#exalted 3e

Solars, Lunars, Sidereals, and Alchemicals all get their own warstriders! Why shouldn't dragonbloods? (btw i posted this on my patreon like a week ago, then kept not being awake during the day to post it, so like. check that out, patreon.com/notsoluckylydia)

The Gathering Storm (Blue Jade Warstrider, Artifact § •••••)

War Eternal and her Five Great Generals sought to create the ultimate weapons of war, perfectly suited to the anima of their circle. Of those great engines, the only one that survived the hundreds of battles the circle fought was The Gathering Storm. An engine of destruction, fine-tuned to amplify and empower draconic anima to heights never seen before or since, the warstrider led conquest of vast swathes of the wyld, wars with lunar dominions, and the most devastating assault ever attempted on the solar realm. When the generals were struck down, and War Eternal remained alone, she bargained her life for the safety of her greatest invention. Won or lost, battles in which The Gathering Storm was brought to bear leave blasted landscapes and smashed cities. Its propensity for devastation left it unused, save for the most dire hunts throughout the shogunate era, but saw renewed usage in the early days of the realm, when it was used to defend the northern coast of the Blessed Isle from lunar raiders, before decades of storage and study within the imperial manse sealed its fate, returning only occasionally to support the most important military movements of the realm. The Gathering Storm appears more delicate than typical for a warstrider, its four legs ending in points, rather than stamping feet. Its hands are nimble and swift, and every inch is covered in immaculately carved runes, instructing the flow of elemental essence. The pilot is strapped in with specially conductive metal cables, facilitating the mutual essence flow required for the advanced functionality.

Attunement: 15m Soak: 15; Hardness: 10 Damage track: −0x5/−1x5/−2x10/−4x10 Speed bonus: +1 Hearthstone slot(s): 5

Evocations of The Gathering StormThe Gathering Storm channels dragonblooded essence, and is attuned to the bursts of elemental power they can produce. It cannot wield weapons, but for each elemental hearthstone socketed in it, a dragonblood gains access to that element's Elemental Bolt Attack effect. If she can already use that element's bolt, she instead receives a 1 mote discount to utilizing it. She does not receive the usual penalty for targeting a single enemy with Elemental Bolt Attack if she has aimed at that enemy.

The Shogunate legal system was embodied physically in an extensive set of documents called the Uniform Code of Military and Civilian Justice. The Shogun's responsibility was not to create new laws, but rather to maintain and enforce the system of law as outlined in the Uniform Code. The legal theory behind the Uniform Code was to explicitly outline every possible criminal offense and the corresponding formula to be used in calculating a penalty for that offense.

Under Shogunate law, the Judge's duty was to determine precisely which crime (as defined in the Uniform Code) had been committed, then apply the formula to the circumstances to determine the appropriate punishment, then enact that punishment. Amendments to the Uniform Code could be made with consent of the generals.

In the modern Realm, much of the legal theory is derived from this practice of Shogunate law. Instead of a council of generals and a Shogun, the Empress alone has the right to add and remove punishments from the Criminal Code; she may, of course, dispense this right by fiat to her judges. Judges, in criminal matters, are primarily responsible for determining the nature of the crime and dispensing an appropriate punishment, just like in the Shogunate system. The legal system is not subject to individual interpretation or discretion. Precedent is only binding when the Empress chooses to add the precedent to the Criminal Code.

Ooh, what a fun question:

1st edition was built with only world of darkness technology, and so its ambitious mechanics really, really got away from them. It actually had a .5 d&d-style update which… kinda helped? It made combat a little spicier, but I don’t remember it really addressing all the issues.

Storywise it’s almost perfect. Its world is huge, and unlike most settings that claim a dangerous world where the mystical and the mundane intermingle, Exalted really delivers on that. On the other hand, I think, in the world we live in now, the idea of “the legitimate god kings of the universe have come back to reclaim what is rightfully theirs” reads weird. So weird, in fact, that (as I recall) it’s why Gubat Banwa is even a thing.

I had a blast playing and running first edition, and it was formative both for my playing and GMing style.

2nd edition got serious, possibly too serious. They took the mechanics and solidified/codified them. Some people complain about the 150 steps of combat resolution, but honestly that’s good because it allowed charms to work exactly in the way they were intended without prompting endless spirit-of-the-law vs. RAW debates. This is also the edition that turned Excellencies into their own thing. A slight flavor reduction for a very functional improvement. This edition’s biggest mechanical sin, in my opinion, is that they really had the opportunity to perfect 1e’s combat system, but instead they came up with an interesting, but very different system; So a lot of the mechanical improvements fell by the wayside because they were being applied to an untested system… basically back to square 1. This edition also does the whole “social combat” thing for social conflict resolution. I have yet to play a game where that works.

Storywise, Ex2 had the same approach, and so, this is the edition that codified a lot of the lore, especially (and famously) a lot of the ancient lore; so we learn how super-horny first gen dragonblooded were, and that the first age had AI surveillance and shopping malls. It did a lot to shrink the world, which isn’t great. That said, this edition introduced the idea of Nox as a Sidereal wrinkle, which I like; and my favorite post-1e addition: Forbidden Gods.

