Another theory is that Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson, the 2 co-founders of [[Games Workshop]], also had a lot of communication with Brian Blume, the developer of D&D, especially in the early days of these 2 companies, so it is entirely possible that certain ideas were mentioned and then copied.

==Piggish Looks==
On occasions, a person may find orcs depicted as pig-men, despite the general acception of orcs as being (usually green-skinned) Frazetta Man style cavemen fellows. This goes back to [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]], where orcs were described as having a fundamentally "piggish snout" for a face and depicted as more or less a boar's head on a hunched, ugly, green-skinned chimpanzee. Some depictions of orcs thusly refer back to this. It's most common in Japan, where AD&D [[neckbeard]]s grew up to have a huge impact on art, manga and videogames.

==Monstergirl Depictions==
Orcs are not the most commonly seen of [[monstergirls]], as many of the individuals inclined to make monstergirls aren't inclined to find them attractive. Those rare orc MGs seen tend to be, basically, green-skinned amazons; musclegirls of a particularly dumb "fight 'em an' fuck 'em" mentality with a penchant for either raping men or gathering in harems around particularly strong, tough warriors (who may or may not be made to submit).

In the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], the Orc is a chubby pink girl with pig ears on her head and a pig's tail (see above about how "pigmen orcs" are popular in Japan). She's a vanilla demihuman-type mamono who goes around in large groups by preference. They're femdommy by nature, but happily submit to maledom if a potential spouse can overpower them in a fight, and also enjoy sharing a spouse between them. Hilariously, this is pretty square with what official sources have established about D&D orc sexual mores.

[[Daily Life with Monstergirl]] combines the above two having male Orcs be ugly green pig dudes who lust for human (and human-like) women. Thus far we haven't seen female Orcs yet, but like the [[centaur]]s in the series they will likely be a lot more attractive than their male counterparts. As a matter of fact, a female orc named Ruka actually shows up in the tie-in online game as one of your potential haremettes; if taken as canon, then female orcs in this setting are indeed cute green-skinned pig-girls - unlike the MGE version, they have a pig's tail and trotters for feet, with elf-like ears, as the Daily Life verse tends to avoid more animalistic ears for its beast-girls in general.

==See Also==
*[[Goblins]]
*[[Ork]]
*[[Orcs & Goblins]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Orcweapons.JPG|Ork made [[Exotic weapons]].
File:Orksword.GIF|Ork make more [[Exotic weapons]].
Image:Female Orc.jpg|gb2kitchen
Image:Orc_bard.jpg|What happens when the DM lets him take a homebrew feat to use his Strength score for Perform (Dance) checks.
</gallery>

{{D&D4e-Races}}

[[Category:Monstergirls]]

Inquisitor (film)

2016-11-14T11:18:17Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:F0D5:ED98:F7E2:9E06: /* Summary */

{{oldschool}}
{{NeedsImages}}

''This article is about the live-action movie. For other things called Inquisitor, see [[Inquisitor]].''

:''"KRIEGER NO IT'S A TRAP! YOU'RE SHUTTING IT DOWN! UHhh..."''
: - [[Brother-Captain]] Darius of the [[Dark Angels]]

'''Inquisitor''' is a 1996 live-action short film (approximately 24 minutes long) about, well, an [[Inquisitor]] by the name of Krieger who intends to investigate a mysterious Warp signature in some ancient ruins, with some [[Dark Angels]] as backup. It was made to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Games Day, and came with teasers to other possible films (which were either never made or never released).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClfhBZR9-As It can be found here, until Geedubs decides to shut it down because it does not shove grimderp (or any new models) down your throat].

== Summary ==

We begin in orbit over Conaris Prime, as Captain Darius and Admiral Arteres discuss the mission that brings them there. Captain Darius apparently lent Krieger a bunch of Marines on his last expedition to this place, and only Krieger managed to escape with an artifact (obviously a painted block of wood or plastic), so he only gives Krieger five Marines, himself included, and one [[Drop Pod]].

Darius tries to be a reasonable Marine, but circumstances unfortunately conspire against him. He appoints two of his Marines to guard the entrance to the ruins, but because they are facing outside, they get grabbed from behind by [[Chaos Space Marines]]. At the sound of bolter-fire, Darius suggests that they fall back to assist, but Krieger insists on continuing, so he sends his other two Marines to the entrance as he follows Krieger. The two other nameless Marines get to the entrance but find no trace of their brothers, and then they get killed as well. Eventually, Krieger and Darius end up in the central chamber, confronting a [[Khorne Berserker]] (a fellow by the name of "Aangra Soul Destroyer" with shockingly good dental hygiene).

Darius fights the berserker (which mostly means he whimpers in pain when Aangra shoots his hand and blows his [Darius's] pistol up), while Krieger sees an artifact similar to the one he recovered on his last trip to these ruins. He tries to take it out of its pedestal, which the Berserker tells him not to do, but Darius sees a [[Juggernaut]] poke its head through a new warp rift, realizes that the Berserker (in a shocking display of cunning for a servant of [[Khorne]]) is using [[Just As Planned|reverse psychology]], and yells to Krieger that "IT'S A TRAP" before resuming his whining. Krieger then puts his artifact back, which apparently re-seals the rifts. The Berserker makes some funny faces as he gets cast back into the Warp. The End!

== Production ==

It's not quite as old as [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader]] (It was made around 1995), but it is very close, and it shows -- the CG is pretty obviously out-of-place, and because the movie was only ever released on VHS (and only that at a couple of [[Games Day]]s), the visual quality isn't great. That said, the costumes and soundtrack are pretty good, though the acting wasn't much to write home about.

== More Live-Action ==

The video game [[Warhammer Epic 40,000: Final Liberation]] featured live-action cutscenes of similar style to this film; as it was made just a year later, it's possible that it was made by some of the same people.

After the credits, ''Inquisitor'' included trailers for two other [[Warhammer 40,000]] films: '''Hive Infestation''', featuring [[Space Wolf]] [[Terminator]]s [[File:BloodforTheBloodGodInquisitor.png|200px|thumb|right|Inquisitor Pillowshoulders angers hard at a traitor.]]fighting a [[Genestealer]] infestation and some poor pacing on line delivery and generally weak voices, and '''Blood for the Blood God''', featuring an Inquisitor, Space Marines, (possibly Chaos) [[Orks]] that don't speak English, and the least emphatic declaration of "Blood for the Blood God" ever.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Inquisitor (film)

2016-11-14T11:15:32Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:F0D5:ED98:F7E2:9E06: /* Summary */

{{oldschool}}
{{NeedsImages}}

''This article is about the live-action movie. For other things called Inquisitor, see [[Inquisitor]].''

:''"KRIEGER NO IT'S A TRAP! YOU'RE SHUTTING IT DOWN! UHhh..."''
: - [[Brother-Captain]] Darius of the [[Dark Angels]]

'''Inquisitor''' is a 1996 live-action short film (approximately 24 minutes long) about, well, an [[Inquisitor]] by the name of Krieger who intends to investigate a mysterious Warp signature in some ancient ruins, with some [[Dark Angels]] as backup. It was made to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Games Day, and came with teasers to other possible films (which were either never made or never released).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClfhBZR9-As It can be found here, until Geedubs decides to shut it down because it does not shove grimderp (or any new models) down your throat].

== Summary ==

We begin in orbit over Conaris Prime, as Captain Darius and Admiral Arteres discuss the mission that brings them there. Captain Darius apparently lent Krieger a bunch of Marines on his last expedition to this place, and only Krieger managed to escape with an artifact (obviously a painted block of wood or plastic), so he only gives Krieger five Marines, himself included, and one [[Drop Pod]].

Darius tries to be a reasonable Marine, but circumstances unfortunately conspire against him. He appoints two of his Marines to guard the entrance to the ruins, but because they are facing outside, they get grabbed from behind by [[Chaos Space Marines]]. At the sound of bolter-fire, Darius suggests that they fall back to assist, but Krieger insists on continuing, so he sends his other two Marines to the entrance as he follows Krieger. The two other nameless Marines get to the entrance but find no trace of their brothers, and then they get killed as well. Eventually, Krieger and Darius end up in the central chamber, confronting a [[Khorne Berserker]] (a fellow by the name of "Aangra Soul Destroyer" with shockingly good dental hygiene).

Darius fights the berserker (which mostly means he whimpers in pain when Aangra shoots his hand and blows his [Darius's] pistol up), while Krieger sees an artifact similar to the one he recovered on his last trip to these ruins. He tries to take it out of its pedestal, which the Berserker tells him not to do, but Darius sees a [[Juggernaut]] poke its head through a new warp rift, realizes that the Berserker (in a shocking display of cunning for a servant of [[Khorne]]) is using [[Just As Planned|reverse-reverse psychology]], and yells to Krieger that "IT'S A TRAP" before resuming his whining. Krieger then puts his artifact back, which apparently re-seals the rifts. The Berserker makes some funny faces as he gets cast back into the Warp. The End!

== Production ==

It's not quite as old as [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader]] (It was made around 1995), but it is very close, and it shows -- the CG is pretty obviously out-of-place, and because the movie was only ever released on VHS (and only that at a couple of [[Games Day]]s), the visual quality isn't great. That said, the costumes and soundtrack are pretty good, though the acting wasn't much to write home about.

== More Live-Action ==

The video game [[Warhammer Epic 40,000: Final Liberation]] featured live-action cutscenes of similar style to this film; as it was made just a year later, it's possible that it was made by some of the same people.

After the credits, ''Inquisitor'' included trailers for two other [[Warhammer 40,000]] films: '''Hive Infestation''', featuring [[Space Wolf]] [[Terminator]]s [[File:BloodforTheBloodGodInquisitor.png|200px|thumb|right|Inquisitor Pillowshoulders angers hard at a traitor.]]fighting a [[Genestealer]] infestation and some poor pacing on line delivery and generally weak voices, and '''Blood for the Blood God''', featuring an Inquisitor, Space Marines, (possibly Chaos) [[Orks]] that don't speak English, and the least emphatic declaration of "Blood for the Blood God" ever.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

The Silmarillion

2016-11-14T10:57:26Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:F0D5:ED98:F7E2:9E06: /* The Creation Myth */

{{Cleanup}}

The Silmarillion was a collection of world-generation notes by [[JRR Tolkien]]. Just like a modern passionate DM would do, he wrote many short stories about his own personal world inside of a journal. Most of it was incoherent and disorganized, as he wrote to it whenever whim took him in a writing mood. For the most part everything he wrote had strong christian influences, and many lines could be drawn between his own creation myth with that of Christianity; makes sense since Tolkien himself was a Christian. You could easily say that Illuvatar was equivalent to God, and Melkor would be satan (He's even described as being the most beautiful of the Valar!). Of course Tolkien died before he could ever put any of this to a book, so his journal was stuffed into a box and forgotten.

But this was not the end of Tolkien's journal. Many years later his son found the journal and decided to create a compilation of all the short stories. While there were many errors with timelines and such (Tolkien did not actually write it in any semblance of chronological order), his son made a great effort to organize it into the Silmarillion. It is widely considered a...difficult read to say the least and is very often considered very boring. It's definitely written more like a collection of mythological tales like you might find for say; Greek myth in a school library (only less accessible) than it is like a novel.

== In A Nutshell ==
===The Creation Myth===
In the beginning, there was absolutely nothing. Then the god Illuvatar began singing. Of course this wasn't just any sort of singing, because to gods like him, singing was a means of weaving raw magic into a pure and physical form. He began his singing by creating his children, the Ainur, who in turn joined him in a new heavenly chorus. There were many Ainur, who were divided into the older and more powerful Valar, and the younger and less powerful Maiar (Many better-known LOTR characters that are Maiar include Gandalf, Saruman, the Balrog, and Sauron.). The Ainur each sang a different part of the world into existence, such as Ulmo who created the seas and oceans, and Aule who created the Dwarves, though they were flawed. Some time after Illuvatar found out and was displeased, as only he could make genuinely sapient creatures (that being the Elves and Men, who wouldn't be ready until the stars and sun were finished). Aule revealed he'd created them out of love for Illuvatar and to help the latter's creations, so Illuvatar infused Dwarves with the Secret Fire (true magic of life) to make them truly alive and fix the flaws.

Unfortunately, the First Dark Lord was also in this group. An Ainur by the name of Melkor; described as the most beautiful and gifted singer of all the Ainur, decided that he wanted to create his own song. Twice in a row he tried this, and each time Illuvatar showed him a new, more beautiful song to both amaze the other Ainur, and show up Melkor. Melkor first created Fire, hot and cold. As a consequence of the creation of Fire, evil was introduced into the world, but also beauty was created as hot and cold made Weather. The second of his singing served to seat evil in the world by warping many creations, such as granting scorpions their tails. For this, Melkor was cast out of the Ainur's Chorus. He continued to desire the Secret Fire for himself; lacking the ability to create life on his own, he instead chose to infuse his own power into Arda, attempting to corrupt all of creation toward his will. As a result, his influence lingers even long after his eventual defeat.

===Bejewelled===
The Valar that still wanted to play the Sims got sick of Melkor's shit after he destroyed the two lights they were using to keep Arda (the Earth) from being shades of grey with chest-high walls. These lamps blew up when Melkor knocked them over, and split the formerly continuous landmass into three separate continents. So they went to Aman (the western continent), built two trees to be the lights, and got to work. Eventually they got the DLC for stars, and managed to install Sims: Elves Edition. Melkor was "finally! mobs I can grind for experience!" but the Valar beat him down and brought him back as a captive (but not before he had a chance to infect some elves with malware, turning them into Orcs). Elves were installed in Middle Earth (the central continent), and ported over to Aman in what was later to be dubbed "worst idea ever".

The Elves were working out really well, and levelled up their crafting skills huge. Feanor, an elf king, made three awesome jewels called the Silmarils that glowed just like the two trees used to light up the place. The minute Melkor's ban was over, he posted an apology to /v/alar and asked if he could see what they were working on. He immediately DDoSed the two trees, killing them, and stole the Silmarils and fucked off to Middle-Earth to raid the elves there. He got pwned, and holed up in the roguelike dungeon expansion pack Angband, due to his old Utumno version being too resource intensive.

Feanor was fukkin pissed, so much he couldn't type straight and kept calling Melkor "Morgoth." He was so pissed he picked fights with any other elf kingdoms that offered to help. He travelled to Middle-Earth, played Angband over and over again trying to get his light-jewels back, and got himself killed (it's a roguelike, duh). His elf kingdom stayed there, besieging and playing Angband for 400 years until Morgoth said "enough already!" and got those damn kids off his front lawn.

Meanwhile, back in Aman, the Valar hastily installed a 3rd-party 'Sun & Moon' patch to make up for the destroyed light-trees. 'Sun' only works half the time, but it's better than nothing and the Silmaril backups got stolen so what're you gonna do? They also bought the 'Sims: Men Expansion' DLC at the same time, and installed it too.

Some of the Men NPCs got into playing Angband. Then [[Tolkien|the DM]] made a character for himself, named Beren, started a romance with an elf king's daughter Luthien (the Dungeon-master's-girlfriend's character). Elf-dad was a racist shit, but that would look bad, so he said "sure you can date my daughter, IF you can finish a run of Angband by bringing a Silmaril jewel back to level zero." Beren and Luthie played together, almost got Dark-Souls'd by a Maiar acting as a boss-monster NPC named Sauron, but managed to pull it off. The wedding was on a Tuesday, but afterwards Beren got ganked, and later Luthien became an hero... but she sings some Goth poetry to the Grim Reaper-equivalent who, with Illuvatar's permission, gives them an extra life for finding the Simiaril, and they both lives as mortals until they died a second time.

The rest of the elves were pretty sure that a Man and an Elf playing together was some kind of exploit, so they stopped being racist and started playing in teams, even getting Dwarves in on the teams. Unfortunately, Melkor was able to appeal to the inherent LOL RANDUMB of Men and got them to do stupid shit like playing huntards and wiping with Leeroy Jenkins bullshit. Still, not every Man was an idiot, some had high DPS or knew how to tank, so the elves didn't go back to being totally racist.

Blah blah a Man named Turin leaves home, blah blah blah loses his memory and hooks up with his mind-wiped sister, blah blah defeats the dragon Summer Glaurung, totally not his fault he killed his best friend, totally not his fault he knocks up his own sister, when they both find out they become an heroic pair.

Bro-tier Man named Tuon weds a hot elf shortie named Idril, and founds the Middle-Earth version of Seattle, which is where the elves move to after the Angband MMO servers shut down and they lost all their kingdoms. Tuon and Idril's kid Earwig ends up dating Beren & Luthie's kid Elwing. Elwing brings the one loose Silmaril as an engagement gift, and Earwig uses it to travel across the ocean to the western continent to make a "modz plz halp" appeal to the Valar. The Valar wake up, check out Angband, and ban the fuck out of Melkor again. Earwig comes back and has celebration nookie with Elwing. Since they're both half-elves their kids should've been half-elves too, but fucking EA and their Sims glitches, the kids had to choose one or the other. Little Elrond chose to be full elf, though he's still called "Elrond Half-Elven". Little Elros chose to be full man, but he still managed to live to 500 years old with haxx.

===Civilization===
On the way back home from wrecking Melkor's shit, the Valar were impressed with three kingdoms of Men who joined the bro-quest to help elves, and gave them an island to play Numenor on, and let them start the game as Dunedain with plenty of starting tech and every unit constructed starts with elite status. They easily defeated the boss monster Sauron and patted themselves on the back because capturing Sauron was [[just_as_planned|totally their idea]]. Sauron's a Maiar, so killing him is impossible, he just chilled in the dungeons, and told the Men how awesome they were even though they aren't elves... cause elves are immortal, but it's so great you can still do stuff with your disability. The Dunedain started getting into fad diets and buying life-extension supplements on home-shopping channels, which ironically made their lifespans shorter. "Well, if I was a Valar, I could edit the Sims:Men source code," said Sauron, and the Dunedain totally [[Just_as_planned|came up with the idea on their own]] to attack the Valar to demand an immortality patch. "My old boss Melkor is a Valar, maybe he could help if he was free," and the Dunedain fell for that too.

So the Dunedain switched their game settings to max out military bonuses, and sailed west. The Valar and Elves knew they were getting a full-on /b/ invasion, and appealed to Iluvatar all-father for a government bailout. Illuvatar banhammered the invasion fleet, and did an Atlantis on the island of Numenor for good measure. Sauron was still in jail when the place was rekt, and he lost his sweet Maiar character and had to start over in Middle-Earth. Some Men of Numenor managed to survive, and washed up on Middle-Earth. They still had their cheat-mode bonuses, and easily became kings among men. One of them started Gondor in the south.

===Sonic===
The last story is about the gold rings. Sauron fooled people into thinking he was going to play Neutral Good with his new character, and made or help make new client plugins for all his friends called "rings of power" (he actually did it before the Numenor mess. No way he could have pulled it off afterwards; after drowning with the island, he was resurrected with a massive Charisma penalty and without access to Disguise Alignment spells). Each ring is actually a trojan to be installed to get the account passwords for the kings of men, dwarves and elves. He had a master One Ring that could backdoor all the others, hopefully to turn all the people of Middle-Earth into his personal spam botnet. The Elves and the survivors of Numenor team up and wreck Sauron's shit. Just as the elves start thinking maybe not all Numenorians are greedy shits like the ones that tried to attack Aman, the king of Men Ilsidur decides the One Ring is too 'leet to delete, and keeps it for himself. Elves give up on Men totally. Ilsidur himself dies on the way home in a stupid horse accident.

[[The Lord of the Rings|And ''that's'' when the hobbits came in.]]

[[Category:Literature]][[Category:The Lord of the Rings]]

Exalted

2016-11-14T07:54:45Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:F0D5:ED98:F7E2:9E06: /* Return of Scarlet Empress */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Exalted
|picture = [[Image:EXALTEDlogo.gif|200px]]
|type = [[RPG]]
|publisher = [[White Wolf]]
|system = Modified [[Storyteller System]]
|authors = Geoffrey C. Grabowski, John Mørke, Holden Shearer, Robert Vance, Eric Minton
|year = 2001 (1st edition) 2006 (2nd edition) 2016 (3rd edition)
}}
[[Image:Sniper-guitar.jpg|right|thumb|The Performance ability meets the Firearms ability]]
'''Exalted''' is a role-playing game by White Wolf, Inc. currently gearing up for its third edition. It is well known for its epic scale, as far as story and mechanics, and allowing the players to participate in (and cause) epic events rather than simply being bystanders. A silly group can turn this into a Kill La Kill/Gurren Lagann crossover, a serious group can turn this into the Ramayana: Romance of the Three Kingdoms edition. Both options are awesome. Compare [[Legends of the Wulin]].

==Brief Summary==
Exalted is a game where one of your main antagonists is Death, Creator of the Underworld. Except there's several of him, probably six or seven. Oh, and he's got 13 dread henchmen, one of whom was probably you at some point in time. Also, Hell has a personal grudge against you this time.

Magical Rome/Persia/China regularly trains and sends ninja-monks out for you personally. Ninjas specially trained in asskicking. And if that doesn't work, they keep giant color-coded gundams and suits of power armor as backups.

The Transformers have united under [[Æonic Orb|Unicron]] (who has robo-AIDS), and are invading because they have a shortage of souls.

The Jedi Council has corrupted Heaven and usurped your rightful place as the Masters of Everything - but nobody can remember them. The only reason they haven't hunted you down is that they're too busy trying to keep reality from imploding.

Your ex-wife dropped by; she's a two thousand year old shapechanging man-eating monster, interested in maybe going on a date next Thursday for dinner, followed by breeding a new race capable of rewriting the biosphere.

Your best friend from growing up -and your last life- now seeks to cover all the lands of Middle Earth in darkness, if he can just find this damn ring.

Your god has the world's biggest crack habit, and needs some serious rehab.

And yet, in theory, you think you can fix everything!

Welcome to Creation, kid! Hope you've got enough Essence!

Have Fun.

==Backstory==
Here's a history of the setting of Exalted, which may answer a bunch of questions and put things into perspective all at once.

Once upon a time, in the formless twisting chaos of the Wyld, there appeared the [[Primordials]]. The Primordials are impossibly vast alien beings with multiple souls. Imagine if Cthulhu was the size of Asia and you could meet and hold conversations with his major organs, which had separate identities, and you kinda get the idea.

“The formless chaos that spawned us sucks,” said the Primordials. “Let's build someplace cool to live, rather than hang out here!”

And so they did. They made Creation, and nailed it down with the Elemental Poles of Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and <s>Heart</s> Wood.

“This place isn't going to maintain itself,” said the Primordials. “Let's make a bunch of servants to run the place for us! We'll give them intelligence, free will, and hopes and dreams, and then keep them as slaves for eternity! It'll be great!” And so they made the gods. Some gods, such as the Unconquered Sun, Luna, and the Maidens, were built to be exceedingly cool and do lots; others were built to do stuff like make sure individual shrubs grew properly.

“Huzzah!” said the Primordials. “We have people to do the dirty work of running the place for us! Let's spend half our time playing the impossibly awesome Games of Divinity, and the other half screwing with the lives of our lessers!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the gods, after moving the Elemental Pole of Fire back into place for 700th time after one of the Primordials went on a drinking binge and knocked it loose, causing untold thousands of deaths and nearly causing Creation to fall back into the Wyld. “We should kill those assholes and take their stuff.”

“Ha ha!” said the Primordials. “You can't kill us! When we built you, we programmed you so you could never attack us! Suck it!”

===Making of the Exalted===
So the Unconquered Sun, who is the God of Awesome, came up with a plan. “Let's take those little mortal humans down there and give them incredible power. Then we can have them kill the Primordials, and then we can get at their Games of Divinity and play them ourselves!” So they developed Exaltations, which are sort of like an additional component to the human soul that lets you do magic and super kung fu. Then they picked out the coolest people in Creation and instilled these Essence Shards in them.

“Are you planning on using those Exalted mortals to kill my asshole brothers and sister and take their stuff?” asked Autochthon, who was just about the only Primordial on the side of the gods, because most of the time it was his stuff that the other Primordials were breaking when they ran amok. Plus they made fun of him all the time.

“Um... no,” said the gods.

“Gee, that's too bad. I was gonna hook them up with ultimate weapons of Primordial-slaying destruction, but since you're not rebelling and all...”

“Oh, in that case, yes. Yes, we are.”

Meanwhile, Luna, gender changing (and shapeshifting) god/goddess of the moon, managed to sweet-talk his/her/their Primordial hippy sugar mama Gaia into not fighting during the rebellion. “I'll do that thing with my tongue,” Luna promised.

“We have granted you the power to be totally awesome!” said the gods to their Exalted. “Now, go kill those Primordial assholes!”

“Aww, isn't that cute,” said the Primordials. “Those little humans think they can OH SHIT THEY'RE STABBING ME OW OW OW!” Half of them died.

“Don't kill us!” said the other half.

“Now you have to be our slaves for forever, ha ha ha!” said the gods, and then sewed them all up inside the butt of the head Primordial, Malfeas. (Malfeas got turned inside-out and sewn into his own butt.)

“You guys suck,” said the dead Primordials to the Exalted. “We hereby curse you so that you'll all turn into assholes someday!”

“Whatever,” said the Exalted.

“Well, now that that's over,” said the Unconquered Sun, who had since declared himself King of All Cosmos, “Let's go play the Games of Divinity all day! You folks we Exalted, you guys can run the world. Make sure none of our lamer siblings start acting stupid. Make sure I get plenty of prayers coming my way. Other than that, have fun!”

“Hey, I feel kinda guilty for helping kill my brothers and sisters and enslaving the rest,” said Autochthon. “I'm going to leave Creation to go brood for a few thousand years.”

“Have fun!” said the gods (and their new Exalted buddies.)

So the Exalted – particularly the Solars – ran the world. Having been cool to begin with and then granted badassitude by the God of Awesome, they proceeded to do all sorts of cool stuff, like build magical cities out of glass, make mountains float, and ''breed dinosaurs who pissed heroin.'' YES, SERIOUSLY. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS IN EXALTED.

===The Usurpation and the Immaculate Order===
Eventually, though, the Solars got bored and jaded and full of themselves. “We killed the Primordials and made all this cool stuff. Everything we do must therefore be right. Let's run amok!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the Sidereals, whose job it is to make sure that the Loom of Fate, which is sort of the engine that runs Creation, doesn't crash. “At the rate they're going, they're gonna wreck Creation. Let's kill them and take their stuff!”

“Hey, we need your help,” the bronze faction Sidereals (lead by Chejop Kejak) said to the Dragon-Blooded, who were the least awesome and powerful but most numerous of the Exalted (cause theirs is heredity), who acted as lieutenants and aides and local governors and such. Secretaries, too. “Your asshole Solar bosses are gonna wreck the world. Can you help us kill them?”

“Figures they'd end up doing something like that. Sure, we'll help,” said the Dragon-Blooded.

“Come to our big dinner banquet!” said the Dragon-Blooded to the Solars. Then, when the Solars arrived, the bronze faction Sidreals blew the place up, and trapped the Solar's Essence Shards in a magic cage so that no more Solars could be created.

“Yay it worked! Now we'll erase all evidence of our existence and run the world from behind the scenes, while the Dragon-Blooded can do the dirty work!” said the Sidereals, thus proving themselves to be the only people in the setting with basic pattern recognition.

Meanwhile, the ghosts of the dead Primordials caught 13 of the dead Solar's ghosts on the way down into the Underworld. “Work for us,” they said, “and we'll give you incredible power, like what you had when you were alive!”

“What's the catch?” asked the ex-Solar ghosts.

“Well, you have to be our slaves and try to make everything, everywhere, die forever.”

“Deal! Let's get cracking!” And so were the Deathlords were created, super-powerful ghosts who want the world to die.

Back in Creation, the Dragon-Blooded had a conundrum.

"Hey, what the hell, guys?" The people said. "Those Solar and Lunar guys were fucking awesome! Why the hell did you kill them?"

"Um..." The Dragon-Blooded said as they came up with a solution. Eventually, one of them said, "...Because they were DEMONS possessing mortals! Yeah, that's the trick!" And so the Immaculate Order was invented, a religion that almost everyone in the Realm follows, which paints all Celestial Exalted as evil "Anathema", demons that possess awesome people and turn them into cunning evil monsters. Which, to be fair, is technically true. Wyld Hunts (think modern special forces with magitech in a mostly standard fantasy setting) are sent out to kill Celestials and keep the status quo all status quo-y.

===The Great Contagion and the Balorian Crusade===
So while the Dragon-Blooded were doing a fairly good (although not nearly as impressive as the Solars) job of running Creation, the Deathlords were building a doomsday plague.

“Taste the bitter poison mixed from the ashes of our hopes and the tears of betrayal in the dark pit of our tortured souls!” said the Deathlords, presumably while wearing too much eyeliner, and unleashed their doomsday plague into Creation.

“This sucks,” said 90% of the living beings in the world, and died. Including plants.

“Hey,” said the Deathlords to the Fair Folk, who were into that sort of thing, who lived in the Wyld outside of Creation and didn't like the idea of a place that didn't just change according to their thoughts. “Just about everyone in there's dead now. If you went in, ate the souls of the survivors, and tore the place down, no one could stop you!”

“Thanks for the heads up!” said the Fair Folk, and promptly invaded in force.

“This is bad,” said one of the surviving Dragon-Blooded to her friends. “Fortunately, I just remembered that there's a sealed-off control center for an ultimate magical doomsday weapon that the Solars made for defending Creation against exactly this sort of thing. Let's go on an epic world-saving quest to get in there!”

And so they went. On the way, they came across a shitton of Lunars fighting the Fair Folk.

"Oh shit, Anathema! Let's fight!" One said. The Lunars rolled their eyes and kept fighting.

Another one said to them, "Hey, if you cover us, we can stop this whole thing, and then we'll pretend we never met you and keep feeding Creation the cock-and-bull-story about you being demons!"

"Deal." The Lunars said. And they bought the Dragon-Blooded time to get to the Imperial Manse.

Most of them died trying to get past the defenses, but eventually, two Dragon-Blooded finally made it to the control panel.

“Please insert soul to activate this device,” said the control panel.

“What does that mean?” asked one, and then the other shoved her into the soul-extraction device.

And so this unnamed Dragon-Blooded, through an act of supreme badassness/[[Eldrad|dickery]], gained access to Creation's greatest magical weapons systems and used them to blow up the Fair Folk.

“I hereby declare myself the Scarlet Empress and ruler of the world,” she said.

“Nuh uh!” said some, until she blew them up. This brought lots more people over to her side, and thus was born the Realm, which is the major power in the world today.

Still, some said, “You were just a lieutenant who got lucky and stumbled across some doomsday weapons. We still have some doomsday weapons of our own, and we'll fight back!” The Scarlet Empress wanted to blow them up too, but a lot of her weapons didn't reach and she was kind of afraid of a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario, so, despite the occasional invasion attempt, they remained independent.

And so things went for over 750 years, until fairly recently, when the Scarlet Empress just up and disappeared. Having named no successor, the entire Realm is now leaderless and gearing up for civil war to see who's gonna be the next one of the Scarlet Throne. Right now, they've got this spineless bureaucrat warming the seat, but this guy is a total pussy who's basically being manipulated by whichever member of the shogunate is feeling power-hungry today. If you've seen Scrubs, imagine Ted with twenty-something Kelsos to suck up to.

Meanwhile, the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon discovered where the Sidereals has stashed their cage full of Solar shards. They told the Neverborn -the ghosts of their brothers and sister who said Solars killed- tantalizing them with the idea of the power of the tools that destroyed them. “Hey, we can twist those and use them to create our own invincible deathknights!” The Deathlords pointed out. "We'll tell you where it is, just give us, uh, 50 of them!" the Yozi promised, planning to reap the benefits if the plan succeeded and covering their asses if it didn't. “Deal, let's go get that cage!” Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for everyone else), half the Essence Shards got loose. Now, once again, there are Solar Exalted.

And that's where the game begins.

===Return of Scarlet Empress===
And this is how the game can possibly end.

"Oh man! This sucks," said the Scarlet Empress. "When I die whoever takes over is going to screw up everything I worked for! What am I going to do?" She then found out that if she wrote ''The-Broken-Wing-Crane'' (which is pretty much the Necronomicon) she'd be immortal. "Aight I finished the Necronomicon! Now I'm immortal!"

"Sucker!" Said the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon, as he dragged the Scarlet Empress off to Hell. There he brainwashed her [[/d/|with tentacles]] as his slave. He then said to the other Yozi "I've got a plan to get us out of here, any of you in?"

"Damn skippy!" said Malfeas.

"Affirmative," said She Who Lives In Her Name.

"Whatever," said Cecelyne.

"It's not like I've got anything better to do," said Adorjan.

The Ebon Dragon told his plan to his conspirators which amounts to: 'take the Akuma and Green Sun Princes to the four corners of Creation and fuck shit up!' Meanwhile Realm has a civil war, at least until the Scarlet Empress came back "I'm back and here to stay, Mhahahahahahahahahaha!" said the Scarlet Empress.

