History Exalted / TropesIToP

* {{Mayincatec}}: Several different examples. First and foremost, the language of Old Realm is written with a featural alphabet that is vaguely similar to Mayan writing. Also, depending on whether you're talking 1st or 2nd Edition, the First Age was either loaded to the brim with this trope all over or it was mostly confined to Rathess and areas around it in the Southeast. Alchemicals have some of this aesthetic too.

* InstantExpert: Caste and Favoured abilities train instantly. Thus, a Twilight from an icewalker tribe with 19 xp stockpiled can go from "totally illiterate" to "one of the best-educated people in the world" ''immediately''. And then there was the first edition Locust War, in which the Alchemicals became geniuses at naval combat who utterly curbstomped the Realm Navy, despite the Autochthonians hailing from a world with no bodies of open water larger than a puddle, where the one major ocean they ''do'' have is a) very hard to access, and b) made of petroleum, and who are coming up against an island superpower whose navy is stocked with a surprising number of ''water-powered super-soldiers''.
** That is why most people (devs and fans alike) consider it CanonDiscontinuity.

* OneHitKO: Soul Mastery lets you permanently sever a soul from its host. This is so horrifying to gods and spirits (who are essentially physical souls) that ''they automatically know if you have this charm'' and instantly fear you. Order Affirming Blow does this to [[FairFolk Fae]] and their [[BizarreAlienBiology Wyld creations]]

* OneHitKO: Soul Mastery lets you permanently sever a soul from its host. This is so horrifying to gods and spirits (who are essentially physical souls) that ''they automatically know if you have this charm'' and instantly fear you. Order Affirming Blow does this to [[FairFolk Fae]] and their [[BizarreAlienGeometry Wyld creations]]

** Some of the more powerful Larceny charms have the effect of turning you into this. For example, Solars have a charm that lets them steal things from plain sight without the need to even touch it; Abyssals can steal people's faces, and Sidereals have a trio of charms that let you steal someone's thoughts, dreams or even their name. On some occasions, Sidereal's ''Dodge'' Charm Neighbourhood Relocation Technique may be employed to "steal" landscape marks, buildings or entire ''cities'' ([[Franchise/CarmenSandiego red fedora and trenchcoat is an appropriate attire while doing so]].)

* IncendiaryExponent: Fire Aspect [[BattleAura animas]] as well as some other select Exalts who might have flame motif banners (although those are cosmetic). Several charms from Fire Dragon Style martial art have such effect too, it's pinnacle mimicking Fire Aspect anima or strengthening it if used by Fire Aspect themselves.

** Part of the [[CrapsackWorld theme of the setting]]. The Realm is just the the latest example of the decline that Creation has been undergoing since the First Age. In reality, it is only the Empress's control of the [[DoomsdayDevice Realm Defense Grid]] that allows her to really control the Blessed Isle and bully some other cities and small nations into submission. But since using it causes collateral damage, it is not a threat she can bring to bear except in the most dire times of need.

* IWasNeverHere: The Sidereal charm Avoidance Kata have you declare this and make the world accept it as a fact, teleporting you to a spot you would be if you took a different turn and erasing you from memories of observers. General Sidereal Arcane Fate, practising Quicksilver Hand of Dreams martial arts and Adamant caste Alchemicals' anima power do the memory erasure as well.

* KingOfAllCosmos: Most interpretations of the Incarnae (as gaming-addicted deities who ignore Creation almost completely), especially before the more sympathetic portrayal in ''Glories of the Most High'', make them out as this. As far as the setting's actual creators go, the Primordials were even weirder. The one actually holding the title was Theion, who became Malfeas after the god's rebellion, and now it belongs to the Unconquered Sun.

** Some of the more powerful Larceny charms have the effect of turning you into this. For example, Solars have a charm that lets them steal things from plain sight without the need to even touch it; Abyssals can steal people's faces, and Sidereals have a trio of charms that let you steal someone's thoughts, dreams or even their name.

