History Characters / ExaltedExalted

* FromNobodyToNightmare: Two years ago she had nothing. Now...

* {{Hellfire}}: Uses poisonous green fire. A lot.

* MakeMeWannaShout: Her dragon form can apparently shatter marble with her screams.

* {{Stripperiffic}}: tends to wear very little.
* SuperToughness: Doesn't wear armour because she doesn't ''need'' it.

* ReallyGetsAround: Quite a few of them are this, but second edition had it as a side effect of the Terrestrial Exaltation, as the original 10,000 Dragon-Bloods were split between 100 men and 9,900 women, so they were granted immense libidos to allow the males to get many females pregnant quickly to provide enough Dragon-Blooded to serve the Unconquerned Sun. In the current age, the Dragon-Blooded still have massive libidos, which is why there so many Dragon-Blooded around.

* MakeMeWannaShout: Her trademark attack, screaming people dead.

[[folder:Exigents]]
Strictly speaking, the Exigents aren't ''one'' Exalted type so much as a ''collection'' of Exalted types. What links them all, however, is their common source: in times of need, a god can pray to the Unconquered Sun to be allowed to create a unique Exalt of their own, and should he approve, the god in question can call upon the Exigence -- the divine flame the Unconquered Sun first ignited that other gods might have their champions in the Divine Revolution -- in order to empower their new Exalt. Said Exalt will gain powers based upon their divine patron's domain -- for example, a Chosen of Gambling will have gambling-themed powers, while a Chosen of Harvests will have harvest-themed powers. The cost to the god can be high, though, up to and including their lives. Still, there are gods who would pay even ''that'' price to see their domain protected. Revealed, like the Getimians, in the Third Edition spoilers.

!Illicit Exigents

Where other Exigents' divine patrons received the Exigence as a gift, the patrons of "illicit" Exigents... acquired it through less-than-legal methods (that some of them happen to be Forbidden Gods probably plays a part). Like their legal "cousins", illicit Exigents are a collection of Exalt types, each with their own unique set of powers. Despite the name, however, ''being'' an "illicit" Exalt need not put one at odds with Heaven; the ''trade'' of Exigence sparks is illegal, but the Celestial Bureaucracy is aware that mortals are fundamentally incapable of indulging in that crime - however, they will view known illicits with suspicion, as it is believed likely they are their patron's [[DragonInChief ultimate agent]] for whatever they wished. Even so, many gods are willing to overlook indiscretions if given good reason, as during the Age of Sorrows, the Sun lapsed into such a [[HeroicBSOD depression]] he didn't properly answer prayers for Exigence, meaning that frequently, even honest gods had to turn to the illicit trade out of desperation.

Then there are the "patchwork" Exalted, who have had a number of spirits modify the Exigence as it passed from hand to hand to reduce the cost to themselves. The result is frequently an aberration of incredible power -- and when dealing with the Exalted, that's saying something. [[BlessedWithSuck Shame about the conflicting purviews, though.]]

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Gods with compatible purviews, who have shared or overlapping domains, can avoid creating patchwork Exigents, as their Essences harmonize rather than clash.

!!Strawmaiden Janest, the Harvest Exalt
A simple farmer, kidnapped as an infant during a raid and raised by priests of Ten Sheaves, the god of the fields she worked. She met her god for the first time when he Chose her to become the Harvest Exalt in order to defend her village from the FairFolk marching on it. Since the diminishment that comes with creating an Exalt cost him his life, that was also the last time. After the FairFolk were dealt with, she left to become a freelance protector of the little guy.

* ActionGirl: Takes on an army of Fair Folk solo, and sets herself against those who threaten ordinary folk.
* AllUpToYou: Janest becomes the Harvest Exalted, but it costs the life of the god who does it. She then proceeds to take on the army of Fair Folk menacing her home singlehandedly, buying enough time for her fellow field-maidens to come to her assistance, and finally ends the battle by killing the Fair Folk leader.
* HappilyAdopted: The field-maidens are all abducted as infants. They all know this. Janest seems entirely content with her lot in life.
* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: Some Exalted are empowered by the KingOfTheGods, or an ElementalEmbodiment, or one of the titans who created the world. Some Exigents are empowered by important and puissant gods like Plentimon of the Dice or Shalrina, Daimyo of Faces. Janest was empowered by a field god. Not the god of fields in general, the god of a specific group of fields. She used that to decapitate the commander of the raksha and send his forces fleeing in a blind panic.
* SinisterScythe: Justified. Since she's a harvest maiden, she wields a scythe. Since she's an Exigent and it's her chosen weapon, it looks like it's made of black metal (it's actually jade), covered in sinister runes, and crackling with baleful green energy.
* SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder: She's the byline for how a god of an extremely minor thing can create an Exigent on a Celestial level of power.
* WalkingTheEarth: After the FairFolk are driven off, she becomes a wandering hero.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Janest is not the strongest of the harvest-maidens, but it is her will and drive to protect her home that cause Ten Sheaves to choose her as his champion.

