Exalted!

I think the Enlightened Dragon-Bloods would work in low numbers, even more so if they're a relatively recent phenomenon. The Sidereals book mentions the Viziers messing with the loom of fate to create a “cable of destiny” in a last ditch effort to prevent creation from being consumed by the Wyld.

In canon, the result was the Dragon-Blood who became the Scarlet Empress managing to master the Imperial Manse, but with the Enlightened DB concept it could be assumed that it also allowed a select few DB’s to reach unheard-of power. The Empress herself is undoubtedly Enlightened.

edited 6th Jan '11 4:13:09 PM by ZealotVedas

Sounds good but I do prefer the whole 'most of them aren't Dynasts' to make it easier to insert them amongst Celestial Circles.

True. I'd like to play an Enlightened member of Lookshy's elite.

The thing about only humans being able to exalt was that humans are the only creatures in Creation to not be able to manipulate essence at all. The Exaltation is a 'seed' of sorts, which grows within the human and allows the human to manipulate essence. It cannot exalt essence-users because there's already something there.

Only sapient creatures, surely?

@Kraken: Wait, what?

Mortals with Enlightened Essence can Exalt just fine. Beastmen and Crafted Races born with the ability to channel Essence  ^*

Unless it was different in the first edition, being a candidate for an Exaltation has nothing to do with the ability to channel essence, only with having a human-like soul. Humans weren't picked as hosts for Exaltation because they can't channel Essence (which they can, just not automatically), but because the Primordials didn't consider them a threat and didn't include them in their geasa.

I believe the rule is that an Essence-user is harder to Exalt, but it's not impossible. The white-skin-and-spots altered race of the Djala have Enlightened Essence as standard, meaning they Exalt less often than normal humans, but there's still a Djala Solar (Faka Kun) in the corebook.

A Solar Exaltation would rather go for a purestrain human than a human spinoff, but if the biggest badass at the right time is one of the People of the Air, it's time for glowing golden feathers.

Okay, that was weird:

I had a dream in which I was in a sushi bar with the Scarlet Empress. Who for some reason looked and acted like Lisa Cuddy.

Now you've given me a mental image of Sesus Nagezzer being played by Hugh Laurie in a fat suit. I hope you're happy.

I draw your attention to this /tg/ thread: http://boards.4chan.org/tg/res/13449837

I like that. The reason Terrestrials shouldn't have the power of Solars is because then they would curb-stomp everybody.

Solar are the one, glorious, shining blade of terror. Dragon-Blooded are the ten thousand steel swords raised in tandem.

edited 9th Jan '11 3:34:40 AM by Kraken

Well, it seems the idea is that it's pretty rare for any DB to get to that level.

This will make sense to Dr. McNinja fans:

img824.imageshack.us/img824/161/drmcexalted.png

edited 11th Jan '11 1:02:19 AM by GodofAwesome

fuck now i have to write custom charms

Just a question of opinion here: I'm trying to design an artifact for a character I'm going to use in a later game, after our current campaign ends.

It is a Reaver Daiklave (normally a two dot artifact), but it is made of an alloy of magical materials, so it doesn't gain the normal material bonuses. However, part of it's nature is that if you are using the Form charm for a supernatural martial art, the reaver daiklave counts as a form wepon for the duration of the scene.

Would that keep it a two dot artifact or bump it up to three? If it's up to three, can you suggest another minor power that increases it's usefulness but doesn't raise it to four dots?

@Zealot Vedas There is no way that it's a three dot artifact. It replicates the effects of THREE Essence 5, 6 and 7 Charms (Master's Hand Envisioned Anew), which, using the guidelines from Oedanol's Codex makes it a straight up Five Dot Artifact. And while it has a minor drawback of limiting the charms effects to that one weapon only it also bypasses their requirement of completely mastering the style.

So Yeah Five Dots. You might be able to bring it down to four if you limit the effects to only Terrestrial and/or Celestial Martial Arts and add some more limitations.

Wait, I think I missed something. Am I undstanding right that mastering a style lets you use any weapon as a form weapon?

Not quite. Mastering a style is a prerequisite to learn Master's Hand Envisioned Anew - a Charm from Lords of Creation which let's you add ONE weapon of your choice to the list of form weapons for that style.

Master's Hand Envisioned Anew requires Martial Arts 5 and Essence 5 for Terrestrial Styles, Martial Arts 6 and Essence 6 for Celestial styles, and 7 in both for Sidereal.

That's a very powerful ability, basically. There are some styles that are balanced on various assumptions- for example, Arms of the Unconquered Sun doesn't allow weapons- and mean that adding a Reaver Daiklave could be a serious boost.

This is the reason the final charm of Celestial Monkey style is overpowered - it's E5 MA 5 and allows you to use anything as a form weapon for anything.

Yay Scroll of the Monk.

That's a little disheartening, but I guess I could still afford a five dot artifact. Oh well, thanks for the advice guys.

What make for a good plot for an Exalted campaign? Sub plots?

Depends on the characters...

One old favourite (and the root of my longest-running game so far) is "Here's a city. You could run it better than the current administration. Do so, and forge a great nation."

Subplots sprout from that quite easily...

Hm... actually, that works. Even with one character with the stated motivation of 'Conquer Everything'.