History Characters / ExaltedExaltedOfCreation

* DeadpanSnarker: He was actually the first to refer to the Scarlet Empress as "Her Redness." It has since become a FanNickname.

* OpenMindedParent: Dereth -- effectively transexuals -- such as Diamond are generally accepted and embraced in Delzhan society, and Diamond's parents were no exception; the largest family trouble he caused when declaring his status was mildly annoying his father, who had brought gifts worthy of a fine noble''woman's'' coming of age.

* ALoadOfBull: His spirit shape and Tell.

* ALoadOfBull: Since his Spirit Totem is a bull, his war form greatly resembles a minotaur. His [[GlamourFailure Tell]] is having the hooves of a bull for feet.

* CoolHorse: His AnimalCompanion.

* AbuseMistake: Spent the entire First Age having everyone around her do this on account of Desus' mind-manipulating powers. Oh, the heroes of Creation all ''noticed'' Lilith was sporting an awful lot of bruises when she hadn't been in combat lately, they just figured she and Desus must get up to some kinky stuff in the bedroom.

* CoolHelmet: Part of her default outfit in 3E.

* HeroicBSOD: After she lost Andamani, she could only escape the pain by abandoning her humanity.

* OminousOwl: Her totem.

** Lilith was ''made'' this way. She loves Desus. She hates Desus. He beat her brutally, but lay down a compulsion so that she'd do anything to remain in denial, up to killing whoever pointed it out. For years, her [[GoalInLife Motivation]] was simply "Please Desus."
** And now she's tracked down Desus' reincarnation, reuniting with him at the scene of their First Age wedding, and then promptly directing him to meet with an ancient Behemoth that is almost certain to kill him.

* AdaptationalHeroism: In 3E, Leviathan's prejudice towards Dragon-Bloods and their relatives, while still present, [[TragicBigot has been lightened to a knee-jerk distrust he knows is unfair.]] He's even friends with a native Luthean Water Caste.

* LoveTriangle: One of the longest-running and most tragic ones of the First Age.
* MoralMyopia: In 2e, he simply refuses to consider the Traitorspawn, the descendants of the Dragon-Blooded who live in Luthe, are anything resembling people beyond a vent for his anger. But boss around his beastmen? Your death will be slow and agonizing. Averted in 3e, he's a Guardian of all of Luthe.
* MyGreatestFailure: Leviathan is still pretty much defined by his failure to save either his mate or his lover. The reincarnation of either, however, might just be enough to snap him out of his funk.
* RevengeBeforeReason: In 2e his prejudice comes from his belief that the Traitorspawn are reincarnations of the cadre that killed Amayana. The book itself states that he has no rational reason to believe this. In 3E, averted, as he's perfectly fine with a Water Caste as one of his confidants.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Gave one to the leaders of the Bronze and Gold Factions shortly after the Great Contagion, citing that they were too busy playing politics to actually do their jobs and as a result almost all of Creation died, and a large chunk (including the area Nazri was from) got Unmade by the Fae.

* EtTuBrute: After he realized how serious Kejak was about overthrowing the Solars, he tried to warn the Solar Deliberative, only for Kejak to send a Dragon Blooded death squad to kill him.
* WideEyedIdealist: Believed that the Solars could be saved. Kejak killed him to stop him from telling the Solar Delibrative about Kejak's betrayal, so no-one knows if he could have been successful.

* BestialityIsDepraved: The Lunars are capable of making Beastmen. In first and second edition to do so (without high-level Charms, that is) required an act of bestiality. Either the Lunar screwed the animal in human form, or the Lunar screwed a human in animal form. Third edition removes this requirement, instead requiring merely that the Lunar conceive the child in their hybrid form, or use one of the (far more accessible) charms. Humans mating with animals ''is'' still a valid means of producing beastmen, but can only be done in the Wyld, and you no longer need to be a Lunar to do so.

* TimeAbyss: Over 3,500 years old, which is over ten times the lifespan of a normal Dragon-Blooded (which is usually 300 years without anagathic drugs and/or a particually strong grasp of Essence).

* TheHeart: Invoked. Shepherd’s [[NiceGuy easygoing and agreeable nature]] helps smooth things over when he’s teamed up with members of both Bronze and Gold Factions.

* TheBeastMaster: Often needs to procure mounts of any description (including dragons) for her circle.
* BlitheSpirit: Aspires to be this for the whole Realm.

* {{Ojou}}: May Blossom sure manages to rock the looks and mannerisms.

* CulturedBadass: He’s surprisingly philosophical, carefully instructed by Wayang in the secrets of life and death. His Motivation is “understand the human condition.”

* PunnyName: Say it fast, and think 'Goth'.

!!'''Ahn-Aru'''

[[spoiler: In truth, she is serving Heaven and Heaven alone. She realizes that, thanks to the Charms and abilities of the Deathlords, ''knowingly'' entering their service with a hidden agenda would be suicide. Hence why she is ''unknowingly'' reporting to Heaven while being completely, utterly loyal to all the Deathlords. It's just a matter of if she can deliver pay dirt to her superiors before one of her other bosses turns out the lights on Creation...]]

* ManchurianAgent: The unknowing agent of Heaven against the Deathlords.
* MemoryGambit: The undisputed master, except perhaps for Meticulous Owl.

!'''Hollok'''

* NeuralImplanting: Uses a celestial spell to do this to a student, which is implied to be common among the Fivescore Fellowship.
* WolverineClaws: Almost always seen with them, courtesy of his mastery of Sidereal Martial Arts.

* WideEyedIdealist: She honestly thinks the solution to the problems of the Second Age is "Solars, who listen to their Sidereal advisers more." For reasons why this is naive, see Lyta.
** It's less "Listen" and more "Control the Solars through indoctrination, Sidereal Astrology, and general manipulation to keep them from going off the deep end, while keeping Creation safe".

* {{Expy}}: Of Creator/BruceLee.
* OnlySaneMan: One of the few Gold Faction members who actually lived in the First Age. As such, he's very aware of how the return of the Solars can go pear-shaped.

!!'''Kai'''

Closest thing the independents have to a leader.

* TheAgeless: Has not aged since removing his thread from the Loom of Fate.
* CanonDiscontinuity: As far as 3e developer Robert Vance is concerned, "Tale of the Visiting Flare" is non-canonical to the gamebooks, and Thulio's background has been rewritten to avoid the more unfortunate implications - he handled his breakup like a mature adult, it didn't motivate his participation in the Usurpation or his war on Heaven, and he's not obsessed with his ex's reincarnation. His issue is how his fellow Sidereals manipulated him.

* InTheHood: Wears a dark, sleeveless robe over his clothes, with the hood up over his head. It doesn't hide his face, but it does make an impression.

* RageAgainstTheHeavens: Has its origins in his (not entirely erroneous) belief his destiny was written by others, and his resentment over it.

* NotSoDifferent: Ayesha's First Age incarnation, Tammiz Ushun, was a close friend of Chejop Kejak and a firm supporter of the Vision of Gold. [[DoomedByCanon This did not work out well]], [[ForegoneConclusion obviously]]. Kejak was devastated, but was never one to let personal feelings get in the way of [[IDidWhatIHadToDo doing what was necessary]]. He ''did'' take Tammiz's next incarnation, Ayesha, as his student, and eventually lover, trying to manipulate her away from her previous sympathies. This was an obvious violation of trust, and Ayesha eventually rebelled. Now, as the hidden hand behind the Cult of the Illuminated, her tactics and ethics are ''very'' reminiscent of her old teacher.

* PyrrhicVictory: [[spoiler: He manages to kill a Solar Exalted, which is normally a feat for the ages. Unfortunately, it will just reincarnate and he was forced to run with his tail between his legs--showing he's NotSoDifferent from Cathak Drogath]].

The Solar Exalted are the (currently) 150 Chosen imbued with the strength of the Unconquered Sun, the badass heroes of Creation.

They were originally made from the Unconquered Sun to take out the Primordials with help from their Lunar mates and generals, Sidereal spies, and Dragon-Blooded army. [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu They did.]] After they killed or imprisoned all but 2 of them (who had joined their side), they ruled Creation under the Mandate of Heaven from the Incarnae in the First Age in peace and prosperity.

But there was a problem. The slain Primordials, called the Neverborn, had laid a Great Curse on them that would inevitably drive them insane. Fearing that they would destroy Creation, the Sidereals killed almost all the mad God-Kings with the aid of the numerous Dragon-Blooded who would be the new rulers of Creation. The Solar Exaltation shards were [[SealedBadassInACan sealed]] inside the Jade Prison, with the few Solars that escaped and their reincarnations being killed by the Wyld hunt.