"Hmm, something's not right" said Chejop Kejak. So he called all the Sidereals together to try and assassinate her. It doesn't work and Chejop dies. Then back in Heaven Akuma, Green Sun Princes, and their Abyssal allies kill the Unconquered Sun (also possibly Luna and the five maidens.) Back in Hell the Ebon Dragon marries the Scarlet Empress breaking him out of Hell. "So long suckers!" he said betraying the Yozi.

"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" said the Yozis still in Hell and then proceeded to commit demon genocide.

Back on Creation the Apocalypse and Ragnarok are happening at the same time the Exalted gather a mighty armies to fight the forces of the Ebon Dragon in a mighty battle, And the Scarlet Empress dies of an incurable condition called a Daiklave to the chest. The Ebon Dragon is defeated, the day is saved, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except for the part where the Ebon Dragon is now in hiding unless, you killed him in that case he's now a Neverborn. Speaking of the Underworld there are a lot more ghosts in there for the Deathlords and Neverborn to take advantage of. Also more of Creation possibly was taken by the Wyld via the Fair Folk. and the fact the world is a much bigger mess and in more disarray then it was before. So Huzzah?

==Important Elements==
===Exalted===
====[[Solars|Solar Exalted]]====
[[Image:Chess-solar-exalted.jpg|thumb|right|Solar Exalted]]
The Solar's main themes are 'excellence' and 'rulership'. Solar Exalted were created by the Unconquered Sun, King of the Gods, to lead the other Exalted, and to rule the world. Most of their low-level powers are normal human abilities turned up to 11, like simply being impossibly good at sneaking, or fighting, or persuasion. Their high-power abilities are normal human abilities turned up to OVER NINE THOUSAAAAND!!! A mortal blacksmith can make a sword using iron and a hammer and forge--a Solar craftsman can take a heap of hematite, and ''wring'' a sword out of it with their bare hands, and it'll be a masterfully made one, too. A mortal can survive, at least for a little while, in a hostile environment, like a raging snowstorm. A Solar with the right Charms can survive being at the bottom of the ocean, or '''inside''' an erupting volcano. A mortal can use a sword to parry a sword-strike. A Solar can parry an angry Primordial hitting them with a mountain range. And so on.
Solars also excel at inspiring and persuading others. Or, to be less polite, only the Fair Folk come anywhere close to their skill at being [[Eldrad|dicks]].

====[[Lunars|Lunar Exalted]]====
Lunar Exalts are the chosen of Luna. After the Terrestrials murdered all the Solars, they then moved on to their second in command Lunar servants. Fortunately for the children of the moon, they had always been good with stealth and survival in the wilderness, unfortunately for them the Dragon Bloods were a very organized and driven genocidal force. The Lunars had no choice but to move into the borderlands between the Wyld and Creation and try to plan their resistance in secret. However the Wyld is not a nice place and the borderlands can mutate even Exalted with its touch. Thus three things have happened: The Lunars have taken to ritually tattooing themselves with moonsilver, the normal 5 caste system has been simplified into the Full Moon, No Moon, and Changing Moon castes, and almost all of them have acquired bestial traits either through their devotion to Luna or the Wyld mutations. Ergo Lunar Exalts are a race of [[furry]] demigods. But one should always remember what power the Exalted wield, telling a lion-man of the Full Moon to "yiff in hell" is almost always a horrible idea as he can rip you and thousands like you to pieces without even trying. The Lunars have the unique "Meerkat Steals The Spotlight Prana", which makes any Real Life conversation about Exalted eventually evolve into a discussion about Lunar Exalted, as, pre-3e, they were by far the most interesting Exalt (except maybe the Fair Folk, below).

====[[Sidereals|Sidereal Exalted]]====
The Sidereals are the Chosen of the Maidens. To cover up their role in the Usurpation they broke the universe a little, and now everyone keeps forgetting that they exist. If they want to be remembered, they can use Resplendent Destinies, but then people remember the Destiny and not the person. If a certain Destiny is inconvenient or widely hated, the Sidereal can drop it and use another. In other words, Sidereals are anonymous 4chan users, and Resplendent Destinies are tripcodes.

These guys are the Men in Black and the CIA of Exalted. They live and work in the coolest place evar (Heaven) and are sent on missions to make sure everything in Creation is Working as Intended, "by any means necessary". Not surprisingly, Siderals are notorious for being lying, cheating, backstabbing Magnificent Bastards by the people who can manage to remember them.

They are also more crazy, but less powerful than the Solar exalted, when fighting. A battle with a Sidereal can result in you turning into a mountain, your opponent turning into a river, and then the two of you doing battle with the concept of love as a weapon. Sidereal Martial Arts are the pinnacle of kung-fu, and instead of emulating facets of Creation, they make Creation a facet of the Martial Art. This lets them punch people so hard they turn into ducks (it makes marginally more sense in context). Sidereals are also the only Exalts capable of manipulating the Loom of Fate directly, and are tasked with making sure it doesn't break down.

====[[Abyssals|Abyssal Exalted]]====
By twisting the Solar Exalted Essences in a Monstrance of Celestial Portion, the Neverborn managed to create the Abyssal Exalted. Abyssal Exalted don't suffer from the Great Curse, but instead suffer if they act too nice to people. They are also kept on a short leash, since the dead Primordials aren't exactly pleased with the Exalted. Generally an Abyssal has two choices in life, be the grand villain or attempt to redeem themselves. Both suck for obvious reasons.

Abyssal Exalted charms are largely mirrors of Solar Charms with a darker aspect. As a general thing, where the Solar Exalted gain bonuses, the Abyssal Exalted force penalties on their foes. Their magical material is Soulsteel, the forged souls of ghosts who live in constant pain (and moan and stuff too). They generally fall into one of a few categories; Emo dicks, giggling psychotic mass murderers, devoid of all redeeming qualities, and CRAAAAAAAWLING IIIIIIIIIIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIN. There is a part of their soul that is still a Solar and it keeps reminding them of all the bad shit they do, and lots of them use it to be even more emo.

Fortunately, if they run into their Lunar Bondmate, they don't HAVE to suffer if they act too nice to him/her/it and/or those around him/her/it, and if they DO get to the "redemption" stage (BIIIIIG if), they don't have to worry about that pesky Great Curse anymore.

Unless, of course, their player took a look at the way that the Abyssals' development paths basically boil down to either 'devoted slave of the biggest dicks in existence' (which not everyone really wants to be) or 'the Abyssal whose one goal in life is to stop being an Abyssal' (which kind of misses the point) and said, "Fuck that noise, I'm going to be the biggest baddest ass in the underworld and the most horrifying thing in existence, no-one's going to tell me what to do, and it's going to be freaking AWESOME and metal and shit!" and proceeded to rewrite the rules until they could do just that.

====[[Dragon-Blooded|Terrestrial Exalted]]====
Terrestrials, also known as Dragon-Blooded, have a fitting name. They are the Exalts of the Five Elemental Dragons, souls of the Primordial Gaia. This gives them the ability to kill stuff with fire or their personal equivalent.

Since Terrestrials are the current bosses in Creation (with some secret aid from the Sidereals), their empire is the biggest single nation in the world and their state religion proclaims them to officially be the Best Thing Ever, they can freely go around and strut their stuff without being decried as Anathema, a term they invented themselves so that no other Exalts could strut their stuff. This in turn has a tendency to cause them to be enormous assholes. Also, when they use their magic a lot, they are liable to start burning or cause storms or other stuff that's less than safe for innocent bystanders.

The Terrestrials are soldiers. Like, all of them. They lean towards hierarchy, and even if not all of them fight, all of them could, and probably would if they were asked, contribute to a war effort. And the Realm is pretty much always at war in some area. Funny how that turns out.

Life in Dragon-Blooded society is competitive and merciless. To prepare for this, their training as soldiers and politicians starts as soon as they can speak and is so brutal that many don't survive to maturity even without considering the occasional assassination attempt. The end product is sort of a Sidereal-lite flavour of badass, particularly the ones that decide to become <strike>Shaolin</strike> Immaculate monks.

Terrestrials take strength in numbers, and since their Exaltation is the only one that is inherited (Dragon-''Blooded'', remember?), family is very important to them. From this follows that the production of new family is also very important to them, so if a Terrestrial isn't trying to kill you, he's probably trying to sleep with you. Even if he's gay.

====[[Alchemicals|Alchemical Exalted]]====
Basically <strike>robots</strike>Autobots. They work for Autochthon, also called The Great Maker, who is one of the last free Primordials and has a bunch of people living in cities built inside of him. He's got Primordial robot cancer that's called Gremlin Syndrome, The setting is half "Void tainted"(no relation to the Underworld) or infected by Gremlin Syndrome, and the other half varies between Steampunk to Cyberpunk. (Void-tainted Alchemicals are called Apostates, but they're only really comparable to Decepticons if all Decepticons, ever, eventually go into gleeful rampages of slaughter) As Alchemicals get more powerful, they get more and more like giant, inhuman robots until they turn into living cities.

Alchemicals are the only Exalted who require a soul that has demonstrated heroics worthy of Exaltation in many past lives. Given what's required to become one. Aside from that, then it could be worth noticing that Autochthon, being the guy who invented Exaltation, essentially made Alchemicals as prototypes for all the other Exaltations. Orichalcum Alchemicals for Solars, Moonsilver for Lunars and so on. <strike>Even Abyssal Exalted are covered by the Soulsteel Caste, making you wonder if he anticipated death-themed Exaltations...</strike> Retconned in Second Edition, Abyssals weren't planned for and resonate with both Orichalcum and Soulsteel, but the question remains for ''what'' Autocthon planned to do with them, as well as Adamant Alchemicals that do not fit anywhere, and the later Infernal Exalted don't match any Alchemicals either. On the other hand, said Infernals resonate with ALL of the Alchemical Castes - whether it's because they're proto-Primordials or SCIENCE!/MAGIC!/EXALTED! is up for debate.

====[[Infernals|Infernal Exalted]]====
The result of the Yozi's deal with the Neverborn to steal them some Solar Exaltations, the Infernal Exalts are tasked with turning Creation into Hell so that the Yozi can escape their prison. This is easier said than done because, like their Abyssal cousins, literally every other faction in existence thinks this is a terrible idea. Infernal charms are actually their Yozi's charms, and thus follow strict thematic grouping. When an Infernal develops a custom charm their Yozi learns it as well, which allows individual Infernals to change their Yozi over time. They are also slowly becoming Yozis in their own right over time, though they have the potential to be far more awesome Primordials than the original Primordials ever were.

Infernal Exalted is a collective term used to refer to two types; Akuma and Green Sun Princes. Akuma are the result of the classic Faustian bargain, selling their soul and free will for unstoppable power. Green Sun Princes get the same powers, except they still have the option of flipping the bird at this whole Reclamation thing and running off to get coked out of their minds, and since Akuma don't have free will you'll usually be playing as the latter.

[[That Guy|Some people]] will try to tell you that if you try to play an Infernal who is also a fundamentally decent character, you are [[Matt Ward|doing it wrong.]] Those people are idiots. No one says you have to put '''heroes''' in an elaborate death trap, explain your plans to them at length, and then leave with a hearty evil laugh to bleed off Torment. The head of a major crime syndicate works just as well.
Additionally, the potential to become an Über-primordial means that slipping the leash and gaining 'redemption' places you in the position of absolute power. You can become Armageddon, destroyer of all, Genesis, creator of worlds, or Über Gaia, mother/father/progenitor of everything. Dickhead, dispassionate weeder, or eternally-loving-and-benevolent Cthulu, those monikers become meaningless when you can make your ''soul/imagination'' a REALITY IN OF ITSELF.

Seriously though, check with your storyteller first. The [[fluff]] for these guys is positively ''fucked'' from being written by two different teams of dudes that had ''zero'' contact with each other and very different ideas of what to do with the archetype. Naturally, that means that DMs are divided into armed, angry camps over the "[[skub|right]]" way to play/run an Infernal campaign, and if he wants to use them one way, then let him use them that way. It might be in your best interests to pick one of the more traditionally "heroic" kinds of Exalt if he wants them to be child-raping murderers rather than screwed-up dudes with many possible motivations and flaws. And even if he ''does'' let you run the way you want, nobody likes the guy who [[Drizzt|won't stop whining about]] [[Vampire: The Masquerade|how hard it is to be misunderstood]] all the time. Remember: being an Infernal is fun. It feels good. It's like being the centerpiece of a heavy metal album cover, whether you're trying to be a hero or not.

====[[Chernozem|Liminal Exalted]]====
We don't know much about these ones. They've gotten scattered mentions in the second-to-last book of second edition, have some sort of interest in body parts, and are tied to the lands of the dead. They're also called "Chernozem", chosen of the black earth. Their Aspects apparently include Blood, Marrow, Flesh, Breath and Soil.

They are on a quest to learn about their Humanity.

And we're going to keep on waiting, since a new edition just got announced and it'll probably be years before they receive an official sourcebook.

Based on tentative things released with the Kickstarter, Liminals are the result of people trying to use rituals to bring back the dead (something impossible in Exalted). The Dark Mother, a strange being who lives somewhere in the Underworld meets the conductor of the ritual halfway and instead creates a whole new soul inside the corpse, which is the Exalt. Liminal Exalts are tasked by her with keeping restless spirits bound and down, but can give her the finger and do their own damn thing (unlike Abyssals). They can collect and replace body parts to modify their skills, taking the legs of a legendary dancer, the arm of a swordsman, or the tongue of a master storyteller and making these abilities their own. Additionally, as long as a Liminal's brain is intact and they can access most of their original body's matter, they can recover from any injury.

====[[Getimian Exalted]]====
Apparently at some point a Sidereal looked up from his endless paperwork, realized saving the fundaments of reality every day was something that just wasn't going to end, and said WELL FUCK THAT and wandered off. He then proceeded to--in ascending order of badassitude, and perhaps sequentially--quit his job, declare war on heaven, and then recruit an entire type of Exalted to help, and they now regard him as their collective boss. They have some sort of crazy internal alchemy and have a miniature version of the machine that keeps reality running inside each one, thanks to ''colonies of pattern spiders that live in their spines.'' [[Drow]], eat your hearts out.

And like the Liminals, that's about all we know until their hardback comes out.

====[[Exigents]]====

Discount Exalted. Basically, every god has the capacity to carve out some of their own power and then give it to a mortal as a permanent upgrade. This would probably result in all humanity being Exalted in short order given how literally every blade of grass has a god and everyone wants their own action figure, were it not for the Law of Diminishment-if you're going to make something that's going to be great and perhaps eternal, you have to permanently give it some of your own power. Hell, the first time the Sun set was when he made the Solars, and that was just stamping his name on the things Autocthon already made! This is often more than what lesser gods can take and what greater gods, being dicks, are willing to give up, hence why they're saved for emergencies. Once that happens though, they each get a custom Charmset, for a personal style of kicking ass.

And you guessed it, that's all we're gonna know until the hardback.

===Gods===
Creations of the Primordials. The Gods were meant to maintain Creation while their masters played the Games of Divinity. That didn't turn out so good.
====Celestial Incarnae====
These are the strongest deities in the setting by dint of their celestial nature, and led the other Gods into rebellion against the Primordials. They don't do much now except rubber stamp paperwork and maybe say hi to new Exalts every now and then, being utterly addicted to the [[World of Warcraft|Games of Divinity.]]
=====The Unconquered Sun=====
The Unconquered Sun, Ignis Divine, king of kings, lord of Yu-Shan and Chief God of War, is the greatest of the gods in Exalted, he is the God of Perfection. He is usually depicted as a shining four-armed warrior bearing in each hand a symbol of the virtues he exalts: a shield for temperance, a spear for valor, a branch for compassion, and a horn for conviction. The Solar Exalted are his Chosen, and he is the chief deity of the Dragon Kings. He's actually a pretty cool guy who has to make an effort to repress being compassionate, temperate, holding to his convictions, or being valorous. What that adds up to is a god who will always protect the innocent, never back down from a challenge, and will always hold true to his convictions...Or at least that used to be the case. Now he's just as addicted to the GoD like all the other Incarnae, and has become just as detached from Creation as the Primordials he overthrew. The burnout from being ranked ten in every virtue isn't helping. He's actually SO powerful that his shadow is, in and of itself, a god.
Has a specialty in 'riding' Luna and Gaia, although the girls he keeps trying to marry are the Five Maidens.

=====Luna=====
Luna is either intensely cunning or utterly mad, or perhaps both. Some say she is a Fair Folk noble. Like the Wyld, she is malleable able to take whatever form pleases her. The Lunar Exalted are her Chosen, and she is Gaia's lover (but so is just about everyone else).

Luna is a shapeshifter, which explains the Lunars' entire shtick, but doesn't have any limits on what she can turn into. Gender isn't a thing for Luna and it's not unheard of for Luna to be portrayed as a guy (protip. if you have a portrait of the Incarna and there's a silver-haired dude, that her). Out of all the incarnae, Luna is the least affected by the games and she actually takes the time to visit each Lunar as they exalt. Luna doesn't have a true form but her most common forms include but are not limited to a bow wielding huntress, a male traveler dressed entirely in white, a pregnant woman, a pregnant man, a sorceress with a tiara that keeps the Terrifying Secrets Gods Were Not Meant To Know from destroying her mind, and a knife wielding, half naked, wild woman that is apparently the greatest predator in creation.

In order to create Luna they had to stuff all the other moon gods in the Jar of Things that Can Not Exists and have them fight to the death. What popped out was Luna who promptly decided to whisper sweet nothings to UC and seduce Gaia.

=====The Five Maidens=====
Originally created to service the Loom of Fate, these Five Maidens are likely most enigmatic of the Incarnae. The Five Maidens are, together, second in power only to the Unconquered Sun and about equal to Luna. Their Chosen are the Sidereal Exalted, champions and guardians of fate. Okay people, mostly, though they keep running into... problems. For instance, actually ''using'' their powers to look into the future locks it in immutably into place, for good or ill, so they don't like doing it. 

The Five Maidens are:
* Mercury, the Maiden of Journeys
* Venus, the Maiden of Serenity
* Mars, the Maiden of Battles
* Jupiter, the Maiden of Secrets
* Saturn, the Maiden of Endings

====Celestial Gods====
Also known as the Celestial Bureaucracy, they are, surprise surprise, the bureaucrats of Heaven. They fill out paperwork, kiss up to their bosses after work and try to avoid anything that resembles real work. They are assigned to Departments that manage Creation-wide phenomena, such as Dreams, Fate, Weather and Mammals. They avoid the Sidereals as much as possible.

====Terrestrial Gods====
Like the name says, they live in Creation. For various reasons, they loathe the Celestial Bureaucracy. Their purview (and power) is more limited than the Celestial gods, such as a city or a specific type of tree. Their proximity to mortals means that they're the gods most likely to bully them, but also the ones most likely to cut a deal with.

====Elementals====
Elementals are terrestrial spirits devoted to ensuring a small, local purview functions properly. They are also arranged into the Elemental Courts. There are five categories of Elementals (Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Wood) and numerous subdivisions there in. While numerous, each Elemental is a unique sentient being and has its place in Fate. Most Elemental beings are noticeably drawn from Earth mythology. (e.g. dragons, thunderbirds, ifrit).

====Little Gods====
Little Gods are the barely-aware deities of common objects. They interact with other little gods behind the scenes and generally ensure that things work properly. For example, a lumberjack goes to fell a tree: The axe's little god informs the tree's little god that it should probably fall down now. Usually it will, and the Loom of Fate makes a note of the fact and everything continues on its merry way. Other times, the tree doesn't fall (or fall in the right direction, or falls, say, purple) and the Bureau of Destiny might dispatch a Sidereal to figure out what the problem is.

===[[Primordials]]===
The Primordials made Creation from the infinite possibility of the Wyld. They are beings beyond measure, and composed of many subsidiary souls. They are defined by their Third Circle souls, and most importantly by their Fetich Soul (though it might be that they define their souls). During the Primordial War, those who lost all of their Third Circle souls died and became the Neverborn, while those who survived with some intact became the Yozis.

====Neverborn====
Slain during the Primordial war, they fell through the fabric of Creation and left Shadowlands in their wake. As they conceived of a state of 'not being', Oblivion was born. Similarly, their unconscious thoughts created the Underworld, now more static and unchanging to fit their ideals. Like all ghosts, the Neverborn have fetters to Creation and were unable to truly fall into Oblivion. In fact, as they created the world, they have the strongest fetters of all undead. They realized that the only way to achieve their goal of true death was to destroy their fetters, all of Creation. At first, they were more fearful of the Exalted than anything and half-asleep besides the fact. When the Black Nadir Concordat intruded into their tomb-cities and stole the secrets of Necromancy, they were roused to wakefulness and incredibly angry. Though dead, the Neverborn are still incredibly powerful and command hosts of Abyssal Exalts, Deathlords, Hekatonkhires, and Spectres.

Remember Tolkien's description of Sauron's fate at the end of Lord of the Rings? That's the Neverborn. The tragedy isn't that they're "dead", because beings that huge can't actually die - the very concept of Death is beyond them since they didn't build Creation to ''handle'' them dying. The tragedy is that they're so obsessed with something they've already lost that they can't look past it. They're all caught in a permanent, inescapable angst-loop, and if any of them could just sit up and notice they could abandon their forms and go back to the Wyld. But instead, they sit and spiral further into their "we got our asses handed to us and now our favorite toy is gone" drain-circling, and the psychic emanation of their collective regret has created an entire Underworld for similarly-resonant souls to live out their own miserable pathos.

Unlike the Yozi, and unlike the truly Dead, the Neverborn are simply incapable of noticing anything that might free them from their eternity of navel-gazing. They have nothing left but self-hatred, and the desire to see everything else wind up even more screwed than they were.

No wonder the Ebon Dragon likes them so much.

====Yozis====
Those Primordials who survived the Primordial War were shoved inside the butt of their General/King, Malfeas (who was turned inside out and shoved into his own butt!). They then swore many oaths, some known only to the Unconquered Sun, for they are engraved into the haft of the Orichalcum spear he wields. The Yozis feel nothing but anger for their betrayal and diminution at the hands of the Exalted and the Gods, and plot to return the favour. The Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon (the Primordial responsible for the concept of Opposition: he created honesty so he could be dishonest, loyalty so he could be treacherous, and virtue so he could be its antithesis. In order to talk to you he has to turn himself into exactly what you personally most despise and fear. Not a nice guy!) has been tasked by his peers to find a way to escape from their prison. Which has been going roughly as well as you might expect.( dude, he's the embodiment of assholery. You really gonna trust this fucker?) An unknown number of Yozi Cults also flourish in Creation, aiming to learn demonic practices and perhaps ultimately bring the true masters of Creation back to their world.

It's worth noting that those oaths mean that unlike the Neverborn, the Yozis can't act too openly to fuck up Creation, else they get called before the Incarnae to account for their actions. What happens next is likely... unpleasant.

=====Akumas=====
An Akuma is a mortal or Exalt who has been granted [[Daemon Prince|a measure of power by an Yozi, but essentially becomes a puppet of that Primordial, devoid of free will]]. While this sounds like a horrible trade, the Yozi are very convincing even when they ''aren't'' just lying about it and some people are incredibly power-hungry. The first Akuma was a Solar Exalted, and the Yozi eagerly seek to turn more Exalted into Akuma. The Green Sun Princes (read: Infernal Exalted), the 50 Solar Shards altered by the Yozis, are not Akuma, though there are enough similarities that the two frequently get confused.

=====Demons=====
The lower souls of the Yozis are called Demons now. Thanks to the terms of the Yozis' surrender, they can be summoned into Creation and ordered around. This is difficult for mortal occultists, since Demons can be very willful, but prepared Exalted sorcerers usually don't have too much of a problem with this. There are specific astrological condition required. For example, the strongest ones, Third Circle Demons, can only be summoned during a five day window called Calibration once a year. First Circle Demons are numerous and interchangeable, while Second and Third Circle Demons are unique.

Demons aren't, unlike [[tanar'ri|the D&D version]], ''naturally'' depraved and evil. They are, however, the products of a nightmarish culture created, ruled by, and located inside of a number of beings that are almost as unnecessarily assholish as they are bugfuck nuts. They may be capable of moral choice like humans, but that doesn't automatically made them good people either. Unless you're a Sidereal with the charm that lets you essentially put them into the Witness Protection Program for services rendered, tread lightly.

====[[Primordials]] (Who aren't dead or imprisoned)====
=====Autochthon=====
Autochthon was the Primordial who created much of the technology and industry of Creation. Including the Loom of Fate that enforces causality in creation. He was not well regarded or well-treated by his peers and resented them greatly. During the Primordial War, he sided with the Gods and helped arm their Exalted. After the War, when asked to put a geas on his Mountain Folk, he worried the Exalted would turn on him next. Gathering up his loyal followers he departed Creation for Elsewhere, sealing the way behind him with the Seal of Eight Divinities.

=====Gaia=====
Gaia sat the war out, thanks to Luna's insistence. The Five Elemental Dragons are her creations, as of third edition it is unclear if they are her subsouls or just spirits she made. She is not often spoken of, and seems to have no agenda beyond leaving most of herself behind in heaven and then running around the wyld looking for 'answers'.

===Others===
====Jadeborn====
The [[Dwarves]] of the Exalted setting, also called the mountain folk (because they live in mountains). They are divided into three castes, the Artisans, the Workers, and the Warriors. The Artisans are the leaders while the workers work and supply the Warriors who are in a constant fight against the Darkbrood. They were originally created by Autochthon when he found some of the Rakasha trapped in blocks of Jade. He then formed them into the first Jadeborn. Eventually they evolved into a caste system with some of the workers and warriors having an exalted like tendency called enlightenment. The Jadeborn provided many of the wonders of the first age and had such technology that they were cursed by the unconquered sun to never roam the surface of Creation without being lead by a member of the exalted. Jadeborn Charms come in four Patterns: Foundation, Artisan, Worker, and Warrior.

====Dragon Kings====
The Dragon Kings are large lizard-like beings of great power, resembling dinosaurs. The Dragon Kings are sworn in allegiance to the Unconquered Sun, their creator. Before the time of the Exalted, the Dragon Kings ruled Creation and the mortals who dwelt there, but as the methods of Exaltation were crafted and improved they become obsolete in the gods' eyes. Think inca and aztec style biped dinuars. The Unconquered Sun used them as powerful servants to his chosen whom they served faithfully, honoring their Exalted brethren. After the First Age ended in war and disease, few survived. Their numbers grow slowly but steadily in the Second Age, though the once great Dragon Kings remain hidden in the furthest corners of Creation. Their most powerful stronghold would be the Aztec-flavoured Rathess, an ancient home filled with a variety of powerful artifacts made by the Dragon Kings in the glory days of the First Age. There are four types of Dragon Kings, each living in a direction of Creation; the graceful flying Pterok (North), the nimble and lithe Raptok (East), the powerful and loyal Anklok (South), and the clever amphibious Mosok (West).

====Fair Folk====
The Fair Folk are creatures composed of raw Essence, and inhabit the Wyld – the place that exists between the ordered Creation and pure Chaos. Inhuman and beautiful beings born from chaos, they feed on the dreams and aspirations of the inhabitants of Creation in order to give them strength and form in their own intermediate realm. (In other words, they EAT PEOPLE'S SOULS.) In essence, they are the "kissing cousins" of the Primordials; their territory having been pushed back when the Primordials formed Creation. They prey upon the dreams of mortals and do a brisk trade with the Guild (a powerful economic organization in Creation) in slaves... well, the souls of slaves.

The Raksha are divided into four castes: Diplomats, who favor the Staff Grace and the virtue of Conviction; Entertainers, who favor the Cup Grace and the virtue of Compassion; Warriors, who favor the Sword Grace and the virtue of Valor, and Workers, who favor the Ring Grace and the virtue of Temperance. Noble Raksha belong to two of the four castes, favoring the graces and virtues of both. There is also a fifth Grace, the Heart Grace, which is associated with identity and the trait of Willpower. Graces are differing outlets for the use of Essence and are similar to the suits of tarot. The most powerful of the Fair Folk are the Unshaped. Unlike the Raksha, the Unshaped are unable to survive within Creation for extended periods of time, each Unshaped is actually a symbiotic cluster of Fair Folk consisting of a single "guiding intelligence" and one or more "subsidiary intelligences" with no true form.

Being born from a place of fluid reality that resembles a Loony Tunes skit as much as it does creation, fair folk have difficulty functioning like "real" people. For one thing they suffer from "calcification", their natural unshaped forms are incompatible with creation's stagnant, static existence. Even when they take on a semi-real shape (as a Rakasha) they bleed essence while in creation and must feed on dreams and souls to keep themselves alive. Secondly a fair folk's emotions and virtues are entirely artificial, represented by their graces. When their phony identities break down they suffer from 'Bedlam'. This can have effects such as losing the ability to comprehend that other people aren't just figments of his imagination (conviction) or forgetting that he is capable of inflicting harm on others (valor).

====Ghosts====
Ever since the Neverborn's death broke the cycle of reincarnation, those who die with their business unfinished turn up as Ghosts in the Underworld. Ghosts have access to what they were buried/burned with (their grave goods) and are able to channel essence and learn ghost charms, called Arcanoi. Ghosts who settle their business can pass into Lethe as they should have and reincarnate. Those who give into the Whispers of Oblivion (usually by wandering the Labyrinth) turn into crazed Spectres intent on spreading the word of Oblivion by force. Their third option is to toss themselves into the Mouth of Oblivion and utterly cease to exist.

=====Deathlords=====
Ghosts of 13 First Age Solars who died during the Usurpation, they took the Neverborn's offer of real, ultimate power in exchange for promising to drop all of Creation into Oblivion. They are rather bitter and psychologically maladjusted from the Usurpation. Each one is pretty unique in their psychosis and plots. Some are making more headway than others. The Dowager's Great Contagion managed to kill 90% of all life in Creation, while the Mask of Winters has captured Thorns. Others have suffered rather embarrassing setbacks, and are dealt with harshly by their Neverborn masters. As may be expected, they like to fight and argue with each other a lot, which makes even some of their greatest successes a comedy of errors. The Great Contagion, as previously mentioned? Yeah, the only reason it only killed most of all life in Creation was because two other Deathlords, The Eye and Seven Despairs and The First and Forsaken Lion, went out and invited the fair folk to invade Creation, which ended up uniting all of Creation against a common cause, and gave the world the strength and focus to endure the plague, plus it screwed enough with creation's reality that the plague stopped working right. The other thing that seems to get in the way them succeeding are, ironically, the Neverborn themselves. As they Neverborn hate the state they are in, they hate it when the Deathlords don't preform to total perfection and brutally punish them for it. The First and Forsaken Lion, for example, is actually waiting to come up with a plan because he wants to be sure the plan will work out of fear it might not and getting punished like when he displeased the Neverborn in the past.

=====Hekatonkhires=====
These are ghosts of Behemoths or the Neverborn's Third Circle Souls. Occasionally the Neverborn's thoughts birth a new one. Hekatonkhires are unique and very powerful beings. Imagine undead Cthulhu's zombie kidneys, as a roaming monster.

====Mortals====
[[Image:Mortals_in_exalted.jpg|thumb|right]]
Everyone else. Mortals are unable to channel essence and thus are at a severe disadvantage. While Exalted is largely a cinematic and epic game, it is grim and gritty for Mortals. Their only real advantage is numbers. The most prominent mortals, Humans, were created by the Primordials to provide prayer (and the subsequent ambrosia and quintessence) in Yu-Shan, and nearly all Exalted are of Human stock. There are sub races of humans however some for instance are products of first age bioengineering such as the Air folk who can glide through the air on wings.

==System==
The basic mechanic is a modified [[Storyteller System]]. Pools of d10s are rolled; 7,8,9 count as one success, 10 counts as two successes. Successes are scaled against target numbers at a set difficulty against non PCs/NPCs. If no successes are rolled and at least one die comes up with a 1, then the roll is a botch (catastrophe ensues).

There are a few exceptions to these rules of success, however. Some Fate-based or Shaping-based effects can reduce the number needed to get a single success from a die. These won't come up unless you pull out the relevant splatbook, though.

'''Stunting''': A way to mechanically allow players to use Rule of Cool as a game mechanic. How does it work? A player describes how their PC does an action. Depending on the degree of description, a 1 to 3 dice bonus is given to the roll. (1 dice bonus is incredibly common, 3 dice bonuses almost never given).

*+1 Bonus - Make an effort, try to do something cool. Be brief.
*+2 Bonus - Make a cool description that fleshes out the scenery a bit. Be brief.
*+3 Bonus - Make everyone at the table say you're awesome at describing things. Be brief.

Did we mention that you should be brief? Well, you should.

Stunts can pretty much be done on any action, and don't necessarily have to follow the laws of physics. A good example of an athletics stunt would be the wallrunning in Prince of Persia games, while a combo in a fighting game might be a good example of a flurry stunt. But above all, make it short, snappy, and keep the flow of the game going.