I also greatly enjoyed running 2e (this was after I left college, my forever dm era), it’s honestly a great example of an edition side-grade. It just functions very different from 1e and so the lessons of 1e don’t always apply.

3rd edition is… its own thing. This edition is massive. The core book is huge, with subsystems for almost every ability. this team really said “every ability is just as important as every other ability” and so now you have to learn the war minigame, and the crafting minigame and the sail minigame. Fun fact, I ran it for like 6 years..? And I never learned the sail rules. BTW I’m not saying this was bad, we definitely had a lot of fun with most of these systems. This edition was tumultuous, it is my understanding that it took forever to come out because the team came up with a combat system they liked better, and had to rewrite every combat-facing charm (and there are a lot of those). Then after the book came out (or possibly right before) the team got canned, and so most supplements are by a different team off of the original team’s notes. There were also some allegations, but I never looked into them. This edition is so ambitious, written by people who love exalted and saw its enormous potential. Possibly the worst thing about this edition is how little the supplements have lived up to the promise of the corebook. Especially with the biggest addition to the lore: Exigents.

This edition fully tears off the fivefold symmetry off the lore and system, a bold move that really pays off. turns out you can have 27 abilities instead of 25 and cover everything you need. Storywise this edition introduces the idea that there were and are lots of different kinds of exalted, including The Exigents, unique exalts who are the chosen of gods who are only strong enough to empower one or two guys. My players spent some time tracking a black market exaltation, only to find it was used by a forbidden god to create a very disturbing exigent. It was rad.

Ex3 really worked hard to undo some of the codification 2nd edition built, trying to return the world to a more mysterious state, one where the pcs might run into something new and wondrous that didn’t fit into established categories.

3e miiight be my favorite edition, if for no other reason that it works very hard to be fun and interesting. It’s not perfect. for one, it once again nukes the previous combat system and starts over, but it feels like it was better playtested.

Pretend this is a an Exalted-Style Sidebar:

The Lunars

No edition of Exalted ever finds a good place for the Lunars. In 1e they were meant to be exclusively antagonists, but player response pushed them into PC territory, so they were somewhat shoehorned. 2e tried to address this, but in a pretty weak way, making them into slightly worse sidereals. 3rd edition probably did the best job of it by carving out big chunks of the world for the lunars to stomp around in, promising Lunar-exclusive situations and antagonists… but by the time the Lunars supplement came out it seemed these things were really not a priority. Poor Lunars.

Back at it again, writing charms I'll never use! This time, for an exigent I'll PROBABLY never play. (I should never say never, this concept is growing on me.) The Chosen of the Twin Gods is designed to Play Really Different from everybody else. With a pair of gods empowering her, she takes paired actions, can be in two places at once, and exemplifies the best and worst of motherhood and leadership.

@theuncrucified, thanks for making me write stuff, even if you're not doing it directly. :P

These charms are designed to be emblematic of the whole set, which doesn't exist beyond as concepts in my head. The Chosen of the Twin Gods is a celestial exalt with access to charms for Archery, Linguistics, Medicine, Melee, and Socialize. They also have a weird limit track that, if people like this, I might expand on later, where they oscillate between the extremes of their divine patrons, paranoia and maternalism as ever-tugging forces.

I have a charm for each attribute, plus an extra for Archery and Melee, because they serve both as combat abilities, and to fill out a few other concepts. Archery has celerity-styled stealth and mobility, while melee offers defenses and the ability to be in two places at once, to a far more extreme level than even Lunars can. Linguistics is themed around leadership, Medicine around protection and blessings, and Socialize around being beloved.

Under the cut we go for the rest of this!

I'm not much of a visual artist, but I really do love exalted 3e, so... I'm back to writing for @theuncrucified 's art challenge again! This week, I went with... One and a half of the prompts - specifically, spells and a little bit of evocations. A pair of initiations, that are directly tied to a sorcerous/necromantic martial art that I posted last month (Here on patreon https://www.patreon.com/posts/138953918 ) and the actual flavor text for the necromantic version of Virtuous Guardian of Flame.

Wailing Blade of the Concordat The world shudders as a blade is drawn out through creation's very flesh, a single drop of blood falling as a gleaming silver crescent slides into existence. This spell functions identically to Virtuous Guardian of Flame, save that it is a necromancy spell, and forms a scythe. Rather than hiding in a flame, the Wailing Blade of the Concordat can shrink down to be disguised as a pin or clasp.

The actual initiations I threw under the cut, because they're a bit long. Let me know what you think :)

It's a sorcerous/necromantic martial art built around making attacks that double as shape sorcery actions, and benefits significantly from weaving traditional spells into your combat "routine." There's two different versions of it, one necromancy based, and one sorcery based, and it's designed to be able to work alongside existing charmsets, whether native or martial art, while still functioning as a standalone set.

You can see it for free on my patreon, so I'm only posting the first of the six//eight charms on here, the core charm that the whole thing is built around, which enables the whole battlemage combat style. You should go check it out and tell me what you think!