But this was not their end. Shortly after the Scarlet Empress's disappearance, the Yozi and the Neverborn cooperated to rip open the Jade Prison and corrupt the shards within to make their Infernals and Abyssals respectively. But they underestimated the Awesomeness of Solar Might and were only able to take half, 50 going to the Yozi, 100 to the Neverborn, and 150 making up the new Solars of the Second Age.

* BrokenAce: What the Great Curse does to them.
* BavarianFireDrill: Solars are EXTREMELY good at this, due to social Charms like Authority-Radiating Stance.

* GoodOldFisticuffs: Solar Hero Style/Solar Brawl Charms are a bit like this.

* ThePowerOfTheSun: But of course.

One of the few Solars who Exalted before the breaking of the Jade Prison, Yurgen is not the iconic Dawn Caste, though many people often mistake him for it. An old [[BarbarianTribe icewalker]] warrior who passed the point where he could fight -- i.e., enough to see his grandchildren grow up -- he took up the tradition of [[DeathSeeker meeting his death on the ice]], as is traditional for his culture. While out there, he was attacked by an ice elemental in the form of his dead wife. However, he Exalted at that very moment, melting the elemental in the process. After wandering about feeling rather confused that he no longer ''felt'' old, he realized he was chosen for greatness and found his way to a different tribe. There, he became TheStrategist, eventually hoping to unite the icewalkers.

Of course, one doesn't do this without attracting [[HeroKiller the Wyld Hunt]], and ten years before the game began, a cadre of them were sent after him.

[[CurbStompBattle They never knew what hit them]].

* BarbarianHero: He is one, and he leads them.
* BerserkButton: [[NeverHurtAnInnocent Killing civilians to get to him]], as a Sidereal discovered the hard -- [[BerserkerTears and fatal]] -- way.

According to ''Return of the Scarlet Empress''[[labelnote:*]]an entirely optional metaplot book, presenting the official canon reason for why she went missing[[/labelnote]], though, [[spoiler: she was [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe abducted by the Ebon Dragon to be his bride]]; an unknown time after the return of the Solars, she will return to Creation, reunite the fractured Realm, and be the [[DarkMessiah messiah]] for the people therein. Except for the fact that she'll be brainwashed, {{Mind Rape}}d, and have a ring on her finger that makes her love, honor and obey the cosmic embodiment of being a douchebag.]]

-->"My children, my subjects, people of Creation: fall silent! Hear me, your Scarlet Empress, champion of Creation, eternal ruler of the Blessed Isle! For years I turned my face from this world to commune with the dragon of my aspect and his four equal peers! And now, with my return from meditative isolation, this lawless tumult ends! Today I set right the crumbling hierarchy of my government, my legions, and the great houses! And woe be unto whoever defies me in this righteous cause!"
* BadassBookworm: The Imperial Manse was built by Autochthon and expanded on by Solar savants, and was meant for Solar hands alone. The Dragon-Blooded Scarlet Empress was able to use it to save Creation from the Fair Folk.
** She's also one of the greatest Dragon-Blooded sorcerers ever.

* BrainwashedAndCrazy: [[spoiler:More subtly than most in ''Return of the Scarlet Empress'', but the Ebon Dragon did something ''nasty'' to her mind.]]
* TheChessmaster: In her position, there's no other choice.

* KingInTheMountain: The missing Empress is rapidly on her way to becoming this sort of figure in the Realm's folklore.
** At least until a Solar's Daiklave cuts her down.

* LadyOfBlackMagic: One of the most accomplished sorcerers the Dragon-Blooded Host ever produced.
** This is in part because she has [[UpgradeArtifact the Mantle of Brigid]] which lets her cast Celestial Circle sorcery.
** And the [[UpgradeArtifact Wedding Band of the Scarlet Bride]] lets her cast Solar Circle sorcery.

* MotherOfAThousandYoung: Ancestor of ten thousand young is more accurate. While she is only the mother of about a dozen children, when all her descendants are added together, she has birthed the strongest and most numerous Dragon-Blooded bloodline in the history of Creation.
** She has a charm that increases her Essence pools by an amount related to the magnitude of the unit that would be created if all her living Dragon-Blooded descendants were collected together. The magnitude of this unit is 9, which means that the number of her living Dragon-Blooded descendants is over 5,000. This means that ''at least half'' of the Dragon-Blooded in the Realm are descended from the Scarlet Empress.

* RagsToRoyalty: We know very, very little about her background before becoming Empress, but pretty much the one thing that's clear is that she was no one important. The higher-ups in Lookshy had never even heard of her.
** In ''Return of the Scarlet Empress'' it's stated that in the First Age, all she would have considered good for would be a lieutenant, a regional administrator or a Solar's concubine.

* UnderestimatingBadassery: A lot of people did this to her, including the oldest and most powerful Celestial Exalted.
** [[spoiler:She did this herself during the events of ''Return of the Scarlet Empress'', underestimating the abilities of [[TheChessmaster The Chessmasters]] that held power in the South, although her Infernal allies meant she was still able to succeed.]]

* SupernaturallyValidatedTransPerson: In third edition, [[{{Transgender}} if someone has gender dysmorphia, or is otherwise uncomfortable with their gender]], Lunar Exaltation transforms their human true form into one they're comfortable with.

The iconic Eclipse Caste for Third Edition, Prince Diamond, while biologically female, [[{{Transgender}} is a Dereth]] and is [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy willing to resort to violence if you keep on calling him "she"]]. A Delzhan [[WalkingTheEarth far rider]], Diamond has befriended the Zenith Perfect Soul, and believes that her personal war against Mnemon may be [[DeathSeeker the final stop]] on his endless ride.

* {{Transgender}}: Prince Diamond is a Dereth, which means that when coming of age, he chose to not be of his biological gender. Those who declare themselves Dereth do so for a lot of reasons, such as sexuality or vocational interest, but {{Word of God}} has confirmed that Prince Diamond is someone "who we here on Earth in the present would call an [=FtM=] transsexual man, mistakenly assigned the female gender at birth".

* InUniverseNickname: The Sleepwalker.

* NotGoodWithRejection: Played with. When the love of his life chose another, he blamed the Celestial Bureaucracy, believing his destiny had been written by others. This happened because it was largely forced by the Celestial Bureaucracy; he is mostly over it, but the fact his peers betrayed him brought the pain back.

* TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: Through forbidden martial arts, he tapped into power even the Yozis feared, and in doing so marked himself as an enemy of Heaven by allowing Getimian Exalted to manifest.

* CurbStompCushion: 3rd Edition's version of the Battle of Futile Blood still ruined them, but House Tepet nearly won the day by forcing the Bull to commit ''everything'' to the fight. They managed to wound the Bull and his strongest spellcaster, along with outright killing two memebers of his Circle. The battle may have doomed House Tepet, but the North has still yet to recover from their last hurrah.

* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: They used to follow a more 'heroic' bent compared to Cathak's soldier and Sesus' underhandedness. Shame that the Battle of Futile Blood happened....

A rogue Chosen of Endings who discovered the Getimian Exalted and brought them into his war against Heaven.

* LoveMakesYouCrazy: Apparently greatly cared for Eternal Nova, but it was a twisted sort of love. He had Nova slain so that no-one else could love him the way Rakan did.
* NotGoodWithRejection: When the love of his life chose another, he blamed the Celestial Bureaucracy, believing his destiny had been written by others.
* RageAgainstTheHeavens: Has its origins in his belief his destiny was written by others, and his resentment over it.

* TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: Through forbidden martial arts, he tapped into power even the Yozis feared, and in doing so marked himself as an enemy of Heaven.

* EliteMooks: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-zagged]]. The Dragon-Blooded were explicitly designed as the 'regular' soldiers of the Exalted, and as such far outnumber the other types of Exalted, but are comparatively weak individually. This does not mean you should ever make the mistake of underestimating their abilities or write them off as irrelevant - every single Dragon-Blooded has the capacity to kick your ass.
** In general, it's also a point of contention in the fandom that Dragon-Blooded don't get the same respect as Celestial Exalted - that is, they are often viewed as 'mere' Mooks instead of individual heroes or villains in their own right.
** In 3rd edition, it's noted that if a battle group made up primarily of Dragon-Blooded were to be formed, it could have the highest level of Might, to express just how strong they are. However, it's also noted that such forces have never been seen since the First Age, because even if a large number of Dragon-Blooded gather together, it's usually better to stat them up as individual heroes in their own right.

* SuperpowerfulGenetics: The Dragon-Blooded manifest their powers based on their heritage and genetics - a person with two Dragon-Blooded parents has a much much greater chance to Exalt than a person with only one Dragon-Blooded parent, or a single Dragon-Blooded ancestor (even if it's still terribly unlikely).

One of the younger shahan-yahs of the Pact, a warlord born in the early years of the Shogunate known for three things; his anger at the Dragon-Blooded occupying the Caul, his tactical genius as a FrontlineGeneral, and [[FakingTheDead how many times he's "died."]] A prototypical reformer warhawk, Oka is an advocate of turning the Silver Pact's GradualGrinder style of warfare hot, and killing the Realm in one fell swoop.