Just if you're curious - The reason why they hand out bonus dice is two fold - Firstly, newly made characters tend to be a bit handicapped, being baller at the things they were made to do and pretty much not at the other stuff. So, stunting gives new characters the chance to succeed at almost anything as long as the player thinks of a pretty cool way to do it, and it teaches new players that as long as you make it feel cool your character can do ''anything''. Secondly, prior to Second Edition, the way multiple actions were handled was by splitting dice pools, so you needed to succeed at two different (generally fairly hard) tasks with half the dice you would otherwise. Stunting helped offset that, offering you the chance to succeed at complicated things that you otherwise wouldn't be able to just because they were epic. Second Edition works a little differently, applying flat penalties to your dice pools based on the number of actions you're taking, (take two actions, first action's on -2 and second is -3; three actions, -3, -4, -5, and so on) but stunts still help to offset that somewhat.

It's a kickass system all told, that helps to bridge between the role playing and the crunch, with a real benefit for staying in character while you splat things. It takes a lot of heat off the ST to make the dice rolling seem interesting because the characters are always trying (maybe not always succeeding) to be cool, so the ST doesn't have to come up with a million different ways to say 'you punch a guy and he falls down'.

Stunts also have rewards besides dice, namely motes and Willpower; a stunt is worth twice its die value in motes, or you can take a point of Willpower for a two- or three-die stunt. Generally, (there are exceptions) motes fuel magic stuff, while Willpower fuels more mundane stuff. (meaning things that anyone can do) Running out of either one can be a death sentence, even in Exalted 2.5; stunts help keep that from happening.

Eariler editions suffered tremendously from problems of [[Linear Build Quadratic EXP]], and the character-creation system was often mockingly regarded as a Byzantine "mini-game" in and of itself. Third edition conspicuously refused to fix the problem (with one of the devs infamously imperiously declaring, and this is a direct quote, [https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?768985-Exalted-Why-is-Everyone-Praising-3e&p=19548177#post19548177| "We have a policy not to give people bad rules just because they think they want them."] [[Troll| Holy shit.]]

Fortunately, while the problem's still ''there'', a number of core gameplay and pricing tweaks have at least made the problem less severe.

==See Also==
*[[Exalted/Custom|Errata and fan-made rules]]
*[[Exalted/Exalted 2nd Edition Character Sheet Template|Blank Wikified Character Sheet]]
*[[Mystic Empyrean]], a game with similarly epic-powered player characters.

==External Links==
*[http://rathess.xi.co.nz/exalted/index.php/Main_Page Archive of the old official wiki]
*[http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/wiki.pl Unofficial Exalted wiki], mostly 1e stuff
*[http://www.brilliantdisaster.net/wiki/Overgame List of Exalted games being run.]

{{WW-Games}}

[[Category:Exalted]]

Exalted

2016-11-14T07:28:10Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:F0D5:ED98:F7E2:9E06: /* Return of Scarlet Empress */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Exalted
|picture = [[Image:EXALTEDlogo.gif|200px]]
|type = [[RPG]]
|publisher = [[White Wolf]]
|system = Modified [[Storyteller System]]
|authors = Geoffrey C. Grabowski, John Mørke, Holden Shearer, Robert Vance, Eric Minton
|year = 2001 (1st edition) 2006 (2nd edition) 2016 (3rd edition)
}}
[[Image:Sniper-guitar.jpg|right|thumb|The Performance ability meets the Firearms ability]]
'''Exalted''' is a role-playing game by White Wolf, Inc. currently gearing up for its third edition. It is well known for its epic scale, as far as story and mechanics, and allowing the players to participate in (and cause) epic events rather than simply being bystanders. A silly group can turn this into a Kill La Kill/Gurren Lagann crossover, a serious group can turn this into the Ramayana: Romance of the Three Kingdoms edition. Both options are awesome. Compare [[Legends of the Wulin]].

==Brief Summary==
Exalted is a game where one of your main antagonists is Death, Creator of the Underworld. Except there's several of him, probably six or seven. Oh, and he's got 13 dread henchmen, one of whom was probably you at some point in time. Also, Hell has a personal grudge against you this time.

Magical Rome/Persia/China regularly trains and sends ninja-monks out for you personally. Ninjas specially trained in asskicking. And if that doesn't work, they keep giant color-coded gundams and suits of power armor as backups.

The Transformers have united under [[Æonic Orb|Unicron]] (who has robo-AIDS), and are invading because they have a shortage of souls.

The Jedi Council has corrupted Heaven and usurped your rightful place as the Masters of Everything - but nobody can remember them. The only reason they haven't hunted you down is that they're too busy trying to keep reality from imploding.

Your ex-wife dropped by; she's a two thousand year old shapechanging man-eating monster, interested in maybe going on a date next Thursday for dinner, followed by breeding a new race capable of rewriting the biosphere.

Your best friend from growing up -and your last life- now seeks to cover all the lands of Middle Earth in darkness, if he can just find this damn ring.

Your god has the world's biggest crack habit, and needs some serious rehab.

And yet, in theory, you think you can fix everything!

Welcome to Creation, kid! Hope you've got enough Essence!

Have Fun.

==Backstory==
Here's a history of the setting of Exalted, which may answer a bunch of questions and put things into perspective all at once.

Once upon a time, in the formless twisting chaos of the Wyld, there appeared the [[Primordials]]. The Primordials are impossibly vast alien beings with multiple souls. Imagine if Cthulhu was the size of Asia and you could meet and hold conversations with his major organs, which had separate identities, and you kinda get the idea.

“The formless chaos that spawned us sucks,” said the Primordials. “Let's build someplace cool to live, rather than hang out here!”

And so they did. They made Creation, and nailed it down with the Elemental Poles of Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and <s>Heart</s> Wood.

“This place isn't going to maintain itself,” said the Primordials. “Let's make a bunch of servants to run the place for us! We'll give them intelligence, free will, and hopes and dreams, and then keep them as slaves for eternity! It'll be great!” And so they made the gods. Some gods, such as the Unconquered Sun, Luna, and the Maidens, were built to be exceedingly cool and do lots; others were built to do stuff like make sure individual shrubs grew properly.

“Huzzah!” said the Primordials. “We have people to do the dirty work of running the place for us! Let's spend half our time playing the impossibly awesome Games of Divinity, and the other half screwing with the lives of our lessers!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the gods, after moving the Elemental Pole of Fire back into place for 700th time after one of the Primordials went on a drinking binge and knocked it loose, causing untold thousands of deaths and nearly causing Creation to fall back into the Wyld. “We should kill those assholes and take their stuff.”

“Ha ha!” said the Primordials. “You can't kill us! When we built you, we programmed you so you could never attack us! Suck it!”

===Making of the Exalted===
So the Unconquered Sun, who is the God of Awesome, came up with a plan. “Let's take those little mortal humans down there and give them incredible power. Then we can have them kill the Primordials, and then we can get at their Games of Divinity and play them ourselves!” So they developed Exaltations, which are sort of like an additional component to the human soul that lets you do magic and super kung fu. Then they picked out the coolest people in Creation and instilled these Essence Shards in them.

“Are you planning on using those Exalted mortals to kill my asshole brothers and sister and take their stuff?” asked Autochthon, who was just about the only Primordial on the side of the gods, because most of the time it was his stuff that the other Primordials were breaking when they ran amok. Plus they made fun of him all the time.

“Um... no,” said the gods.

“Gee, that's too bad. I was gonna hook them up with ultimate weapons of Primordial-slaying destruction, but since you're not rebelling and all...”

“Oh, in that case, yes. Yes, we are.”

Meanwhile, Luna, gender changing (and shapeshifting) god/goddess of the moon, managed to sweet-talk his/her/their Primordial hippy sugar mama Gaia into not fighting during the rebellion. “I'll do that thing with my tongue,” Luna promised.

“We have granted you the power to be totally awesome!” said the gods to their Exalted. “Now, go kill those Primordial assholes!”

“Aww, isn't that cute,” said the Primordials. “Those little humans think they can OH SHIT THEY'RE STABBING ME OW OW OW!” Half of them died.

“Don't kill us!” said the other half.

“Now you have to be our slaves for forever, ha ha ha!” said the gods, and then sewed them all up inside the butt of the head Primordial, Malfeas. (Malfeas got turned inside-out and sewn into his own butt.)

“You guys suck,” said the dead Primordials to the Exalted. “We hereby curse you so that you'll all turn into assholes someday!”

“Whatever,” said the Exalted.

“Well, now that that's over,” said the Unconquered Sun, who had since declared himself King of All Cosmos, “Let's go play the Games of Divinity all day! You folks we Exalted, you guys can run the world. Make sure none of our lamer siblings start acting stupid. Make sure I get plenty of prayers coming my way. Other than that, have fun!”

“Hey, I feel kinda guilty for helping kill my brothers and sisters and enslaving the rest,” said Autochthon. “I'm going to leave Creation to go brood for a few thousand years.”

“Have fun!” said the gods (and their new Exalted buddies.)

So the Exalted – particularly the Solars – ran the world. Having been cool to begin with and then granted badassitude by the God of Awesome, they proceeded to do all sorts of cool stuff, like build magical cities out of glass, make mountains float, and ''breed dinosaurs who pissed heroin.'' YES, SERIOUSLY. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS IN EXALTED.

===The Usurpation and the Immaculate Order===
Eventually, though, the Solars got bored and jaded and full of themselves. “We killed the Primordials and made all this cool stuff. Everything we do must therefore be right. Let's run amok!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the Sidereals, whose job it is to make sure that the Loom of Fate, which is sort of the engine that runs Creation, doesn't crash. “At the rate they're going, they're gonna wreck Creation. Let's kill them and take their stuff!”

“Hey, we need your help,” the bronze faction Sidereals (lead by Chejop Kejak) said to the Dragon-Blooded, who were the least awesome and powerful but most numerous of the Exalted (cause theirs is heredity), who acted as lieutenants and aides and local governors and such. Secretaries, too. “Your asshole Solar bosses are gonna wreck the world. Can you help us kill them?”

“Figures they'd end up doing something like that. Sure, we'll help,” said the Dragon-Blooded.

“Come to our big dinner banquet!” said the Dragon-Blooded to the Solars. Then, when the Solars arrived, the bronze faction Sidreals blew the place up, and trapped the Solar's Essence Shards in a magic cage so that no more Solars could be created.

“Yay it worked! Now we'll erase all evidence of our existence and run the world from behind the scenes, while the Dragon-Blooded can do the dirty work!” said the Sidereals, thus proving themselves to be the only people in the setting with basic pattern recognition.

Meanwhile, the ghosts of the dead Primordials caught 13 of the dead Solar's ghosts on the way down into the Underworld. “Work for us,” they said, “and we'll give you incredible power, like what you had when you were alive!”

“What's the catch?” asked the ex-Solar ghosts.

“Well, you have to be our slaves and try to make everything, everywhere, die forever.”

“Deal! Let's get cracking!” And so were the Deathlords were created, super-powerful ghosts who want the world to die.

Back in Creation, the Dragon-Blooded had a conundrum.

"Hey, what the hell, guys?" The people said. "Those Solar and Lunar guys were fucking awesome! Why the hell did you kill them?"

"Um..." The Dragon-Blooded said as they came up with a solution. Eventually, one of them said, "...Because they were DEMONS possessing mortals! Yeah, that's the trick!" And so the Immaculate Order was invented, a religion that almost everyone in the Realm follows, which paints all Celestial Exalted as evil "Anathema", demons that possess awesome people and turn them into cunning evil monsters. Which, to be fair, is technically true. Wyld Hunts (think modern special forces with magitech in a mostly standard fantasy setting) are sent out to kill Celestials and keep the status quo all status quo-y.

===The Great Contagion and the Balorian Crusade===
So while the Dragon-Blooded were doing a fairly good (although not nearly as impressive as the Solars) job of running Creation, the Deathlords were building a doomsday plague.

“Taste the bitter poison mixed from the ashes of our hopes and the tears of betrayal in the dark pit of our tortured souls!” said the Deathlords, presumably while wearing too much eyeliner, and unleashed their doomsday plague into Creation.

“This sucks,” said 90% of the living beings in the world, and died. Including plants.

“Hey,” said the Deathlords to the Fair Folk, who were into that sort of thing, who lived in the Wyld outside of Creation and didn't like the idea of a place that didn't just change according to their thoughts. “Just about everyone in there's dead now. If you went in, ate the souls of the survivors, and tore the place down, no one could stop you!”

“Thanks for the heads up!” said the Fair Folk, and promptly invaded in force.

“This is bad,” said one of the surviving Dragon-Blooded to her friends. “Fortunately, I just remembered that there's a sealed-off control center for an ultimate magical doomsday weapon that the Solars made for defending Creation against exactly this sort of thing. Let's go on an epic world-saving quest to get in there!”

And so they went. On the way, they came across a shitton of Lunars fighting the Fair Folk.

"Oh shit, Anathema! Let's fight!" One said. The Lunars rolled their eyes and kept fighting.

Another one said to them, "Hey, if you cover us, we can stop this whole thing, and then we'll pretend we never met you and keep feeding Creation the cock-and-bull-story about you being demons!"

"Deal." The Lunars said. And they bought the Dragon-Blooded time to get to the Imperial Manse.

Most of them died trying to get past the defenses, but eventually, two Dragon-Blooded finally made it to the control panel.

“Please insert soul to activate this device,” said the control panel.

“What does that mean?” asked one, and then the other shoved her into the soul-extraction device.

And so this unnamed Dragon-Blooded, through an act of supreme badassness/[[Eldrad|dickery]], gained access to Creation's greatest magical weapons systems and used them to blow up the Fair Folk.

“I hereby declare myself the Scarlet Empress and ruler of the world,” she said.

“Nuh uh!” said some, until she blew them up. This brought lots more people over to her side, and thus was born the Realm, which is the major power in the world today.

Still, some said, “You were just a lieutenant who got lucky and stumbled across some doomsday weapons. We still have some doomsday weapons of our own, and we'll fight back!” The Scarlet Empress wanted to blow them up too, but a lot of her weapons didn't reach and she was kind of afraid of a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario, so, despite the occasional invasion attempt, they remained independent.

And so things went for over 750 years, until fairly recently, when the Scarlet Empress just up and disappeared. Having named no successor, the entire Realm is now leaderless and gearing up for civil war to see who's gonna be the next one of the Scarlet Throne. Right now, they've got this spineless bureaucrat warming the seat, but this guy is a total pussy who's basically being manipulated by whichever member of the shogunate is feeling power-hungry today. If you've seen Scrubs, imagine Ted with twenty-something Kelsos to suck up to.

Meanwhile, the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon discovered where the Sidereals has stashed their cage full of Solar shards. They told the Neverborn -the ghosts of their brothers and sister who said Solars killed- tantalizing them with the idea of the power of the tools that destroyed them. “Hey, we can twist those and use them to create our own invincible deathknights!” The Deathlords pointed out. "We'll tell you where it is, just give us, uh, 50 of them!" the Yozi promised, planning to reap the benefits if the plan succeeded and covering their asses if it didn't. “Deal, let's go get that cage!” Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for everyone else), half the Essence Shards got loose. Now, once again, there are Solar Exalted.

And that's where the game begins.

===Return of Scarlet Empress===
And this is how the game can possibly end.

"Oh man! This sucks," said the Scarlet Empress. "When I die whoever takes over is going to screw up everything I worked for! What am I going to do?" She then found out that if she wrote ''The-Broken-Wing-Crane'' (which is pretty much the Necronomicon) she'd be immortal. "Aight I finished the Necronomicon! Now I'm immortal!"

"Sucker!" Said the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon, as he dragged the Scarlet Empress off to Hell. There he brainwashed her [[/d/|with tentacles]] as his slave. He then said to the other Yozi "I've got a plan to get us out of here, any of you in?"

"Damn skippy!" said Malfeas.

"Affirmative," said She Who Lives In Her Name.

"Whatever," said Cecelyne.

"It's not like I've got anything better to do," said Adorjan.

The Ebon Dragon told his plan to his conspirators which amounts to: 'take the Akuma and Green Sun Princes to the four corners of Creation and fuck shit up!' Meanwhile Realm has a civil war, at least until the Scarlet Empress came back "I'm back and here to stay, Mhahahahahahahahahaha!" said the Scarlet Empress.

"Hmm, something's not right" said Chejop Kejak. So he called all the Sidereals together to try and assassinate her. It doesn't work and Chejop dies. Then back in Heaven Akuma, Green Sun Princes, and their Abyssal allies kill the Unconquered Sun (also possibly Luna and the five maidens.) Back in Hell the Ebon Dragon marries the Scarlet Empress breaking him out of Hell. "So long suckers!" he said betraying the Yozi.

"What a dick!" said the Yozis still in Hell and then proceeded to commit demon genocide.

Back on Creation the Apocalypse and Ragnarok are happening at the same time the Exalted gather a mighty armies to fight the forces of the Ebon Dragon in a mighty battle, And the Scarlet Empress dies of an incurable condition called a Daiklave to the chest. The Ebon Dragon is defeated, the day is saved, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except for the part where the Ebon Dragon is now in hiding unless, you killed him in that case he's now a Neverborn. Speaking of the Underworld there are a lot more ghosts in there for the Deathlords and Neverborn to take advantage of. Also more of Creation possibly was taken by the Wyld via the Fair Folk. and the fact the world is a much bigger mess and in more disarray then it was before. So Huzzah?

==Important Elements==
===Exalted===
====[[Solars|Solar Exalted]]====
[[Image:Chess-solar-exalted.jpg|thumb|right|Solar Exalted]]
The Solar's main themes are 'excellence' and 'rulership'. Solar Exalted were created by the Unconquered Sun, King of the Gods, to lead the other Exalted, and to rule the world. Most of their low-level powers are normal human abilities turned up to 11, like simply being impossibly good at sneaking, or fighting, or persuasion. Their high-power abilities are normal human abilities turned up to OVER NINE THOUSAAAAND!!! A mortal blacksmith can make a sword using iron and a hammer and forge--a Solar craftsman can take a heap of hematite, and ''wring'' a sword out of it with their bare hands, and it'll be a masterfully made one, too. A mortal can survive, at least for a little while, in a hostile environment, like a raging snowstorm. A Solar with the right Charms can survive being at the bottom of the ocean, or '''inside''' an erupting volcano. A mortal can use a sword to parry a sword-strike. A Solar can parry an angry Primordial hitting them with a mountain range. And so on.
Solars also excel at inspiring and persuading others. Or, to be less polite, only the Fair Folk come anywhere close to their skill at being [[Eldrad|dicks]].

====[[Lunars|Lunar Exalted]]====
Lunar Exalts are the chosen of Luna. After the Terrestrials murdered all the Solars, they then moved on to their second in command Lunar servants. Fortunately for the children of the moon, they had always been good with stealth and survival in the wilderness, unfortunately for them the Dragon Bloods were a very organized and driven genocidal force. The Lunars had no choice but to move into the borderlands between the Wyld and Creation and try to plan their resistance in secret. However the Wyld is not a nice place and the borderlands can mutate even Exalted with its touch. Thus three things have happened: The Lunars have taken to ritually tattooing themselves with moonsilver, the normal 5 caste system has been simplified into the Full Moon, No Moon, and Changing Moon castes, and almost all of them have acquired bestial traits either through their devotion to Luna or the Wyld mutations. Ergo Lunar Exalts are a race of [[furry]] demigods. But one should always remember what power the Exalted wield, telling a lion-man of the Full Moon to "yiff in hell" is almost always a horrible idea as he can rip you and thousands like you to pieces without even trying. The Lunars have the unique "Meerkat Steals The Spotlight Prana", which makes any Real Life conversation about Exalted eventually evolve into a discussion about Lunar Exalted, as, pre-3e, they were by far the most interesting Exalt (except maybe the Fair Folk, below).

====[[Sidereals|Sidereal Exalted]]====
The Sidereals are the Chosen of the Maidens. To cover up their role in the Usurpation they broke the universe a little, and now everyone keeps forgetting that they exist. If they want to be remembered, they can use Resplendent Destinies, but then people remember the Destiny and not the person. If a certain Destiny is inconvenient or widely hated, the Sidereal can drop it and use another. In other words, Sidereals are anonymous 4chan users, and Resplendent Destinies are tripcodes.

These guys are the Men in Black and the CIA of Exalted. They live and work in the coolest place evar (Heaven) and are sent on missions to make sure everything in Creation is Working as Intended, "by any means necessary". Not surprisingly, Siderals are notorious for being lying, cheating, backstabbing Magnificent Bastards by the people who can manage to remember them.

They are also more crazy, but less powerful than the Solar exalted, when fighting. A battle with a Sidereal can result in you turning into a mountain, your opponent turning into a river, and then the two of you doing battle with the concept of love as a weapon. Sidereal Martial Arts are the pinnacle of kung-fu, and instead of emulating facets of Creation, they make Creation a facet of the Martial Art. This lets them punch people so hard they turn into ducks (it makes marginally more sense in context). Sidereals are also the only Exalts capable of manipulating the Loom of Fate directly, and are tasked with making sure it doesn't break down.

====[[Abyssals|Abyssal Exalted]]====
By twisting the Solar Exalted Essences in a Monstrance of Celestial Portion, the Neverborn managed to create the Abyssal Exalted. Abyssal Exalted don't suffer from the Great Curse, but instead suffer if they act too nice to people. They are also kept on a short leash, since the dead Primordials aren't exactly pleased with the Exalted. Generally an Abyssal has two choices in life, be the grand villain or attempt to redeem themselves. Both suck for obvious reasons.

Abyssal Exalted charms are largely mirrors of Solar Charms with a darker aspect. As a general thing, where the Solar Exalted gain bonuses, the Abyssal Exalted force penalties on their foes. Their magical material is Soulsteel, the forged souls of ghosts who live in constant pain (and moan and stuff too). They generally fall into one of a few categories; Emo dicks, giggling psychotic mass murderers, devoid of all redeeming qualities, and CRAAAAAAAWLING IIIIIIIIIIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIN. There is a part of their soul that is still a Solar and it keeps reminding them of all the bad shit they do, and lots of them use it to be even more emo.

Fortunately, if they run into their Lunar Bondmate, they don't HAVE to suffer if they act too nice to him/her/it and/or those around him/her/it, and if they DO get to the "redemption" stage (BIIIIIG if), they don't have to worry about that pesky Great Curse anymore.

Unless, of course, their player took a look at the way that the Abyssals' development paths basically boil down to either 'devoted slave of the biggest dicks in existence' (which not everyone really wants to be) or 'the Abyssal whose one goal in life is to stop being an Abyssal' (which kind of misses the point) and said, "Fuck that noise, I'm going to be the biggest baddest ass in the underworld and the most horrifying thing in existence, no-one's going to tell me what to do, and it's going to be freaking AWESOME and metal and shit!" and proceeded to rewrite the rules until they could do just that.

====[[Dragon-Blooded|Terrestrial Exalted]]====
Terrestrials, also known as Dragon-Blooded, have a fitting name. They are the Exalts of the Five Elemental Dragons, souls of the Primordial Gaia. This gives them the ability to kill stuff with fire or their personal equivalent.

Since Terrestrials are the current bosses in Creation (with some secret aid from the Sidereals), their empire is the biggest single nation in the world and their state religion proclaims them to officially be the Best Thing Ever, they can freely go around and strut their stuff without being decried as Anathema, a term they invented themselves so that no other Exalts could strut their stuff. This in turn has a tendency to cause them to be enormous assholes. Also, when they use their magic a lot, they are liable to start burning or cause storms or other stuff that's less than safe for innocent bystanders.

The Terrestrials are soldiers. Like, all of them. They lean towards hierarchy, and even if not all of them fight, all of them could, and probably would if they were asked, contribute to a war effort. And the Realm is pretty much always at war in some area. Funny how that turns out.

Life in Dragon-Blooded society is competitive and merciless. To prepare for this, their training as soldiers and politicians starts as soon as they can speak and is so brutal that many don't survive to maturity even without considering the occasional assassination attempt. The end product is sort of a Sidereal-lite flavour of badass, particularly the ones that decide to become <strike>Shaolin</strike> Immaculate monks.

Terrestrials take strength in numbers, and since their Exaltation is the only one that is inherited (Dragon-''Blooded'', remember?), family is very important to them. From this follows that the production of new family is also very important to them, so if a Terrestrial isn't trying to kill you, he's probably trying to sleep with you. Even if he's gay.

====[[Alchemicals|Alchemical Exalted]]====
Basically <strike>robots</strike>Autobots. They work for Autochthon, also called The Great Maker, who is one of the last free Primordials and has a bunch of people living in cities built inside of him. He's got Primordial robot cancer that's called Gremlin Syndrome, The setting is half "Void tainted"(no relation to the Underworld) or infected by Gremlin Syndrome, and the other half varies between Steampunk to Cyberpunk. (Void-tainted Alchemicals are called Apostates, but they're only really comparable to Decepticons if all Decepticons, ever, eventually go into gleeful rampages of slaughter) As Alchemicals get more powerful, they get more and more like giant, inhuman robots until they turn into living cities.

Alchemicals are the only Exalted who require a soul that has demonstrated heroics worthy of Exaltation in many past lives. Given what's required to become one. Aside from that, then it could be worth noticing that Autochthon, being the guy who invented Exaltation, essentially made Alchemicals as prototypes for all the other Exaltations. Orichalcum Alchemicals for Solars, Moonsilver for Lunars and so on. <strike>Even Abyssal Exalted are covered by the Soulsteel Caste, making you wonder if he anticipated death-themed Exaltations...</strike> Retconned in Second Edition, Abyssals weren't planned for and resonate with both Orichalcum and Soulsteel, but the question remains for ''what'' Autocthon planned to do with them, as well as Adamant Alchemicals that do not fit anywhere, and the later Infernal Exalted don't match any Alchemicals either. On the other hand, said Infernals resonate with ALL of the Alchemical Castes - whether it's because they're proto-Primordials or SCIENCE!/MAGIC!/EXALTED! is up for debate.

====[[Infernals|Infernal Exalted]]====
The result of the Yozi's deal with the Neverborn to steal them some Solar Exaltations, the Infernal Exalts are tasked with turning Creation into Hell so that the Yozi can escape their prison. This is easier said than done because, like their Abyssal cousins, literally every other faction in existence thinks this is a terrible idea. Infernal charms are actually their Yozi's charms, and thus follow strict thematic grouping. When an Infernal develops a custom charm their Yozi learns it as well, which allows individual Infernals to change their Yozi over time. They are also slowly becoming Yozis in their own right over time, though they have the potential to be far more awesome Primordials than the original Primordials ever were.

Infernal Exalted is a collective term used to refer to two types; Akuma and Green Sun Princes. Akuma are the result of the classic Faustian bargain, selling their soul and free will for unstoppable power. Green Sun Princes get the same powers, except they still have the option of flipping the bird at this whole Reclamation thing and running off to get coked out of their minds, and since Akuma don't have free will you'll usually be playing as the latter.

[[That Guy|Some people]] will try to tell you that if you try to play an Infernal who is also a fundamentally decent character, you are [[Matt Ward|doing it wrong.]] Those people are idiots. No one says you have to put '''heroes''' in an elaborate death trap, explain your plans to them at length, and then leave with a hearty evil laugh to bleed off Torment. The head of a major crime syndicate works just as well.
Additionally, the potential to become an Über-primordial means that slipping the leash and gaining 'redemption' places you in the position of absolute power. You can become Armageddon, destroyer of all, Genesis, creator of worlds, or Über Gaia, mother/father/progenitor of everything. Dickhead, dispassionate weeder, or eternally-loving-and-benevolent Cthulu, those monikers become meaningless when you can make your ''soul/imagination'' a REALITY IN OF ITSELF.

Seriously though, check with your storyteller first. The [[fluff]] for these guys is positively ''fucked'' from being written by two different teams of dudes that had ''zero'' contact with each other and very different ideas of what to do with the archetype. Naturally, that means that DMs are divided into armed, angry camps over the "[[skub|right]]" way to play/run an Infernal campaign, and if he wants to use them one way, then let him use them that way. It might be in your best interests to pick one of the more traditionally "heroic" kinds of Exalt if he wants them to be child-raping murderers rather than screwed-up dudes with many possible motivations and flaws. And even if he ''does'' let you run the way you want, nobody likes the guy who [[Drizzt|won't stop whining about]] [[Vampire: The Masquerade|how hard it is to be misunderstood]] all the time. Remember: being an Infernal is fun. It feels good. It's like being the centerpiece of a heavy metal album cover, whether you're trying to be a hero or not.

====[[Chernozem|Liminal Exalted]]====
We don't know much about these ones. They've gotten scattered mentions in the second-to-last book of second edition, have some sort of interest in body parts, and are tied to the lands of the dead. They're also called "Chernozem", chosen of the black earth. Their Aspects apparently include Blood, Marrow, Flesh, Breath and Soil.

They are on a quest to learn about their Humanity.

And we're going to keep on waiting, since a new edition just got announced and it'll probably be years before they receive an official sourcebook.

Based on tentative things released with the Kickstarter, Liminals are the result of people trying to use rituals to bring back the dead (something impossible in Exalted). The Dark Mother, a strange being who lives somewhere in the Underworld meets the conductor of the ritual halfway and instead creates a whole new soul inside the corpse, which is the Exalt. Liminal Exalts are tasked by her with keeping restless spirits bound and down, but can give her the finger and do their own damn thing (unlike Abyssals). They can collect and replace body parts to modify their skills, taking the legs of a legendary dancer, the arm of a swordsman, or the tongue of a master storyteller and making these abilities their own. Additionally, as long as a Liminal's brain is intact and they can access most of their original body's matter, they can recover from any injury.

====[[Getimian Exalted]]====
Apparently at some point a Sidereal looked up from his endless paperwork, realized saving the fundaments of reality every day was something that just wasn't going to end, and said WELL FUCK THAT and wandered off. He then proceeded to--in ascending order of badassitude, and perhaps sequentially--quit his job, declare war on heaven, and then recruit an entire type of Exalted to help, and they now regard him as their collective boss. They have some sort of crazy internal alchemy and have a miniature version of the machine that keeps reality running inside each one, thanks to ''colonies of pattern spiders that live in their spines.'' [[Drow]], eat your hearts out.

And like the Liminals, that's about all we know until their hardback comes out.

====[[Exigents]]====

Discount Exalted. Basically, every god has the capacity to carve out some of their own power and then give it to a mortal as a permanent upgrade. This would probably result in all humanity being Exalted in short order given how literally every blade of grass has a god and everyone wants their own action figure, were it not for the Law of Diminishment-if you're going to make something that's going to be great and perhaps eternal, you have to permanently give it some of your own power. Hell, the first time the Sun set was when he made the Solars, and that was just stamping his name on the things Autocthon already made! This is often more than what lesser gods can take and what greater gods, being dicks, are willing to give up, hence why they're saved for emergencies. Once that happens though, they each get a custom Charmset, for a personal style of kicking ass.

And you guessed it, that's all we're gonna know until the hardback.

===Gods===
Creations of the Primordials. The Gods were meant to maintain Creation while their masters played the Games of Divinity. That didn't turn out so good.
====Celestial Incarnae====
These are the strongest deities in the setting by dint of their celestial nature, and led the other Gods into rebellion against the Primordials. They don't do much now except rubber stamp paperwork and maybe say hi to new Exalts every now and then, being utterly addicted to the [[World of Warcraft|Games of Divinity.]]
=====The Unconquered Sun=====
The Unconquered Sun, Ignis Divine, king of kings, lord of Yu-Shan and Chief God of War, is the greatest of the gods in Exalted, he is the God of Perfection. He is usually depicted as a shining four-armed warrior bearing in each hand a symbol of the virtues he exalts: a shield for temperance, a spear for valor, a branch for compassion, and a horn for conviction. The Solar Exalted are his Chosen, and he is the chief deity of the Dragon Kings. He's actually a pretty cool guy who has to make an effort to repress being compassionate, temperate, holding to his convictions, or being valorous. What that adds up to is a god who will always protect the innocent, never back down from a challenge, and will always hold true to his convictions...Or at least that used to be the case. Now he's just as addicted to the GoD like all the other Incarnae, and has become just as detached from Creation as the Primordials he overthrew. The burnout from being ranked ten in every virtue isn't helping. He's actually SO powerful that his shadow is, in and of itself, a god.
Has a specialty in 'riding' Luna and Gaia, although the girls he keeps trying to marry are the Five Maidens.

=====Luna=====
Luna is either intensely cunning or utterly mad, or perhaps both. Some say she is a Fair Folk noble. Like the Wyld, she is malleable able to take whatever form pleases her. The Lunar Exalted are her Chosen, and she is Gaia's lover (but so is just about everyone else).

Luna is a shapeshifter, which explains the Lunars' entire shtick, but doesn't have any limits on what she can turn into. Gender isn't a thing for Luna and it's not unheard of for Luna to be portrayed as a guy (protip. if you have a portrait of the Incarna and there's a silver-haired dude, that her). Out of all the incarnae, Luna is the least affected by the games and she actually takes the time to visit each Lunar as they exalt. Luna doesn't have a true form but her most common forms include but are not limited to a bow wielding huntress, a male traveler dressed entirely in white, a pregnant woman, a pregnant man, a sorceress with a tiara that keeps the Terrifying Secrets Gods Were Not Meant To Know from destroying her mind, and a knife wielding, half naked, wild woman that is apparently the greatest predator in creation.