!!Nurlissa, Chosen of Masks
Chosen of Shalrina, Daimyo of Faces, a goddess known for creating magical masks and trading people's faces. She eventually found Shalrina too harsh a patron, and went on the run.

* MaskOfPower: Nurlissa's Exaltation came in the form of a mask, as do the Charms, allowing her to assume various archetypal personae and wield the powers that come with them.
* PowerAtAPrice: Original mortal face for Exaltation. It's implied Nurlissa couldn't recreate it with her masks, as she had to steal her face back from Shalrina.
* QuestForIdentity: Looking for a home, so that she can discover who she is without worrying about poverty or servitude.

!!Omron Kanthu, the Bleak Warden, Chosen of the Seals
Chosen of The-Darkness-That-Binds, gaoler-god of an otherworldly prison.

* DarkIsNotEvil: Omron is a LovableRogue who is honestly a bit freaked out by the ruthlessness his patron desires to keep the labyrinth intact.
* MindPrison: Can force his enemies to experience countless years of imprisonment in the blink of an eye.
* ParentalAbandonment: Whatever happened, whether he was orphaned or abandoned, he was left to a life on the streets.
* SealedEvilInACan: What the Bleak Warden basically has power over, able to release evils from their seals to cause havoc, to draw on the knowledge, memories, and powers of his prisoners, and to place seals on enemies.

!!Broken Sky, the Thousand Venoms Mistress, Chosen of Toxins
A divine assassin, a cultist of a scheming Scavenger Lands goddess of poisons, Whirling Lady Koro-Bana.

* HitmanWithAHeart: Before she was Exalted, she was still a poisoner, but viewed herself as a VigilanteWoman who took down people too powerful or influential to face directly. This didn't change after she became the Chosen of Toxins.
* MasterPoisoner: Knows countless poisons.
* NobleTopEnforcer: Koro-Bana is a cold, scheming ManipulativeBastard, but Broken Sky is a HitmanWithAHeart who distances herself from mortals so she doesn't accidentally hurt them.
* PoisonousPerson: Can turn herself into one.
* {{Retcon}}: Her original blurb in the 3e core had her as a LegacyCharacter; her writeup in ''Exigents'' has her as the first to receive Koro-Bana's Exaltation.

!!Willow Specter, Chosen of the Dice
Won his Exaltation gambling with Plentimon himself, the god of gambling and gamblers, becoming the luckiest man in the world. Out to get everything he can before his deeds catch up to him, knowing as a gambler that there's always a price to be paid.

* WindsOfDestinyChange: As noted, his Exaltation has made him the luckiest man in the world... but because it comes from the god of ''gambling'', he fully expects his luck to run out at some point.
* WorthyOpponent: Plentimon isn't angry he lost at all, and regularly has friendly chats with his victorious Chosen.

!!Revana Quin, Architect of Wu-Jian
Revana, daughter of a smuggler and pirate captain, was Exalted by the god of Wu-Jian, a city with more than its share of smugglers and pirates, to use her unusual grasp of the big picture to protect the city from outsiders and its own residents. Unlike most Exigents, she is not the only one of her kind - Wun Ja, goddess of cities, assists city fathers who win the spark on their own to avoid killing themselves, meaning that most Exigents of various cities are Architects who draw power from cities in general and their homeland in specific - and for some reason, she's taken a personal interest in Revana.

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She bears the distinction of being the first Exigent to get a statblock.
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* TheAgeless: As an Architect, she will not age while inside the boundaries of her home city.
* HeroicSeductress: It's not clear whether this or TheVamp fits her better, but she can call on the power of the red-light district (although in Creation, the lights are the blue of [[LoveGoddess the "Maiden" of Serenity]]) to seduce people more effectively.
* ImprovisedWeapon: One of her Charms lets her make an ordinary object hit as hard as an artifact weapon, although [[BreakableWeapons the object doesn't survive.]]
* MasterOfDisguise: Just walking through a thick crowd lets her disguise herself, with no actual disguise kit needed.
* MightyGlacier: She can make her fists or skin as hard as the stone her city's made of, but her speed is nothing special.
* PirateGirl: Well, her mother was, and she certainly has the skillset of one.
* SherlockScan: Her Charms let her get a read on someone by examining their home or tell whether there's any danger to or from a building just by walking around it.
* SkeletonKey: The Charm that lets her get past any lock in a city that would bar her way, including living guardians without specific reason to keep her out, references the trope in its text.
* WretchedHive: Her home city of Wu-Jian.