* BloodKnight: Previous to his exaltation.

* BadassBookworm: Comes with being a sorceress in Creation.

* SheCleansUpNicely: As the comic at the back of ''Manual of Exalted Power - Abyssals'' shows.
* TheSmartGuy: Contractually required by her Caste.
* {{Tsundere}}: Tsuntsun variety. See Swan, above. She doesn't trust him, given her past, but she's attracted to him.

!!'''Dancer In Light'''

Devil-may-care Eclipse during the Era of Dreams who began actually courting the help of demons, as he wished to save his I AM node, which had developed its own individual personality, from being erased. Cares little about anything but dancing, which puts him in good company when touring Hell.

A sorcerous prodigy and anti-authoritarian supreme, which is not an expected quality in a goddess-queen of Creation. Her first incarnation died fighting She Who Lives In Her Name, the Principle of Hierarchy, and had a vision of how Creation might be better off without said principle. Engineered the sorcerous working which allows anyone in Creation to learn Sorcery as long as they're willing to work at it. Notable lack of grimdark for an elder First Age Exalt.

* GuileHero: Aforementioned Creation-changing sorcerous working was achieved by sneaking it in as a rider on a more popular Deliberative topic. Also convinced Devon, founder of one of the most widespread philosophical schools of Sorcery, that his approach was flawed. He followed up on this by incinerating every last copy of his school's teachings.
* HandsOffParenting: She enjoys having children but leaves them to their own devices or tells them to, "do some good, like fight an invading Raksha or something."
* HotSkittyOnWailordAction: Salina has a semi-regular "thing" with Joyous Youth Juritsu, who is a dragon. They have several children (see above), and she made him promise not to [[BodySurf possess them.]]
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The Calibration Feast was her idea.
** Since some of the more powerful Solars could make it count as Calibration when summoning a demon, even if it wasn't, Salina allowed the more powerful (and also more dangerous) Solars to act like they weren't collaborating with Third Circle Demons, and then summon them whenever they wanted, basically dooming the Solars for nothing.

* RousseauWasRight: Strongly believes that all people are basically good.

* GoneHorriblyWrong: Ten Stripes was aiming for a society where men could farm and women could sail, taking in all comers. What she ended up with was a cultural hodgepodge united almost entirely in their hate of ''her''. That they tried to kill her merely made her proud as she [[CompletelyMissingThePoint respected their drive]]. Oh, and those Lintha kids she adopted in are teaching everyone who would listen about their parents' masters...

** She has a charm that increases her Essence pools by an amount related to the magnitude of the unit that would be created if all her living Dragon-Blooded descendants where collected together. The magnitude of this unit is 9, which means that the number of her living Dragon-Blooded descendants is over 5,000. This means that ''at least half'' of the Dragon-Blooded in the Realm are descended from the Scarlet Empress.

While she was around, the Scarlet Empress kept a close eye on things, harnessing her descendants' ambitions for the good of the Realm. Since her disappearance, though, there's been nothing to keep the Great Houses' DeadlyDecadentCourt tendencies in check, and they almost immediately grew out of control. Each family [[NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering wastes its attention on petty political squabbles, ignoring the serious threats looming over all Creation]]. At this point, CivilWar seems inevitable...

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: Especially since the Scarlet Empress disappeared, thus removing the one thing that was keeping everyone else in line.

Unfortunately, not only have they had no luck convincing the other Great Houses of this, the other Houses are so caught up in their DeadlyDecadentCourt intrigues that they refuse to believe Ledaal has different priorities. Every time House Ledaal suggests something like refocusing the Wyld Hunt's priorities on the Abyssals, the rest of the Dynasty assumes it's part of some cunning and subtle political scheme. It's gotten to the point that Ledaal has put forward one of its own as a candidate for the Scarlet Throne -- albeit a candidate with no real chance of succeeding -- just so the other Houses will stop assuming Ledaal's ''lack'' of a candidate is some sort of ruse.

The other Great Houses see the Water-Aspected House Peleps as a pack of scheming, treacherous liars and cheats who'd sell their own grandmothers for the slightest political advantage. This is pretty much true -- even within the House itself, scions of House Peleps are raised in an environment of [[DeadlyDecadentCourt intense political intrigue]] and [[ToughLove no-holds-barred competition]]. In their defense, though, their motivations are not entirely selfish; House Peleps is unshakably loyal to the Realm and its interests.

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: Averted and pretty much the only Dragon-Blooded society to do so. The Lookshy General Staff is exactly that; a General Staff, a military hierarchy. While there's some scheming here and there most of Lookshy's leaders are far too dedicated to their duty.

While he did go through a rather bad patch after his injury, Nagezzer was soon able to pick himself up and decided to pursue a [[TheChessmaster different way]] of serving the Realm; being a vice merchant, as it turns out, allows one to stick one's nose in other people's DirtyBusiness, and given how the Scarlet Dynasty is a DeadlyDecadentCourt ''by design'', this means the Slug is also one of the best powerbrokers around. This, combined with his [[PatrioticFervor nigh-unparalleled]] loyalty to the Realm, has quietly turned him into a lynchpin of its social cohesion.

But those who thought her career was over were ''very'' wrong. To everyone's shock, under Ejava's leadership the Red-Piss Legion was swiftly transformed into a disciplined and effective fighting force that won a series of stunning victories. Today, the Roseblack is one of the Realm's most beloved and popular war heroes, as well as the leader of a highly skilled army that bears her [[UndyingLoyalty astonishing personal loyalty]]... and that kind of thing makes a DeadlyDecadentCourt in the middle of a succession crisis very, very nervous. Several of House Tepet's enemies in the Deliberative have been quietly making plans to have her killed before she can march on the Blessed Isle and declare herself Empress. Ironically, there's a good chance those very efforts will end up goading her into doing exactly what they're afraid of.

[[folder: Terrestrial Exalted]]
The Terrestrial Exalted, or Dragon-Blooded, are Elemental Exalts that can pass their Exaltation on to their children, and are also the weakest and most numerous of the Exalted.

This ties in with their creation as a SuperSoldier [[BadassArmy army]] for the Solar Exalted. The 5 Elemental Dragons, children of Gaia (a Primordial who had joined the Incarnae against the other Primordials) gifted 100 men and 9,900 women with their powers over [[ElementalPowers Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Wood]]. While they served as soldiers in the Primordial War, these first Dragon-Bloods were selected for their health and virility since their main purpose was to reproduce and birth a vast enough army to take on the Primordials and their servants.

After the war they served the Celestial Exalted in family military units called Gentes, each Gens being assigned to 1 Solar and their reincarnations. It was also during the First Age that the Dragon-Blooded started to mate with mortals, which up until then got you, your kid, and whoever you slept with dead. This reduced the 'purity' of the Dragon-Bloods, so from then on the children of Dragon-Bloods didn't have a 100% guarantee of Exalting.

Near the end of the First Age, after being subjugated to the tyranny and madness of the Solars and being manipulated by the Sidereals, the Terrestrials usurped their Solar masters. After the Usurpation the Dragon-Bloods ruled all of Creation in the Shogunate era, which was noted to have their rulers constantly get killed by the next rulers.

Things went mostly well enough though, until the Deathlords (powerful ghosts of the Solars they slew) released the Great Contagion that killed 90% of the population. [[FromBadToWorse Then]] the FairFolk attacked in an alliance with the Deathlords, destroying half of Creation.

When all seemed lost, several Dragon-Bloods journeyed to the Imperial Manse to use the [[DoomsdayDevice Realm Defense Grid]] (also called the Sword of Creation) to save Creation. Only one managed to get through its defenses, save Creation, and come out alive. Her name seems to have disappeared from the texts of history and the memories of everyone who ever knew her (pretty normal occurrence in Creation, in other words), but people call her the Scarlet Empress.

She built the Scarlet Dynasty from the ground up, and unlike the Shogunate it only directly ruled the Blessed Isle. Nevertheless, [[TheEmpire the Realm]] became the foremost superpower in Creation, being the pinnacle of civilization and military might. There were rivals though, most notably the other Terrestrial ruled state of Lookshy, so the Realm only indirectly ruled several territories in the Threshold outside of the Blessed Isle through puppet governments.

The Empress took on multiple lovers over the years, and, via her consorts and children, founded the 11 Great Houses who bickered for power, as well as other organizations that [[RightHandVersusLeftHand didn't exactly get along.]] It didn't really matter though, since [[VetinariJobSecurity as long as she was in charge the Realm would operate smoothly]].

[[OhCrap Then she disappeared.]] [[FromBadToWorse And the Solar Exalted have come back.]]