In order to create Luna they had to stuff all the other moon gods in the Jar of Things that Can Not Exists and have them fight to the death. What popped out was Luna who promptly decided to whisper sweet nothings to UC and seduce Gaia.

=====The Five Maidens=====
Originally created to service the Loom of Fate, these Five Maidens are likely most enigmatic of the Incarnae. The Five Maidens are, together, second in power only to the Unconquered Sun and about equal to Luna. Their Chosen are the Sidereal Exalted, champions and guardians of fate. Okay people, mostly, though they keep running into... problems. For instance, actually ''using'' their powers to look into the future locks it in immutably into place, for good or ill, so they don't like doing it. 

The Five Maidens are:
* Mercury, the Maiden of Journeys
* Venus, the Maiden of Serenity
* Mars, the Maiden of Battles
* Jupiter, the Maiden of Secrets
* Saturn, the Maiden of Endings

====Celestial Gods====
Also known as the Celestial Bureaucracy, they are, surprise surprise, the bureaucrats of Heaven. They fill out paperwork, kiss up to their bosses after work and try to avoid anything that resembles real work. They are assigned to Departments that manage Creation-wide phenomena, such as Dreams, Fate, Weather and Mammals. They avoid the Sidereals as much as possible.

====Terrestrial Gods====
Like the name says, they live in Creation. For various reasons, they loathe the Celestial Bureaucracy. Their purview (and power) is more limited than the Celestial gods, such as a city or a specific type of tree. Their proximity to mortals means that they're the gods most likely to bully them, but also the ones most likely to cut a deal with.

====Elementals====
Elementals are terrestrial spirits devoted to ensuring a small, local purview functions properly. They are also arranged into the Elemental Courts. There are five categories of Elementals (Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Wood) and numerous subdivisions there in. While numerous, each Elemental is a unique sentient being and has its place in Fate. Most Elemental beings are noticeably drawn from Earth mythology. (e.g. dragons, thunderbirds, ifrit).

====Little Gods====
Little Gods are the barely-aware deities of common objects. They interact with other little gods behind the scenes and generally ensure that things work properly. For example, a lumberjack goes to fell a tree: The axe's little god informs the tree's little god that it should probably fall down now. Usually it will, and the Loom of Fate makes a note of the fact and everything continues on its merry way. Other times, the tree doesn't fall (or fall in the right direction, or falls, say, purple) and the Bureau of Destiny might dispatch a Sidereal to figure out what the problem is.

===[[Primordials]]===
The Primordials made Creation from the infinite possibility of the Wyld. They are beings beyond measure, and composed of many subsidiary souls. They are defined by their Third Circle souls, and most importantly by their Fetich Soul (though it might be that they define their souls). During the Primordial War, those who lost all of their Third Circle souls died and became the Neverborn, while those who survived with some intact became the Yozis.

====Neverborn====
Slain during the Primordial war, they fell through the fabric of Creation and left Shadowlands in their wake. As they conceived of a state of 'not being', Oblivion was born. Similarly, their unconscious thoughts created the Underworld, now more static and unchanging to fit their ideals. Like all ghosts, the Neverborn have fetters to Creation and were unable to truly fall into Oblivion. In fact, as they created the world, they have the strongest fetters of all undead. They realized that the only way to achieve their goal of true death was to destroy their fetters, all of Creation. At first, they were more fearful of the Exalted than anything and half-asleep besides the fact. When the Black Nadir Concordat intruded into their tomb-cities and stole the secrets of Necromancy, they were roused to wakefulness and incredibly angry. Though dead, the Neverborn are still incredibly powerful and command hosts of Abyssal Exalts, Deathlords, Hekatonkhires, and Spectres.

Remember Tolkien's description of Sauron's fate at the end of Lord of the Rings? That's the Neverborn. The tragedy isn't that they're "dead", because beings that huge can't actually die - the very concept of Death is beyond them since they didn't build Creation to ''handle'' them dying. The tragedy is that they're so obsessed with something they've already lost that they can't look past it. They're all caught in a permanent, inescapable angst-loop, and if any of them could just sit up and notice they could abandon their forms and go back to the Wyld. But instead, they sit and spiral further into their "we got our asses handed to us and now our favorite toy is gone" drain-circling, and the psychic emanation of their collective regret has created an entire Underworld for similarly-resonant souls to live out their own miserable pathos.

Unlike the Yozi, and unlike the truly Dead, the Neverborn are simply incapable of noticing anything that might free them from their eternity of navel-gazing. They have nothing left but self-hatred, and the desire to see everything else wind up even more screwed than they were.

No wonder the Ebon Dragon likes them so much.

====Yozis====
Those Primordials who survived the Primordial War were shoved inside the butt of their General/King, Malfeas (who was turned inside out and shoved into his own butt!). They then swore many oaths, some known only to the Unconquered Sun, for they are engraved into the haft of the Orichalcum spear he wields. The Yozis feel nothing but anger for their betrayal and diminution at the hands of the Exalted and the Gods, and plot to return the favour. The Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon (the Primordial responsible for the concept of Opposition: he created honesty so he could be dishonest, loyalty so he could be treacherous, and virtue so he could be its antithesis. In order to talk to you he has to turn himself into exactly what you personally most despise and fear. Not a nice guy!) has been tasked by his peers to find a way to escape from their prison. Which has been going roughly as well as you might expect.( dude, he's the embodiment of assholery. You really gonna trust this fucker?) An unknown number of Yozi Cults also flourish in Creation, aiming to learn demonic practices and perhaps ultimately bring the true masters of Creation back to their world.

It's worth noting that those oaths mean that unlike the Neverborn, the Yozis can't act too openly to fuck up Creation, else they get called before the Incarnae to account for their actions. What happens next is likely... unpleasant.

=====Akumas=====
An Akuma is a mortal or Exalt who has been granted [[Daemon Prince|a measure of power by an Yozi, but essentially becomes a puppet of that Primordial, devoid of free will]]. While this sounds like a horrible trade, the Yozi are very convincing even when they ''aren't'' just lying about it and some people are incredibly power-hungry. The first Akuma was a Solar Exalted, and the Yozi eagerly seek to turn more Exalted into Akuma. The Green Sun Princes (read: Infernal Exalted), the 50 Solar Shards altered by the Yozis, are not Akuma, though there are enough similarities that the two frequently get confused.

=====Demons=====
The lower souls of the Yozis are called Demons now. Thanks to the terms of the Yozis' surrender, they can be summoned into Creation and ordered around. This is difficult for mortal occultists, since Demons can be very willful, but prepared Exalted sorcerers usually don't have too much of a problem with this. There are specific astrological condition required. For example, the strongest ones, Third Circle Demons, can only be summoned during a five day window called Calibration once a year. First Circle Demons are numerous and interchangeable, while Second and Third Circle Demons are unique.

Demons aren't, unlike [[tanar'ri|the D&D version]], ''naturally'' depraved and evil. They are, however, the products of a nightmarish culture created, ruled by, and located inside of a number of beings that are almost as unnecessarily assholish as they are bugfuck nuts. They may be capable of moral choice like humans, but that doesn't automatically made them good people either. Unless you're a Sidereal with the charm that lets you essentially put them into the Witness Protection Program for services rendered, tread lightly.

====[[Primordials]] (Who aren't dead or imprisoned)====
=====Autochthon=====
Autochthon was the Primordial who created much of the technology and industry of Creation. Including the Loom of Fate that enforces causality in creation. He was not well regarded or well-treated by his peers and resented them greatly. During the Primordial War, he sided with the Gods and helped arm their Exalted. After the War, when asked to put a geas on his Mountain Folk, he worried the Exalted would turn on him next. Gathering up his loyal followers he departed Creation for Elsewhere, sealing the way behind him with the Seal of Eight Divinities.

=====Gaia=====
Gaia sat the war out, thanks to Luna's insistence. The Five Elemental Dragons are her creations, as of third edition it is unclear if they are her subsouls or just spirits she made. She is not often spoken of, and seems to have no agenda beyond leaving most of herself behind in heaven and then running around the wyld looking for 'answers'.

===Others===
====Jadeborn====
The [[Dwarves]] of the Exalted setting, also called the mountain folk (because they live in mountains). They are divided into three castes, the Artisans, the Workers, and the Warriors. The Artisans are the leaders while the workers work and supply the Warriors who are in a constant fight against the Darkbrood. They were originally created by Autochthon when he found some of the Rakasha trapped in blocks of Jade. He then formed them into the first Jadeborn. Eventually they evolved into a caste system with some of the workers and warriors having an exalted like tendency called enlightenment. The Jadeborn provided many of the wonders of the first age and had such technology that they were cursed by the unconquered sun to never roam the surface of Creation without being lead by a member of the exalted. Jadeborn Charms come in four Patterns: Foundation, Artisan, Worker, and Warrior.

====Dragon Kings====
The Dragon Kings are large lizard-like beings of great power, resembling dinosaurs. The Dragon Kings are sworn in allegiance to the Unconquered Sun, their creator. Before the time of the Exalted, the Dragon Kings ruled Creation and the mortals who dwelt there, but as the methods of Exaltation were crafted and improved they become obsolete in the gods' eyes. Think inca and aztec style biped dinuars. The Unconquered Sun used them as powerful servants to his chosen whom they served faithfully, honoring their Exalted brethren. After the First Age ended in war and disease, few survived. Their numbers grow slowly but steadily in the Second Age, though the once great Dragon Kings remain hidden in the furthest corners of Creation. Their most powerful stronghold would be the Aztec-flavoured Rathess, an ancient home filled with a variety of powerful artifacts made by the Dragon Kings in the glory days of the First Age. There are four types of Dragon Kings, each living in a direction of Creation; the graceful flying Pterok (North), the nimble and lithe Raptok (East), the powerful and loyal Anklok (South), and the clever amphibious Mosok (West).

====Fair Folk====
The Fair Folk are creatures composed of raw Essence, and inhabit the Wyld – the place that exists between the ordered Creation and pure Chaos. Inhuman and beautiful beings born from chaos, they feed on the dreams and aspirations of the inhabitants of Creation in order to give them strength and form in their own intermediate realm. (In other words, they EAT PEOPLE'S SOULS.) In essence, they are the "kissing cousins" of the Primordials; their territory having been pushed back when the Primordials formed Creation. They prey upon the dreams of mortals and do a brisk trade with the Guild (a powerful economic organization in Creation) in slaves... well, the souls of slaves.

The Raksha are divided into four castes: Diplomats, who favor the Staff Grace and the virtue of Conviction; Entertainers, who favor the Cup Grace and the virtue of Compassion; Warriors, who favor the Sword Grace and the virtue of Valor, and Workers, who favor the Ring Grace and the virtue of Temperance. Noble Raksha belong to two of the four castes, favoring the graces and virtues of both. There is also a fifth Grace, the Heart Grace, which is associated with identity and the trait of Willpower. Graces are differing outlets for the use of Essence and are similar to the suits of tarot. The most powerful of the Fair Folk are the Unshaped. Unlike the Raksha, the Unshaped are unable to survive within Creation for extended periods of time, each Unshaped is actually a symbiotic cluster of Fair Folk consisting of a single "guiding intelligence" and one or more "subsidiary intelligences" with no true form.

Being born from a place of fluid reality that resembles a Loony Tunes skit as much as it does creation, fair folk have difficulty functioning like "real" people. For one thing they suffer from "calcification", their natural unshaped forms are incompatible with creation's stagnant, static existence. Even when they take on a semi-real shape (as a Rakasha) they bleed essence while in creation and must feed on dreams and souls to keep themselves alive. Secondly a fair folk's emotions and virtues are entirely artificial, represented by their graces. When their phony identities break down they suffer from 'Bedlam'. This can have effects such as losing the ability to comprehend that other people aren't just figments of his imagination (conviction) or forgetting that he is capable of inflicting harm on others (valor).

====Ghosts====
Ever since the Neverborn's death broke the cycle of reincarnation, those who die with their business unfinished turn up as Ghosts in the Underworld. Ghosts have access to what they were buried/burned with (their grave goods) and are able to channel essence and learn ghost charms, called Arcanoi. Ghosts who settle their business can pass into Lethe as they should have and reincarnate. Those who give into the Whispers of Oblivion (usually by wandering the Labyrinth) turn into crazed Spectres intent on spreading the word of Oblivion by force. Their third option is to toss themselves into the Mouth of Oblivion and utterly cease to exist.

=====Deathlords=====
Ghosts of 13 First Age Solars who died during the Usurpation, they took the Neverborn's offer of real, ultimate power in exchange for promising to drop all of Creation into Oblivion. They are rather bitter and psychologically maladjusted from the Usurpation. Each one is pretty unique in their psychosis and plots. Some are making more headway than others. The Dowager's Great Contagion managed to kill 90% of all life in Creation, while the Mask of Winters has captured Thorns. Others have suffered rather embarrassing setbacks, and are dealt with harshly by their Neverborn masters. As may be expected, they like to fight and argue with each other a lot, which makes even some of their greatest successes a comedy of errors. The Great Contagion, as previously mentioned? Yeah, the only reason it only killed most of all life in Creation was because two other Deathlords, The Eye and Seven Despairs and The First and Forsaken Lion, went out and invited the fair folk to invade Creation, which ended up uniting all of Creation against a common cause, and gave the world the strength and focus to endure the plague, plus it screwed enough with creation's reality that the plague stopped working right. The other thing that seems to get in the way them succeeding are, ironically, the Neverborn themselves. As they Neverborn hate the state they are in, they hate it when the Deathlords don't preform to total perfection and brutally punish them for it. The First and Forsaken Lion, for example, is actually waiting to come up with a plan because he wants to be sure the plan will work out of fear it might not and getting punished like when he displeased the Neverborn in the past.

=====Hekatonkhires=====
These are ghosts of Behemoths or the Neverborn's Third Circle Souls. Occasionally the Neverborn's thoughts birth a new one. Hekatonkhires are unique and very powerful beings. Imagine undead Cthulhu's zombie kidneys, as a roaming monster.

====Mortals====
[[Image:Mortals_in_exalted.jpg|thumb|right]]
Everyone else. Mortals are unable to channel essence and thus are at a severe disadvantage. While Exalted is largely a cinematic and epic game, it is grim and gritty for Mortals. Their only real advantage is numbers. The most prominent mortals, Humans, were created by the Primordials to provide prayer (and the subsequent ambrosia and quintessence) in Yu-Shan, and nearly all Exalted are of Human stock. There are sub races of humans however some for instance are products of first age bioengineering such as the Air folk who can glide through the air on wings.

==System==
The basic mechanic is a modified [[Storyteller System]]. Pools of d10s are rolled; 7,8,9 count as one success, 10 counts as two successes. Successes are scaled against target numbers at a set difficulty against non PCs/NPCs. If no successes are rolled and at least one die comes up with a 1, then the roll is a botch (catastrophe ensues).

There are a few exceptions to these rules of success, however. Some Fate-based or Shaping-based effects can reduce the number needed to get a single success from a die. These won't come up unless you pull out the relevant splatbook, though.

'''Stunting''': A way to mechanically allow players to use Rule of Cool as a game mechanic. How does it work? A player describes how their PC does an action. Depending on the degree of description, a 1 to 3 dice bonus is given to the roll. (1 dice bonus is incredibly common, 3 dice bonuses almost never given).

*+1 Bonus - Make an effort, try to do something cool. Be brief.
*+2 Bonus - Make a cool description that fleshes out the scenery a bit. Be brief.
*+3 Bonus - Make everyone at the table say you're awesome at describing things. Be brief.

Did we mention that you should be brief? Well, you should.

Stunts can pretty much be done on any action, and don't necessarily have to follow the laws of physics. A good example of an athletics stunt would be the wallrunning in Prince of Persia games, while a combo in a fighting game might be a good example of a flurry stunt. But above all, make it short, snappy, and keep the flow of the game going.

Just if you're curious - The reason why they hand out bonus dice is two fold - Firstly, newly made characters tend to be a bit handicapped, being baller at the things they were made to do and pretty much not at the other stuff. So, stunting gives new characters the chance to succeed at almost anything as long as the player thinks of a pretty cool way to do it, and it teaches new players that as long as you make it feel cool your character can do ''anything''. Secondly, prior to Second Edition, the way multiple actions were handled was by splitting dice pools, so you needed to succeed at two different (generally fairly hard) tasks with half the dice you would otherwise. Stunting helped offset that, offering you the chance to succeed at complicated things that you otherwise wouldn't be able to just because they were epic. Second Edition works a little differently, applying flat penalties to your dice pools based on the number of actions you're taking, (take two actions, first action's on -2 and second is -3; three actions, -3, -4, -5, and so on) but stunts still help to offset that somewhat.

It's a kickass system all told, that helps to bridge between the role playing and the crunch, with a real benefit for staying in character while you splat things. It takes a lot of heat off the ST to make the dice rolling seem interesting because the characters are always trying (maybe not always succeeding) to be cool, so the ST doesn't have to come up with a million different ways to say 'you punch a guy and he falls down'.

Stunts also have rewards besides dice, namely motes and Willpower; a stunt is worth twice its die value in motes, or you can take a point of Willpower for a two- or three-die stunt. Generally, (there are exceptions) motes fuel magic stuff, while Willpower fuels more mundane stuff. (meaning things that anyone can do) Running out of either one can be a death sentence, even in Exalted 2.5; stunts help keep that from happening.

Eariler editions suffered tremendously from problems of [[Linear Build Quadratic EXP]], and the character-creation system was often mockingly regarded as a Byzantine "mini-game" in and of itself. Third edition conspicuously refused to fix the problem (with one of the devs infamously imperiously declaring, and this is a direct quote, [https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?768985-Exalted-Why-is-Everyone-Praising-3e&p=19548177#post19548177| "We have a policy not to give people bad rules just because they think they want them."] [[Troll| Holy shit.]]

Fortunately, while the problem's still ''there'', a number of core gameplay and pricing tweaks have at least made the problem less severe.

==See Also==
*[[Exalted/Custom|Errata and fan-made rules]]
*[[Exalted/Exalted 2nd Edition Character Sheet Template|Blank Wikified Character Sheet]]
*[[Mystic Empyrean]], a game with similarly epic-powered player characters.

==External Links==
*[http://rathess.xi.co.nz/exalted/index.php/Main_Page Archive of the old official wiki]
*[http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/wiki.pl Unofficial Exalted wiki], mostly 1e stuff
*[http://www.brilliantdisaster.net/wiki/Overgame List of Exalted games being run.]

{{WW-Games}}

[[Category:Exalted]]

Exalted

2016-11-14T07:27:22Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:F0D5:ED98:F7E2:9E06: /* The Great Contagion and the Balorian Crusade */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Exalted
|picture = [[Image:EXALTEDlogo.gif|200px]]
|type = [[RPG]]
|publisher = [[White Wolf]]
|system = Modified [[Storyteller System]]
|authors = Geoffrey C. Grabowski, John Mørke, Holden Shearer, Robert Vance, Eric Minton
|year = 2001 (1st edition) 2006 (2nd edition) 2016 (3rd edition)
}}
[[Image:Sniper-guitar.jpg|right|thumb|The Performance ability meets the Firearms ability]]
'''Exalted''' is a role-playing game by White Wolf, Inc. currently gearing up for its third edition. It is well known for its epic scale, as far as story and mechanics, and allowing the players to participate in (and cause) epic events rather than simply being bystanders. A silly group can turn this into a Kill La Kill/Gurren Lagann crossover, a serious group can turn this into the Ramayana: Romance of the Three Kingdoms edition. Both options are awesome. Compare [[Legends of the Wulin]].

==Brief Summary==
Exalted is a game where one of your main antagonists is Death, Creator of the Underworld. Except there's several of him, probably six or seven. Oh, and he's got 13 dread henchmen, one of whom was probably you at some point in time. Also, Hell has a personal grudge against you this time.

Magical Rome/Persia/China regularly trains and sends ninja-monks out for you personally. Ninjas specially trained in asskicking. And if that doesn't work, they keep giant color-coded gundams and suits of power armor as backups.

The Transformers have united under [[Æonic Orb|Unicron]] (who has robo-AIDS), and are invading because they have a shortage of souls.

The Jedi Council has corrupted Heaven and usurped your rightful place as the Masters of Everything - but nobody can remember them. The only reason they haven't hunted you down is that they're too busy trying to keep reality from imploding.

Your ex-wife dropped by; she's a two thousand year old shapechanging man-eating monster, interested in maybe going on a date next Thursday for dinner, followed by breeding a new race capable of rewriting the biosphere.

Your best friend from growing up -and your last life- now seeks to cover all the lands of Middle Earth in darkness, if he can just find this damn ring.

Your god has the world's biggest crack habit, and needs some serious rehab.

And yet, in theory, you think you can fix everything!

Welcome to Creation, kid! Hope you've got enough Essence!

Have Fun.

==Backstory==
Here's a history of the setting of Exalted, which may answer a bunch of questions and put things into perspective all at once.

Once upon a time, in the formless twisting chaos of the Wyld, there appeared the [[Primordials]]. The Primordials are impossibly vast alien beings with multiple souls. Imagine if Cthulhu was the size of Asia and you could meet and hold conversations with his major organs, which had separate identities, and you kinda get the idea.

“The formless chaos that spawned us sucks,” said the Primordials. “Let's build someplace cool to live, rather than hang out here!”

And so they did. They made Creation, and nailed it down with the Elemental Poles of Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and <s>Heart</s> Wood.

“This place isn't going to maintain itself,” said the Primordials. “Let's make a bunch of servants to run the place for us! We'll give them intelligence, free will, and hopes and dreams, and then keep them as slaves for eternity! It'll be great!” And so they made the gods. Some gods, such as the Unconquered Sun, Luna, and the Maidens, were built to be exceedingly cool and do lots; others were built to do stuff like make sure individual shrubs grew properly.

“Huzzah!” said the Primordials. “We have people to do the dirty work of running the place for us! Let's spend half our time playing the impossibly awesome Games of Divinity, and the other half screwing with the lives of our lessers!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the gods, after moving the Elemental Pole of Fire back into place for 700th time after one of the Primordials went on a drinking binge and knocked it loose, causing untold thousands of deaths and nearly causing Creation to fall back into the Wyld. “We should kill those assholes and take their stuff.”

“Ha ha!” said the Primordials. “You can't kill us! When we built you, we programmed you so you could never attack us! Suck it!”

===Making of the Exalted===
So the Unconquered Sun, who is the God of Awesome, came up with a plan. “Let's take those little mortal humans down there and give them incredible power. Then we can have them kill the Primordials, and then we can get at their Games of Divinity and play them ourselves!” So they developed Exaltations, which are sort of like an additional component to the human soul that lets you do magic and super kung fu. Then they picked out the coolest people in Creation and instilled these Essence Shards in them.

“Are you planning on using those Exalted mortals to kill my asshole brothers and sister and take their stuff?” asked Autochthon, who was just about the only Primordial on the side of the gods, because most of the time it was his stuff that the other Primordials were breaking when they ran amok. Plus they made fun of him all the time.

“Um... no,” said the gods.

“Gee, that's too bad. I was gonna hook them up with ultimate weapons of Primordial-slaying destruction, but since you're not rebelling and all...”

“Oh, in that case, yes. Yes, we are.”

Meanwhile, Luna, gender changing (and shapeshifting) god/goddess of the moon, managed to sweet-talk his/her/their Primordial hippy sugar mama Gaia into not fighting during the rebellion. “I'll do that thing with my tongue,” Luna promised.

“We have granted you the power to be totally awesome!” said the gods to their Exalted. “Now, go kill those Primordial assholes!”

“Aww, isn't that cute,” said the Primordials. “Those little humans think they can OH SHIT THEY'RE STABBING ME OW OW OW!” Half of them died.

“Don't kill us!” said the other half.

“Now you have to be our slaves for forever, ha ha ha!” said the gods, and then sewed them all up inside the butt of the head Primordial, Malfeas. (Malfeas got turned inside-out and sewn into his own butt.)

“You guys suck,” said the dead Primordials to the Exalted. “We hereby curse you so that you'll all turn into assholes someday!”

“Whatever,” said the Exalted.

“Well, now that that's over,” said the Unconquered Sun, who had since declared himself King of All Cosmos, “Let's go play the Games of Divinity all day! You folks we Exalted, you guys can run the world. Make sure none of our lamer siblings start acting stupid. Make sure I get plenty of prayers coming my way. Other than that, have fun!”

“Hey, I feel kinda guilty for helping kill my brothers and sisters and enslaving the rest,” said Autochthon. “I'm going to leave Creation to go brood for a few thousand years.”

“Have fun!” said the gods (and their new Exalted buddies.)

So the Exalted – particularly the Solars – ran the world. Having been cool to begin with and then granted badassitude by the God of Awesome, they proceeded to do all sorts of cool stuff, like build magical cities out of glass, make mountains float, and ''breed dinosaurs who pissed heroin.'' YES, SERIOUSLY. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS IN EXALTED.

===The Usurpation and the Immaculate Order===
Eventually, though, the Solars got bored and jaded and full of themselves. “We killed the Primordials and made all this cool stuff. Everything we do must therefore be right. Let's run amok!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the Sidereals, whose job it is to make sure that the Loom of Fate, which is sort of the engine that runs Creation, doesn't crash. “At the rate they're going, they're gonna wreck Creation. Let's kill them and take their stuff!”

“Hey, we need your help,” the bronze faction Sidereals (lead by Chejop Kejak) said to the Dragon-Blooded, who were the least awesome and powerful but most numerous of the Exalted (cause theirs is heredity), who acted as lieutenants and aides and local governors and such. Secretaries, too. “Your asshole Solar bosses are gonna wreck the world. Can you help us kill them?”

“Figures they'd end up doing something like that. Sure, we'll help,” said the Dragon-Blooded.

“Come to our big dinner banquet!” said the Dragon-Blooded to the Solars. Then, when the Solars arrived, the bronze faction Sidreals blew the place up, and trapped the Solar's Essence Shards in a magic cage so that no more Solars could be created.

“Yay it worked! Now we'll erase all evidence of our existence and run the world from behind the scenes, while the Dragon-Blooded can do the dirty work!” said the Sidereals, thus proving themselves to be the only people in the setting with basic pattern recognition.

Meanwhile, the ghosts of the dead Primordials caught 13 of the dead Solar's ghosts on the way down into the Underworld. “Work for us,” they said, “and we'll give you incredible power, like what you had when you were alive!”

“What's the catch?” asked the ex-Solar ghosts.

“Well, you have to be our slaves and try to make everything, everywhere, die forever.”

“Deal! Let's get cracking!” And so were the Deathlords were created, super-powerful ghosts who want the world to die.

Back in Creation, the Dragon-Blooded had a conundrum.

"Hey, what the hell, guys?" The people said. "Those Solar and Lunar guys were fucking awesome! Why the hell did you kill them?"

"Um..." The Dragon-Blooded said as they came up with a solution. Eventually, one of them said, "...Because they were DEMONS possessing mortals! Yeah, that's the trick!" And so the Immaculate Order was invented, a religion that almost everyone in the Realm follows, which paints all Celestial Exalted as evil "Anathema", demons that possess awesome people and turn them into cunning evil monsters. Which, to be fair, is technically true. Wyld Hunts (think modern special forces with magitech in a mostly standard fantasy setting) are sent out to kill Celestials and keep the status quo all status quo-y.

===The Great Contagion and the Balorian Crusade===
So while the Dragon-Blooded were doing a fairly good (although not nearly as impressive as the Solars) job of running Creation, the Deathlords were building a doomsday plague.

“Taste the bitter poison mixed from the ashes of our hopes and the tears of betrayal in the dark pit of our tortured souls!” said the Deathlords, presumably while wearing too much eyeliner, and unleashed their doomsday plague into Creation.

“This sucks,” said 90% of the living beings in the world, and died. Including plants.

“Hey,” said the Deathlords to the Fair Folk, who were into that sort of thing, who lived in the Wyld outside of Creation and didn't like the idea of a place that didn't just change according to their thoughts. “Just about everyone in there's dead now. If you went in, ate the souls of the survivors, and tore the place down, no one could stop you!”

“Thanks for the heads up!” said the Fair Folk, and promptly invaded in force.

“This is bad,” said one of the surviving Dragon-Blooded to her friends. “Fortunately, I just remembered that there's a sealed-off control center for an ultimate magical doomsday weapon that the Solars made for defending Creation against exactly this sort of thing. Let's go on an epic world-saving quest to get in there!”

And so they went. On the way, they came across a shitton of Lunars fighting the Fair Folk.

"Oh shit, Anathema! Let's fight!" One said. The Lunars rolled their eyes and kept fighting.

Another one said to them, "Hey, if you cover us, we can stop this whole thing, and then we'll pretend we never met you and keep feeding Creation the cock-and-bull-story about you being demons!"

"Deal." The Lunars said. And they bought the Dragon-Blooded time to get to the Imperial Manse.

Most of them died trying to get past the defenses, but eventually, two Dragon-Blooded finally made it to the control panel.

“Please insert soul to activate this device,” said the control panel.

“What does that mean?” asked one, and then the other shoved her into the soul-extraction device.

And so this unnamed Dragon-Blooded, through an act of supreme badassness/[[Eldrad|dickery]], gained access to Creation's greatest magical weapons systems and used them to blow up the Fair Folk.

“I hereby declare myself the Scarlet Empress and ruler of the world,” she said.

“Nuh uh!” said some, until she blew them up. This brought lots more people over to her side, and thus was born the Realm, which is the major power in the world today.

Still, some said, “You were just a lieutenant who got lucky and stumbled across some doomsday weapons. We still have some doomsday weapons of our own, and we'll fight back!” The Scarlet Empress wanted to blow them up too, but a lot of her weapons didn't reach and she was kind of afraid of a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario, so, despite the occasional invasion attempt, they remained independent.

And so things went for over 750 years, until fairly recently, when the Scarlet Empress just up and disappeared. Having named no successor, the entire Realm is now leaderless and gearing up for civil war to see who's gonna be the next one of the Scarlet Throne. Right now, they've got this spineless bureaucrat warming the seat, but this guy is a total pussy who's basically being manipulated by whichever member of the shogunate is feeling power-hungry today. If you've seen Scrubs, imagine Ted with twenty-something Kelsos to suck up to.

Meanwhile, the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon discovered where the Sidereals has stashed their cage full of Solar shards. They told the Neverborn -the ghosts of their brothers and sister who said Solars killed- tantalizing them with the idea of the power of the tools that destroyed them. “Hey, we can twist those and use them to create our own invincible deathknights!” The Deathlords pointed out. "We'll tell you where it is, just give us, uh, 50 of them!" the Yozi promised, planning to reap the benefits if the plan succeeded and covering their asses if it didn't. “Deal, let's go get that cage!” Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for everyone else), half the Essence Shards got loose. Now, once again, there are Solar Exalted.

And that's where the game begins.

===Return of Scarlet Empress===
And this is how the game can possibly end.

"Oh man! This sucks," said the Scarlet Empress. "When I die whoever takes over is going to screw up everything I worked for! What am I going to do?" She then found out that if she wrote ''The-Broken-Wing-Crane'' (which is pretty much the Necronomicon) she'd be immortal. "Aight I finished the Necronomicon! Now I'm immortal!"

"Sucker!" Said the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon, as he dragged the Scarlet Empress off to Hell. There he brainwashed her [[/d/|with tentacles]] as his slave. He then said to the other Yozi "I've got a plan to get us out of here, any of you in?"

"Damn skippy!" said Malfeas.

"Affirmative," said She Who Lives In Her Name.

"Whatever," said Cecelyne.

"It's not like its got anything better to do,"said Adorjan.

The Ebon Dragon told his plan to his conspirators which amounts to: 'take the Akuma and Green Sun Princes to the four corners of Creation and fuck shit up!' Meanwhile Realm has a civil war, at least until the Scarlet Empress came back "I'm back and here to stay, Mhahahahahahahahahaha!" said the Scarlet Empress.

"Hmm, something's not right" said Chejop Kejak. So he called all the Sidereals together to try and assassinate her. It doesn't work and Chejop dies. Then back in Heaven Akuma, Green Sun Princes, and their Abyssal allies kill the Unconquered Sun (also possibly Luna and the five maidens.) Back in Hell the Ebon Dragon marries the Scarlet Empress breaking him out of Hell. "So long suckers!" he said betraying the Yozi.

"What a dick!" said the Yozis still in Hell and then proceeded to commit demon genocide.

Back on Creation the Apocalypse and Ragnarok are happening at the same time the Exalted gather a mighty armies to fight the forces of the Ebon Dragon in a mighty battle, And the Scarlet Empress dies of an incurable condition called a Daiklave to the chest. The Ebon Dragon is defeated, the day is saved, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except for the part where the Ebon Dragon is now in hiding unless, you killed him in that case he's now a Neverborn. Speaking of the Underworld there are a lot more ghosts in there for the Deathlords and Neverborn to take advantage of. Also more of Creation possibly was taken by the Wyld via the Fair Folk. and the fact the world is a much bigger mess and in more disarray then it was before. So Huzzah?