!!Essential Silence
Chosen of Silken Vesper, a god of mysteries unveiled. Essential Silence has gone renegade from the Immaculate Order, seeing only secrecy and conspiracies within it, and has become a heretical reformist.
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* CombatPrecognition: He anticipates every move of his opponents in combat.
* EnslavedTongue: One of his powers, getting the tight-lipped to surrender their secrets, which he used as an inquisitor.
* InternalAffairs: Part of his old role in the Order as an inquisitor, rooting out blasphemous cabals.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Those who hunt him forget his nature.
* TongueTied: Those who see him passing by cannot speak of him.

!!Kerlei the Chain
Chosen of Zhieka, Who Binds the Heart in Steel, a god of righteous imprisonment.
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* BlackBugRoom: Among her powers is the ability to make these real, conjuring up dungeons from prisoners' nightmares.
* TheJailer: She serves as warden of the Immaculate Order's prison beneath the Nail of Truth in Pneuma, where the Sidereals imprison Exigents Chosen by criminal and forbidden gods, and either [[{{Brainwashed}} condition them to serve the Order]] or send them to atone in their next lives.
* LongLived: Averted; Kerlei's Exaltation hasn't extended her life, and she's looking for an apprentice to take on her duties.
* NightmareFace: Has this in some capacity, and it's able to drive even the most inflexible to repent.

!!Ma'anjin Hekobo
Chosen of Wanjung, the central war god, Heaven's General and Trumpeter of the Chosen. Her Exaltation received special dispensation from the Immaculate Order, though her power is still seen as inauspicious. She fights with the divine might of a war god's champion, and displays martial perfection in all endeavors.
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* CoolHelmet: Depicted in historical illustrations in a [[CoolMask demon-masked]] kabuto.
* MagicMusic: Hearing her sing has led farmers to leave their fields and take up arms.
* NumberTwo: She serves, protects, and speaks for Wanjung directly.
* RetiredBadass: She's retired from service in the Imperial legions.

!!Tall Cypress, the Wraith-of-the-Woods
Chosen of Yagumo, a revered forest god of the Blessed Isle.
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* AGodIAmNot: Prone to getting venerated by heterodox fertility cults of Sextes Jylis; he subdues them with humility and gentleness, so the Immaculate Order isn't forced to do so with violence.
* TheParagon: Considered the foremost example of proper Exigent behavior in the Realm.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Over 400 years old.
* SpeaksFluentAnimal: Plant variant; he can commune with trees to tap into Creation's past.
* {{Transflormation}}: Able to take plantlike form, assuming the might of primeval forests.

!!Tamako, the Foxbinder
Chosen - and keeper - of the trickster fox-god Wicked-Grin Shifune, latest in a long line of Foxbinders appointed by the Immaculate Order to keep him caged, and tasked by the Order with uncovering Anathema.
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* ArtifactOfPower: The Foxbinder Exaltation is sealed in a bejeweled collar.
* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: Shifune's punishment for pranking high-ranking gods and fraudulent hiring was to be forced to create an Exigent who would serve as his keeper. Many in Yu-Shan were shocked the Unconquered Sun would use the spark of Exigence as a punishment.
* CunningLikeAFox: Shifune has a long history of trickery and deception.
* FantasticFoxes: Shifune, being a fox-spirit.
* {{Humanshifting}}: Shifune has two forms left to him at present, a red fox with [[MarkOfTheSupernatural seven-fingered hands in place of paws]] and a handsome red-haired youth, having lost his other forms in creating his Exaltation.
* LegacyCharacter: The Foxbinders are chosen by the Immaculate Order, and there've been many of them over the years.
* LivingLieDetector: The Foxbinder can scent lies and expose deception, trickery and disguises.
* MasterOfIllusion: The Foxbinder can create illusions that make any lie, no matter how outrageous, appear true.
* NiceGirl: Tamako, perhaps a bit too much so for her role of hunting Anathema; she let a newly-Exalted child Lunar escape, and treats Shifune more as a friend than a prisoner, which he's taking advantage of by encouraging her independent streak in the hopes that she'll rebel against the Order, becoming the sort of person his Exaltation was meant for, and they'll raise chaos across Creation together.
* RunawayFiancee: Tamako is a young patrician woman who got out of an arranged marriage by entering the Immaculate Order.
* WanderingTheEarth: Tamako and Shifune wander the Blessed Isle in search of Anathema.
* WouldntHurtAChild: Once let a newly-Exalted Lunar child escape.