* ImprovisedWeapon: "Improvised Assassin's Trick," a very, very basic Abyssal Charm, allows a Deathknight to turn any small, heftable object into a deadly thrown weapon. Explicit examples given include pebbles, playing cards, and origami animals.

* IncendiaryExponent: Fire Aspect animas as well as some other select Exalts who might have flame motif banners.

* InformedAbility: The Realm suffers from this. It supposedly dominated the world, but about 3/4ths of described locations in the Threshold never really were in its grip and its military history looks like an unbroken strings of defeats.

** Warstriders; better than a HumongousMecha is one you can ''create on the spot'' when you need it.
** Solars and Lunars have charms that create instant normal-sized armor for them. On the Lunar side, the chain of Charms is Armor-Forming Technique > Stone Rhino's Skin > Invulnerable Moonsilver Carapace, which, in order, let you grow bone plate armor at will, toughens your skin to damage, and finally you simply flow moonsilver out of your pores into a perfect, gapless coating. And look like a T1000 turning into a were-(insert creature here).
** Then there's the spell Invulnerable Skin of Bronze which, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin turns your skin into bronze.]]
** Infernals have Viridian Legend Exoskeleton, which combines a history lesson and a huge soak increase in one resilient brass shell.

* IWasNeverHere: The Sidereal charm Avoidance Kata and the Alchemical Adamant Caste power.

* KingOfAllCosmos: Most interpretations of the Incarnae (as gaming-addicted deities who ignore Creation almost completely), especially before the more sympathetic portrayal in ''Glories of the Most High'', make them out as this. As far as the setting's actual creators go, the Primordials were even weirder.

** If a Sidereal starts practicing katas, ''run''.
*** Sidereal Martial Arts allow them to punch people out of existence. Or into a horribly humiliating shape.

*** There is a specific combination of Sidereal Martial Arts Charms known by the fans as the Creation-Slaying Oblivion Kick, which would let you theoretically kill every living being in Creation in one blow, simultaneously.

** There's one particular Exalted martial arts combo that would allow you to kung fu the entire population of the Blessed Isle in the face. ''Simultaneously''. And the Blessed Isle is larger than North America. A variant of the said combo could outright kill everyone on the Blessed Isle. [[RefugeInAudacity Or make every single one of them switch gender.]]

** The metaphysics of the setting[[labelnote:*]]Which are actually important, since the {{Player Character}}s and some {{Non Player Character}}s and the {{Big Bad}}s all work by manipulating the underlying mechanics of reality on some level[[/labelnote]] can be a bit of a trip, especially when you start getting creative with them. The [[TheFairFolk Raksha]] and [[EldritchAbomination Unshaped]] are all entities for which [[RealityWarper metaphysical reality redefinition]] is not an exertion of awesome power, but the barest fact of their existence. They have no shape, form, or permanent reality of their own, and exist only because they ''interpret themselves'' out of the otherwise random chaos that is the background noise of existence. Think of it as ArtisticLicence over ''[[WorldOfSymbolism everything]]''.

* OneHitKO: Soul Mastery let's you permanently sever a soul from its host. This is so horrifying to gods and spirits (who are essentially physical souls) that ''they automatically know if you have this charm'' and instantly fear you. Order Affirming Blow does this to [[FairFolk Fae]] and their [[BizarreAlienGeometry Wyld creations]]

* PunnyName: ''Everybody'' in the [[AlternateUniverse Modern Shard]] has a name which is an IncrediblyLamePun based off their name in the regular setting.

** Then they bat it out of the park with Oberashti, '''the Shogun of Genocide''', Lesser Elemental Dragon of Smoke

** Thousandfold Courtesan Calculations + NaughtyTentacles Hyperdextrous Tentacle Apparatus.

** The main reason for this? Simple. The Dragon-Blooded Exaltation transfers through the blood, so they where designed to...be somewhat more open sexually to breed more frequently. In the modern Realm however, family ties are VERY important, and bastards clutter things up. So to eliminate the risk at all, Dragonblooded occasionally go for the other gender.