==Important Elements==
===Exalted===
====[[Solars|Solar Exalted]]====
[[Image:Chess-solar-exalted.jpg|thumb|right|Solar Exalted]]
The Solar's main themes are 'excellence' and 'rulership'. Solar Exalted were created by the Unconquered Sun, King of the Gods, to lead the other Exalted, and to rule the world. Most of their low-level powers are normal human abilities turned up to 11, like simply being impossibly good at sneaking, or fighting, or persuasion. Their high-power abilities are normal human abilities turned up to OVER NINE THOUSAAAAND!!! A mortal blacksmith can make a sword using iron and a hammer and forge--a Solar craftsman can take a heap of hematite, and ''wring'' a sword out of it with their bare hands, and it'll be a masterfully made one, too. A mortal can survive, at least for a little while, in a hostile environment, like a raging snowstorm. A Solar with the right Charms can survive being at the bottom of the ocean, or '''inside''' an erupting volcano. A mortal can use a sword to parry a sword-strike. A Solar can parry an angry Primordial hitting them with a mountain range. And so on.
Solars also excel at inspiring and persuading others. Or, to be less polite, only the Fair Folk come anywhere close to their skill at being [[Eldrad|dicks]].

====[[Lunars|Lunar Exalted]]====
Lunar Exalts are the chosen of Luna. After the Terrestrials murdered all the Solars, they then moved on to their second in command Lunar servants. Fortunately for the children of the moon, they had always been good with stealth and survival in the wilderness, unfortunately for them the Dragon Bloods were a very organized and driven genocidal force. The Lunars had no choice but to move into the borderlands between the Wyld and Creation and try to plan their resistance in secret. However the Wyld is not a nice place and the borderlands can mutate even Exalted with its touch. Thus three things have happened: The Lunars have taken to ritually tattooing themselves with moonsilver, the normal 5 caste system has been simplified into the Full Moon, No Moon, and Changing Moon castes, and almost all of them have acquired bestial traits either through their devotion to Luna or the Wyld mutations. Ergo Lunar Exalts are a race of [[furry]] demigods. But one should always remember what power the Exalted wield, telling a lion-man of the Full Moon to "yiff in hell" is almost always a horrible idea as he can rip you and thousands like you to pieces without even trying. The Lunars have the unique "Meerkat Steals The Spotlight Prana", which makes any Real Life conversation about Exalted eventually evolve into a discussion about Lunar Exalted, as, pre-3e, they were by far the most interesting Exalt (except maybe the Fair Folk, below).

====[[Sidereals|Sidereal Exalted]]====
The Sidereals are the Chosen of the Maidens. To cover up their role in the Usurpation they broke the universe a little, and now everyone keeps forgetting that they exist. If they want to be remembered, they can use Resplendent Destinies, but then people remember the Destiny and not the person. If a certain Destiny is inconvenient or widely hated, the Sidereal can drop it and use another. In other words, Sidereals are anonymous 4chan users, and Resplendent Destinies are tripcodes.

These guys are the Men in Black and the CIA of Exalted. They live and work in the coolest place evar (Heaven) and are sent on missions to make sure everything in Creation is Working as Intended, "by any means necessary". Not surprisingly, Siderals are notorious for being lying, cheating, backstabbing Magnificent Bastards by the people who can manage to remember them.

They are also more crazy, but less powerful than the Solar exalted, when fighting. A battle with a Sidereal can result in you turning into a mountain, your opponent turning into a river, and then the two of you doing battle with the concept of love as a weapon. Sidereal Martial Arts are the pinnacle of kung-fu, and instead of emulating facets of Creation, they make Creation a facet of the Martial Art. This lets them punch people so hard they turn into ducks (it makes marginally more sense in context). Sidereals are also the only Exalts capable of manipulating the Loom of Fate directly, and are tasked with making sure it doesn't break down.

====[[Abyssals|Abyssal Exalted]]====
By twisting the Solar Exalted Essences in a Monstrance of Celestial Portion, the Neverborn managed to create the Abyssal Exalted. Abyssal Exalted don't suffer from the Great Curse, but instead suffer if they act too nice to people. They are also kept on a short leash, since the dead Primordials aren't exactly pleased with the Exalted. Generally an Abyssal has two choices in life, be the grand villain or attempt to redeem themselves. Both suck for obvious reasons.

Abyssal Exalted charms are largely mirrors of Solar Charms with a darker aspect. As a general thing, where the Solar Exalted gain bonuses, the Abyssal Exalted force penalties on their foes. Their magical material is Soulsteel, the forged souls of ghosts who live in constant pain (and moan and stuff too). They generally fall into one of a few categories; Emo dicks, giggling psychotic mass murderers, devoid of all redeeming qualities, and CRAAAAAAAWLING IIIIIIIIIIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIN. There is a part of their soul that is still a Solar and it keeps reminding them of all the bad shit they do, and lots of them use it to be even more emo.

Fortunately, if they run into their Lunar Bondmate, they don't HAVE to suffer if they act too nice to him/her/it and/or those around him/her/it, and if they DO get to the "redemption" stage (BIIIIIG if), they don't have to worry about that pesky Great Curse anymore.

Unless, of course, their player took a look at the way that the Abyssals' development paths basically boil down to either 'devoted slave of the biggest dicks in existence' (which not everyone really wants to be) or 'the Abyssal whose one goal in life is to stop being an Abyssal' (which kind of misses the point) and said, "Fuck that noise, I'm going to be the biggest baddest ass in the underworld and the most horrifying thing in existence, no-one's going to tell me what to do, and it's going to be freaking AWESOME and metal and shit!" and proceeded to rewrite the rules until they could do just that.

====[[Dragon-Blooded|Terrestrial Exalted]]====
Terrestrials, also known as Dragon-Blooded, have a fitting name. They are the Exalts of the Five Elemental Dragons, souls of the Primordial Gaia. This gives them the ability to kill stuff with fire or their personal equivalent.

Since Terrestrials are the current bosses in Creation (with some secret aid from the Sidereals), their empire is the biggest single nation in the world and their state religion proclaims them to officially be the Best Thing Ever, they can freely go around and strut their stuff without being decried as Anathema, a term they invented themselves so that no other Exalts could strut their stuff. This in turn has a tendency to cause them to be enormous assholes. Also, when they use their magic a lot, they are liable to start burning or cause storms or other stuff that's less than safe for innocent bystanders.

The Terrestrials are soldiers. Like, all of them. They lean towards hierarchy, and even if not all of them fight, all of them could, and probably would if they were asked, contribute to a war effort. And the Realm is pretty much always at war in some area. Funny how that turns out.

Life in Dragon-Blooded society is competitive and merciless. To prepare for this, their training as soldiers and politicians starts as soon as they can speak and is so brutal that many don't survive to maturity even without considering the occasional assassination attempt. The end product is sort of a Sidereal-lite flavour of badass, particularly the ones that decide to become <strike>Shaolin</strike> Immaculate monks.

Terrestrials take strength in numbers, and since their Exaltation is the only one that is inherited (Dragon-''Blooded'', remember?), family is very important to them. From this follows that the production of new family is also very important to them, so if a Terrestrial isn't trying to kill you, he's probably trying to sleep with you. Even if he's gay.

====[[Alchemicals|Alchemical Exalted]]====
Basically <strike>robots</strike>Autobots. They work for Autochthon, also called The Great Maker, who is one of the last free Primordials and has a bunch of people living in cities built inside of him. He's got Primordial robot cancer that's called Gremlin Syndrome, The setting is half "Void tainted"(no relation to the Underworld) or infected by Gremlin Syndrome, and the other half varies between Steampunk to Cyberpunk. (Void-tainted Alchemicals are called Apostates, but they're only really comparable to Decepticons if all Decepticons, ever, eventually go into gleeful rampages of slaughter) As Alchemicals get more powerful, they get more and more like giant, inhuman robots until they turn into living cities.

Alchemicals are the only Exalted who require a soul that has demonstrated heroics worthy of Exaltation in many past lives. Given what's required to become one. Aside from that, then it could be worth noticing that Autochthon, being the guy who invented Exaltation, essentially made Alchemicals as prototypes for all the other Exaltations. Orichalcum Alchemicals for Solars, Moonsilver for Lunars and so on. <strike>Even Abyssal Exalted are covered by the Soulsteel Caste, making you wonder if he anticipated death-themed Exaltations...</strike> Retconned in Second Edition, Abyssals weren't planned for and resonate with both Orichalcum and Soulsteel, but the question remains for ''what'' Autocthon planned to do with them, as well as Adamant Alchemicals that do not fit anywhere, and the later Infernal Exalted don't match any Alchemicals either. On the other hand, said Infernals resonate with ALL of the Alchemical Castes - whether it's because they're proto-Primordials or SCIENCE!/MAGIC!/EXALTED! is up for debate.

====[[Infernals|Infernal Exalted]]====
The result of the Yozi's deal with the Neverborn to steal them some Solar Exaltations, the Infernal Exalts are tasked with turning Creation into Hell so that the Yozi can escape their prison. This is easier said than done because, like their Abyssal cousins, literally every other faction in existence thinks this is a terrible idea. Infernal charms are actually their Yozi's charms, and thus follow strict thematic grouping. When an Infernal develops a custom charm their Yozi learns it as well, which allows individual Infernals to change their Yozi over time. They are also slowly becoming Yozis in their own right over time, though they have the potential to be far more awesome Primordials than the original Primordials ever were.

Infernal Exalted is a collective term used to refer to two types; Akuma and Green Sun Princes. Akuma are the result of the classic Faustian bargain, selling their soul and free will for unstoppable power. Green Sun Princes get the same powers, except they still have the option of flipping the bird at this whole Reclamation thing and running off to get coked out of their minds, and since Akuma don't have free will you'll usually be playing as the latter.

[[That Guy|Some people]] will try to tell you that if you try to play an Infernal who is also a fundamentally decent character, you are [[Matt Ward|doing it wrong.]] Those people are idiots. No one says you have to put '''heroes''' in an elaborate death trap, explain your plans to them at length, and then leave with a hearty evil laugh to bleed off Torment. The head of a major crime syndicate works just as well.
Additionally, the potential to become an Über-primordial means that slipping the leash and gaining 'redemption' places you in the position of absolute power. You can become Armageddon, destroyer of all, Genesis, creator of worlds, or Über Gaia, mother/father/progenitor of everything. Dickhead, dispassionate weeder, or eternally-loving-and-benevolent Cthulu, those monikers become meaningless when you can make your ''soul/imagination'' a REALITY IN OF ITSELF.

Seriously though, check with your storyteller first. The [[fluff]] for these guys is positively ''fucked'' from being written by two different teams of dudes that had ''zero'' contact with each other and very different ideas of what to do with the archetype. Naturally, that means that DMs are divided into armed, angry camps over the "[[skub|right]]" way to play/run an Infernal campaign, and if he wants to use them one way, then let him use them that way. It might be in your best interests to pick one of the more traditionally "heroic" kinds of Exalt if he wants them to be child-raping murderers rather than screwed-up dudes with many possible motivations and flaws. And even if he ''does'' let you run the way you want, nobody likes the guy who [[Drizzt|won't stop whining about]] [[Vampire: The Masquerade|how hard it is to be misunderstood]] all the time. Remember: being an Infernal is fun. It feels good. It's like being the centerpiece of a heavy metal album cover, whether you're trying to be a hero or not.

====[[Chernozem|Liminal Exalted]]====
We don't know much about these ones. They've gotten scattered mentions in the second-to-last book of second edition, have some sort of interest in body parts, and are tied to the lands of the dead. They're also called "Chernozem", chosen of the black earth. Their Aspects apparently include Blood, Marrow, Flesh, Breath and Soil.

They are on a quest to learn about their Humanity.

And we're going to keep on waiting, since a new edition just got announced and it'll probably be years before they receive an official sourcebook.

Based on tentative things released with the Kickstarter, Liminals are the result of people trying to use rituals to bring back the dead (something impossible in Exalted). The Dark Mother, a strange being who lives somewhere in the Underworld meets the conductor of the ritual halfway and instead creates a whole new soul inside the corpse, which is the Exalt. Liminal Exalts are tasked by her with keeping restless spirits bound and down, but can give her the finger and do their own damn thing (unlike Abyssals). They can collect and replace body parts to modify their skills, taking the legs of a legendary dancer, the arm of a swordsman, or the tongue of a master storyteller and making these abilities their own. Additionally, as long as a Liminal's brain is intact and they can access most of their original body's matter, they can recover from any injury.

====[[Getimian Exalted]]====
Apparently at some point a Sidereal looked up from his endless paperwork, realized saving the fundaments of reality every day was something that just wasn't going to end, and said WELL FUCK THAT and wandered off. He then proceeded to--in ascending order of badassitude, and perhaps sequentially--quit his job, declare war on heaven, and then recruit an entire type of Exalted to help, and they now regard him as their collective boss. They have some sort of crazy internal alchemy and have a miniature version of the machine that keeps reality running inside each one, thanks to ''colonies of pattern spiders that live in their spines.'' [[Drow]], eat your hearts out.

And like the Liminals, that's about all we know until their hardback comes out.

====[[Exigents]]====

Discount Exalted. Basically, every god has the capacity to carve out some of their own power and then give it to a mortal as a permanent upgrade. This would probably result in all humanity being Exalted in short order given how literally every blade of grass has a god and everyone wants their own action figure, were it not for the Law of Diminishment-if you're going to make something that's going to be great and perhaps eternal, you have to permanently give it some of your own power. Hell, the first time the Sun set was when he made the Solars, and that was just stamping his name on the things Autocthon already made! This is often more than what lesser gods can take and what greater gods, being dicks, are willing to give up, hence why they're saved for emergencies. Once that happens though, they each get a custom Charmset, for a personal style of kicking ass.

And you guessed it, that's all we're gonna know until the hardback.

===Gods===
Creations of the Primordials. The Gods were meant to maintain Creation while their masters played the Games of Divinity. That didn't turn out so good.
====Celestial Incarnae====
These are the strongest deities in the setting by dint of their celestial nature, and led the other Gods into rebellion against the Primordials. They don't do much now except rubber stamp paperwork and maybe say hi to new Exalts every now and then, being utterly addicted to the [[World of Warcraft|Games of Divinity.]]
=====The Unconquered Sun=====
The Unconquered Sun, Ignis Divine, king of kings, lord of Yu-Shan and Chief God of War, is the greatest of the gods in Exalted, he is the God of Perfection. He is usually depicted as a shining four-armed warrior bearing in each hand a symbol of the virtues he exalts: a shield for temperance, a spear for valor, a branch for compassion, and a horn for conviction. The Solar Exalted are his Chosen, and he is the chief deity of the Dragon Kings. He's actually a pretty cool guy who has to make an effort to repress being compassionate, temperate, holding to his convictions, or being valorous. What that adds up to is a god who will always protect the innocent, never back down from a challenge, and will always hold true to his convictions...Or at least that used to be the case. Now he's just as addicted to the GoD like all the other Incarnae, and has become just as detached from Creation as the Primordials he overthrew. The burnout from being ranked ten in every virtue isn't helping. He's actually SO powerful that his shadow is, in and of itself, a god.
Has a specialty in 'riding' Luna and Gaia, although the girls he keeps trying to marry are the Five Maidens.

=====Luna=====
Luna is either intensely cunning or utterly mad, or perhaps both. Some say she is a Fair Folk noble. Like the Wyld, she is malleable able to take whatever form pleases her. The Lunar Exalted are her Chosen, and she is Gaia's lover (but so is just about everyone else).

Luna is a shapeshifter, which explains the Lunars' entire shtick, but doesn't have any limits on what she can turn into. Gender isn't a thing for Luna and it's not unheard of for Luna to be portrayed as a guy (protip. if you have a portrait of the Incarna and there's a silver-haired dude, that her). Out of all the incarnae, Luna is the least affected by the games and she actually takes the time to visit each Lunar as they exalt. Luna doesn't have a true form but her most common forms include but are not limited to a bow wielding huntress, a male traveler dressed entirely in white, a pregnant woman, a pregnant man, a sorceress with a tiara that keeps the Terrifying Secrets Gods Were Not Meant To Know from destroying her mind, and a knife wielding, half naked, wild woman that is apparently the greatest predator in creation.

In order to create Luna they had to stuff all the other moon gods in the Jar of Things that Can Not Exists and have them fight to the death. What popped out was Luna who promptly decided to whisper sweet nothings to UC and seduce Gaia.

=====The Five Maidens=====
Originally created to service the Loom of Fate, these Five Maidens are likely most enigmatic of the Incarnae. The Five Maidens are, together, second in power only to the Unconquered Sun and about equal to Luna. Their Chosen are the Sidereal Exalted, champions and guardians of fate. Okay people, mostly, though they keep running into... problems. For instance, actually ''using'' their powers to look into the future locks it in immutably into place, for good or ill, so they don't like doing it. 

The Five Maidens are:
* Mercury, the Maiden of Journeys
* Venus, the Maiden of Serenity
* Mars, the Maiden of Battles
* Jupiter, the Maiden of Secrets
* Saturn, the Maiden of Endings

====Celestial Gods====
Also known as the Celestial Bureaucracy, they are, surprise surprise, the bureaucrats of Heaven. They fill out paperwork, kiss up to their bosses after work and try to avoid anything that resembles real work. They are assigned to Departments that manage Creation-wide phenomena, such as Dreams, Fate, Weather and Mammals. They avoid the Sidereals as much as possible.

====Terrestrial Gods====
Like the name says, they live in Creation. For various reasons, they loathe the Celestial Bureaucracy. Their purview (and power) is more limited than the Celestial gods, such as a city or a specific type of tree. Their proximity to mortals means that they're the gods most likely to bully them, but also the ones most likely to cut a deal with.

====Elementals====
Elementals are terrestrial spirits devoted to ensuring a small, local purview functions properly. They are also arranged into the Elemental Courts. There are five categories of Elementals (Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Wood) and numerous subdivisions there in. While numerous, each Elemental is a unique sentient being and has its place in Fate. Most Elemental beings are noticeably drawn from Earth mythology. (e.g. dragons, thunderbirds, ifrit).

====Little Gods====
Little Gods are the barely-aware deities of common objects. They interact with other little gods behind the scenes and generally ensure that things work properly. For example, a lumberjack goes to fell a tree: The axe's little god informs the tree's little god that it should probably fall down now. Usually it will, and the Loom of Fate makes a note of the fact and everything continues on its merry way. Other times, the tree doesn't fall (or fall in the right direction, or falls, say, purple) and the Bureau of Destiny might dispatch a Sidereal to figure out what the problem is.

===[[Primordials]]===
The Primordials made Creation from the infinite possibility of the Wyld. They are beings beyond measure, and composed of many subsidiary souls. They are defined by their Third Circle souls, and most importantly by their Fetich Soul (though it might be that they define their souls). During the Primordial War, those who lost all of their Third Circle souls died and became the Neverborn, while those who survived with some intact became the Yozis.

====Neverborn====
Slain during the Primordial war, they fell through the fabric of Creation and left Shadowlands in their wake. As they conceived of a state of 'not being', Oblivion was born. Similarly, their unconscious thoughts created the Underworld, now more static and unchanging to fit their ideals. Like all ghosts, the Neverborn have fetters to Creation and were unable to truly fall into Oblivion. In fact, as they created the world, they have the strongest fetters of all undead. They realized that the only way to achieve their goal of true death was to destroy their fetters, all of Creation. At first, they were more fearful of the Exalted than anything and half-asleep besides the fact. When the Black Nadir Concordat intruded into their tomb-cities and stole the secrets of Necromancy, they were roused to wakefulness and incredibly angry. Though dead, the Neverborn are still incredibly powerful and command hosts of Abyssal Exalts, Deathlords, Hekatonkhires, and Spectres.

Remember Tolkien's description of Sauron's fate at the end of Lord of the Rings? That's the Neverborn. The tragedy isn't that they're "dead", because beings that huge can't actually die - the very concept of Death is beyond them since they didn't build Creation to ''handle'' them dying. The tragedy is that they're so obsessed with something they've already lost that they can't look past it. They're all caught in a permanent, inescapable angst-loop, and if any of them could just sit up and notice they could abandon their forms and go back to the Wyld. But instead, they sit and spiral further into their "we got our asses handed to us and now our favorite toy is gone" drain-circling, and the psychic emanation of their collective regret has created an entire Underworld for similarly-resonant souls to live out their own miserable pathos.

Unlike the Yozi, and unlike the truly Dead, the Neverborn are simply incapable of noticing anything that might free them from their eternity of navel-gazing. They have nothing left but self-hatred, and the desire to see everything else wind up even more screwed than they were.

No wonder the Ebon Dragon likes them so much.

====Yozis====
Those Primordials who survived the Primordial War were shoved inside the butt of their General/King, Malfeas (who was turned inside out and shoved into his own butt!). They then swore many oaths, some known only to the Unconquered Sun, for they are engraved into the haft of the Orichalcum spear he wields. The Yozis feel nothing but anger for their betrayal and diminution at the hands of the Exalted and the Gods, and plot to return the favour. The Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon (the Primordial responsible for the concept of Opposition: he created honesty so he could be dishonest, loyalty so he could be treacherous, and virtue so he could be its antithesis. In order to talk to you he has to turn himself into exactly what you personally most despise and fear. Not a nice guy!) has been tasked by his peers to find a way to escape from their prison. Which has been going roughly as well as you might expect.( dude, he's the embodiment of assholery. You really gonna trust this fucker?) An unknown number of Yozi Cults also flourish in Creation, aiming to learn demonic practices and perhaps ultimately bring the true masters of Creation back to their world.

It's worth noting that those oaths mean that unlike the Neverborn, the Yozis can't act too openly to fuck up Creation, else they get called before the Incarnae to account for their actions. What happens next is likely... unpleasant.

=====Akumas=====
An Akuma is a mortal or Exalt who has been granted [[Daemon Prince|a measure of power by an Yozi, but essentially becomes a puppet of that Primordial, devoid of free will]]. While this sounds like a horrible trade, the Yozi are very convincing even when they ''aren't'' just lying about it and some people are incredibly power-hungry. The first Akuma was a Solar Exalted, and the Yozi eagerly seek to turn more Exalted into Akuma. The Green Sun Princes (read: Infernal Exalted), the 50 Solar Shards altered by the Yozis, are not Akuma, though there are enough similarities that the two frequently get confused.

=====Demons=====
The lower souls of the Yozis are called Demons now. Thanks to the terms of the Yozis' surrender, they can be summoned into Creation and ordered around. This is difficult for mortal occultists, since Demons can be very willful, but prepared Exalted sorcerers usually don't have too much of a problem with this. There are specific astrological condition required. For example, the strongest ones, Third Circle Demons, can only be summoned during a five day window called Calibration once a year. First Circle Demons are numerous and interchangeable, while Second and Third Circle Demons are unique.

Demons aren't, unlike [[tanar'ri|the D&D version]], ''naturally'' depraved and evil. They are, however, the products of a nightmarish culture created, ruled by, and located inside of a number of beings that are almost as unnecessarily assholish as they are bugfuck nuts. They may be capable of moral choice like humans, but that doesn't automatically made them good people either. Unless you're a Sidereal with the charm that lets you essentially put them into the Witness Protection Program for services rendered, tread lightly.

====[[Primordials]] (Who aren't dead or imprisoned)====
=====Autochthon=====
Autochthon was the Primordial who created much of the technology and industry of Creation. Including the Loom of Fate that enforces causality in creation. He was not well regarded or well-treated by his peers and resented them greatly. During the Primordial War, he sided with the Gods and helped arm their Exalted. After the War, when asked to put a geas on his Mountain Folk, he worried the Exalted would turn on him next. Gathering up his loyal followers he departed Creation for Elsewhere, sealing the way behind him with the Seal of Eight Divinities.

=====Gaia=====
Gaia sat the war out, thanks to Luna's insistence. The Five Elemental Dragons are her creations, as of third edition it is unclear if they are her subsouls or just spirits she made. She is not often spoken of, and seems to have no agenda beyond leaving most of herself behind in heaven and then running around the wyld looking for 'answers'.

===Others===
====Jadeborn====
The [[Dwarves]] of the Exalted setting, also called the mountain folk (because they live in mountains). They are divided into three castes, the Artisans, the Workers, and the Warriors. The Artisans are the leaders while the workers work and supply the Warriors who are in a constant fight against the Darkbrood. They were originally created by Autochthon when he found some of the Rakasha trapped in blocks of Jade. He then formed them into the first Jadeborn. Eventually they evolved into a caste system with some of the workers and warriors having an exalted like tendency called enlightenment. The Jadeborn provided many of the wonders of the first age and had such technology that they were cursed by the unconquered sun to never roam the surface of Creation without being lead by a member of the exalted. Jadeborn Charms come in four Patterns: Foundation, Artisan, Worker, and Warrior.

====Dragon Kings====
The Dragon Kings are large lizard-like beings of great power, resembling dinosaurs. The Dragon Kings are sworn in allegiance to the Unconquered Sun, their creator. Before the time of the Exalted, the Dragon Kings ruled Creation and the mortals who dwelt there, but as the methods of Exaltation were crafted and improved they become obsolete in the gods' eyes. Think inca and aztec style biped dinuars. The Unconquered Sun used them as powerful servants to his chosen whom they served faithfully, honoring their Exalted brethren. After the First Age ended in war and disease, few survived. Their numbers grow slowly but steadily in the Second Age, though the once great Dragon Kings remain hidden in the furthest corners of Creation. Their most powerful stronghold would be the Aztec-flavoured Rathess, an ancient home filled with a variety of powerful artifacts made by the Dragon Kings in the glory days of the First Age. There are four types of Dragon Kings, each living in a direction of Creation; the graceful flying Pterok (North), the nimble and lithe Raptok (East), the powerful and loyal Anklok (South), and the clever amphibious Mosok (West).

====Fair Folk====
The Fair Folk are creatures composed of raw Essence, and inhabit the Wyld – the place that exists between the ordered Creation and pure Chaos. Inhuman and beautiful beings born from chaos, they feed on the dreams and aspirations of the inhabitants of Creation in order to give them strength and form in their own intermediate realm. (In other words, they EAT PEOPLE'S SOULS.) In essence, they are the "kissing cousins" of the Primordials; their territory having been pushed back when the Primordials formed Creation. They prey upon the dreams of mortals and do a brisk trade with the Guild (a powerful economic organization in Creation) in slaves... well, the souls of slaves.

The Raksha are divided into four castes: Diplomats, who favor the Staff Grace and the virtue of Conviction; Entertainers, who favor the Cup Grace and the virtue of Compassion; Warriors, who favor the Sword Grace and the virtue of Valor, and Workers, who favor the Ring Grace and the virtue of Temperance. Noble Raksha belong to two of the four castes, favoring the graces and virtues of both. There is also a fifth Grace, the Heart Grace, which is associated with identity and the trait of Willpower. Graces are differing outlets for the use of Essence and are similar to the suits of tarot. The most powerful of the Fair Folk are the Unshaped. Unlike the Raksha, the Unshaped are unable to survive within Creation for extended periods of time, each Unshaped is actually a symbiotic cluster of Fair Folk consisting of a single "guiding intelligence" and one or more "subsidiary intelligences" with no true form.

Being born from a place of fluid reality that resembles a Loony Tunes skit as much as it does creation, fair folk have difficulty functioning like "real" people. For one thing they suffer from "calcification", their natural unshaped forms are incompatible with creation's stagnant, static existence. Even when they take on a semi-real shape (as a Rakasha) they bleed essence while in creation and must feed on dreams and souls to keep themselves alive. Secondly a fair folk's emotions and virtues are entirely artificial, represented by their graces. When their phony identities break down they suffer from 'Bedlam'. This can have effects such as losing the ability to comprehend that other people aren't just figments of his imagination (conviction) or forgetting that he is capable of inflicting harm on others (valor).

====Ghosts====
Ever since the Neverborn's death broke the cycle of reincarnation, those who die with their business unfinished turn up as Ghosts in the Underworld. Ghosts have access to what they were buried/burned with (their grave goods) and are able to channel essence and learn ghost charms, called Arcanoi. Ghosts who settle their business can pass into Lethe as they should have and reincarnate. Those who give into the Whispers of Oblivion (usually by wandering the Labyrinth) turn into crazed Spectres intent on spreading the word of Oblivion by force. Their third option is to toss themselves into the Mouth of Oblivion and utterly cease to exist.

=====Deathlords=====
Ghosts of 13 First Age Solars who died during the Usurpation, they took the Neverborn's offer of real, ultimate power in exchange for promising to drop all of Creation into Oblivion. They are rather bitter and psychologically maladjusted from the Usurpation. Each one is pretty unique in their psychosis and plots. Some are making more headway than others. The Dowager's Great Contagion managed to kill 90% of all life in Creation, while the Mask of Winters has captured Thorns. Others have suffered rather embarrassing setbacks, and are dealt with harshly by their Neverborn masters. As may be expected, they like to fight and argue with each other a lot, which makes even some of their greatest successes a comedy of errors. The Great Contagion, as previously mentioned? Yeah, the only reason it only killed most of all life in Creation was because two other Deathlords, The Eye and Seven Despairs and The First and Forsaken Lion, went out and invited the fair folk to invade Creation, which ended up uniting all of Creation against a common cause, and gave the world the strength and focus to endure the plague, plus it screwed enough with creation's reality that the plague stopped working right. The other thing that seems to get in the way them succeeding are, ironically, the Neverborn themselves. As they Neverborn hate the state they are in, they hate it when the Deathlords don't preform to total perfection and brutally punish them for it. The First and Forsaken Lion, for example, is actually waiting to come up with a plan because he wants to be sure the plan will work out of fear it might not and getting punished like when he displeased the Neverborn in the past.

=====Hekatonkhires=====
These are ghosts of Behemoths or the Neverborn's Third Circle Souls. Occasionally the Neverborn's thoughts birth a new one. Hekatonkhires are unique and very powerful beings. Imagine undead Cthulhu's zombie kidneys, as a roaming monster.

====Mortals====
[[Image:Mortals_in_exalted.jpg|thumb|right]]
Everyone else. Mortals are unable to channel essence and thus are at a severe disadvantage. While Exalted is largely a cinematic and epic game, it is grim and gritty for Mortals. Their only real advantage is numbers. The most prominent mortals, Humans, were created by the Primordials to provide prayer (and the subsequent ambrosia and quintessence) in Yu-Shan, and nearly all Exalted are of Human stock. There are sub races of humans however some for instance are products of first age bioengineering such as the Air folk who can glide through the air on wings.

==System==
The basic mechanic is a modified [[Storyteller System]]. Pools of d10s are rolled; 7,8,9 count as one success, 10 counts as two successes. Successes are scaled against target numbers at a set difficulty against non PCs/NPCs. If no successes are rolled and at least one die comes up with a 1, then the roll is a botch (catastrophe ensues).

There are a few exceptions to these rules of success, however. Some Fate-based or Shaping-based effects can reduce the number needed to get a single success from a die. These won't come up unless you pull out the relevant splatbook, though.

'''Stunting''': A way to mechanically allow players to use Rule of Cool as a game mechanic. How does it work? A player describes how their PC does an action. Depending on the degree of description, a 1 to 3 dice bonus is given to the roll. (1 dice bonus is incredibly common, 3 dice bonuses almost never given).

*+1 Bonus - Make an effort, try to do something cool. Be brief.
*+2 Bonus - Make a cool description that fleshes out the scenery a bit. Be brief.
*+3 Bonus - Make everyone at the table say you're awesome at describing things. Be brief.

Did we mention that you should be brief? Well, you should.

Stunts can pretty much be done on any action, and don't necessarily have to follow the laws of physics. A good example of an athletics stunt would be the wallrunning in Prince of Persia games, while a combo in a fighting game might be a good example of a flurry stunt. But above all, make it short, snappy, and keep the flow of the game going.

Just if you're curious - The reason why they hand out bonus dice is two fold - Firstly, newly made characters tend to be a bit handicapped, being baller at the things they were made to do and pretty much not at the other stuff. So, stunting gives new characters the chance to succeed at almost anything as long as the player thinks of a pretty cool way to do it, and it teaches new players that as long as you make it feel cool your character can do ''anything''. Secondly, prior to Second Edition, the way multiple actions were handled was by splitting dice pools, so you needed to succeed at two different (generally fairly hard) tasks with half the dice you would otherwise. Stunting helped offset that, offering you the chance to succeed at complicated things that you otherwise wouldn't be able to just because they were epic. Second Edition works a little differently, applying flat penalties to your dice pools based on the number of actions you're taking, (take two actions, first action's on -2 and second is -3; three actions, -3, -4, -5, and so on) but stunts still help to offset that somewhat.

It's a kickass system all told, that helps to bridge between the role playing and the crunch, with a real benefit for staying in character while you splat things. It takes a lot of heat off the ST to make the dice rolling seem interesting because the characters are always trying (maybe not always succeeding) to be cool, so the ST doesn't have to come up with a million different ways to say 'you punch a guy and he falls down'.

Stunts also have rewards besides dice, namely motes and Willpower; a stunt is worth twice its die value in motes, or you can take a point of Willpower for a two- or three-die stunt. Generally, (there are exceptions) motes fuel magic stuff, while Willpower fuels more mundane stuff. (meaning things that anyone can do) Running out of either one can be a death sentence, even in Exalted 2.5; stunts help keep that from happening.