!!Nozifu Isiman, the Torchbearer
Chosen of long-dead Ogen-Moin, the mandrill-headed god of study by lamplight, upholding the Torchbearers' dream of a world bathed in the light of knowledge and reason.
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* AgeWithoutYouth: Downplayed, but Torchbearers age visibly normally, if extremely gracefully; they remain as spry as any other Exalted, [[OldMaster but they bear their wisdom on their flesh]].
* LegacyCharacter: She's the eighth Torchbearer.
* LongLived: A Torchbearer's lifespan is comparable to the Dragon-Blooded's, though unlike the Dragon-Blooded, they don't remain in the prime of their life, but end up elderly and spry by the end of their first century. Nozifu's chapter fiction suggests she's on the older side of Torchbearer lifespan, but doesn't give specifics.
* SemanticSuperpower: The Torchbearer Exaltation covers power over [[LightEmUp light]] and [[PlayingWithFire flame]], as well as the light of understanding and clarity.
* WanderingTheEarth: Has never stayed in one place for more than a year.

!!The Sovereigns of Uluiru
The proprietary Exigents of the titular city, who were Exalted by bathing in the Fount of Glories at the heart of their sacred caverns. Created when {{Cantata}}-of-the-Depths, the gem-god and patron of the Irugu clan in the distant Northwest used his spark to merge his Essence with the grave of the dead Incarna Aurora, the Fount gives those who survive a bath in it the patchwork power of Cantata's love of beauty and artwork, and Aurora's prowess over hope, awe, and light. The first Sovereign, Queen Ulu, quickly realized its potential for abuse and rivals, and banned all but the royal family and its branches from even approaching the Fount - but now she is dead by the same unknown hands that assassinated her granddaughter and heir apparent, and the Sovereigns find themselves jockeying for mastery of the city.
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* ArchEnemy: The FairFolk, as Uluiru is ''very'' close to the Wyld and is frequently subject to harassment by raksha.
* BattleAura: While all Exalted have animas, the Sovereigns have a Charm that allows them access to a level of anima beyond that of other Exalted, transcendent anima, which gives them a near Solar-level anima power.
* CursedWithAwesome:
** They are patchwork Exigents, and thus have an extremely nasty variant of the Great Curse that results in them suffering incredible agony and lethal PowerIncontinence for a bit, or becoming TheSociopath due to shutting down all parts of them that could feel pain for a longer bit. Because it doesn't actually hurt them until that moment, they find it hardly outweighs the benefits of being a god-king, and appreciate that it reminds them of the need for ''some'' restraint.
** Certain of their Charms also draw on the pain of their Exaltation.
* DeadlyDecadentCourt: Just like Dragon-Blooded, with an even more bitter undertone caused by the royal family of a single city, however vast, being much more closely related, meaning that their scheming invariably hits siblings, uncles and aunts, and first cousins rather than technically related people they have never heard of.
* GadgeteerGenius: Cantata was a god of gemcrafting as well as gems in general, and the Sovereigns are excellent artisans and engineers, having Craft as a Favored Ability.
* HardLight: Fireglass, extremely flexible solidified light made from their animas. Sovereign Charms often revolve around manipulating it or using it in their artwork.
* TheMinionMaster: As fitting for god-kings, the Sovereigns have a lot of Charms based around forces following them, and crafting eidolons, sentient golems made from fireglass.
* RandomlyGifted: While the Fount is seemingly inexhaustible, whether or not using it will actually ''work'' is an apparent crapshoot.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: It's long-standing tradition that you have to stand out before bathing in the Fount, no matter how close your line was to the Queen, and Sovereigns only become more active after becoming Exalted.

!!Pakpao, the Puppeteer

Chosen of Karana, the god of the Meiyu Coast's marionette puppetry. A daughter of impoverished immigrants once enslaved at a cocoa farm, Pakpao rose to prominence as the wife of a high ranking Zhao official. Pakpao largely uses her newfound abilities to seek further political power and has ignored the pleas of her patron's cult, who would prefer that she aid them in revenge against the Realm and Immaculate Order which reduced the cult to a shadow of its former self and left their god broken a century ago. Karana himself seems less concerned, confident that she will be useful in time.