** Played straight and averted with different types of Exalted. Dragon-Blooded are weaker and far more common than Celestial Exalted, and Alchemical Exalted fall in between them in both power and rarity. On the other hand, Green Sun Princes and Abyssals are on roughly the same power tier as the more common Solars, and Lunars are supposed to be on roughly the same power tier as Sidereals despite outnumbering them by 3 to 1.

* PowersAsPrograms: Charms, spells, and other abilities such as those used by the Fair Folk fall into this category. Also, there are a more portable variety found in hearthstones. And needless to say, this is standard operating procedure for the Alchemicals, especially with regard to Pattern Weaving, their answer to Sorcery.\\
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However, while Charms embody this trope in every other way, in this case the compiler is right on hand: Exalts can (and, in fact, are encouraged to) invent new custom charms as they progress. The only exception are the Sidereal Exalted, who can't make new charms for themselves, but settle for inventing world- and game-balance-shattering Sidereal Martial Arts instead.

* MugglePower: Among many examples...because people's souls [[{{Reincarnation}} reincarnate into new bodies]] after death barring enough unfinished business to cause them to become a ghost, Exalted in the First Age were often...less than concerned with the individual safety of the mortals under their rule, as nothing was really being lost. They did sign a treaty with Heaven, particularly the Bureau of Destiny, mandating that any mortal who died in the service of or as collateral damage from a Celestial Exalted's activities was guaranteed that their next reincarnation would be into the body of someone fated to have a happy peaceful life. Sadly, that treaty has almost certainly expired with the fall of the Solar Deliberative...\\
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Towards the end of their Deliberative, the Solars stopped caring about the souls of the mortals either. Trumping up charges against a mortal to justify smelting their ghost into soulsteel was one example. Another was allowing the Wyld to unmake millions of square miles of creation, along with their tens of millions of inhabitants, all for the sake of a military training exercise.

* MindRape: ...if applied with sufficient cruelty. And they also can make the victim love it.\\
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What TheFairFolk typically do for their "meals" amounts to this, and leaves the victim as a near-mindless, will-less, identity-less husk capable only of unskilled menial labor.

* ManlyGay: Homosexuality is socially acceptable (even encouraged) in the Realm, but only if one at the very least projects either this attitude or StraightGay outwardly. Effeminate behavior is NOT tolerated.\\
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The main reason for this? Simple. The Dragon-Blooded Exaltation transfers through the blood, so they where designed to...be somewhat more open sexually to breed more frequently. In the modern Realm however, family ties are VERY important, and bastards clutter things up. So to eliminate the risk at all, Dragonblooded occasionally go for the other gender.

* JerkassGods: Not quite ALL of them, but a damn good majority of 'em. If you're willing to expand the definition of "god" past the setting's, there are many elder Exalted that fit this, too.\\
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This trope is so prevalent that in one of the 1st Edition supplements dealing with gods, the writers had to include a sidebar specifying that no, not all gods are jerks. Lytek is a nice guy who's made some bad calls, the Censor of the South has essentially said "Fuck this" to Sidereal infighting and Heaven's corruption and does his job properly. And the Censor of the West just takes bribes so the other gods will just leave him alone. And the Celestial Incarnae aren't jerks...they're just INCREDIBLY drained from their jobs, and suffering from depression which only gets sated by a LotusEaterMachine.

* InformedAbility: The Realm suffers from this. It supposedly dominated the world, but about 3/4ths of described locations in the Threshold never really were in its grip and its military history looks like an unbroken strings of defeats.\\
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One of the 1st Edition books ''does'' note that the countries detailed are the [[RuleOfCool interesting]] ones, the ones that are good places to adventure, whereas there are plenty of quiet generic Immaculate-Dragon-fearing agricultural principalities that pay their tribute and cause no trouble to the Realm which aren't listed because... well they're just not cool.