Eariler editions suffered tremendously from problems of [[Linear Build Quadratic EXP]], and the character-creation system was often mockingly regarded as a Byzantine "mini-game" in and of itself. Third edition conspicuously refused to fix the problem (with one of the devs infamously imperiously declaring, and this is a direct quote, [https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?768985-Exalted-Why-is-Everyone-Praising-3e&p=19548177#post19548177| "We have a policy not to give people bad rules just because they think they want them."] [[Troll| Holy shit.]]

Fortunately, while the problem's still ''there'', a number of core gameplay and pricing tweaks have at least made the problem less severe.

==See Also==
*[[Exalted/Custom|Errata and fan-made rules]]
*[[Exalted/Exalted 2nd Edition Character Sheet Template|Blank Wikified Character Sheet]]
*[[Mystic Empyrean]], a game with similarly epic-powered player characters.

==External Links==
*[http://rathess.xi.co.nz/exalted/index.php/Main_Page Archive of the old official wiki]
*[http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/wiki.pl Unofficial Exalted wiki], mostly 1e stuff
*[http://www.brilliantdisaster.net/wiki/Overgame List of Exalted games being run.]

{{WW-Games}}

[[Category:Exalted]]

Exalted

2016-11-14T07:26:45Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:F0D5:ED98:F7E2:9E06: /* Return of Scarlet Empress */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Exalted
|picture = [[Image:EXALTEDlogo.gif|200px]]
|type = [[RPG]]
|publisher = [[White Wolf]]
|system = Modified [[Storyteller System]]
|authors = Geoffrey C. Grabowski, John Mørke, Holden Shearer, Robert Vance, Eric Minton
|year = 2001 (1st edition) 2006 (2nd edition) 2016 (3rd edition)
}}
[[Image:Sniper-guitar.jpg|right|thumb|The Performance ability meets the Firearms ability]]
'''Exalted''' is a role-playing game by White Wolf, Inc. currently gearing up for its third edition. It is well known for its epic scale, as far as story and mechanics, and allowing the players to participate in (and cause) epic events rather than simply being bystanders. A silly group can turn this into a Kill La Kill/Gurren Lagann crossover, a serious group can turn this into the Ramayana: Romance of the Three Kingdoms edition. Both options are awesome. Compare [[Legends of the Wulin]].

==Brief Summary==
Exalted is a game where one of your main antagonists is Death, Creator of the Underworld. Except there's several of him, probably six or seven. Oh, and he's got 13 dread henchmen, one of whom was probably you at some point in time. Also, Hell has a personal grudge against you this time.

Magical Rome/Persia/China regularly trains and sends ninja-monks out for you personally. Ninjas specially trained in asskicking. And if that doesn't work, they keep giant color-coded gundams and suits of power armor as backups.

The Transformers have united under [[Æonic Orb|Unicron]] (who has robo-AIDS), and are invading because they have a shortage of souls.

The Jedi Council has corrupted Heaven and usurped your rightful place as the Masters of Everything - but nobody can remember them. The only reason they haven't hunted you down is that they're too busy trying to keep reality from imploding.

Your ex-wife dropped by; she's a two thousand year old shapechanging man-eating monster, interested in maybe going on a date next Thursday for dinner, followed by breeding a new race capable of rewriting the biosphere.

Your best friend from growing up -and your last life- now seeks to cover all the lands of Middle Earth in darkness, if he can just find this damn ring.

Your god has the world's biggest crack habit, and needs some serious rehab.

And yet, in theory, you think you can fix everything!

Welcome to Creation, kid! Hope you've got enough Essence!

Have Fun.

==Backstory==
Here's a history of the setting of Exalted, which may answer a bunch of questions and put things into perspective all at once.

Once upon a time, in the formless twisting chaos of the Wyld, there appeared the [[Primordials]]. The Primordials are impossibly vast alien beings with multiple souls. Imagine if Cthulhu was the size of Asia and you could meet and hold conversations with his major organs, which had separate identities, and you kinda get the idea.

“The formless chaos that spawned us sucks,” said the Primordials. “Let's build someplace cool to live, rather than hang out here!”

And so they did. They made Creation, and nailed it down with the Elemental Poles of Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and <s>Heart</s> Wood.

“This place isn't going to maintain itself,” said the Primordials. “Let's make a bunch of servants to run the place for us! We'll give them intelligence, free will, and hopes and dreams, and then keep them as slaves for eternity! It'll be great!” And so they made the gods. Some gods, such as the Unconquered Sun, Luna, and the Maidens, were built to be exceedingly cool and do lots; others were built to do stuff like make sure individual shrubs grew properly.

“Huzzah!” said the Primordials. “We have people to do the dirty work of running the place for us! Let's spend half our time playing the impossibly awesome Games of Divinity, and the other half screwing with the lives of our lessers!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the gods, after moving the Elemental Pole of Fire back into place for 700th time after one of the Primordials went on a drinking binge and knocked it loose, causing untold thousands of deaths and nearly causing Creation to fall back into the Wyld. “We should kill those assholes and take their stuff.”

“Ha ha!” said the Primordials. “You can't kill us! When we built you, we programmed you so you could never attack us! Suck it!”

===Making of the Exalted===
So the Unconquered Sun, who is the God of Awesome, came up with a plan. “Let's take those little mortal humans down there and give them incredible power. Then we can have them kill the Primordials, and then we can get at their Games of Divinity and play them ourselves!” So they developed Exaltations, which are sort of like an additional component to the human soul that lets you do magic and super kung fu. Then they picked out the coolest people in Creation and instilled these Essence Shards in them.

“Are you planning on using those Exalted mortals to kill my asshole brothers and sister and take their stuff?” asked Autochthon, who was just about the only Primordial on the side of the gods, because most of the time it was his stuff that the other Primordials were breaking when they ran amok. Plus they made fun of him all the time.

“Um... no,” said the gods.

“Gee, that's too bad. I was gonna hook them up with ultimate weapons of Primordial-slaying destruction, but since you're not rebelling and all...”

“Oh, in that case, yes. Yes, we are.”

Meanwhile, Luna, gender changing (and shapeshifting) god/goddess of the moon, managed to sweet-talk his/her/their Primordial hippy sugar mama Gaia into not fighting during the rebellion. “I'll do that thing with my tongue,” Luna promised.

“We have granted you the power to be totally awesome!” said the gods to their Exalted. “Now, go kill those Primordial assholes!”

“Aww, isn't that cute,” said the Primordials. “Those little humans think they can OH SHIT THEY'RE STABBING ME OW OW OW!” Half of them died.

“Don't kill us!” said the other half.

“Now you have to be our slaves for forever, ha ha ha!” said the gods, and then sewed them all up inside the butt of the head Primordial, Malfeas. (Malfeas got turned inside-out and sewn into his own butt.)

“You guys suck,” said the dead Primordials to the Exalted. “We hereby curse you so that you'll all turn into assholes someday!”

“Whatever,” said the Exalted.

“Well, now that that's over,” said the Unconquered Sun, who had since declared himself King of All Cosmos, “Let's go play the Games of Divinity all day! You folks we Exalted, you guys can run the world. Make sure none of our lamer siblings start acting stupid. Make sure I get plenty of prayers coming my way. Other than that, have fun!”

“Hey, I feel kinda guilty for helping kill my brothers and sisters and enslaving the rest,” said Autochthon. “I'm going to leave Creation to go brood for a few thousand years.”

“Have fun!” said the gods (and their new Exalted buddies.)

So the Exalted – particularly the Solars – ran the world. Having been cool to begin with and then granted badassitude by the God of Awesome, they proceeded to do all sorts of cool stuff, like build magical cities out of glass, make mountains float, and ''breed dinosaurs who pissed heroin.'' YES, SERIOUSLY. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS IN EXALTED.

===The Usurpation and the Immaculate Order===
Eventually, though, the Solars got bored and jaded and full of themselves. “We killed the Primordials and made all this cool stuff. Everything we do must therefore be right. Let's run amok!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the Sidereals, whose job it is to make sure that the Loom of Fate, which is sort of the engine that runs Creation, doesn't crash. “At the rate they're going, they're gonna wreck Creation. Let's kill them and take their stuff!”

“Hey, we need your help,” the bronze faction Sidereals (lead by Chejop Kejak) said to the Dragon-Blooded, who were the least awesome and powerful but most numerous of the Exalted (cause theirs is heredity), who acted as lieutenants and aides and local governors and such. Secretaries, too. “Your asshole Solar bosses are gonna wreck the world. Can you help us kill them?”

“Figures they'd end up doing something like that. Sure, we'll help,” said the Dragon-Blooded.

“Come to our big dinner banquet!” said the Dragon-Blooded to the Solars. Then, when the Solars arrived, the bronze faction Sidreals blew the place up, and trapped the Solar's Essence Shards in a magic cage so that no more Solars could be created.

“Yay it worked! Now we'll erase all evidence of our existence and run the world from behind the scenes, while the Dragon-Blooded can do the dirty work!” said the Sidereals, thus proving themselves to be the only people in the setting with basic pattern recognition.

Meanwhile, the ghosts of the dead Primordials caught 13 of the dead Solar's ghosts on the way down into the Underworld. “Work for us,” they said, “and we'll give you incredible power, like what you had when you were alive!”

“What's the catch?” asked the ex-Solar ghosts.

“Well, you have to be our slaves and try to make everything, everywhere, die forever.”

“Deal! Let's get cracking!” And so were the Deathlords were created, super-powerful ghosts who want the world to die.

Back in Creation, the Dragon-Blooded had a conundrum.

"Hey, what the hell, guys?" The people said. "Those Solar and Lunar guys were fucking awesome! Why the hell did you kill them?"

"Um..." The Dragon-Blooded said as they came up with a solution. Eventually, one of them said, "...Because they were DEMONS possessing mortals! Yeah, that's the trick!" And so the Immaculate Order was invented, a religion that almost everyone in the Realm follows, which paints all Celestial Exalted as evil "Anathema", demons that possess awesome people and turn them into cunning evil monsters. Which, to be fair, is technically true. Wyld Hunts (think modern special forces with magitech in a mostly standard fantasy setting) are sent out to kill Celestials and keep the status quo all status quo-y.

===The Great Contagion and the Balorian Crusade===
So while the Dragon-Blooded were doing a fairly good (although not nearly as impressive as the Solars) job of running Creation, the Deathlords were building a doomsday plague.

“Taste the bitter poison mixed from the ashes of our hopes and the tears of betrayal in the dark pit of our tortured souls!” said the Deathlords, presumably while wearing too much eyeliner, and unleashed their doomsday plague into Creation.

“This sucks,” said 90% of the living beings in the world, and died. Including plants.

“Hey,” said the Deathlords to the Fair Folk, who were into that sort of thing, who lived in the Wyld outside of Creation and didn't like the idea of a place that didn't just change according to their thoughts. “Just about everyone in there's dead now. If you went in, ate the souls of the survivors, and tore the place down, no one could stop you!”

“Thanks for the heads up!” said the Fair Folk, and promptly invaded in force.

“This is bad,” said one of the surviving Dragon-Blooded to her friends. “Fortunately, I just remembered that there's a sealed-off control center for an ultimate magical doomsday weapon that the Solars made for defending Creation against exactly this sort of thing. Let's go on an epic world-saving quest to get in there!”

And so they went. On the way, they came across a shitton of Lunars fighting the Fair Folk.

"Oh shit, Anathema! Let's fight!" One said. The Lunars rolled their eyes and kept fighting.

Another one said to them, "Hey, if you cover us, we can stop this whole thing, and then we'll pretend we never met you and keep feeding Creation the cock-and-bull-story about you being demons!"

"Deal." The Lunars said. And they bought the Dragon-Blooded time to get to the Imperial Manse.

Most of them died trying to get past the defenses, but eventually, two Dragon-Blooded finally made it to the control panel.

“Please insert soul to activate this device,” said the control panel.

“What does that mean?” asked one, and then the other shoved her into the soul-extraction device.

And so this unnamed Dragon-Blooded, through an act of supreme badassness, gained access to Creation's greatest magical weapons systems and used them to blow up the Fair Folk.

“I hereby declare myself the Scarlet Empress and ruler of the world,” she said.

“Nuh uh!” said some, until she blew them up. This brought lots more people over to her side, and thus was born the Realm, which is the major power in the world today.

Still, some said, “You were just a lieutenant who got lucky and stumbled across some doomsday weapons. We still have some doomsday weapons of our own, and we'll fight back!” The Scarlet Empress wanted to blow them up too, but a lot of her weapons didn't reach and she was kind of afraid of a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario, so, despite the occasional invasion attempt, they remained independent.

And so things went for over 750 years, until fairly recently, when the Scarlet Empress just up and disappeared. Having named no successor, the entire Realm is now leaderless and gearing up for civil war to see who's gonna be the next one of the Scarlet Throne. Right now, they've got this spineless bureaucrat warming the seat, but this guy is a total pussy who's basically being manipulated by whichever member of the shogunate is feeling power-hungry today. If you've seen Scrubs, imagine Ted with twenty-something Kelsos to suck up to.

Meanwhile, the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon discovered where the Sidereals has stashed their cage full of Solar shards. They told the Neverborn -the ghosts of their brothers and sister who said Solars killed- tantalizing them with the idea of the power of the tools that destroyed them. “Hey, we can twist those and use them to create our own invincible deathknights!” The Deathlords pointed out. "We'll tell you where it is, just give us, uh, 50 of them!" the Yozi promised, planning to reap the benefits if the plan succeeded and covering their asses if it didn't. “Deal, let's go get that cage!” Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for everyone else), half the Essence Shards got loose. Now, once again, there are Solar Exalted.

And that's where the game begins.

===Return of Scarlet Empress===
And this is how the game can possibly end.

"Oh man! This sucks," said the Scarlet Empress. "When I die whoever takes over is going to screw up everything I worked for! What am I going to do?" She then found out that if she wrote ''The-Broken-Wing-Crane'' (which is pretty much the Necronomicon) she'd be immortal. "Aight I finished the Necronomicon! Now I'm immortal!"

"Sucker!" Said the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon, as he dragged the Scarlet Empress off to Hell. There he brainwashed her [[/d/|with tentacles]] as his slave. He then said to the other Yozi "I've got a plan to get us out of here, any of you in?"

"Damn skippy!" said Malfeas.

"Affirmative," said She Who Lives In Her Name.

"Whatever," said Cecelyne.

"It's not like its got anything better to do,"said Adorjan.

The Ebon Dragon told his plan to his conspirators which amounts to: 'take the Akuma and Green Sun Princes to the four corners of Creation and fuck shit up!' Meanwhile Realm has a civil war, at least until the Scarlet Empress came back "I'm back and here to stay, Mhahahahahahahahahaha!" said the Scarlet Empress.

"Hmm, something's not right" said Chejop Kejak. So he called all the Sidereals together to try and assassinate her. It doesn't work and Chejop dies. Then back in Heaven Akuma, Green Sun Princes, and their Abyssal allies kill the Unconquered Sun (also possibly Luna and the five maidens.) Back in Hell the Ebon Dragon marries the Scarlet Empress breaking him out of Hell. "So long suckers!" he said betraying the Yozi.

"What a dick!" said the Yozis still in Hell and then proceeded to commit demon genocide.

Back on Creation the Apocalypse and Ragnarok are happening at the same time the Exalted gather a mighty armies to fight the forces of the Ebon Dragon in a mighty battle, And the Scarlet Empress dies of an incurable condition called a Daiklave to the chest. The Ebon Dragon is defeated, the day is saved, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except for the part where the Ebon Dragon is now in hiding unless, you killed him in that case he's now a Neverborn. Speaking of the Underworld there are a lot more ghosts in there for the Deathlords and Neverborn to take advantage of. Also more of Creation possibly was taken by the Wyld via the Fair Folk. and the fact the world is a much bigger mess and in more disarray then it was before. So Huzzah?

==Important Elements==
===Exalted===
====[[Solars|Solar Exalted]]====
[[Image:Chess-solar-exalted.jpg|thumb|right|Solar Exalted]]
The Solar's main themes are 'excellence' and 'rulership'. Solar Exalted were created by the Unconquered Sun, King of the Gods, to lead the other Exalted, and to rule the world. Most of their low-level powers are normal human abilities turned up to 11, like simply being impossibly good at sneaking, or fighting, or persuasion. Their high-power abilities are normal human abilities turned up to OVER NINE THOUSAAAAND!!! A mortal blacksmith can make a sword using iron and a hammer and forge--a Solar craftsman can take a heap of hematite, and ''wring'' a sword out of it with their bare hands, and it'll be a masterfully made one, too. A mortal can survive, at least for a little while, in a hostile environment, like a raging snowstorm. A Solar with the right Charms can survive being at the bottom of the ocean, or '''inside''' an erupting volcano. A mortal can use a sword to parry a sword-strike. A Solar can parry an angry Primordial hitting them with a mountain range. And so on.
Solars also excel at inspiring and persuading others. Or, to be less polite, only the Fair Folk come anywhere close to their skill at being [[Eldrad|dicks]].

====[[Lunars|Lunar Exalted]]====
Lunar Exalts are the chosen of Luna. After the Terrestrials murdered all the Solars, they then moved on to their second in command Lunar servants. Fortunately for the children of the moon, they had always been good with stealth and survival in the wilderness, unfortunately for them the Dragon Bloods were a very organized and driven genocidal force. The Lunars had no choice but to move into the borderlands between the Wyld and Creation and try to plan their resistance in secret. However the Wyld is not a nice place and the borderlands can mutate even Exalted with its touch. Thus three things have happened: The Lunars have taken to ritually tattooing themselves with moonsilver, the normal 5 caste system has been simplified into the Full Moon, No Moon, and Changing Moon castes, and almost all of them have acquired bestial traits either through their devotion to Luna or the Wyld mutations. Ergo Lunar Exalts are a race of [[furry]] demigods. But one should always remember what power the Exalted wield, telling a lion-man of the Full Moon to "yiff in hell" is almost always a horrible idea as he can rip you and thousands like you to pieces without even trying. The Lunars have the unique "Meerkat Steals The Spotlight Prana", which makes any Real Life conversation about Exalted eventually evolve into a discussion about Lunar Exalted, as, pre-3e, they were by far the most interesting Exalt (except maybe the Fair Folk, below).

====[[Sidereals|Sidereal Exalted]]====
The Sidereals are the Chosen of the Maidens. To cover up their role in the Usurpation they broke the universe a little, and now everyone keeps forgetting that they exist. If they want to be remembered, they can use Resplendent Destinies, but then people remember the Destiny and not the person. If a certain Destiny is inconvenient or widely hated, the Sidereal can drop it and use another. In other words, Sidereals are anonymous 4chan users, and Resplendent Destinies are tripcodes.

These guys are the Men in Black and the CIA of Exalted. They live and work in the coolest place evar (Heaven) and are sent on missions to make sure everything in Creation is Working as Intended, "by any means necessary". Not surprisingly, Siderals are notorious for being lying, cheating, backstabbing Magnificent Bastards by the people who can manage to remember them.

They are also more crazy, but less powerful than the Solar exalted, when fighting. A battle with a Sidereal can result in you turning into a mountain, your opponent turning into a river, and then the two of you doing battle with the concept of love as a weapon. Sidereal Martial Arts are the pinnacle of kung-fu, and instead of emulating facets of Creation, they make Creation a facet of the Martial Art. This lets them punch people so hard they turn into ducks (it makes marginally more sense in context). Sidereals are also the only Exalts capable of manipulating the Loom of Fate directly, and are tasked with making sure it doesn't break down.

====[[Abyssals|Abyssal Exalted]]====
By twisting the Solar Exalted Essences in a Monstrance of Celestial Portion, the Neverborn managed to create the Abyssal Exalted. Abyssal Exalted don't suffer from the Great Curse, but instead suffer if they act too nice to people. They are also kept on a short leash, since the dead Primordials aren't exactly pleased with the Exalted. Generally an Abyssal has two choices in life, be the grand villain or attempt to redeem themselves. Both suck for obvious reasons.

Abyssal Exalted charms are largely mirrors of Solar Charms with a darker aspect. As a general thing, where the Solar Exalted gain bonuses, the Abyssal Exalted force penalties on their foes. Their magical material is Soulsteel, the forged souls of ghosts who live in constant pain (and moan and stuff too). They generally fall into one of a few categories; Emo dicks, giggling psychotic mass murderers, devoid of all redeeming qualities, and CRAAAAAAAWLING IIIIIIIIIIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIN. There is a part of their soul that is still a Solar and it keeps reminding them of all the bad shit they do, and lots of them use it to be even more emo.

Fortunately, if they run into their Lunar Bondmate, they don't HAVE to suffer if they act too nice to him/her/it and/or those around him/her/it, and if they DO get to the "redemption" stage (BIIIIIG if), they don't have to worry about that pesky Great Curse anymore.

Unless, of course, their player took a look at the way that the Abyssals' development paths basically boil down to either 'devoted slave of the biggest dicks in existence' (which not everyone really wants to be) or 'the Abyssal whose one goal in life is to stop being an Abyssal' (which kind of misses the point) and said, "Fuck that noise, I'm going to be the biggest baddest ass in the underworld and the most horrifying thing in existence, no-one's going to tell me what to do, and it's going to be freaking AWESOME and metal and shit!" and proceeded to rewrite the rules until they could do just that.

====[[Dragon-Blooded|Terrestrial Exalted]]====
Terrestrials, also known as Dragon-Blooded, have a fitting name. They are the Exalts of the Five Elemental Dragons, souls of the Primordial Gaia. This gives them the ability to kill stuff with fire or their personal equivalent.

Since Terrestrials are the current bosses in Creation (with some secret aid from the Sidereals), their empire is the biggest single nation in the world and their state religion proclaims them to officially be the Best Thing Ever, they can freely go around and strut their stuff without being decried as Anathema, a term they invented themselves so that no other Exalts could strut their stuff. This in turn has a tendency to cause them to be enormous assholes. Also, when they use their magic a lot, they are liable to start burning or cause storms or other stuff that's less than safe for innocent bystanders.

The Terrestrials are soldiers. Like, all of them. They lean towards hierarchy, and even if not all of them fight, all of them could, and probably would if they were asked, contribute to a war effort. And the Realm is pretty much always at war in some area. Funny how that turns out.

Life in Dragon-Blooded society is competitive and merciless. To prepare for this, their training as soldiers and politicians starts as soon as they can speak and is so brutal that many don't survive to maturity even without considering the occasional assassination attempt. The end product is sort of a Sidereal-lite flavour of badass, particularly the ones that decide to become <strike>Shaolin</strike> Immaculate monks.

Terrestrials take strength in numbers, and since their Exaltation is the only one that is inherited (Dragon-''Blooded'', remember?), family is very important to them. From this follows that the production of new family is also very important to them, so if a Terrestrial isn't trying to kill you, he's probably trying to sleep with you. Even if he's gay.

====[[Alchemicals|Alchemical Exalted]]====
Basically <strike>robots</strike>Autobots. They work for Autochthon, also called The Great Maker, who is one of the last free Primordials and has a bunch of people living in cities built inside of him. He's got Primordial robot cancer that's called Gremlin Syndrome, The setting is half "Void tainted"(no relation to the Underworld) or infected by Gremlin Syndrome, and the other half varies between Steampunk to Cyberpunk. (Void-tainted Alchemicals are called Apostates, but they're only really comparable to Decepticons if all Decepticons, ever, eventually go into gleeful rampages of slaughter) As Alchemicals get more powerful, they get more and more like giant, inhuman robots until they turn into living cities.

Alchemicals are the only Exalted who require a soul that has demonstrated heroics worthy of Exaltation in many past lives. Given what's required to become one. Aside from that, then it could be worth noticing that Autochthon, being the guy who invented Exaltation, essentially made Alchemicals as prototypes for all the other Exaltations. Orichalcum Alchemicals for Solars, Moonsilver for Lunars and so on. <strike>Even Abyssal Exalted are covered by the Soulsteel Caste, making you wonder if he anticipated death-themed Exaltations...</strike> Retconned in Second Edition, Abyssals weren't planned for and resonate with both Orichalcum and Soulsteel, but the question remains for ''what'' Autocthon planned to do with them, as well as Adamant Alchemicals that do not fit anywhere, and the later Infernal Exalted don't match any Alchemicals either. On the other hand, said Infernals resonate with ALL of the Alchemical Castes - whether it's because they're proto-Primordials or SCIENCE!/MAGIC!/EXALTED! is up for debate.

====[[Infernals|Infernal Exalted]]====
The result of the Yozi's deal with the Neverborn to steal them some Solar Exaltations, the Infernal Exalts are tasked with turning Creation into Hell so that the Yozi can escape their prison. This is easier said than done because, like their Abyssal cousins, literally every other faction in existence thinks this is a terrible idea. Infernal charms are actually their Yozi's charms, and thus follow strict thematic grouping. When an Infernal develops a custom charm their Yozi learns it as well, which allows individual Infernals to change their Yozi over time. They are also slowly becoming Yozis in their own right over time, though they have the potential to be far more awesome Primordials than the original Primordials ever were.

Infernal Exalted is a collective term used to refer to two types; Akuma and Green Sun Princes. Akuma are the result of the classic Faustian bargain, selling their soul and free will for unstoppable power. Green Sun Princes get the same powers, except they still have the option of flipping the bird at this whole Reclamation thing and running off to get coked out of their minds, and since Akuma don't have free will you'll usually be playing as the latter.

[[That Guy|Some people]] will try to tell you that if you try to play an Infernal who is also a fundamentally decent character, you are [[Matt Ward|doing it wrong.]] Those people are idiots. No one says you have to put '''heroes''' in an elaborate death trap, explain your plans to them at length, and then leave with a hearty evil laugh to bleed off Torment. The head of a major crime syndicate works just as well.
Additionally, the potential to become an Über-primordial means that slipping the leash and gaining 'redemption' places you in the position of absolute power. You can become Armageddon, destroyer of all, Genesis, creator of worlds, or Über Gaia, mother/father/progenitor of everything. Dickhead, dispassionate weeder, or eternally-loving-and-benevolent Cthulu, those monikers become meaningless when you can make your ''soul/imagination'' a REALITY IN OF ITSELF.

Seriously though, check with your storyteller first. The [[fluff]] for these guys is positively ''fucked'' from being written by two different teams of dudes that had ''zero'' contact with each other and very different ideas of what to do with the archetype. Naturally, that means that DMs are divided into armed, angry camps over the "[[skub|right]]" way to play/run an Infernal campaign, and if he wants to use them one way, then let him use them that way. It might be in your best interests to pick one of the more traditionally "heroic" kinds of Exalt if he wants them to be child-raping murderers rather than screwed-up dudes with many possible motivations and flaws. And even if he ''does'' let you run the way you want, nobody likes the guy who [[Drizzt|won't stop whining about]] [[Vampire: The Masquerade|how hard it is to be misunderstood]] all the time. Remember: being an Infernal is fun. It feels good. It's like being the centerpiece of a heavy metal album cover, whether you're trying to be a hero or not.

====[[Chernozem|Liminal Exalted]]====
We don't know much about these ones. They've gotten scattered mentions in the second-to-last book of second edition, have some sort of interest in body parts, and are tied to the lands of the dead. They're also called "Chernozem", chosen of the black earth. Their Aspects apparently include Blood, Marrow, Flesh, Breath and Soil.

They are on a quest to learn about their Humanity.

And we're going to keep on waiting, since a new edition just got announced and it'll probably be years before they receive an official sourcebook.

Based on tentative things released with the Kickstarter, Liminals are the result of people trying to use rituals to bring back the dead (something impossible in Exalted). The Dark Mother, a strange being who lives somewhere in the Underworld meets the conductor of the ritual halfway and instead creates a whole new soul inside the corpse, which is the Exalt. Liminal Exalts are tasked by her with keeping restless spirits bound and down, but can give her the finger and do their own damn thing (unlike Abyssals). They can collect and replace body parts to modify their skills, taking the legs of a legendary dancer, the arm of a swordsman, or the tongue of a master storyteller and making these abilities their own. Additionally, as long as a Liminal's brain is intact and they can access most of their original body's matter, they can recover from any injury.

====[[Getimian Exalted]]====
Apparently at some point a Sidereal looked up from his endless paperwork, realized saving the fundaments of reality every day was something that just wasn't going to end, and said WELL FUCK THAT and wandered off. He then proceeded to--in ascending order of badassitude, and perhaps sequentially--quit his job, declare war on heaven, and then recruit an entire type of Exalted to help, and they now regard him as their collective boss. They have some sort of crazy internal alchemy and have a miniature version of the machine that keeps reality running inside each one, thanks to ''colonies of pattern spiders that live in their spines.'' [[Drow]], eat your hearts out.

And like the Liminals, that's about all we know until their hardback comes out.

====[[Exigents]]====

Discount Exalted. Basically, every god has the capacity to carve out some of their own power and then give it to a mortal as a permanent upgrade. This would probably result in all humanity being Exalted in short order given how literally every blade of grass has a god and everyone wants their own action figure, were it not for the Law of Diminishment-if you're going to make something that's going to be great and perhaps eternal, you have to permanently give it some of your own power. Hell, the first time the Sun set was when he made the Solars, and that was just stamping his name on the things Autocthon already made! This is often more than what lesser gods can take and what greater gods, being dicks, are willing to give up, hence why they're saved for emergencies. Once that happens though, they each get a custom Charmset, for a personal style of kicking ass.

And you guessed it, that's all we're gonna know until the hardback.

===Gods===
Creations of the Primordials. The Gods were meant to maintain Creation while their masters played the Games of Divinity. That didn't turn out so good.
====Celestial Incarnae====
These are the strongest deities in the setting by dint of their celestial nature, and led the other Gods into rebellion against the Primordials. They don't do much now except rubber stamp paperwork and maybe say hi to new Exalts every now and then, being utterly addicted to the [[World of Warcraft|Games of Divinity.]]
=====The Unconquered Sun=====
The Unconquered Sun, Ignis Divine, king of kings, lord of Yu-Shan and Chief God of War, is the greatest of the gods in Exalted, he is the God of Perfection. He is usually depicted as a shining four-armed warrior bearing in each hand a symbol of the virtues he exalts: a shield for temperance, a spear for valor, a branch for compassion, and a horn for conviction. The Solar Exalted are his Chosen, and he is the chief deity of the Dragon Kings. He's actually a pretty cool guy who has to make an effort to repress being compassionate, temperate, holding to his convictions, or being valorous. What that adds up to is a god who will always protect the innocent, never back down from a challenge, and will always hold true to his convictions...Or at least that used to be the case. Now he's just as addicted to the GoD like all the other Incarnae, and has become just as detached from Creation as the Primordials he overthrew. The burnout from being ranked ten in every virtue isn't helping. He's actually SO powerful that his shadow is, in and of itself, a god.
Has a specialty in 'riding' Luna and Gaia, although the girls he keeps trying to marry are the Five Maidens.

=====Luna=====
Luna is either intensely cunning or utterly mad, or perhaps both. Some say she is a Fair Folk noble. Like the Wyld, she is malleable able to take whatever form pleases her. The Lunar Exalted are her Chosen, and she is Gaia's lover (but so is just about everyone else).

Luna is a shapeshifter, which explains the Lunars' entire shtick, but doesn't have any limits on what she can turn into. Gender isn't a thing for Luna and it's not unheard of for Luna to be portrayed as a guy (protip. if you have a portrait of the Incarna and there's a silver-haired dude, that her). Out of all the incarnae, Luna is the least affected by the games and she actually takes the time to visit each Lunar as they exalt. Luna doesn't have a true form but her most common forms include but are not limited to a bow wielding huntress, a male traveler dressed entirely in white, a pregnant woman, a pregnant man, a sorceress with a tiara that keeps the Terrifying Secrets Gods Were Not Meant To Know from destroying her mind, and a knife wielding, half naked, wild woman that is apparently the greatest predator in creation.

In order to create Luna they had to stuff all the other moon gods in the Jar of Things that Can Not Exists and have them fight to the death. What popped out was Luna who promptly decided to whisper sweet nothings to UC and seduce Gaia.

=====The Five Maidens=====
Originally created to service the Loom of Fate, these Five Maidens are likely most enigmatic of the Incarnae. The Five Maidens are, together, second in power only to the Unconquered Sun and about equal to Luna. Their Chosen are the Sidereal Exalted, champions and guardians of fate. Okay people, mostly, though they keep running into... problems. For instance, actually ''using'' their powers to look into the future locks it in immutably into place, for good or ill, so they don't like doing it. 

The Five Maidens are:
* Mercury, the Maiden of Journeys
* Venus, the Maiden of Serenity
* Mars, the Maiden of Battles
* Jupiter, the Maiden of Secrets
* Saturn, the Maiden of Endings

====Celestial Gods====
Also known as the Celestial Bureaucracy, they are, surprise surprise, the bureaucrats of Heaven. They fill out paperwork, kiss up to their bosses after work and try to avoid anything that resembles real work. They are assigned to Departments that manage Creation-wide phenomena, such as Dreams, Fate, Weather and Mammals. They avoid the Sidereals as much as possible.