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Pakpao has numerous abilities related to puppetry, from using them as weapons to forcing others to dance at the end of her strings.
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* AnimalMotif: Spiders. Karana himself is spider-like in appearance, and as a result several of Pakpao's charms draw upon arachnid themes.
* BodyHorror: Weaponized. She is capable of contorting her body so unnaturally it can be used as a threaten action, and also allows her to escape grapples and pass through spaces she otherwise could not.
* DeadGuyPuppet: Pakpao can reanimate corpses and use them as "puppets" for the purposes of her charms.
* LivingDollCollector: She can trap people's souls when she kills them and imbue them into her puppets if she wishes.
* PeoplePuppets: Her higher essence charms allow her to ensnare living people with her essence strings, allowing her to control their actions.
* RagsToRiches: Her pre-Exaltation life, heavily implied to be due to her efforts behind the scenes - that is, there was more going on there than simply meeting and marrying her husband.
* WallCrawl: One of her spider-themed abilities.

[[folder:Apocryphal Exalted: Dream-Souled, Hearteaters and Umbral Exalted]]

Initially, these three Exalted types were intended as foils for the Lunars and Sidereals in Third Edition, in order to emphasize some of their themes, and were to receive playable writeups. When Robert Vance and Eric Minton took over as developers, they opted not to make the various trade-offs involved in incorporating them into the line, instead deciding to have them as "optional canon", with an appendix in ''Exigents'' describing their themes, concepts and backstories, and giving enough information on their Charmsets for people to homebrew their own, with the possibility of giving them a splatbook depending on response.

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A picture of them (alongside an Alchemical and Green Sun Prince) can be found on pages 54-55 of the Third Edition core: the woman with the aurora is a Hearteater, the man being tormented by a shadow-monster is an Umbral Exalt, and the man in the toga is a Dream-Souled.

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* {{Foil}}: The Hearteaters and Umbral Exalted were intended as Lunar foils, while the Dream-Souled were intended as Sidereal foils with the Getimians. However, they've moved beyond that even in the summarized versions in ''Exigents'', becoming more standalone.
* LooseCanon: Their position in the game. People can include them in their games, and will get advice on how to do so, but the rest of the line isn't going to be written under the assumption they exist.

!!The Dream-Souled
Chosen of Ketu, a being native to the wyld who is neither primordial nor god nor FairFolk. Ketu knows Creation only from the dreams of its inhabitants, and selects its chosen from those whose dreams it finds most interesting.

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The Dream-Souled wield unmatched power over dreams, and are formidable forces in the waking world as well, wielding powers based on illusion and transformation.

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* {{Determinator}}: Ketu is drawn to the dreams of people who have an extremely clear idea of what they think the world should be, and a will to see it through no matter the personal cost. It empowers these people as Dream-Souled.
* DreamWalker: Dream-Souled have the basic ability to enter others' dreams, plus Charms that allow them to [[DreamWeaver manipulate the dreams of others]].
* LiminalBeing: The Dream-Souled stand between Creation and the Wyld, not fully of one or the other. This is absolutely terrifying to the FairFolk, as Dream-Souled are embodiments of Order they cannot mutate due to also being Dreams, and can reshape fae into forms that ape their Ideals.
* MasterOfIllusion: One of the Dream-Souled's basic anima powers allows them to create obvious illusions, and they have Charms that let them develop this further.
* {{Ubermensch}}: The kind of people who become Dream-Souled were already {{Determinator}}s, and Ketu's blessing makes it outright ''impossible'' for others to force them to willingly break their own ideals.

!!Hearteaters
Once the Aurorals, chosen of the Incarna [[GenderBlenderName Aurora]], the Hearteaters were warped into their current form during the Divine Revolution, when the Primordials slew Aurora and performed a terrible ritual using his heart as a focus. Unfortunately for the Primordials, they remained on the side of the gods. So now instead of joyful muses they had to deal with something much, much worse.

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Following the Divine Revolution, the victorious Exalted found the Hearteaters were now ''their'' issue to deal with, and elected to wipe them all out, kill all their pawns, and seal their bones away deep in the Wyld. Their prisons held for the rest of the First Age, but the subsequent cataclysms of Creation's history - the Usurpation and the Great Contagion - undid many of the seals entirely, so mortals who stumbled into the Wyld now ran the risk of releasing a Hearteater's Exaltation, alongside all the other perils there.