Now the Realm is in disarray as the Great Houses try to get who they want on the throne in a political system that wasn't made to handle a missing Empress, their secret Sidereal manipulators are bickering over letting the Dragon-Bloods continue to be the rulers of Creation or having the Solars return as the rightful rulers, and the forces of Hell, the Underworld and the Wyld are ready to take a bite into this half-dead but still powerful Empire.

Since the Terrestrials are the most numerous of the Exalted, we'll also list all of their organizations since they're pretty... ''[[{{Troperiffic}} colorful]]'' in their own right.

!!'''Tropes associated with all Terrestrials'''

* AllYourColorsCombined: Certain Dragon-Blooded Charms, such as Elemental Bolt, produce much more explosive results if multiple Dragon-Blooded contribute to them.
* ElementalPowers: Their five Aspects (not Castes) are [[DishingOutDirt Earth]], [[BlowYouAway Air]], [[MakingASplash Water]], [[PlayingWithFire Fire]], and [[GreenThumb Wood]].
* EliteMooks: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-zagged]]. The Dragon-Blooded were explicitly designed as the 'regular' soldiers of the Exalted, and as such far outnumber the other types of Exalted, but are comparatively weak individually. This does not mean you should ever make the mistake of underestimating their abilities or write them off as irrelevant - every single Dragon-Blooded has the capacity to kick your ass.
** In general, it's also a point of contention in the fandom that Dragon-Blooded don't get the same respect as Celestial Exalted - that is, they are often viewed as 'mere' Mooks instead of individual heroes or villains in their own right.
** In 3rd edition, it's noted that if a battle group made up primarily of Dragon-Blooded were to be formed, it could have the highest level of Might, to express just how strong they are. However, it's also noted that such forces have never been seen since the First Age, because even if a large number of Dragon-Blooded gather together, it's usually better to stat them up as individual heroes in their own right.
* LovableSexManiac: Well, how lovable they are depends on the individual, but Dragon-Blooded as a whole have RIDICULOUS sex drives (primarily in 2e).
* SoldierVsWarrior: They are on the Soldier side of things, intended to work together in groups, as an organized force, unlike other types of battle-oriented Exalted, who tend to be powerful warriors who work better on their own. This mentality can also be seen in the setting's BigBookOfWar, designed for Dragon-Blooded, ''The Ten Thousand Correct Actions of the Upright Soldier''.
* SuperBreedingProgram: The Realm and Lookshy are both running Dragon-Blooded breeding programs, though with different focuses. The Realm is looking to restore the purity of their Blood (thus making their individual members stronger), while Lookshy is just hoping to make as many Dragon-Blooded children as possible.
* SuperpowerfulGenetics: The Dragon-Blooded manifest their powers based on their heritage and genetics - a person with two Dragon-Blooded parents has a much much greater chance to Exalt than a person with only one Dragon-Blooded parent, or a single Dragon-Blooded ancestor (even if it's still terribly unlikely).


!!'''The Scarlet Dynasty'''

The Scarlet Empress had taken the Realm, but even with control of the Sword of Creation and the backing of the Bronze Faction, she was in a precarious position. The Shogunate had been a long succession of one military coup or assassination after another, and there was no guarantee it wouldn't continue. Her solution was to create a government that was highly effective as long as she was heading it...but was pretty much guaranteed to fall apart the instant she wasn't there.

The Realm's aristocracy currently consists of eleven [[TheClan Great Houses]], each named for a consort or child of the Empress from whom the [[TheClan extended family]] descends. The blood of the Dragons runs strong in the Empress' children, and social and religious teachings about [[MasterRace the inherent superiority of the Dragon-Blooded]] and their divine right to rule Creation help prevent rebellion by the commoners against their Exalted lords. To ensure that her own descendants couldn't threaten her position, the Empress followed a DivideAndConquer strategy: the Houses were encouraged to compete against each other for status, and the Empress alternately favored first one and then another, carefully working to prevent any single faction from gaining too much power.

While she was around, the Scarlet Empress kept a close eye on things, harnessing her descendants' ambitions for the good of the Realm. Since her disappearance, though, there's been nothing to keep the Great Houses' DeadlyDecadentCourt tendencies in check, and they almost immediately grew out of control. Each family [[NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering wastes its attention on petty political squabbles, ignoring the serious threats looming over all Creation]]. At this point, CivilWar seems inevitable...

... unless, of course, the player characters take it upon themselves to head it off.

* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Dynasty as a whole ''and'' each Great House individually. In fact, family issues are a cultural touchstone of a dynast's life. Most parents barely see their children, letting the caretakers do it for them. In a dynast's family, if you're a kid and eating together at dinner with your parent, *you're being judged*.
* TheClan: The Great Houses.
* CultureChopSuey: The deliberate kind. The Realm's culture is mostly a mix of [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire Imperial Rome]] and [[UsefulNotes/DynastiesFromShangToQing various Chinese dynasties]], but it's also got elements of Achaemenid Persia, the Tokugawa Shogunate, and pretty much any other premodern Old World empire you could name.
* CulturedBadass: Every Dynast is expected to be a competent scholar, dancer, musician and so on...as well as a powerful warrior, no matter what their profession. Also seen in their charms; many of them have a secondary combat application even in non combat abilities.
* DeadlyDecadentCourt: Especially since the Scarlet Empress disappeared, thus removing the one thing that was keeping everyone else in line.
* DividedWeFall: The Dragon-Blooded were designed to be at their best when working as a team, which is why the Dynasty's complete failure to stop bickering and work together is ''really'' unfortunate.
* TheEmpire: They rule the world, and if you're a Celestial, they're out for your guts.
* EveryoneIsBi: The Realm doesn't put a great deal of importance on sexual orientation; you can sleep with whoever you want, so long as you produce more legitimate heirs for your House.
* FeudingFamilies: By the Empress' design.
* ManlyGay: Being gay is perfectly socially acceptable, as long as you're willing to do your duty by marrying a member of the opposite sex and procreating. Effeminate behavior, on the other hand, is ''emphatically'' not okay, regardless of your gender.
* {{Matriarchy}}: A very mild example; the Realm is at least as [[GenderIsNoObject gender-egalitarian]] as any modern first world country, and whether you're Exalted or not counts for far more than a little thing like your sex. To the extent that there is sexism, though, it tends to favor women. This makes sense, considering the Realm's savior and leader is the Scarlet ''Empress.''
** In third edition, the head of a Dragon Blooded household is referred to as the "Matriarch" [[SheIsTheKing regardless of their actual gender]].
* ProudWarriorRace: Even the bureaucrats of the Dynasty are expected to be ''at least'' as competent in battle as a decent mortal fighter.
* TrainingFromHell: Pretty much your whole childhood, if you're a Dynast.
* VestigialEmpire: While the Realm is far more stable than the Shogunate ever was, it's drastically reduced in the amount of territory it controls. Note, however, that it still controls a number of satrapies and colonies, and fields a military that dwarfs every other nation on the planet.
* WeAreStrugglingTogether: As it turns out, the Scarlet Empress was the only thing holding them together. Now that she's gone...

!!!'''The Deliberative'''

The Realm's ruling council, the Deliberative, is a bicameral legislature. The upper house, the Greater Chamber, consists entirely of Exalted Dynasts who are appointed by their Great Houses and approved by the Empress (or, today, the Regent); they have the ability to propose legislation. The patricians and nobles from tributary states who make up the Lesser Chamber are appointed by senators from the Greater Chamber, and can veto proposals with a two-thirds majority vote. Proposals that pass both chambers become law unless vetoed by the Empress or Regent. (In theory, the Deliberative can overturn the Empress' veto...with an almost unanimous vote in both chambers[[note]]'Almost unanimous' meaning a maximum of one person can vote against the veto for it to go through.[[/note]]. Yeah, right, it happened once: [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen there were no survivors]].)

The Deliberative was designed with a few specific goals in mind -- to handle issues the Empress didn't care about enough to bother with, to give the government an air of legitimacy and rule of law by rubber stamping the laws she did want passed, and to allow the aristocracy of the Realm to feel as if they had a voice in government without giving them any power that actually mattered. The one thing it was absolutely never designed to be, in other words, is a powerful and effective governing body. Which probably stopped seeming like a great idea right around the time people realized the Empress wasn't coming back for a while.

* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Subverted. The Empress placed no limit on the number of Senators so if a majority who disagreed with the Empress's intentions started to form, she could pump Senators who supported her into the Greater Chamber to shift the balance in her favour without taking any hostile actions.
* TheArtifact: InUniverse. The original Deliberative actually ''was'' Creation's ruling body, being essentially the Solar Parliament. In the Age of Sorrows, it exists simply to create the appearance that the Realm isn't an autocracy, which it very much is. (It's kind of like the [[AncientRome Roman Senate]] that way...)
* BloodOnTheDebateFloor: Duels and plain old fistfights are a fairly regular occurrence. One time, the Empress became so fed up with the Deliberative vetoing her decrees that she just blocked off the exits and sent the army in to ''kill everyone''.
* KickedUpstairs: Appointment to the Deliberative is a traditional way to get annoying reformers out of the way -- they'll get distracted with the futile task of trying to fix things from within the system.
* TheMole: Manosque Cyan, who seems to be working to convince the Lesser Chamber that in this time of crisis, they should be spending more time on thoughtful discussion and less on, you know, actually doing anything.
* NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering: Their intended function is to merely pretend they're actually doing something.
* SleazyPolitician: Lots of them, all trying to advance their personal ambitions or those of their Great Houses rather than addressing any of the Realm's real problems.

!!!'''The Thousand Scales'''

The Dragon-Blooded of the Scarlet Dynasty like to think of themselves as warrior-aristocrats, proving their right to rule through the strength of their arms and sheer military might. The truth is a little more prosaic. In reality, the Realm is a highly centralized and urbanized empire, and while it does need protectors, it needs bureaucrats a lot more. All Dynasts train as warriors, but for every one actually serving as a soldier in the legions, another can be found playing an equally vital role as a clerk, accountant, postal courier, satrap, prefect, administrator, or dozens of other civil service positions. If the legions are the empire's fangs and talons, the ministers of the Imperial Service are the scales of the dragon.

* BadassBureaucrat: As Exalted who are bureaucrats, they are this.
* BeleagueredBureaucrat: They are also this, given their workload.
* DeskJockey: Arguably, the Thousand Scales are as important to the Realm as its legions - making sure the world's largest empire runs efficiently or at all [[BoringButPractical is not a glamorous job, but it is a very necessary one]].
* NameThatUnfoldsLikeLotusBlossom: Sure, there are lots of these all over the world of ''Exalted'', but only in the Thousand Scales can you get a job as one of the Infallible Conveyers of Official Messages and Heartfelt Expressions (also known as the postal service).
* VastBureaucracy: They're called the ''Thousand'' Scales for a reason.

!!!'''The Magistrates'''

Acting as both judges and internal affairs investigators for The Realm, Magistrates were in theory answerable only to The Empress, which gave them impressive power while she was alive, and now makes them very vulnerable. It doesn't help that their previous level of protection made a lot of them happy to trample over the afairs of Dynasts, knowing that their patron's protection made them almost untouchable. Now many are in hiding or performing investigations that just so happen to take them a long way away from The Realm. The fact that most are not members of The Great Houses only increases their vulnerability. They employ agents known as archons who are often criminals given a choice between service or death. The higher a Magistrate's rank, the more archons he can employ.

* CowboyCop: Many of them are like this, willing to upset anyone and everyone to find their targets.
* JudgeJuryAndExecutioner: Their authority and ability to dispense justice theoreticaly vast. These days, not so much in practice.
* RagtagBunchofMisfits: What a magistrate's archons can be.

!!!'''The All-Seeing Eye'''

The All-Seeing Eye started as a loose, informal collection of informants, but as the Scarlet Empress consolidated her rule, it expanded into one of the most efficient and powerful espionage networks in Creation. Unlike the other ministries, you don't apply to join the Eye; if they decide they want your talents, they'll come to you, whether you're a Dragon-Blood, a patrician, a Sidereal, a beggar or a slave. The intrepid secret agents of the All-Seeing Eye can be found in every imaginable profession throughout the Blessed Isle, the Threshold and beyond, ferreting out threats to the Realm from tax evasion to high treason to incursions by the Anathema.

* CallingCard: Employed by the Eye as a weapon of terror: if you find their insignia -- a single open eye -- somewhere in your belongings, put your affairs in order, because you're already dead. [[spoiler:Actually, no, that's just what they want you to think; it really means you're being considered as a recruit. If you're dumb enough to tell anyone what you found, then you're [[CannotKeepASecret not the kind of person they're looking for]], and you'll be killed to keep the story going. Keep your mouth shut and don't do anything stupid for a week or so, though, and you'll be approached with an invitation.]]
* CloakAndDagger: They cover all the standard exciting espionage tropes you'd expect, but as noted in the description, they also do mundane stuff like uncover tax evasion.
* CosmopolitanCouncil: The Eye is probably the most egalitarian organization in the Realm. If you've got the skills and the dedication, you're in.
* GovernmentAgencyOfFiction: The All-Seeing Eye is an urban legend within the Realm. People may have heard of them, but officially they don't exist.
%%* NoSuchAgency
%%* SecretPolice

!!!'''The Imperial Legions'''

Creation's a scary place, and the Realm has always kept a standing army. For the Dragon-Blooded of the Scarlet Dynasty, who see themselves as something of a ProudWarriorRace, a history of honorable service in the legions is a major bonus to your social status. For Lost Eggs, military service is the only way to integrate yourself into the Realm's high society unless you want to take vows as an Immaculate monk. For commoners, it's one of the few legitimate and accepted ways to improve your social status.

At one time, the Imperial Legions were indisputably the most powerful military force in Creation. Like so much else, that's changed with the Scarlet Empress' disappearance. She wasn't gone long before the Deliberative seized the opportunity to drastically cut centralized funding for the military and assign individual legions to individual Great Houses instead. Once proud defenders of the Realm, they're increasingly finding themselves to be mere pawns in the political squabbles of FeudingFamilies, and there's a good chance legion will be fighting legion in the Realm CivilWar while Creation falls to pieces around them.

Nearly any of the MilitaryAndWarfareTropes can apply here, but in particular:

* BootCampEpisode: Most Dragon-Blooded legionnaires attended the House of Bells, the most badass of [[MilitaryAcademy military academies]].
* GenderIsNoObject: Would ''you'' want to try and tell the Scarlet Empress women don't belong on the battlefield?
** Though to be more accurate, it's actually males that are given prejudice across the Dynasty, including the legions. Not much, but it's there. (In 1e and 2e, this was more nominal than anything else; in 3e, it's an integrated part of the Dynasty's depiction.)
* MountedCombat: Averted, mostly; it takes special Charms for a Dragon-Blood to channel Essence on horseback (or mounts such as simhata) without their anima banner harming the mount, so the Realm usually doesn't bother. If necessary, they hire mercenaries or use other local forces for their cavalry units.
* TheSquad: As the Dragon-Blooded excel at teamwork, the Realm's military doctrine is based around squad tactics. You're assigned to a five-man team as soon as you arrive at the House of Bells, and graded as a group.

!!!'''The Imperial Navy'''

!!!'''The Wyld Hunt'''

After the Usurpation, the Terrestrials and Sidereals realized that while MOST Anathema had seemingly vanished (most of the Solar Exaltations were trapped in the Sidereal Jade Prison and the Lunars got the hell out of Dodge), occasionally, a few would start making a mess out of things, and the Sidereals needed a way to make damn sure they didn't ruin the plans of the nascent Shogunate. The answer to this was the Wyld Hunt, brotherhoods of Dragon Blooded trained in Celestial Martial Arts, and sent to fight the Celestial Exalted while they were still young, to ensure that they died before they could reach higher levels of power. This had... varying levels of success.

The Shogunate Era saw the Hunt being quite effective, forcing the Lunars to stay in the Wyld, and ensuring the twenty-some Solar Exaltations didn't stay in one host for very long. Things went down the toilet during the Balorian Crusade and the Contagion, but scaled up when the Scarlet Empress took over... and finally petered out to near nothing after she vanished, the Hunt becoming a shadow of its former self due to the resources funding it going to support Dynastic Families hoping to claim power in the inevitable Civil War.

Today, it's basically used to keep troublemakers (such as the murderous Peleps Deled) off the Island, while providing a show of force in the Threshold.

* ChurchMilitant: They're the roving, militant wing of the Immaculate Order; even mortal members of the Hunt know Terrestrial Martial Arts, and the Dragon Blooded members usually know one of the Five Elemental Dragon styles designed SPECIFICALLY (by a Sidereal, of course) to kick the shit out of Spirits and neophyte Celestials.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: A common method of getting rid of troublesome Dynasts is to stick them out in a satrap, or just tag them into the Wyld Hunt, and hope eventually some Anathema or another kills them. This has varying degrees of success, and at least one troublemaker, the aforementioned Deled, saw it as a promotion... when it was really an attempt to get him off the Isle due to his unfortunate habit of killing anyone who disagreed with his interpretations of the Immaculate Texts.