====Terrestrial Gods====
Like the name says, they live in Creation. For various reasons, they loathe the Celestial Bureaucracy. Their purview (and power) is more limited than the Celestial gods, such as a city or a specific type of tree. Their proximity to mortals means that they're the gods most likely to bully them, but also the ones most likely to cut a deal with.

====Elementals====
Elementals are terrestrial spirits devoted to ensuring a small, local purview functions properly. They are also arranged into the Elemental Courts. There are five categories of Elementals (Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Wood) and numerous subdivisions there in. While numerous, each Elemental is a unique sentient being and has its place in Fate. Most Elemental beings are noticeably drawn from Earth mythology. (e.g. dragons, thunderbirds, ifrit).

====Little Gods====
Little Gods are the barely-aware deities of common objects. They interact with other little gods behind the scenes and generally ensure that things work properly. For example, a lumberjack goes to fell a tree: The axe's little god informs the tree's little god that it should probably fall down now. Usually it will, and the Loom of Fate makes a note of the fact and everything continues on its merry way. Other times, the tree doesn't fall (or fall in the right direction, or falls, say, purple) and the Bureau of Destiny might dispatch a Sidereal to figure out what the problem is.

===[[Primordials]]===
The Primordials made Creation from the infinite possibility of the Wyld. They are beings beyond measure, and composed of many subsidiary souls. They are defined by their Third Circle souls, and most importantly by their Fetich Soul (though it might be that they define their souls). During the Primordial War, those who lost all of their Third Circle souls died and became the Neverborn, while those who survived with some intact became the Yozis.

====Neverborn====
Slain during the Primordial war, they fell through the fabric of Creation and left Shadowlands in their wake. As they conceived of a state of 'not being', Oblivion was born. Similarly, their unconscious thoughts created the Underworld, now more static and unchanging to fit their ideals. Like all ghosts, the Neverborn have fetters to Creation and were unable to truly fall into Oblivion. In fact, as they created the world, they have the strongest fetters of all undead. They realized that the only way to achieve their goal of true death was to destroy their fetters, all of Creation. At first, they were more fearful of the Exalted than anything and half-asleep besides the fact. When the Black Nadir Concordat intruded into their tomb-cities and stole the secrets of Necromancy, they were roused to wakefulness and incredibly angry. Though dead, the Neverborn are still incredibly powerful and command hosts of Abyssal Exalts, Deathlords, Hekatonkhires, and Spectres.

Remember Tolkien's description of Sauron's fate at the end of Lord of the Rings? That's the Neverborn. The tragedy isn't that they're "dead", because beings that huge can't actually die - the very concept of Death is beyond them since they didn't build Creation to ''handle'' them dying. The tragedy is that they're so obsessed with something they've already lost that they can't look past it. They're all caught in a permanent, inescapable angst-loop, and if any of them could just sit up and notice they could abandon their forms and go back to the Wyld. But instead, they sit and spiral further into their "we got our asses handed to us and now our favorite toy is gone" drain-circling, and the psychic emanation of their collective regret has created an entire Underworld for similarly-resonant souls to live out their own miserable pathos.

Unlike the Yozi, and unlike the truly Dead, the Neverborn are simply incapable of noticing anything that might free them from their eternity of navel-gazing. They have nothing left but self-hatred, and the desire to see everything else wind up even more screwed than they were.

No wonder the Ebon Dragon likes them so much.

====Yozis====
Those Primordials who survived the Primordial War were shoved inside the butt of their General/King, Malfeas (who was turned inside out and shoved into his own butt!). They then swore many oaths, some known only to the Unconquered Sun, for they are engraved into the haft of the Orichalcum spear he wields. The Yozis feel nothing but anger for their betrayal and diminution at the hands of the Exalted and the Gods, and plot to return the favour. The Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon (the Primordial responsible for the concept of Opposition: he created honesty so he could be dishonest, loyalty so he could be treacherous, and virtue so he could be its antithesis. In order to talk to you he has to turn himself into exactly what you personally most despise and fear. Not a nice guy!) has been tasked by his peers to find a way to escape from their prison. Which has been going roughly as well as you might expect.( dude, he's the embodiment of assholery. You really gonna trust this fucker?) An unknown number of Yozi Cults also flourish in Creation, aiming to learn demonic practices and perhaps ultimately bring the true masters of Creation back to their world.

It's worth noting that those oaths mean that unlike the Neverborn, the Yozis can't act too openly to fuck up Creation, else they get called before the Incarnae to account for their actions. What happens next is likely... unpleasant.

=====Akumas=====
An Akuma is a mortal or Exalt who has been granted [[Daemon Prince|a measure of power by an Yozi, but essentially becomes a puppet of that Primordial, devoid of free will]]. While this sounds like a horrible trade, the Yozi are very convincing even when they ''aren't'' just lying about it and some people are incredibly power-hungry. The first Akuma was a Solar Exalted, and the Yozi eagerly seek to turn more Exalted into Akuma. The Green Sun Princes (read: Infernal Exalted), the 50 Solar Shards altered by the Yozis, are not Akuma, though there are enough similarities that the two frequently get confused.

=====Demons=====
The lower souls of the Yozis are called Demons now. Thanks to the terms of the Yozis' surrender, they can be summoned into Creation and ordered around. This is difficult for mortal occultists, since Demons can be very willful, but prepared Exalted sorcerers usually don't have too much of a problem with this. There are specific astrological condition required. For example, the strongest ones, Third Circle Demons, can only be summoned during a five day window called Calibration once a year. First Circle Demons are numerous and interchangeable, while Second and Third Circle Demons are unique.

Demons aren't, unlike [[tanar'ri|the D&D version]], ''naturally'' depraved and evil. They are, however, the products of a nightmarish culture created, ruled by, and located inside of a number of beings that are almost as unnecessarily assholish as they are bugfuck nuts. They may be capable of moral choice like humans, but that doesn't automatically made them good people either. Unless you're a Sidereal with the charm that lets you essentially put them into the Witness Protection Program for services rendered, tread lightly.

====[[Primordials]] (Who aren't dead or imprisoned)====
=====Autochthon=====
Autochthon was the Primordial who created much of the technology and industry of Creation. Including the Loom of Fate that enforces causality in creation. He was not well regarded or well-treated by his peers and resented them greatly. During the Primordial War, he sided with the Gods and helped arm their Exalted. After the War, when asked to put a geas on his Mountain Folk, he worried the Exalted would turn on him next. Gathering up his loyal followers he departed Creation for Elsewhere, sealing the way behind him with the Seal of Eight Divinities.

=====Gaia=====
Gaia sat the war out, thanks to Luna's insistence. The Five Elemental Dragons are her creations, as of third edition it is unclear if they are her subsouls or just spirits she made. She is not often spoken of, and seems to have no agenda beyond leaving most of herself behind in heaven and then running around the wyld looking for 'answers'.

===Others===
====Jadeborn====
The [[Dwarves]] of the Exalted setting, also called the mountain folk (because they live in mountains). They are divided into three castes, the Artisans, the Workers, and the Warriors. The Artisans are the leaders while the workers work and supply the Warriors who are in a constant fight against the Darkbrood. They were originally created by Autochthon when he found some of the Rakasha trapped in blocks of Jade. He then formed them into the first Jadeborn. Eventually they evolved into a caste system with some of the workers and warriors having an exalted like tendency called enlightenment. The Jadeborn provided many of the wonders of the first age and had such technology that they were cursed by the unconquered sun to never roam the surface of Creation without being lead by a member of the exalted. Jadeborn Charms come in four Patterns: Foundation, Artisan, Worker, and Warrior.

====Dragon Kings====
The Dragon Kings are large lizard-like beings of great power, resembling dinosaurs. The Dragon Kings are sworn in allegiance to the Unconquered Sun, their creator. Before the time of the Exalted, the Dragon Kings ruled Creation and the mortals who dwelt there, but as the methods of Exaltation were crafted and improved they become obsolete in the gods' eyes. Think inca and aztec style biped dinuars. The Unconquered Sun used them as powerful servants to his chosen whom they served faithfully, honoring their Exalted brethren. After the First Age ended in war and disease, few survived. Their numbers grow slowly but steadily in the Second Age, though the once great Dragon Kings remain hidden in the furthest corners of Creation. Their most powerful stronghold would be the Aztec-flavoured Rathess, an ancient home filled with a variety of powerful artifacts made by the Dragon Kings in the glory days of the First Age. There are four types of Dragon Kings, each living in a direction of Creation; the graceful flying Pterok (North), the nimble and lithe Raptok (East), the powerful and loyal Anklok (South), and the clever amphibious Mosok (West).

====Fair Folk====
The Fair Folk are creatures composed of raw Essence, and inhabit the Wyld – the place that exists between the ordered Creation and pure Chaos. Inhuman and beautiful beings born from chaos, they feed on the dreams and aspirations of the inhabitants of Creation in order to give them strength and form in their own intermediate realm. (In other words, they EAT PEOPLE'S SOULS.) In essence, they are the "kissing cousins" of the Primordials; their territory having been pushed back when the Primordials formed Creation. They prey upon the dreams of mortals and do a brisk trade with the Guild (a powerful economic organization in Creation) in slaves... well, the souls of slaves.

The Raksha are divided into four castes: Diplomats, who favor the Staff Grace and the virtue of Conviction; Entertainers, who favor the Cup Grace and the virtue of Compassion; Warriors, who favor the Sword Grace and the virtue of Valor, and Workers, who favor the Ring Grace and the virtue of Temperance. Noble Raksha belong to two of the four castes, favoring the graces and virtues of both. There is also a fifth Grace, the Heart Grace, which is associated with identity and the trait of Willpower. Graces are differing outlets for the use of Essence and are similar to the suits of tarot. The most powerful of the Fair Folk are the Unshaped. Unlike the Raksha, the Unshaped are unable to survive within Creation for extended periods of time, each Unshaped is actually a symbiotic cluster of Fair Folk consisting of a single "guiding intelligence" and one or more "subsidiary intelligences" with no true form.

Being born from a place of fluid reality that resembles a Loony Tunes skit as much as it does creation, fair folk have difficulty functioning like "real" people. For one thing they suffer from "calcification", their natural unshaped forms are incompatible with creation's stagnant, static existence. Even when they take on a semi-real shape (as a Rakasha) they bleed essence while in creation and must feed on dreams and souls to keep themselves alive. Secondly a fair folk's emotions and virtues are entirely artificial, represented by their graces. When their phony identities break down they suffer from 'Bedlam'. This can have effects such as losing the ability to comprehend that other people aren't just figments of his imagination (conviction) or forgetting that he is capable of inflicting harm on others (valor).

====Ghosts====
Ever since the Neverborn's death broke the cycle of reincarnation, those who die with their business unfinished turn up as Ghosts in the Underworld. Ghosts have access to what they were buried/burned with (their grave goods) and are able to channel essence and learn ghost charms, called Arcanoi. Ghosts who settle their business can pass into Lethe as they should have and reincarnate. Those who give into the Whispers of Oblivion (usually by wandering the Labyrinth) turn into crazed Spectres intent on spreading the word of Oblivion by force. Their third option is to toss themselves into the Mouth of Oblivion and utterly cease to exist.

=====Deathlords=====
Ghosts of 13 First Age Solars who died during the Usurpation, they took the Neverborn's offer of real, ultimate power in exchange for promising to drop all of Creation into Oblivion. They are rather bitter and psychologically maladjusted from the Usurpation. Each one is pretty unique in their psychosis and plots. Some are making more headway than others. The Dowager's Great Contagion managed to kill 90% of all life in Creation, while the Mask of Winters has captured Thorns. Others have suffered rather embarrassing setbacks, and are dealt with harshly by their Neverborn masters. As may be expected, they like to fight and argue with each other a lot, which makes even some of their greatest successes a comedy of errors. The Great Contagion, as previously mentioned? Yeah, the only reason it only killed most of all life in Creation was because two other Deathlords, The Eye and Seven Despairs and The First and Forsaken Lion, went out and invited the fair folk to invade Creation, which ended up uniting all of Creation against a common cause, and gave the world the strength and focus to endure the plague, plus it screwed enough with creation's reality that the plague stopped working right. The other thing that seems to get in the way them succeeding are, ironically, the Neverborn themselves. As they Neverborn hate the state they are in, they hate it when the Deathlords don't preform to total perfection and brutally punish them for it. The First and Forsaken Lion, for example, is actually waiting to come up with a plan because he wants to be sure the plan will work out of fear it might not and getting punished like when he displeased the Neverborn in the past.

=====Hekatonkhires=====
These are ghosts of Behemoths or the Neverborn's Third Circle Souls. Occasionally the Neverborn's thoughts birth a new one. Hekatonkhires are unique and very powerful beings. Imagine undead Cthulhu's zombie kidneys, as a roaming monster.

====Mortals====
[[Image:Mortals_in_exalted.jpg|thumb|right]]
Everyone else. Mortals are unable to channel essence and thus are at a severe disadvantage. While Exalted is largely a cinematic and epic game, it is grim and gritty for Mortals. Their only real advantage is numbers. The most prominent mortals, Humans, were created by the Primordials to provide prayer (and the subsequent ambrosia and quintessence) in Yu-Shan, and nearly all Exalted are of Human stock. There are sub races of humans however some for instance are products of first age bioengineering such as the Air folk who can glide through the air on wings.

==System==
The basic mechanic is a modified [[Storyteller System]]. Pools of d10s are rolled; 7,8,9 count as one success, 10 counts as two successes. Successes are scaled against target numbers at a set difficulty against non PCs/NPCs. If no successes are rolled and at least one die comes up with a 1, then the roll is a botch (catastrophe ensues).

There are a few exceptions to these rules of success, however. Some Fate-based or Shaping-based effects can reduce the number needed to get a single success from a die. These won't come up unless you pull out the relevant splatbook, though.

'''Stunting''': A way to mechanically allow players to use Rule of Cool as a game mechanic. How does it work? A player describes how their PC does an action. Depending on the degree of description, a 1 to 3 dice bonus is given to the roll. (1 dice bonus is incredibly common, 3 dice bonuses almost never given).

*+1 Bonus - Make an effort, try to do something cool. Be brief.
*+2 Bonus - Make a cool description that fleshes out the scenery a bit. Be brief.
*+3 Bonus - Make everyone at the table say you're awesome at describing things. Be brief.

Did we mention that you should be brief? Well, you should.

Stunts can pretty much be done on any action, and don't necessarily have to follow the laws of physics. A good example of an athletics stunt would be the wallrunning in Prince of Persia games, while a combo in a fighting game might be a good example of a flurry stunt. But above all, make it short, snappy, and keep the flow of the game going.

Just if you're curious - The reason why they hand out bonus dice is two fold - Firstly, newly made characters tend to be a bit handicapped, being baller at the things they were made to do and pretty much not at the other stuff. So, stunting gives new characters the chance to succeed at almost anything as long as the player thinks of a pretty cool way to do it, and it teaches new players that as long as you make it feel cool your character can do ''anything''. Secondly, prior to Second Edition, the way multiple actions were handled was by splitting dice pools, so you needed to succeed at two different (generally fairly hard) tasks with half the dice you would otherwise. Stunting helped offset that, offering you the chance to succeed at complicated things that you otherwise wouldn't be able to just because they were epic. Second Edition works a little differently, applying flat penalties to your dice pools based on the number of actions you're taking, (take two actions, first action's on -2 and second is -3; three actions, -3, -4, -5, and so on) but stunts still help to offset that somewhat.

It's a kickass system all told, that helps to bridge between the role playing and the crunch, with a real benefit for staying in character while you splat things. It takes a lot of heat off the ST to make the dice rolling seem interesting because the characters are always trying (maybe not always succeeding) to be cool, so the ST doesn't have to come up with a million different ways to say 'you punch a guy and he falls down'.

Stunts also have rewards besides dice, namely motes and Willpower; a stunt is worth twice its die value in motes, or you can take a point of Willpower for a two- or three-die stunt. Generally, (there are exceptions) motes fuel magic stuff, while Willpower fuels more mundane stuff. (meaning things that anyone can do) Running out of either one can be a death sentence, even in Exalted 2.5; stunts help keep that from happening.

Eariler editions suffered tremendously from problems of [[Linear Build Quadratic EXP]], and the character-creation system was often mockingly regarded as a Byzantine "mini-game" in and of itself. Third edition conspicuously refused to fix the problem (with one of the devs infamously imperiously declaring, and this is a direct quote, [https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?768985-Exalted-Why-is-Everyone-Praising-3e&p=19548177#post19548177| "We have a policy not to give people bad rules just because they think they want them."] [[Troll| Holy shit.]]

Fortunately, while the problem's still ''there'', a number of core gameplay and pricing tweaks have at least made the problem less severe.

==See Also==
*[[Exalted/Custom|Errata and fan-made rules]]
*[[Exalted/Exalted 2nd Edition Character Sheet Template|Blank Wikified Character Sheet]]
*[[Mystic Empyrean]], a game with similarly epic-powered player characters.

==External Links==
*[http://rathess.xi.co.nz/exalted/index.php/Main_Page Archive of the old official wiki]
*[http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/wiki.pl Unofficial Exalted wiki], mostly 1e stuff
*[http://www.brilliantdisaster.net/wiki/Overgame List of Exalted games being run.]

{{WW-Games}}

[[Category:Exalted]]

Exalted

2016-11-14T07:25:51Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:F0D5:ED98:F7E2:9E06: /* Return of Scarlet Empress */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Exalted
|picture = [[Image:EXALTEDlogo.gif|200px]]
|type = [[RPG]]
|publisher = [[White Wolf]]
|system = Modified [[Storyteller System]]
|authors = Geoffrey C. Grabowski, John Mørke, Holden Shearer, Robert Vance, Eric Minton
|year = 2001 (1st edition) 2006 (2nd edition) 2016 (3rd edition)
}}
[[Image:Sniper-guitar.jpg|right|thumb|The Performance ability meets the Firearms ability]]
'''Exalted''' is a role-playing game by White Wolf, Inc. currently gearing up for its third edition. It is well known for its epic scale, as far as story and mechanics, and allowing the players to participate in (and cause) epic events rather than simply being bystanders. A silly group can turn this into a Kill La Kill/Gurren Lagann crossover, a serious group can turn this into the Ramayana: Romance of the Three Kingdoms edition. Both options are awesome. Compare [[Legends of the Wulin]].

==Brief Summary==
Exalted is a game where one of your main antagonists is Death, Creator of the Underworld. Except there's several of him, probably six or seven. Oh, and he's got 13 dread henchmen, one of whom was probably you at some point in time. Also, Hell has a personal grudge against you this time.

Magical Rome/Persia/China regularly trains and sends ninja-monks out for you personally. Ninjas specially trained in asskicking. And if that doesn't work, they keep giant color-coded gundams and suits of power armor as backups.

The Transformers have united under [[Æonic Orb|Unicron]] (who has robo-AIDS), and are invading because they have a shortage of souls.

The Jedi Council has corrupted Heaven and usurped your rightful place as the Masters of Everything - but nobody can remember them. The only reason they haven't hunted you down is that they're too busy trying to keep reality from imploding.

Your ex-wife dropped by; she's a two thousand year old shapechanging man-eating monster, interested in maybe going on a date next Thursday for dinner, followed by breeding a new race capable of rewriting the biosphere.

Your best friend from growing up -and your last life- now seeks to cover all the lands of Middle Earth in darkness, if he can just find this damn ring.

Your god has the world's biggest crack habit, and needs some serious rehab.

And yet, in theory, you think you can fix everything!

Welcome to Creation, kid! Hope you've got enough Essence!

Have Fun.

==Backstory==
Here's a history of the setting of Exalted, which may answer a bunch of questions and put things into perspective all at once.

Once upon a time, in the formless twisting chaos of the Wyld, there appeared the [[Primordials]]. The Primordials are impossibly vast alien beings with multiple souls. Imagine if Cthulhu was the size of Asia and you could meet and hold conversations with his major organs, which had separate identities, and you kinda get the idea.

“The formless chaos that spawned us sucks,” said the Primordials. “Let's build someplace cool to live, rather than hang out here!”

And so they did. They made Creation, and nailed it down with the Elemental Poles of Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and <s>Heart</s> Wood.

“This place isn't going to maintain itself,” said the Primordials. “Let's make a bunch of servants to run the place for us! We'll give them intelligence, free will, and hopes and dreams, and then keep them as slaves for eternity! It'll be great!” And so they made the gods. Some gods, such as the Unconquered Sun, Luna, and the Maidens, were built to be exceedingly cool and do lots; others were built to do stuff like make sure individual shrubs grew properly.

“Huzzah!” said the Primordials. “We have people to do the dirty work of running the place for us! Let's spend half our time playing the impossibly awesome Games of Divinity, and the other half screwing with the lives of our lessers!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the gods, after moving the Elemental Pole of Fire back into place for 700th time after one of the Primordials went on a drinking binge and knocked it loose, causing untold thousands of deaths and nearly causing Creation to fall back into the Wyld. “We should kill those assholes and take their stuff.”

“Ha ha!” said the Primordials. “You can't kill us! When we built you, we programmed you so you could never attack us! Suck it!”

===Making of the Exalted===
So the Unconquered Sun, who is the God of Awesome, came up with a plan. “Let's take those little mortal humans down there and give them incredible power. Then we can have them kill the Primordials, and then we can get at their Games of Divinity and play them ourselves!” So they developed Exaltations, which are sort of like an additional component to the human soul that lets you do magic and super kung fu. Then they picked out the coolest people in Creation and instilled these Essence Shards in them.

“Are you planning on using those Exalted mortals to kill my asshole brothers and sister and take their stuff?” asked Autochthon, who was just about the only Primordial on the side of the gods, because most of the time it was his stuff that the other Primordials were breaking when they ran amok. Plus they made fun of him all the time.

“Um... no,” said the gods.

“Gee, that's too bad. I was gonna hook them up with ultimate weapons of Primordial-slaying destruction, but since you're not rebelling and all...”

“Oh, in that case, yes. Yes, we are.”

Meanwhile, Luna, gender changing (and shapeshifting) god/goddess of the moon, managed to sweet-talk his/her/their Primordial hippy sugar mama Gaia into not fighting during the rebellion. “I'll do that thing with my tongue,” Luna promised.

“We have granted you the power to be totally awesome!” said the gods to their Exalted. “Now, go kill those Primordial assholes!”

“Aww, isn't that cute,” said the Primordials. “Those little humans think they can OH SHIT THEY'RE STABBING ME OW OW OW!” Half of them died.

“Don't kill us!” said the other half.

“Now you have to be our slaves for forever, ha ha ha!” said the gods, and then sewed them all up inside the butt of the head Primordial, Malfeas. (Malfeas got turned inside-out and sewn into his own butt.)

“You guys suck,” said the dead Primordials to the Exalted. “We hereby curse you so that you'll all turn into assholes someday!”

“Whatever,” said the Exalted.

“Well, now that that's over,” said the Unconquered Sun, who had since declared himself King of All Cosmos, “Let's go play the Games of Divinity all day! You folks we Exalted, you guys can run the world. Make sure none of our lamer siblings start acting stupid. Make sure I get plenty of prayers coming my way. Other than that, have fun!”

“Hey, I feel kinda guilty for helping kill my brothers and sisters and enslaving the rest,” said Autochthon. “I'm going to leave Creation to go brood for a few thousand years.”

“Have fun!” said the gods (and their new Exalted buddies.)

So the Exalted – particularly the Solars – ran the world. Having been cool to begin with and then granted badassitude by the God of Awesome, they proceeded to do all sorts of cool stuff, like build magical cities out of glass, make mountains float, and ''breed dinosaurs who pissed heroin.'' YES, SERIOUSLY. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS IN EXALTED.

===The Usurpation and the Immaculate Order===
Eventually, though, the Solars got bored and jaded and full of themselves. “We killed the Primordials and made all this cool stuff. Everything we do must therefore be right. Let's run amok!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the Sidereals, whose job it is to make sure that the Loom of Fate, which is sort of the engine that runs Creation, doesn't crash. “At the rate they're going, they're gonna wreck Creation. Let's kill them and take their stuff!”

“Hey, we need your help,” the bronze faction Sidereals (lead by Chejop Kejak) said to the Dragon-Blooded, who were the least awesome and powerful but most numerous of the Exalted (cause theirs is heredity), who acted as lieutenants and aides and local governors and such. Secretaries, too. “Your asshole Solar bosses are gonna wreck the world. Can you help us kill them?”

“Figures they'd end up doing something like that. Sure, we'll help,” said the Dragon-Blooded.

“Come to our big dinner banquet!” said the Dragon-Blooded to the Solars. Then, when the Solars arrived, the bronze faction Sidreals blew the place up, and trapped the Solar's Essence Shards in a magic cage so that no more Solars could be created.

“Yay it worked! Now we'll erase all evidence of our existence and run the world from behind the scenes, while the Dragon-Blooded can do the dirty work!” said the Sidereals, thus proving themselves to be the only people in the setting with basic pattern recognition.

Meanwhile, the ghosts of the dead Primordials caught 13 of the dead Solar's ghosts on the way down into the Underworld. “Work for us,” they said, “and we'll give you incredible power, like what you had when you were alive!”

“What's the catch?” asked the ex-Solar ghosts.

“Well, you have to be our slaves and try to make everything, everywhere, die forever.”

“Deal! Let's get cracking!” And so were the Deathlords were created, super-powerful ghosts who want the world to die.

Back in Creation, the Dragon-Blooded had a conundrum.

"Hey, what the hell, guys?" The people said. "Those Solar and Lunar guys were fucking awesome! Why the hell did you kill them?"

"Um..." The Dragon-Blooded said as they came up with a solution. Eventually, one of them said, "...Because they were DEMONS possessing mortals! Yeah, that's the trick!" And so the Immaculate Order was invented, a religion that almost everyone in the Realm follows, which paints all Celestial Exalted as evil "Anathema", demons that possess awesome people and turn them into cunning evil monsters. Which, to be fair, is technically true. Wyld Hunts (think modern special forces with magitech in a mostly standard fantasy setting) are sent out to kill Celestials and keep the status quo all status quo-y.

===The Great Contagion and the Balorian Crusade===
So while the Dragon-Blooded were doing a fairly good (although not nearly as impressive as the Solars) job of running Creation, the Deathlords were building a doomsday plague.

“Taste the bitter poison mixed from the ashes of our hopes and the tears of betrayal in the dark pit of our tortured souls!” said the Deathlords, presumably while wearing too much eyeliner, and unleashed their doomsday plague into Creation.

“This sucks,” said 90% of the living beings in the world, and died. Including plants.

“Hey,” said the Deathlords to the Fair Folk, who were into that sort of thing, who lived in the Wyld outside of Creation and didn't like the idea of a place that didn't just change according to their thoughts. “Just about everyone in there's dead now. If you went in, ate the souls of the survivors, and tore the place down, no one could stop you!”

“Thanks for the heads up!” said the Fair Folk, and promptly invaded in force.

“This is bad,” said one of the surviving Dragon-Blooded to her friends. “Fortunately, I just remembered that there's a sealed-off control center for an ultimate magical doomsday weapon that the Solars made for defending Creation against exactly this sort of thing. Let's go on an epic world-saving quest to get in there!”

And so they went. On the way, they came across a shitton of Lunars fighting the Fair Folk.

"Oh shit, Anathema! Let's fight!" One said. The Lunars rolled their eyes and kept fighting.

Another one said to them, "Hey, if you cover us, we can stop this whole thing, and then we'll pretend we never met you and keep feeding Creation the cock-and-bull-story about you being demons!"

"Deal." The Lunars said. And they bought the Dragon-Blooded time to get to the Imperial Manse.

Most of them died trying to get past the defenses, but eventually, two Dragon-Blooded finally made it to the control panel.

“Please insert soul to activate this device,” said the control panel.

“What does that mean?” asked one, and then the other shoved her into the soul-extraction device.

And so this unnamed Dragon-Blooded, through an act of supreme badassness, gained access to Creation's greatest magical weapons systems and used them to blow up the Fair Folk.

“I hereby declare myself the Scarlet Empress and ruler of the world,” she said.

“Nuh uh!” said some, until she blew them up. This brought lots more people over to her side, and thus was born the Realm, which is the major power in the world today.

Still, some said, “You were just a lieutenant who got lucky and stumbled across some doomsday weapons. We still have some doomsday weapons of our own, and we'll fight back!” The Scarlet Empress wanted to blow them up too, but a lot of her weapons didn't reach and she was kind of afraid of a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario, so, despite the occasional invasion attempt, they remained independent.

And so things went for over 750 years, until fairly recently, when the Scarlet Empress just up and disappeared. Having named no successor, the entire Realm is now leaderless and gearing up for civil war to see who's gonna be the next one of the Scarlet Throne. Right now, they've got this spineless bureaucrat warming the seat, but this guy is a total pussy who's basically being manipulated by whichever member of the shogunate is feeling power-hungry today. If you've seen Scrubs, imagine Ted with twenty-something Kelsos to suck up to.

Meanwhile, the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon discovered where the Sidereals has stashed their cage full of Solar shards. They told the Neverborn -the ghosts of their brothers and sister who said Solars killed- tantalizing them with the idea of the power of the tools that destroyed them. “Hey, we can twist those and use them to create our own invincible deathknights!” The Deathlords pointed out. "We'll tell you where it is, just give us, uh, 50 of them!" the Yozi promised, planning to reap the benefits if the plan succeeded and covering their asses if it didn't. “Deal, let's go get that cage!” Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for everyone else), half the Essence Shards got loose. Now, once again, there are Solar Exalted.

And that's where the game begins.

===Return of Scarlet Empress===
And this is how the game can possibly end.

"Oh man! This sucks," said the Scarlet Empress. "When I die whoever takes over is going to screw up everything I worked for! What am I going to do?" She then found out that if she wrote ''The-Broken-Wing-Crane'' (which is pretty much the Necronomicon) she'd be immortal. "Aight I finished the Necronomicon! Now I'm immortal!"

"Sucker!" Said the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon, as he dragged the Scarlet Empress off to Hell. There he brainwashed her [/d/|with tentacles] as his slave. He then said to the other Yozi "I've got a plan to get us out of here, any of you in?"

"Damn skippy!" said Malfeas.

"Affirmative," said She Who Lives In Her Name.

"Whatever," said Cecelyne.

"It's not like its got anything better to do,"said Adorjan.

The Ebon Dragon told his plan to his conspirators which amounts to: 'take the Akuma and Green Sun Princes to the four corners of Creation and fuck shit up!' Meanwhile Realm has a civil war, at least until the Scarlet Empress came back "I'm back and here to stay, Mhahahahahahahahahaha!" said the Scarlet Empress.

"Hmm, something's not right" said Chejop Kejak. So he called all the Sidereals together to try and assassinate her. It doesn't work and Chejop dies. Then back in Heaven Akuma, Green Sun Princes, and their Abyssal allies kill the Unconquered Sun (also possibly Luna and the five maidens.) Back in Hell the Ebon Dragon marries the Scarlet Empress breaking him out of Hell. "So long suckers!" he said betraying the Yozi.

"What a dick!" said the Yozis still in Hell and then proceeded to commit demon genocide.

Back on Creation the Apocalypse and Ragnarok are happening at the same time the Exalted gather a mighty armies to fight the forces of the Ebon Dragon in a mighty battle, And the Scarlet Empress dies of an incurable condition called a Daiklave to the chest. The Ebon Dragon is defeated, the day is saved, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except for the part where the Ebon Dragon is now in hiding unless, you killed him in that case he's now a Neverborn. Speaking of the Underworld there are a lot more ghosts in there for the Deathlords and Neverborn to take advantage of. Also more of Creation possibly was taken by the Wyld via the Fair Folk. and the fact the world is a much bigger mess and in more disarray then it was before. So Huzzah?

==Important Elements==
===Exalted===
====[[Solars|Solar Exalted]]====
[[Image:Chess-solar-exalted.jpg|thumb|right|Solar Exalted]]
The Solar's main themes are 'excellence' and 'rulership'. Solar Exalted were created by the Unconquered Sun, King of the Gods, to lead the other Exalted, and to rule the world. Most of their low-level powers are normal human abilities turned up to 11, like simply being impossibly good at sneaking, or fighting, or persuasion. Their high-power abilities are normal human abilities turned up to OVER NINE THOUSAAAAND!!! A mortal blacksmith can make a sword using iron and a hammer and forge--a Solar craftsman can take a heap of hematite, and ''wring'' a sword out of it with their bare hands, and it'll be a masterfully made one, too. A mortal can survive, at least for a little while, in a hostile environment, like a raging snowstorm. A Solar with the right Charms can survive being at the bottom of the ocean, or '''inside''' an erupting volcano. A mortal can use a sword to parry a sword-strike. A Solar can parry an angry Primordial hitting them with a mountain range. And so on.
Solars also excel at inspiring and persuading others. Or, to be less polite, only the Fair Folk come anywhere close to their skill at being [[Eldrad|dicks]].