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Hearteaters have an insatiable hunger to make those with intimacies towards them into "pawns", stripping away their identity and free will and leaving only themselves in its place.

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* TheAssimilator: Some Hearteater Charms allow them to absorb abilities, traits and skills from their pawns.
* BlessedWithSuck: Any Hearteater with a conscience is going to rapidly learn to hate life even more so than sympathetic Abyssals, because an Abyssal can occasionally take a break from being a horrific monster by resting in the Underworld. A Hearteater's ''very existence'' is parasitic, with enough left of themselves as the Auroral Exalted to know just how broken they are.
* ChessMotifs: Aside from their victims being referred to as pawns, a lot of their charms reference other chess concepts like promotion, sacrifices and castling.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: The Primordials apparently thought turning the Auroral Exalted into horrific parasites by killing their beloved Incarna would win them over. If anything, they helped defeat themselves worse, because the newborn Hearteaters wanted them to ''suffer.''
* EnemyMine: One of the few things that can get the Sidereals and Lunars to collaborate is taking down a Hearteater - both the Bureau of Destiny and the Silver Pact have institutional memory of the Hearteaters, even if their newer members haven't heard of them, and are well aware of the threat they pose.
* FallenHero: The Auroral Exalted were once TheMuse to the other Exalted during the Primordial War, only to be twisted into the monsters they are now through the murder of their patron Incarna. Once they were no longer needed to fight said Primordials, the Hearteaters were sealed away, and understandably want payback.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Many Hearteaters were once just people who stumbled across the sealed bones of one and gained their Exaltation by complete accident.
* HorrorHunger: The psychological need to devour wills and transform people into servants is inherent to the Hearteaters - even beyond how [[WillfullyWeak powerless]] a Hearteater without Pawns is, being one comes with the urge to devour passions and become the heart of love for others, and fighting against that hunger is ''extremely'' difficult.
* LightIsNotGood: Hearteaters used to be the Exalted of the Aurora, are still highly associated with light, and are not Creatures of Darkness. Their very powers push them into being amoral {{Manipulative Bastard}}s that devour free will.
* MadeOfIndestructium: When a Hearteater dies with no suitable pawns in range, their bones transmute to pearl and become imperishable until some poor sap stumbles across them and receives the Exaltation.
* TheMinionMaster: Hearteater Charms revolve around Pawns, people they have instilled a brainwashed UndyingLoyalty into.
* NonIndicativeName: The Hearteaters' name is metaphorical, rather than literal - they take the passions of others and subsume them into themselves.
* PastLifeMemories: Hearteaters tend to get a lot of memories from previous bearers of their Exaltations. How much varies, but they all tend to remember how they were betrayed pretty well...
* SealedEvilInACan: During the First Age, the Hearteaters were killed and their bones sealed away at the edges of Creation. Unfortunately, while the occasional breakout happened before, with the way that things have deteriorated in recent years, more and more are being released into Creation once more.
* TragicMonster: The Auroral Exalted were corrupted and twisted by their patron's murder into the Hearteaters, instilling in them a drive to turn others into their pawns, once that they can't deny forever. Those with a conscience try and delude themselves into thinking that their pawns let them do this to them willingly, but these lies cannot last forever.
* TheVirus: The core Hearteater concept, via breaking others' wills and turning them into their pawns. Kill a Hearteater with a suitable pawn within a few miles, and the Exaltation passes to the pawn... along with the drive to break people's wills and make them pawns (courtesy of their manifestation of the Great Curse), but ''not'' necessarily the original Hearteater's mind. Kill a Hearteater without a suitable pawn, and the Exaltation will pass to the next mortal to touch their bones.


!!Umbrals
Chosen of Nebiru, an Incarna that refused to fight on the side of the gods in the Divine Revolution. To prevent him betraying them to the Primordials, the other Incarnae sealed him within his invisible planet. In a desperate bid for freedom, Nebiru created the Umbrals, allowing himself to be consumed in the process.

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All Umbrals have a Shadow - a SplitPersonality formed from the darkest parts of their psyche and a small fragment of Nebiru himself. Their charms allow them to control darkness, both in a literal sense and to manipulate the darkness within the hearts of those around them. In the place of a limit track they have Penumbra, a gauge of how much they or the Shadow is in control of their shared body. The higher it is, and the more influence the Shadow has, the more powerful they become.