!!!'''The Immaculate Order'''

In the aftermath of the Usurpation, it's not surprising that some folk religions sprang up that cast the Celestial Exalted as mad demons and looked up to the Terrestrial Exalted as holy saviors. The Immaculate Faith got its start as one of these Shogunate belief systems. It held that every Dragon-Blood was a kind of living Buddha who had purified his or her soul over many lifetimes and achieved union with the Essence of Creation. All living things were walking the same road toward enlightenment, hopefully drawing closer to Terrestrial Exaltation with each rebirth. The pinnacle of spiritual achievement was represented by the Immaculate Dragons -- five legendary [[DeityOfHumanOrigin Dragon-Blooded heroes]] who had supposedly led the war against the Solar Anathema, each representing mastery of a different type of elemental Essence.

When the Sidereal Bronze Faction began working with the Empress to design the society of the Realm, they realized this was just what they were looking for. They carefully redesigned the Immaculate Faith into a PathOfInspiration designed to enforce social control. The Bronze Faction's version of the faith, known as the Immaculate Philosophy, emphasizes respect for hierarchy above all else. The highest duty of all mortals is absolute obedience to the Dragon-Blooded, their [[MasterRace divinely appointed rulers]]. Beyond that, know your place, work to benefit the community, and respect your superiors –- the way to improve your lot in life is to work toward a better reincarnation. Don't pray to any gods; the Immaculates will tell you when each one has their allotted feast day, and worrying about them beyond that will just distract you from spiritual advancement. Above all else, resist the Anathema in any way you can -- they aren't true Exalted at all, but ancient sorcerers who stole the power of the sun, moon and stars through foul demonic pacts, and their lies will only lead you to ruin.

These rules are enforced in the Realm by the monks of the Immaculate Order. Aside from meditation, studying theology and all your other usual monkly duties, [[AllMonksKnowKungFu all of them train in martial arts]] -- and the Dragon-Blooded among them are initiated into Celestial martial arts, allowing them to face down demons, rogue gods, and even the Anathema as formidable opponents. These heroic figures wander the countryside teaching the young, fighting sin, heresy, and injustice, and protecting the faithful from all manner of supernatural threats.

And, of course, the whole thing is still masterminded by the Bronze Faction, who have the entire Order quite firmly under their thumbs. Don't get too cynical -- about 90% of the Immaculate Order's teachings really are objectively true, making it probably one of the most accurate religions in Creation when it comes to its picture of how the world works. (The prohibition on unauthorized prayer, for instance, really is quite sensible as a way to prevent [[JerkassGods bribery and corruption]] in the CelestialBureaucracy.) The problem is that the other 10% includes stuff like "Kill all Solars on sight" and "Your Terrestrial lord and master has a sacred duty to treat you like crap, so you'd better take it and like it".

* AllMonksKnowKungFu: Being that they're inspired by Chinese Monks, it makes sense.
* ChurchMilitant: Hello Solar/Lunar. Meet the Wyld Hunt. You are going to hate them very quickly.
* CorruptChurch: Averted. Immaculate doctrine is based on pre-Empress beliefs, most of which were actually pretty much true, before they were reworked to prop up the burgeoning Realm. The Immaculate Order is an imperialist cultural weapon used to further the Realm's conquest, but most of the followers, both higher ups and the laymen, are as genuine as any other follower of religion.
* TheManBehindTheMan: The Sidereal Bronze Faction. There's a reason "Mouth of Peace" sounds so much like "mouthpiece."
* PathOfInspiration: The Immaculate Philosophy counts as one of these from one perspective -- it's definitely designed as a tool for social control, several of its core tenets are completely bogus fabrications, and its Dragon-Blooded leaders are sincere believers. Depending on how you look at it, it could also be seen as a few other related but distinct tropes.
* ReligiousBruiser: Every single Immaculate.
* ScamReligion: While the Order's ''ostensible'' leaders are largely sincere, the Bronze Faction Sidereals who actually run the whole thing take a considerably more cynical point of view.
* WarriorMonk: See the Wyld Hunt entry above, with which the Immaculates are commonly associated.
* YouDidntAsk: Third edition establishes that since plenty of Immaculate Doctrine comes from the First Age or early Second Age, it's acknowledged that Solars and Lunars are Exalted of the sun and moon respectively suffering from WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity. The monks decided that this is probably too confusing for most people and decided to let them believe the Anathema suffer DemonicPossession without ever really confirming or denying it, only explaining the truth to trusted monks who go looking for it.

!!!'''The Imperial Houses'''

[[AC:House Mnemon]]

The largest and most powerful of the Great Houses, House Mnemon has strong ties to the Heptagram and the Immaculate Order, producing many -- perhaps even most -- of the Realm's sorcerers and monks. More than any other Great House, House Mnemon cannot be understood without understanding its leader, [[EvilMatriarch Mnemon]] herself. She takes, shall we say, an unusually hands-on approach to running the family, and has forged her descendants into a finely-honed tool for advancing her own ambitions.

* MagicalSociety: House Mnemon produces so many sorcerers, it might as well be.

[[AC:House Cathak]]

Aspected toward Fire, Cathak is another large and powerful House, though not quite as big as House Mnemon. A family with a strong military tradition, they're probably the strongest of the Great Houses in terms of their legions. House Cathak is respected throughout the Realm for its devotion to tradition and discipline.

* AttackAttackAttack: Cathak soldiers are known for their valor... and not for their smarts, though nobody says it to their faces.
* BlackMagic: The Dynasty in general tends to view sorcerers as creepy nerds, but House Cathak ''really'' does not like sorcery. Even the few sorcerers who are in House Cathak don't get invited to Cathak parties.
* ComesGreatResponsibility: They're very big on instilling a sense of duty and discipline in every Cathak scion. You would be too, if you were raising children who might suddenly develop the ability to burst into flame at any point in their adolescence.
* ProudWarriorRace: Of the soldier variety.

[[AC:House Cynis]]

The other Houses just don't know what to do with House Cynis. In a society that values the ideal of strict military discipline above nearly all else, the Wood-Aspected House Cynis has cultivated a reputation of culturally sensitive artists and doctors who are also a bunch of utterly debauched hedonists.

This reputation is ''somewhat'' exaggerated. Sure, the Cynis social scene revolves around regular orgies. And, sure, they control the Realm's prostitution...and drug trade...and slave trade. That doesn't mean they're the lazy, useless socialites the other Houses would sometimes like to think, though. When it comes down to it, the Cynis are also the beating heart of the Realm's culture, and the best doctors in the Scarlet Dynasty - and if push comes to shove House Cynis is a wealthy and powerful family...and one with access to a ''lot'' of information about the secret vices of nearly every prominent figure in the Dynasty. Those medicines can be poisons just as easily...

* CasualKink: If there is a fetish, odds are there's a Cynis out there with it.
* DeadlyDoctor: Underestimate House Cynis' expertise in herbology and biology at own peril.
* EccentricArtist: Tamer Cynis tend to be just as debauched and artistic, but are nicer about it.
* EverybodyHasLotsOfSex: To them, [[APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy "orgy" and "party"]] are synonyms. And like all Dynasts, they love to party.
* TheHedonist: Read their entry again, why don't you? Hell, in 3e their house founder died of *overdose*, and she was a Wood Aspect, who are immune to most poisons.
* HookersAndBlow: Their favorite pastimes.
* LoveIsAWeakness: Downplayed. House Cynis is a huge fan of following your heart...in regards to concubines. Actually loving your spouse is going to result in them barely keeping a straight face.
* MadArtist: Meaner Cynis, and there's a lot more mean Cynic than tame ones.
* MrViceGuy: Nicer members of the House. The others are just depraved.
* OpiumDen: Anything in the holdings of Cynis, ever.
%%* ReallyGetsAround
* SexualExtortion: If you mildly piss them off, they won't hesitate to use this. ''Really'' pissing them off makes them ''sadistic.''
* TheSocialExpert: They are the social butterflies-and wasps-of the Blessed Isle.
* WickedCultured: They are proudly this, especially in 3E.

[[AC:House Sesus]]

Aspected toward Fire, House Sesus has a powerful military...and not a lot else going for it. At least, not publicly; in truth, House Sesus are the House that is the hidden recruiting grounds for members of the All-Seeing Eye; while they are competent soldiers, their real skill lies in gathering battlefield intelligence and organizing networks of spies. Loyal friends of Mnemon and Cynis, House Sesus is the hidden underhand of those who would seek to take the Scarlet Throne...and increasingly, they are beginning to wonder if Mnemon herself would be such a good queen.

* CombatPragmatist: Other Houses seek honor and glory in battle. Sesus finds glory in ''winning.'' Needless to say, Cathak and Tepet really don't like them, and they return the disfavor.
* GangOfBullies: The Sesus Chenow household, known for being a pack of nasty [[BloodKnight Blood Knights]] and general [[JerkAss jerkasses]].
* GeniusBruiser: Their namesake, and an ideal to achieve in Sesus thought.
* KickedUpstairs: Actual dumbasses and thugs tend to end up getting this fate, to help with the ObfuscatingStupidity.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: They do their best to seem like thugs without much other than their armies going for them. This is exactly what they want you to think.
* TookALevelInBadass: In First and Second Editions, they ''were'' dumb thugs and little more than Mnemon's goon squad. Third Edition makes that an elaborate ruse by extremely canny {{Combat Pragmatist}}s
* TheSpymaster: Their specialty. Cathak can outthink them, Peleps can outsail them, and Tepet (once) could outshine them...but nobody holds nearly as much intel as them.