====[[Lunars|Lunar Exalted]]====
Lunar Exalts are the chosen of Luna. After the Terrestrials murdered all the Solars, they then moved on to their second in command Lunar servants. Fortunately for the children of the moon, they had always been good with stealth and survival in the wilderness, unfortunately for them the Dragon Bloods were a very organized and driven genocidal force. The Lunars had no choice but to move into the borderlands between the Wyld and Creation and try to plan their resistance in secret. However the Wyld is not a nice place and the borderlands can mutate even Exalted with its touch. Thus three things have happened: The Lunars have taken to ritually tattooing themselves with moonsilver, the normal 5 caste system has been simplified into the Full Moon, No Moon, and Changing Moon castes, and almost all of them have acquired bestial traits either through their devotion to Luna or the Wyld mutations. Ergo Lunar Exalts are a race of [[furry]] demigods. But one should always remember what power the Exalted wield, telling a lion-man of the Full Moon to "yiff in hell" is almost always a horrible idea as he can rip you and thousands like you to pieces without even trying. The Lunars have the unique "Meerkat Steals The Spotlight Prana", which makes any Real Life conversation about Exalted eventually evolve into a discussion about Lunar Exalted, as, pre-3e, they were by far the most interesting Exalt (except maybe the Fair Folk, below).

====[[Sidereals|Sidereal Exalted]]====
The Sidereals are the Chosen of the Maidens. To cover up their role in the Usurpation they broke the universe a little, and now everyone keeps forgetting that they exist. If they want to be remembered, they can use Resplendent Destinies, but then people remember the Destiny and not the person. If a certain Destiny is inconvenient or widely hated, the Sidereal can drop it and use another. In other words, Sidereals are anonymous 4chan users, and Resplendent Destinies are tripcodes.

These guys are the Men in Black and the CIA of Exalted. They live and work in the coolest place evar (Heaven) and are sent on missions to make sure everything in Creation is Working as Intended, "by any means necessary". Not surprisingly, Siderals are notorious for being lying, cheating, backstabbing Magnificent Bastards by the people who can manage to remember them.

They are also more crazy, but less powerful than the Solar exalted, when fighting. A battle with a Sidereal can result in you turning into a mountain, your opponent turning into a river, and then the two of you doing battle with the concept of love as a weapon. Sidereal Martial Arts are the pinnacle of kung-fu, and instead of emulating facets of Creation, they make Creation a facet of the Martial Art. This lets them punch people so hard they turn into ducks (it makes marginally more sense in context). Sidereals are also the only Exalts capable of manipulating the Loom of Fate directly, and are tasked with making sure it doesn't break down.

====[[Abyssals|Abyssal Exalted]]====
By twisting the Solar Exalted Essences in a Monstrance of Celestial Portion, the Neverborn managed to create the Abyssal Exalted. Abyssal Exalted don't suffer from the Great Curse, but instead suffer if they act too nice to people. They are also kept on a short leash, since the dead Primordials aren't exactly pleased with the Exalted. Generally an Abyssal has two choices in life, be the grand villain or attempt to redeem themselves. Both suck for obvious reasons.

Abyssal Exalted charms are largely mirrors of Solar Charms with a darker aspect. As a general thing, where the Solar Exalted gain bonuses, the Abyssal Exalted force penalties on their foes. Their magical material is Soulsteel, the forged souls of ghosts who live in constant pain (and moan and stuff too). They generally fall into one of a few categories; Emo dicks, giggling psychotic mass murderers, devoid of all redeeming qualities, and CRAAAAAAAWLING IIIIIIIIIIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIIIIIIN. There is a part of their soul that is still a Solar and it keeps reminding them of all the bad shit they do, and lots of them use it to be even more emo.

Fortunately, if they run into their Lunar Bondmate, they don't HAVE to suffer if they act too nice to him/her/it and/or those around him/her/it, and if they DO get to the "redemption" stage (BIIIIIG if), they don't have to worry about that pesky Great Curse anymore.

Unless, of course, their player took a look at the way that the Abyssals' development paths basically boil down to either 'devoted slave of the biggest dicks in existence' (which not everyone really wants to be) or 'the Abyssal whose one goal in life is to stop being an Abyssal' (which kind of misses the point) and said, "Fuck that noise, I'm going to be the biggest baddest ass in the underworld and the most horrifying thing in existence, no-one's going to tell me what to do, and it's going to be freaking AWESOME and metal and shit!" and proceeded to rewrite the rules until they could do just that.

====[[Dragon-Blooded|Terrestrial Exalted]]====
Terrestrials, also known as Dragon-Blooded, have a fitting name. They are the Exalts of the Five Elemental Dragons, souls of the Primordial Gaia. This gives them the ability to kill stuff with fire or their personal equivalent.

Since Terrestrials are the current bosses in Creation (with some secret aid from the Sidereals), their empire is the biggest single nation in the world and their state religion proclaims them to officially be the Best Thing Ever, they can freely go around and strut their stuff without being decried as Anathema, a term they invented themselves so that no other Exalts could strut their stuff. This in turn has a tendency to cause them to be enormous assholes. Also, when they use their magic a lot, they are liable to start burning or cause storms or other stuff that's less than safe for innocent bystanders.

The Terrestrials are soldiers. Like, all of them. They lean towards hierarchy, and even if not all of them fight, all of them could, and probably would if they were asked, contribute to a war effort. And the Realm is pretty much always at war in some area. Funny how that turns out.

Life in Dragon-Blooded society is competitive and merciless. To prepare for this, their training as soldiers and politicians starts as soon as they can speak and is so brutal that many don't survive to maturity even without considering the occasional assassination attempt. The end product is sort of a Sidereal-lite flavour of badass, particularly the ones that decide to become <strike>Shaolin</strike> Immaculate monks.

Terrestrials take strength in numbers, and since their Exaltation is the only one that is inherited (Dragon-''Blooded'', remember?), family is very important to them. From this follows that the production of new family is also very important to them, so if a Terrestrial isn't trying to kill you, he's probably trying to sleep with you. Even if he's gay.

====[[Alchemicals|Alchemical Exalted]]====
Basically <strike>robots</strike>Autobots. They work for Autochthon, also called The Great Maker, who is one of the last free Primordials and has a bunch of people living in cities built inside of him. He's got Primordial robot cancer that's called Gremlin Syndrome, The setting is half "Void tainted"(no relation to the Underworld) or infected by Gremlin Syndrome, and the other half varies between Steampunk to Cyberpunk. (Void-tainted Alchemicals are called Apostates, but they're only really comparable to Decepticons if all Decepticons, ever, eventually go into gleeful rampages of slaughter) As Alchemicals get more powerful, they get more and more like giant, inhuman robots until they turn into living cities.

Alchemicals are the only Exalted who require a soul that has demonstrated heroics worthy of Exaltation in many past lives. Given what's required to become one. Aside from that, then it could be worth noticing that Autochthon, being the guy who invented Exaltation, essentially made Alchemicals as prototypes for all the other Exaltations. Orichalcum Alchemicals for Solars, Moonsilver for Lunars and so on. <strike>Even Abyssal Exalted are covered by the Soulsteel Caste, making you wonder if he anticipated death-themed Exaltations...</strike> Retconned in Second Edition, Abyssals weren't planned for and resonate with both Orichalcum and Soulsteel, but the question remains for ''what'' Autocthon planned to do with them, as well as Adamant Alchemicals that do not fit anywhere, and the later Infernal Exalted don't match any Alchemicals either. On the other hand, said Infernals resonate with ALL of the Alchemical Castes - whether it's because they're proto-Primordials or SCIENCE!/MAGIC!/EXALTED! is up for debate.

====[[Infernals|Infernal Exalted]]====
The result of the Yozi's deal with the Neverborn to steal them some Solar Exaltations, the Infernal Exalts are tasked with turning Creation into Hell so that the Yozi can escape their prison. This is easier said than done because, like their Abyssal cousins, literally every other faction in existence thinks this is a terrible idea. Infernal charms are actually their Yozi's charms, and thus follow strict thematic grouping. When an Infernal develops a custom charm their Yozi learns it as well, which allows individual Infernals to change their Yozi over time. They are also slowly becoming Yozis in their own right over time, though they have the potential to be far more awesome Primordials than the original Primordials ever were.

Infernal Exalted is a collective term used to refer to two types; Akuma and Green Sun Princes. Akuma are the result of the classic Faustian bargain, selling their soul and free will for unstoppable power. Green Sun Princes get the same powers, except they still have the option of flipping the bird at this whole Reclamation thing and running off to get coked out of their minds, and since Akuma don't have free will you'll usually be playing as the latter.

[[That Guy|Some people]] will try to tell you that if you try to play an Infernal who is also a fundamentally decent character, you are [[Matt Ward|doing it wrong.]] Those people are idiots. No one says you have to put '''heroes''' in an elaborate death trap, explain your plans to them at length, and then leave with a hearty evil laugh to bleed off Torment. The head of a major crime syndicate works just as well.
Additionally, the potential to become an Über-primordial means that slipping the leash and gaining 'redemption' places you in the position of absolute power. You can become Armageddon, destroyer of all, Genesis, creator of worlds, or Über Gaia, mother/father/progenitor of everything. Dickhead, dispassionate weeder, or eternally-loving-and-benevolent Cthulu, those monikers become meaningless when you can make your ''soul/imagination'' a REALITY IN OF ITSELF.

Seriously though, check with your storyteller first. The [[fluff]] for these guys is positively ''fucked'' from being written by two different teams of dudes that had ''zero'' contact with each other and very different ideas of what to do with the archetype. Naturally, that means that DMs are divided into armed, angry camps over the "[[skub|right]]" way to play/run an Infernal campaign, and if he wants to use them one way, then let him use them that way. It might be in your best interests to pick one of the more traditionally "heroic" kinds of Exalt if he wants them to be child-raping murderers rather than screwed-up dudes with many possible motivations and flaws. And even if he ''does'' let you run the way you want, nobody likes the guy who [[Drizzt|won't stop whining about]] [[Vampire: The Masquerade|how hard it is to be misunderstood]] all the time. Remember: being an Infernal is fun. It feels good. It's like being the centerpiece of a heavy metal album cover, whether you're trying to be a hero or not.

====[[Chernozem|Liminal Exalted]]====
We don't know much about these ones. They've gotten scattered mentions in the second-to-last book of second edition, have some sort of interest in body parts, and are tied to the lands of the dead. They're also called "Chernozem", chosen of the black earth. Their Aspects apparently include Blood, Marrow, Flesh, Breath and Soil.

They are on a quest to learn about their Humanity.

And we're going to keep on waiting, since a new edition just got announced and it'll probably be years before they receive an official sourcebook.

Based on tentative things released with the Kickstarter, Liminals are the result of people trying to use rituals to bring back the dead (something impossible in Exalted). The Dark Mother, a strange being who lives somewhere in the Underworld meets the conductor of the ritual halfway and instead creates a whole new soul inside the corpse, which is the Exalt. Liminal Exalts are tasked by her with keeping restless spirits bound and down, but can give her the finger and do their own damn thing (unlike Abyssals). They can collect and replace body parts to modify their skills, taking the legs of a legendary dancer, the arm of a swordsman, or the tongue of a master storyteller and making these abilities their own. Additionally, as long as a Liminal's brain is intact and they can access most of their original body's matter, they can recover from any injury.

====[[Getimian Exalted]]====
Apparently at some point a Sidereal looked up from his endless paperwork, realized saving the fundaments of reality every day was something that just wasn't going to end, and said WELL FUCK THAT and wandered off. He then proceeded to--in ascending order of badassitude, and perhaps sequentially--quit his job, declare war on heaven, and then recruit an entire type of Exalted to help, and they now regard him as their collective boss. They have some sort of crazy internal alchemy and have a miniature version of the machine that keeps reality running inside each one, thanks to ''colonies of pattern spiders that live in their spines.'' [[Drow]], eat your hearts out.

And like the Liminals, that's about all we know until their hardback comes out.

====[[Exigents]]====

Discount Exalted. Basically, every god has the capacity to carve out some of their own power and then give it to a mortal as a permanent upgrade. This would probably result in all humanity being Exalted in short order given how literally every blade of grass has a god and everyone wants their own action figure, were it not for the Law of Diminishment-if you're going to make something that's going to be great and perhaps eternal, you have to permanently give it some of your own power. Hell, the first time the Sun set was when he made the Solars, and that was just stamping his name on the things Autocthon already made! This is often more than what lesser gods can take and what greater gods, being dicks, are willing to give up, hence why they're saved for emergencies. Once that happens though, they each get a custom Charmset, for a personal style of kicking ass.

And you guessed it, that's all we're gonna know until the hardback.

===Gods===
Creations of the Primordials. The Gods were meant to maintain Creation while their masters played the Games of Divinity. That didn't turn out so good.
====Celestial Incarnae====
These are the strongest deities in the setting by dint of their celestial nature, and led the other Gods into rebellion against the Primordials. They don't do much now except rubber stamp paperwork and maybe say hi to new Exalts every now and then, being utterly addicted to the [[World of Warcraft|Games of Divinity.]]
=====The Unconquered Sun=====
The Unconquered Sun, Ignis Divine, king of kings, lord of Yu-Shan and Chief God of War, is the greatest of the gods in Exalted, he is the God of Perfection. He is usually depicted as a shining four-armed warrior bearing in each hand a symbol of the virtues he exalts: a shield for temperance, a spear for valor, a branch for compassion, and a horn for conviction. The Solar Exalted are his Chosen, and he is the chief deity of the Dragon Kings. He's actually a pretty cool guy who has to make an effort to repress being compassionate, temperate, holding to his convictions, or being valorous. What that adds up to is a god who will always protect the innocent, never back down from a challenge, and will always hold true to his convictions...Or at least that used to be the case. Now he's just as addicted to the GoD like all the other Incarnae, and has become just as detached from Creation as the Primordials he overthrew. The burnout from being ranked ten in every virtue isn't helping. He's actually SO powerful that his shadow is, in and of itself, a god.
Has a specialty in 'riding' Luna and Gaia, although the girls he keeps trying to marry are the Five Maidens.

=====Luna=====
Luna is either intensely cunning or utterly mad, or perhaps both. Some say she is a Fair Folk noble. Like the Wyld, she is malleable able to take whatever form pleases her. The Lunar Exalted are her Chosen, and she is Gaia's lover (but so is just about everyone else).

Luna is a shapeshifter, which explains the Lunars' entire shtick, but doesn't have any limits on what she can turn into. Gender isn't a thing for Luna and it's not unheard of for Luna to be portrayed as a guy (protip. if you have a portrait of the Incarna and there's a silver-haired dude, that her). Out of all the incarnae, Luna is the least affected by the games and she actually takes the time to visit each Lunar as they exalt. Luna doesn't have a true form but her most common forms include but are not limited to a bow wielding huntress, a male traveler dressed entirely in white, a pregnant woman, a pregnant man, a sorceress with a tiara that keeps the Terrifying Secrets Gods Were Not Meant To Know from destroying her mind, and a knife wielding, half naked, wild woman that is apparently the greatest predator in creation.

In order to create Luna they had to stuff all the other moon gods in the Jar of Things that Can Not Exists and have them fight to the death. What popped out was Luna who promptly decided to whisper sweet nothings to UC and seduce Gaia.

=====The Five Maidens=====
Originally created to service the Loom of Fate, these Five Maidens are likely most enigmatic of the Incarnae. The Five Maidens are, together, second in power only to the Unconquered Sun and about equal to Luna. Their Chosen are the Sidereal Exalted, champions and guardians of fate. Okay people, mostly, though they keep running into... problems. For instance, actually ''using'' their powers to look into the future locks it in immutably into place, for good or ill, so they don't like doing it. 

The Five Maidens are:
* Mercury, the Maiden of Journeys
* Venus, the Maiden of Serenity
* Mars, the Maiden of Battles
* Jupiter, the Maiden of Secrets
* Saturn, the Maiden of Endings

====Celestial Gods====
Also known as the Celestial Bureaucracy, they are, surprise surprise, the bureaucrats of Heaven. They fill out paperwork, kiss up to their bosses after work and try to avoid anything that resembles real work. They are assigned to Departments that manage Creation-wide phenomena, such as Dreams, Fate, Weather and Mammals. They avoid the Sidereals as much as possible.

====Terrestrial Gods====
Like the name says, they live in Creation. For various reasons, they loathe the Celestial Bureaucracy. Their purview (and power) is more limited than the Celestial gods, such as a city or a specific type of tree. Their proximity to mortals means that they're the gods most likely to bully them, but also the ones most likely to cut a deal with.

====Elementals====
Elementals are terrestrial spirits devoted to ensuring a small, local purview functions properly. They are also arranged into the Elemental Courts. There are five categories of Elementals (Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Wood) and numerous subdivisions there in. While numerous, each Elemental is a unique sentient being and has its place in Fate. Most Elemental beings are noticeably drawn from Earth mythology. (e.g. dragons, thunderbirds, ifrit).

====Little Gods====
Little Gods are the barely-aware deities of common objects. They interact with other little gods behind the scenes and generally ensure that things work properly. For example, a lumberjack goes to fell a tree: The axe's little god informs the tree's little god that it should probably fall down now. Usually it will, and the Loom of Fate makes a note of the fact and everything continues on its merry way. Other times, the tree doesn't fall (or fall in the right direction, or falls, say, purple) and the Bureau of Destiny might dispatch a Sidereal to figure out what the problem is.

===[[Primordials]]===
The Primordials made Creation from the infinite possibility of the Wyld. They are beings beyond measure, and composed of many subsidiary souls. They are defined by their Third Circle souls, and most importantly by their Fetich Soul (though it might be that they define their souls). During the Primordial War, those who lost all of their Third Circle souls died and became the Neverborn, while those who survived with some intact became the Yozis.

====Neverborn====
Slain during the Primordial war, they fell through the fabric of Creation and left Shadowlands in their wake. As they conceived of a state of 'not being', Oblivion was born. Similarly, their unconscious thoughts created the Underworld, now more static and unchanging to fit their ideals. Like all ghosts, the Neverborn have fetters to Creation and were unable to truly fall into Oblivion. In fact, as they created the world, they have the strongest fetters of all undead. They realized that the only way to achieve their goal of true death was to destroy their fetters, all of Creation. At first, they were more fearful of the Exalted than anything and half-asleep besides the fact. When the Black Nadir Concordat intruded into their tomb-cities and stole the secrets of Necromancy, they were roused to wakefulness and incredibly angry. Though dead, the Neverborn are still incredibly powerful and command hosts of Abyssal Exalts, Deathlords, Hekatonkhires, and Spectres.

Remember Tolkien's description of Sauron's fate at the end of Lord of the Rings? That's the Neverborn. The tragedy isn't that they're "dead", because beings that huge can't actually die - the very concept of Death is beyond them since they didn't build Creation to ''handle'' them dying. The tragedy is that they're so obsessed with something they've already lost that they can't look past it. They're all caught in a permanent, inescapable angst-loop, and if any of them could just sit up and notice they could abandon their forms and go back to the Wyld. But instead, they sit and spiral further into their "we got our asses handed to us and now our favorite toy is gone" drain-circling, and the psychic emanation of their collective regret has created an entire Underworld for similarly-resonant souls to live out their own miserable pathos.

Unlike the Yozi, and unlike the truly Dead, the Neverborn are simply incapable of noticing anything that might free them from their eternity of navel-gazing. They have nothing left but self-hatred, and the desire to see everything else wind up even more screwed than they were.

No wonder the Ebon Dragon likes them so much.

====Yozis====
Those Primordials who survived the Primordial War were shoved inside the butt of their General/King, Malfeas (who was turned inside out and shoved into his own butt!). They then swore many oaths, some known only to the Unconquered Sun, for they are engraved into the haft of the Orichalcum spear he wields. The Yozis feel nothing but anger for their betrayal and diminution at the hands of the Exalted and the Gods, and plot to return the favour. The Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon (the Primordial responsible for the concept of Opposition: he created honesty so he could be dishonest, loyalty so he could be treacherous, and virtue so he could be its antithesis. In order to talk to you he has to turn himself into exactly what you personally most despise and fear. Not a nice guy!) has been tasked by his peers to find a way to escape from their prison. Which has been going roughly as well as you might expect.( dude, he's the embodiment of assholery. You really gonna trust this fucker?) An unknown number of Yozi Cults also flourish in Creation, aiming to learn demonic practices and perhaps ultimately bring the true masters of Creation back to their world.

It's worth noting that those oaths mean that unlike the Neverborn, the Yozis can't act too openly to fuck up Creation, else they get called before the Incarnae to account for their actions. What happens next is likely... unpleasant.

=====Akumas=====
An Akuma is a mortal or Exalt who has been granted [[Daemon Prince|a measure of power by an Yozi, but essentially becomes a puppet of that Primordial, devoid of free will]]. While this sounds like a horrible trade, the Yozi are very convincing even when they ''aren't'' just lying about it and some people are incredibly power-hungry. The first Akuma was a Solar Exalted, and the Yozi eagerly seek to turn more Exalted into Akuma. The Green Sun Princes (read: Infernal Exalted), the 50 Solar Shards altered by the Yozis, are not Akuma, though there are enough similarities that the two frequently get confused.

=====Demons=====
The lower souls of the Yozis are called Demons now. Thanks to the terms of the Yozis' surrender, they can be summoned into Creation and ordered around. This is difficult for mortal occultists, since Demons can be very willful, but prepared Exalted sorcerers usually don't have too much of a problem with this. There are specific astrological condition required. For example, the strongest ones, Third Circle Demons, can only be summoned during a five day window called Calibration once a year. First Circle Demons are numerous and interchangeable, while Second and Third Circle Demons are unique.

Demons aren't, unlike [[tanar'ri|the D&D version]], ''naturally'' depraved and evil. They are, however, the products of a nightmarish culture created, ruled by, and located inside of a number of beings that are almost as unnecessarily assholish as they are bugfuck nuts. They may be capable of moral choice like humans, but that doesn't automatically made them good people either. Unless you're a Sidereal with the charm that lets you essentially put them into the Witness Protection Program for services rendered, tread lightly.

====[[Primordials]] (Who aren't dead or imprisoned)====
=====Autochthon=====
Autochthon was the Primordial who created much of the technology and industry of Creation. Including the Loom of Fate that enforces causality in creation. He was not well regarded or well-treated by his peers and resented them greatly. During the Primordial War, he sided with the Gods and helped arm their Exalted. After the War, when asked to put a geas on his Mountain Folk, he worried the Exalted would turn on him next. Gathering up his loyal followers he departed Creation for Elsewhere, sealing the way behind him with the Seal of Eight Divinities.

=====Gaia=====
Gaia sat the war out, thanks to Luna's insistence. The Five Elemental Dragons are her creations, as of third edition it is unclear if they are her subsouls or just spirits she made. She is not often spoken of, and seems to have no agenda beyond leaving most of herself behind in heaven and then running around the wyld looking for 'answers'.

===Others===
====Jadeborn====
The [[Dwarves]] of the Exalted setting, also called the mountain folk (because they live in mountains). They are divided into three castes, the Artisans, the Workers, and the Warriors. The Artisans are the leaders while the workers work and supply the Warriors who are in a constant fight against the Darkbrood. They were originally created by Autochthon when he found some of the Rakasha trapped in blocks of Jade. He then formed them into the first Jadeborn. Eventually they evolved into a caste system with some of the workers and warriors having an exalted like tendency called enlightenment. The Jadeborn provided many of the wonders of the first age and had such technology that they were cursed by the unconquered sun to never roam the surface of Creation without being lead by a member of the exalted. Jadeborn Charms come in four Patterns: Foundation, Artisan, Worker, and Warrior.

====Dragon Kings====
The Dragon Kings are large lizard-like beings of great power, resembling dinosaurs. The Dragon Kings are sworn in allegiance to the Unconquered Sun, their creator. Before the time of the Exalted, the Dragon Kings ruled Creation and the mortals who dwelt there, but as the methods of Exaltation were crafted and improved they become obsolete in the gods' eyes. Think inca and aztec style biped dinuars. The Unconquered Sun used them as powerful servants to his chosen whom they served faithfully, honoring their Exalted brethren. After the First Age ended in war and disease, few survived. Their numbers grow slowly but steadily in the Second Age, though the once great Dragon Kings remain hidden in the furthest corners of Creation. Their most powerful stronghold would be the Aztec-flavoured Rathess, an ancient home filled with a variety of powerful artifacts made by the Dragon Kings in the glory days of the First Age. There are four types of Dragon Kings, each living in a direction of Creation; the graceful flying Pterok (North), the nimble and lithe Raptok (East), the powerful and loyal Anklok (South), and the clever amphibious Mosok (West).

====Fair Folk====
The Fair Folk are creatures composed of raw Essence, and inhabit the Wyld – the place that exists between the ordered Creation and pure Chaos. Inhuman and beautiful beings born from chaos, they feed on the dreams and aspirations of the inhabitants of Creation in order to give them strength and form in their own intermediate realm. (In other words, they EAT PEOPLE'S SOULS.) In essence, they are the "kissing cousins" of the Primordials; their territory having been pushed back when the Primordials formed Creation. They prey upon the dreams of mortals and do a brisk trade with the Guild (a powerful economic organization in Creation) in slaves... well, the souls of slaves.

The Raksha are divided into four castes: Diplomats, who favor the Staff Grace and the virtue of Conviction; Entertainers, who favor the Cup Grace and the virtue of Compassion; Warriors, who favor the Sword Grace and the virtue of Valor, and Workers, who favor the Ring Grace and the virtue of Temperance. Noble Raksha belong to two of the four castes, favoring the graces and virtues of both. There is also a fifth Grace, the Heart Grace, which is associated with identity and the trait of Willpower. Graces are differing outlets for the use of Essence and are similar to the suits of tarot. The most powerful of the Fair Folk are the Unshaped. Unlike the Raksha, the Unshaped are unable to survive within Creation for extended periods of time, each Unshaped is actually a symbiotic cluster of Fair Folk consisting of a single "guiding intelligence" and one or more "subsidiary intelligences" with no true form.

Being born from a place of fluid reality that resembles a Loony Tunes skit as much as it does creation, fair folk have difficulty functioning like "real" people. For one thing they suffer from "calcification", their natural unshaped forms are incompatible with creation's stagnant, static existence. Even when they take on a semi-real shape (as a Rakasha) they bleed essence while in creation and must feed on dreams and souls to keep themselves alive. Secondly a fair folk's emotions and virtues are entirely artificial, represented by their graces. When their phony identities break down they suffer from 'Bedlam'. This can have effects such as losing the ability to comprehend that other people aren't just figments of his imagination (conviction) or forgetting that he is capable of inflicting harm on others (valor).

====Ghosts====
Ever since the Neverborn's death broke the cycle of reincarnation, those who die with their business unfinished turn up as Ghosts in the Underworld. Ghosts have access to what they were buried/burned with (their grave goods) and are able to channel essence and learn ghost charms, called Arcanoi. Ghosts who settle their business can pass into Lethe as they should have and reincarnate. Those who give into the Whispers of Oblivion (usually by wandering the Labyrinth) turn into crazed Spectres intent on spreading the word of Oblivion by force. Their third option is to toss themselves into the Mouth of Oblivion and utterly cease to exist.

=====Deathlords=====
Ghosts of 13 First Age Solars who died during the Usurpation, they took the Neverborn's offer of real, ultimate power in exchange for promising to drop all of Creation into Oblivion. They are rather bitter and psychologically maladjusted from the Usurpation. Each one is pretty unique in their psychosis and plots. Some are making more headway than others. The Dowager's Great Contagion managed to kill 90% of all life in Creation, while the Mask of Winters has captured Thorns. Others have suffered rather embarrassing setbacks, and are dealt with harshly by their Neverborn masters. As may be expected, they like to fight and argue with each other a lot, which makes even some of their greatest successes a comedy of errors. The Great Contagion, as previously mentioned? Yeah, the only reason it only killed most of all life in Creation was because two other Deathlords, The Eye and Seven Despairs and The First and Forsaken Lion, went out and invited the fair folk to invade Creation, which ended up uniting all of Creation against a common cause, and gave the world the strength and focus to endure the plague, plus it screwed enough with creation's reality that the plague stopped working right. The other thing that seems to get in the way them succeeding are, ironically, the Neverborn themselves. As they Neverborn hate the state they are in, they hate it when the Deathlords don't preform to total perfection and brutally punish them for it. The First and Forsaken Lion, for example, is actually waiting to come up with a plan because he wants to be sure the plan will work out of fear it might not and getting punished like when he displeased the Neverborn in the past.

=====Hekatonkhires=====
These are ghosts of Behemoths or the Neverborn's Third Circle Souls. Occasionally the Neverborn's thoughts birth a new one. Hekatonkhires are unique and very powerful beings. Imagine undead Cthulhu's zombie kidneys, as a roaming monster.

====Mortals====
[[Image:Mortals_in_exalted.jpg|thumb|right]]
Everyone else. Mortals are unable to channel essence and thus are at a severe disadvantage. While Exalted is largely a cinematic and epic game, it is grim and gritty for Mortals. Their only real advantage is numbers. The most prominent mortals, Humans, were created by the Primordials to provide prayer (and the subsequent ambrosia and quintessence) in Yu-Shan, and nearly all Exalted are of Human stock. There are sub races of humans however some for instance are products of first age bioengineering such as the Air folk who can glide through the air on wings.

==System==
The basic mechanic is a modified [[Storyteller System]]. Pools of d10s are rolled; 7,8,9 count as one success, 10 counts as two successes. Successes are scaled against target numbers at a set difficulty against non PCs/NPCs. If no successes are rolled and at least one die comes up with a 1, then the roll is a botch (catastrophe ensues).

There are a few exceptions to these rules of success, however. Some Fate-based or Shaping-based effects can reduce the number needed to get a single success from a die. These won't come up unless you pull out the relevant splatbook, though.

'''Stunting''': A way to mechanically allow players to use Rule of Cool as a game mechanic. How does it work? A player describes how their PC does an action. Depending on the degree of description, a 1 to 3 dice bonus is given to the roll. (1 dice bonus is incredibly common, 3 dice bonuses almost never given).

*+1 Bonus - Make an effort, try to do something cool. Be brief.
*+2 Bonus - Make a cool description that fleshes out the scenery a bit. Be brief.
*+3 Bonus - Make everyone at the table say you're awesome at describing things. Be brief.

Did we mention that you should be brief? Well, you should.

Stunts can pretty much be done on any action, and don't necessarily have to follow the laws of physics. A good example of an athletics stunt would be the wallrunning in Prince of Persia games, while a combo in a fighting game might be a good example of a flurry stunt. But above all, make it short, snappy, and keep the flow of the game going.

Just if you're curious - The reason why they hand out bonus dice is two fold - Firstly, newly made characters tend to be a bit handicapped, being baller at the things they were made to do and pretty much not at the other stuff. So, stunting gives new characters the chance to succeed at almost anything as long as the player thinks of a pretty cool way to do it, and it teaches new players that as long as you make it feel cool your character can do ''anything''. Secondly, prior to Second Edition, the way multiple actions were handled was by splitting dice pools, so you needed to succeed at two different (generally fairly hard) tasks with half the dice you would otherwise. Stunting helped offset that, offering you the chance to succeed at complicated things that you otherwise wouldn't be able to just because they were epic. Second Edition works a little differently, applying flat penalties to your dice pools based on the number of actions you're taking, (take two actions, first action's on -2 and second is -3; three actions, -3, -4, -5, and so on) but stunts still help to offset that somewhat.

It's a kickass system all told, that helps to bridge between the role playing and the crunch, with a real benefit for staying in character while you splat things. It takes a lot of heat off the ST to make the dice rolling seem interesting because the characters are always trying (maybe not always succeeding) to be cool, so the ST doesn't have to come up with a million different ways to say 'you punch a guy and he falls down'.

Stunts also have rewards besides dice, namely motes and Willpower; a stunt is worth twice its die value in motes, or you can take a point of Willpower for a two- or three-die stunt. Generally, (there are exceptions) motes fuel magic stuff, while Willpower fuels more mundane stuff. (meaning things that anyone can do) Running out of either one can be a death sentence, even in Exalted 2.5; stunts help keep that from happening.

Eariler editions suffered tremendously from problems of [[Linear Build Quadratic EXP]], and the character-creation system was often mockingly regarded as a Byzantine "mini-game" in and of itself. Third edition conspicuously refused to fix the problem (with one of the devs infamously imperiously declaring, and this is a direct quote, [https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?768985-Exalted-Why-is-Everyone-Praising-3e&p=19548177#post19548177| "We have a policy not to give people bad rules just because they think they want them."] [[Troll| Holy shit.]]

Fortunately, while the problem's still ''there'', a number of core gameplay and pricing tweaks have at least made the problem less severe.

==See Also==
*[[Exalted/Custom|Errata and fan-made rules]]
*[[Exalted/Exalted 2nd Edition Character Sheet Template|Blank Wikified Character Sheet]]
*[[Mystic Empyrean]], a game with similarly epic-powered player characters.

==External Links==
*[http://rathess.xi.co.nz/exalted/index.php/Main_Page Archive of the old official wiki]
*[http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/wiki.pl Unofficial Exalted wiki], mostly 1e stuff
*[http://www.brilliantdisaster.net/wiki/Overgame List of Exalted games being run.]

{{WW-Games}}

[[Category:Exalted]]