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* CastingAShadow: A good part of Umbral powers is physical manipulation of darkness and shadows.
* DarkIsNotEvil: Umbrals are associated deeply with darkness, fear, and vices, and are Creatures of Darkness due to their long-dead Incarna being a Primordial loyalist; however, even the Shadows themselves aren't inherently evil (a particularly criminal Umbral might find her Shadow partly embodies ChronicHeroSyndrome), and it's possible for Heaven to decide that particular Umbrals have proven they're not enemies of Creation, curing their vulnerability to Holy Charms.
* EnemyWithin: An Umbral's Exaltation gives them a Shadow, the result of a bit of Nebiru merging with his Chosen's darker impulses - as befitting an embodiment of fear and doubt, Shadows are never things their counterpart likes about themselves and constantly struggle for control; however, since Shadows contain pieces of an Incarna, some Charms cede influence to the Shadow in return for drawing directly on the dead arch-god's power. That said, unlike their counterparts in ''TabletopGame/WraithTheOblivion'', a Shadow will ''never'' try to pursue their Umbral's death.
* {{Irony}}: The Immaculate Philosophy views Celestial Exalted as inherently compromised by their dark sides awoken by their powers and inherently Anathema. Umbrals, who factually are Celestial Exalted fighting against their awoken dark sides by nature of their powers, are not inherently recognized by the Immaculates as Anathema, simply being judged based on their behavior.
* MechanicallyUnusualClass: They're the only Exalted type in third edition seemingly unaffected by the Great Curse, though Penumbra acts like the Curse in its place.
* TheMinionMaster: Umbral Charms allow the crafting of {{Living Shadow}}s, and Night-Prince Majesty gives them a persistent CharmPerson effect to Creatures of Darkness and dark-aligned beings [[TheSacredDarkness aligned to Heaven]] by drawing on Nebiru's authority over the night.
* PowerAtAPrice: Some of the Umbral Charms require gaining Penumbra to use, granting the Umbral power at the cost of control.
* SemanticSuperpower: Because Shadows are technically both their Umbrals and not, they can do things like soak the damage from attacks while leaving the Umbral uninjured, hide Intimacies of the Umbral within themselves, trick people who didn't crack an Umbral's social defenses into believing a biased HalfTruth advantageous to the Umbral, and create CombatClairvoyance by [[CruelToBeKind lambasting flaws in their counterpart's fighting style]] (including things like "you didn't notice the ambusher" the Umbral wasn't capable of seeing).
* SuperPoweredEvilSide: The more Penumbra an Umbral has, the more influence their Shadow has over their actions - and the more powerful they personally are, as they tap into more and more of Nebiru's power. Inner Darkness Unleashed is a basic Charm that invokes it directly, taking on a point of Penumbra for the Shadow to physically manifest as PowerArmor for the Umbral.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Spoken]]
The Spoken are unusual in a few regards: for one, they're the only known non-human Exalted type, and for another they're the only known ''extinct'' Exalted type, created and wiped out in the early First Age, in the years following the Divine Revolution. The story goes that an as-yet unnamed undersea species sought out the secret of Exaltation and brought it back to the fugitive Incarna known as the Voice in the Trench, who lifted up the Spoken from among them; unfortunately, the Voice was unaware that creating Exaltations comes with a price for the divine entity who does so, and in its case, it was destroyed in the process of creating the Spoken.

\\

Initially, the Spoken were slated to be introduced in a Niobraran War sourcebook for Third Edition, but Eric Minton and Robert Vance decided they weren't high priority, being extinct in the present-day setting. They did not, however, decide to drop them altogether; the Spoken may be gone, but they did leave their mark on Creation, and are slated to get an antagonist writeup in the ''Exalted Essence'' companion.
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* TheBeastmaster: Oceanic-themed.
* ElementalPowers: Oceanic-themed.
* PosthumousCharacter: Their effective position in the setting.
* ThePowerOfCreation: The primary theme of their powers, enabling them to create something by naming it.
* StrongerWithAge: Going by the city of Obsidian, which was built to the scale of the eldest Spoken, they could grow to massive sizes.
[[/folder]]

* AdaptaitonalVillainy: Downplayed; the 2E version of the Shoat was clearly a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds, the 3E version is an entirely willing DarkMessiah, but is AffablyEvil, sane, and is from a religion that genuinely thinks the Dowager wants what's best for them.