[[AC:House Tepet]]

Only a few years ago, the Air-Aspected House Tepet was a powerful family, known for producing many of the Realm's finest soldiers and sorcerers. Today, it's a pitiful and decaying shell of what it used to be.

In one of the Realm's greatest military disasters in recent memory, the bulk of the Tepet forces were [[CurbStompBattle slaughtered]] by the armies of the Bull of the North at the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Battle of Futile Blood]]. In a single stroke, the House lost its military strength and much of its population. Now crippled and impoverished, House Tepet is desperately trying to rebuild its power base through adoptions and marriage alliances, but they simply don't have the resources left to do much more than stave off the inevitable for a while. No one's saying it yet, but as the other Houses gather like hungry vultures, deep down every Tepet knows the truth: their House is doomed.

Doomed, that is, unless the last remaining Tepet general -- a promising young officer nicknamed "the Roseblack" -- has anything to say about it...

* ImpoverishedPatrician: Their fortunes have not been particularly good of late.
* RichesToRags: Previously would have been a kingmaker house, if it wouldn't have seized the throne itself with the disappearance of the Empress. In more than one place the ravaging of their house is stated to have been deliberate, to cripple a house growing too large and too powerful for the Empire's good.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: They used to follow a more 'heroic' bent compared to Cathak's soldier and Sesus' underhandedness. Shame that the Battle of Futile Blood happened....

[[AC:House Ledaal]]

All the Empress' children were highly intelligent, but Ledaal was something special. The Empress made sure to supply the young prodigy with the kind of education it took to challenge her growing intellect -- including the very best in Sidereal tutors.

Today, the Air-Aspected House Ledaal follows the traditions set by its founder as a House of accomplished intellectuals and sorcerers... and their Sidereal consultants. This gives the Ledaal a rather different perspective on some issues than the other Great Houses. For instance, having made a close study of historical records of Anathema sightings, Ledaal scholars have realized that the Deathknights are a new phenomenon -- and one that has the potential to be far more dangerous than the Solar and Lunar Anathema ever were.

Unfortunately, not only have they had no luck convincing the other Great Houses of this, the other Houses are so caught up in their DeadlyDecadentCourt intrigues that they refuse to believe Ledaal has different priorities. Every time House Ledaal suggests something like refocusing the Wyld Hunt's priorities on the Abyssals, the rest of the Dynasty assumes it's part of some cunning and subtle political scheme. It's gotten to the point that Ledaal has put forward one of its own as a candidate for the Scarlet Throne -- albeit a candidate with no real chance of succeeding -- just so the other Houses will stop assuming Ledaal's ''lack'' of a candidate is some sort of ruse.

* IgnoredExpert: They happen to have a pretty good idea of what's wrong with the Realm. The Realm does not listen.
* MagicalSociety: The Ledaal Catala household.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: If you want to run a game about getting the Scarlet Dynasty to unite and focus on the ''real'' problems facing Creation, House Ledaal is among your likeliest allies.

[[AC:House Peleps]]

The other Great Houses see the Water-Aspected House Peleps as a pack of scheming, treacherous liars and cheats who'd sell their own grandmothers for the slightest political advantage. This is pretty much true -- even within the House itself, scions of House Peleps are raised in an environment of [[DeadlyDecadentCourt intense political intrigue]] and [[ToughLove no-holds-barred competition]]. In their defense, though, their motivations are not entirely selfish; House Peleps is unshakably loyal to the Realm and its interests.

Traditionally, the basis of Peleps' power in the Realm has been their control of the Imperial Navy. Unfortunately, shortly before her disappearance, the Empress decided to remind them who was boss by reassigning the Merchant Fleet to House V'neef -- something that still rankles in the hearts of most Peleps.

* BigScrewedUpFamily: These are true of all the Great Houses, but Peleps raises them to an art form.
* BilingualBonus: The Peleps Kaizoku line is a household of privateers. ''Kaizoku'' is Japanese for "pirate."
* BlackMagic: They dislike sorcery almost as much as House Cathak.
%%%* TheCaptain

[[AC:House Iselsi]]

This Water-Aspected House was a favorite of the Scarlet Empress... up until a few centuries ago, when a group of [[WhatAnIdiot unusually reckless and stupid]] young Iselsi staged an ill-conceived attempt to assassinate her. While the perpetrators were all caught and tortured to death, the Empress had no choice but to [[DisproportionateRetribution make an example of the entire House]] for not putting a stop to the plot in the first place. Nearly all the House's possessions were seized, the House elders were arrested on trumped-up charges, and the Empress continued making sure to have a few Iselsi exiled or executed every few years thereafter. Though a tattered and disgraced remnant still exists, it's clear to everyone that the Empress intended to dismantle House Iselsi as slowly and painfully as possible.

Or at least, that's what she wanted everyone to think. Fond as she was of the Iselsi, the Empress saw their punishment as an opportunity. Many of the Iselsi who were reported killed or exiled were actually placed in high-ranking positions within the magistracy, the All-Seeing Eye and the Immaculate Order under assumed names. This gave the Empress a powerful network of spies and secret police whose loyalty she could be certain of, as the family had no official position to speak of and were solely dependent on her covert backing. Eventually, the plan was to stage some dramatic act of heroism on the part of the remaining known Iselsi that would allow her to restore the House to its former glory.

Unfortunately for House Iselsi, the Empress' disappearance has put a bit of a kink in that plan...and they are ''not'' happy.

* DeepCoverAgent: Their current livelihood.
* ImpoverishedPatrician: ...and what they get in return.
* {{Revenge}}: They have been stewing in their grudge against the other Houses for a very, very long time. Now that the Empress is gone, they feel they can finally start working towards it.

[[AC:House Ragara]]

Once, it was a popular joke to call House Ragara "the Imperial Bank." Today, it's long since ceased to be a joke. A long series of shrewd investments and strategic marriage alliances has made the Earth-Aspected House Ragara by far the wealthiest of the Realm's Great Houses. They're entirely willing to share their good fortune with others...at [[LoanShark reasonable rates of interest]], of course. But don't worry -- if you can't pay them back in jade, favors or valuable information will do just as well.

* EveryManHasHisPrice: Their House's philosophy.
* EvilDebtCollector: The House is ''ecstatic'' when they get to pressure people via debts, since that's how they find political influence.
* MadScientist: Ragara loves them some forbidden magic experiments.
* MorallyBankruptBanker: ''Bit'' on the amoral side. Even compared to the other Houses.
* WorkOffTheDebt: ''Everybody'' is in debt to Ragara, and they love the ability to force this on their debtors.

[[AC:House V'neef]]

By far the youngest and smallest of the Great Houses, House V'neef is off to an excellent start. A House of very strong breeding, nearly all V'neef's scions so far have Exalted as Wood Aspects, and wise investments in vineyards and firedust have given the family a strong financial base. Prior to her disappearance, the Empress showed the House a great deal of favor as well, even granting them control of the Realm's Merchant Fleet. This favoritism did not endear House V'neef to the rest of the Scarlet Dynasty, but thanks to her extraordinary charisma and a hefty dose of cunning, V'neef has been able to keep the other Great Houses from ganging up on her family in the Empress' absence... at least, so far.

* BlueBlood: The bluest in the Dynasty.
* TheGunslinger: V'neef has quietly made sure all her children are trained in the use of firewands.
* ParentalFavoritism: The other Houses view House V'neef collectively as the Empress' pets.
* WineIsClassy: Made much of their money in vineyards, and the House mon is a stylized bunch of [[GrapesOfLuxury grapes]].

[[AC:House Nellens]]

Nellens was one of the Empress' mortal consorts, and one she must have cared for a great deal, for after his death she took the unprecedented step of granting his children the status of a Great House. The only Great House founded by the un-Exalted, House Nellens has still not managed to achieve anything like the Exaltation rates enjoyed by the other families of the Scarlet Dynasty, and is generally thought of as the mortal House. This makes them a bit of a joke to the Dragon-Bloods of the other Houses, who generally treat even the few Nellens who do Exalt with mild contempt. On the other hand, though, seeing a mortal family holding the same status as the major Dragon-Blooded lines does a great deal to endear House Nellens to patricians and un-Exalted Dynasts, an advantage the other Great Houses are rather foolish to ignore.

* BadassNormal: Collectively, for holding their own in a political environment dominated by -- and designed to favor -- the Terrestrial Exalted.