The Abyssal Exalted are servants of the Deathlords and [[EldritchAbomination Neverborn]] and the champions of death. The Abyssal Exalts gain their power from the Neverborn's share of the captured Solar Exaltations, which they inverted and captured inside [[ArtifactOfDoom Monstrances]]. Each one was a hero or a potential hero who, on the brink of death, [[DealWithTheDevil made a deal with a deathlord]]; they would survive and gain great power over the very concept of death, so long as they foreswore themselves to the [[CodeOfHonour chivalry of death]] - which unfortunately for creation, has the ultimate goal of fulfilling the Neverborn's desire of [[OmnicidalManiac universal destruction]]. Each Abyssal is chosen from someone close to death, usually literally, and suffers from a [[CameBackWrong curse]] that affects them should they act like the living. This encourages them to become monsters, but as often as not, most Abyssals end up only obeying the Deathlords because they don't feel like they have a choice.

* BeingGoodSucks: Because Abyssal Limit will hurt you for it unless you get creative about the chivalry of death...which isn't that hard if you happen to be reuniting the living and dead or are pursuing a BigBad, but you really can't hide the fact you're a half-dead thing and expect to have a positive relationship with mortals.
* BlackKnight: In 3E, this is a strong thematic of Abyssals; the Last Breath binds them to the chivalry of death, the Neverborn's desires - to draw out death until Creation accepts it, to slay and ruin the mighty before the weak, and to merge the worlds of living and dead. Ironically, the ones who are looking for the letter and not the spirit are the [[DarkIsNotEvil rogue ones]].

* CursedWithAwesome: Abyssal Limit tends to do bad things when it goes off; if the Abyssal refuses to honor their oath, then the Neverborn will use the Bleak Exaltation to inflict Expiation on them, either to [[TheCorruption modify their mind]] into a more perfect deathknight, contemptuous and uncaring towards life, or to inflict curses on Creation that do the intended job themselves at the cost of the Abyssal's wellbeing. However, it also lifts the corruptive influence of the Great Curse on the minds of Abyssals; Death's Lawgivers do not inherently lose control of their minds to their darker passions, and can cure Limit and regain Willpower by upholding the chivalry of death...which the Neverborn are [[DidYouJustScamCthulhu notoriously bad at detecting breaking the spirit of while obeying the letter]].

* ThatManIsDead: Abyssals have to give up their pre Exaltation name as part of their Exaltation, so the only time they can answer to their old name is to say this.

First, go check out the Dowager's entry ([[Characters/ExaltedSpirits Spirits page]], Ghosts folder, Deathlords category). Done? Okay. The Shoat is whatever poor, terrified girl (and it's always a girl she chooses) is left over from the Dowager's latest round of perpetual child abuse. Said girl is always Exalted as a Dusk, which means the end result is a traumatized young girl with the potential to slaughter armies. The Dowager's used up several, but apparently likes the title enough to re-use it.

* BreakTheCutie: The end result of this. Hell, it's implied in a comic that the current Shoat was ''forced to kill her own mother''.
* CreepyChild: Abyssal child. Again, comes with the territory.
* EnfantTerrible: The Dowager does a ''nasty'' job to their minds.
* LegacyCharacter: Every Shoat holds the same title and Exaltation.
* LittleMissBadass: Exalted child. Perk of the job.
* TykeBomb: ... Dude.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Already was the case for sympathetic Abyssals, but it's even harder to quantify whether a truly irredeemable Shoat of the Mire is truly evil or so broken that all she has the capacity to do now is lash out in pain at everything.

* AffablyEvil: If not outright CreepyGood. She's truly devoted to the Neverborn, but she's also honest, friendly, fair, and despises cruelty. She may not even be considered traditionally "evil", as her idea of the chivalry of death [[BlueAndOrangeMorality involves overthrowing corrupt monarchs and bringing peace to the dead]].

* MysteriousPast: Nobody knows where Weeping Raiton came from apart from her always having been morbid. In 2E

!!'''The Weeping Raiton Cast Aside'''

Throwing her past behind her, she opted to be her own representative to the Neverborn. Now, she travels the Underworld as an example of what Abyssals can become, and acts as a counselor between different factions serving the dead gods trapped in the Labyrinth.

* TheArchmage: Mastered sorcery up to Celestial and necromancy up to the Void Circles. With this she can be a trouble even to some Deathlords.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Raiton has completely discarded her past from before becoming an Abyssal; she’s completely deleted it from her memory.
* MysteriousPast: Nobody knows where Weeping Raiton came from.