!!'''Lookshy's Dragon-Blooded'''

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: De facto leader of the Confederation Of Rivers because they have the best soldiers and the scariest weapons. To be fair they're usually fairly nice about it.
* DeadlyDecadentCourt: Averted and pretty much the only Dragon-Blooded society to do so. The Lookshy General Staff is exactly that; a General Staff, a military hierarchy. While there's some scheming here and there most of Lookshy's leaders are far too dedicated to their duty.
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: A combination of Feudal Japan and Sparta.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Compared to the Realm at least. They are also a big Dragon-Blooded power and have a huge, highly effective army but they don't treat mortals like cattle, they rarely if ever use slavery and they've not once tried to subjugate other nations. In fact they constantly bust their balls to keep the other Scavenger Lands nations free of outside forces. They even have a much more relaxed version of the Immaculate Order and don't immediately try to kill all Celestials...
* WellIntentionedExtremist: They detonated a Soulbreaker Orb, essentially a soul nuke, on a Realm army besieging Lookshy. They weren't even losing. That was more to do with the fact that it was NOT the first time the Realm had tried to take them over (Blockades, Pirates, and at least two full scale invasions had harried them from the beginning), but it was INDEED the last time the Scarlet Empress attempted to conquer the Seventh Legion (Nothing quite says 'Don't fuck with us ever again' like shredding the souls of half an Imperial Legion).

[[AC:The Seventh Legion]]

* EliteArmy: Keeping with the Sparta metaphor, Lookshy has about a fifth the Dragon-Blooded and a fraction of the numbers of the Realm, but due to technological superiority and better training, can defend themselves in a conventional war against any force the Realm is able to bring to bear. This is ''before'' they break out the [=WMDs=].
* PrivateMilitaryContractors: Are hired out as this or trainers to the rest of the Scavenger Lands to 1: Make sure other nations can defend themselves and 2: Remind everyone how much better at fighting Lookshy is and how foolish it would be to fight them.
* TooAwesomeToUse: A real problem. They have so many lovely First Age weapons and artefacts but are incapable of fixing most of them. Once they get broken, they're gone.
* WhereDoesHeGetAllThoseWonderfulToys: Stockpiled a huge pile of First Age weapons, more than any other group including the Realm. It is no coincidence that they've not lost a war since the Contagion.

[[AC:Gens Karal]]

[[AC:Gens Teresu]]

[[AC:Gens Maheka]]

[[AC:Gens Amilar]]

[[AC:Gens Yushoto]]

!The Signature Sworn Kinship (of Third Edition)
!!Sesus Eshuvar
The iconic Air Aspect, a former member of the Imperial Navy.

* ArrangedMarriage: Eshuvar is married to the unexalted Mnemon Rela and even has two children with her, but he hates her and openly cheats on her out of spite. Ironically, if they weren't married, they'd probably be friends.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: He's actually an extremely accomplished sorcerer, even summoning the neomah that allowed River and her wife to have a child, but he has cultivated an image of a philandering socialite.
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: Sometime by RY 758, Eshuvar became dissatisfied with his life despite doing everything expected of a Dynast of the Realm. Even cheating on his wife isn't as satisfying as it used to be.
* HazyFeelTurn: The Wyld Hunt he took part in fifty years ago made him determined to be a better person and if it weren't for the wealth, privilege and comfortable life of a dynast, he probably would be.
* ParentalNeglect: As typical of a Dynastic parent, his children don't really elicit more than a Minor Tie of Distant Interest.

!!Kingfisher Swift
The iconic Earth Aspect, an outcaste who 'took the coin' and joined the Imperial legions, marrying into a wealthy patrician family. Now head of her family's household guard.

* CourtMartialed: The Great Houses forced her out of her legion by charging her with insubordination; the trial took place over a single afternoon.
* TheHeretic: Downplayed; she wears a red-haired icon of Daana'd on her belt. River never judged her for it.
* ItsPersonal: When the Anathema she and her Hearth captured in RY 718 escaped from the Imperial Manse in RY 768, Kingfisher reunites with them to finish what they started, before they came after their loved ones.
* PatrioticFervor: Her Defining Principle is "The Realm must endure", with her Major Principle "My loyalty lies with the Scarlet Throne, not the Great Houses" making it clear where she stands.
* RagsToRiches: She was born the daughter of a peasant family, then Exalted, went to Pasiap's Stair, enrolled in the Imperial legions, and married into the small but prestigious patrician Tereya family.
* ReluctantRetiree: Was an officer in the Imperial legions, but was forced out when the Great Houses took them over.
* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Light violet, in her case.

!!Left Hand Chalima
The iconic Fire Aspect, an outcaste who rules her own principality in the Hundred Kingdoms.

* DualWielding: A daiklave and devil caster.
* ExoticExtendedMarriage: Has two husbands, one living and [[ResurrectedRomance one a ghost]], and loves them both (albeit only a Minor Tie).
* TheHeretic: A follower of the Intou heresy, which incorporates ancestor cult worship into the Immaculate faith. This provokes mild consternation in River.
* KnightErrant: She started out as a wandering hero, championing the poor and the weak, and returns to the role when she finds rulership chafing; indeed, she's made "protecting the weak and impoverished" her Defining Principle. She's happy to sign on with like-minded adventurers, and to recruit others to help out with her causes.
* RagsToRiches: From an orphan who never knew where her next meal would come from to Exalted queen of a small principality.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Often to be found amongst her people, working alongside them and hearing their concerns.
* RummageSaleReject: She's more concerned with whether she likes a piece of clothing or armor than whether it matches her wardrobe.
* TheUsurper: Became queen by taking the cloak from a tyrant-king.

!!Righteous River
The iconic Water Aspect, a former member of the Immaculate Order.

* MarryForLove: When she fell in love with her future wife Jihe, House Ledaal objected because Jihe was a patrician, so the match didn't offer political or financial advantage, and her superiors in the Order wanted to keep her on the road to avoid the temptation of a physical relationship. She chose to marry Jihe, leaving the Order and accepting reduced status within her House.
* MeaningfulRename: Took the name Righteous River Overflows its Banks upon joining the Immaculate Order; her original name was Ledaal Sivarin Indri.
* MysticalPregnancy: When River and her wife wanted a child, Eshuvar summoned a neomah to help them conceive.
* PuttingTheBandBackTogether: When she learns the Anathema from fifty years ago escaped the Imperial Manse, because of the threat he would pose to their families, she resolves to reunite her Hearth to go after them.
* TheQuietOne: She's a woman of few words.
* WalkingTheEarth: What she did as a monk, serving various roles.

!!Yushoto Mathar
The iconic Wood Aspect, a member of Lookshyan intelligence.

* TheCharmer: Backed up by several social Charms.
* PassedOverPromotion: Was in line for a prestigious promotion in Lookshyan intelligence, until his rivals remembered his Kinship included three dynasts, and he never once extracted anything from them to the benefit of Lookshy.
* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: He should have used his Kinship with Eshuvar, Kingfisher Swift, and Righteous River to gain intelligence on the Realm for Lookshy, but refused at every opportunity.
* UndyingLoyalty: His Defining Principle is "Loyalty above all"; to Mathar, that means his Kinship over Lookshy.

!Others
!!'''The Scarlet Empress'''
During the invasion of the Fair Folk, just after the Contagion, one young (Earth Aspected) junior officer in the Shogunate military, along with her Sworn Brotherhood, entered the Imperial Manse to try to activate the Defense Grid. She alone survived, and with her newfound power became the Scarlet Empress, leader of the Scarlet Dynasty, which covered the Blessed Isle and several coastal satrapies. For about five hundred years, she's led the Realm relatively well, using the Immaculate Order granted to her by Chejop Kejak (very unwillingly).

Five years ago, she vanished. No one (who's telling) knows where to.

According to ''Return of the Scarlet Empress''[[labelnote:*]]an entirely optional metaplot book, presenting the official canon reason for why she went missing[[/labelnote]], though, [[spoiler: she was [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe abducted by the Ebon Dragon to be his bride]]; an unknown time after the return of the Solars, she will return to Creation, reunite the fractured Realm, and be the [[DarkMessiah messiah]] for the people therein. Except for the fact that she'll be brainwashed, {{Mind Rape}}d, and have a ring on her finger that makes her love, honor and obey the cosmic embodiment of being a douchebag.]]

* AncientConspiracy: There are hints that her early life was cultivated by a centuries-old sociopolitical game that had become popular in the Shogunate, and it's possible that she picked up a bit on its practices.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: About as fearsome in a one-on-one fight as a Dragon-Blood can possibly be -- and combat's not even her main area of focus.
* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Crowned herself Empress by taking control of a superpowered weapon of mass destruction.
* BadassBoast: Gives one in one of the comics in ''Return of the Scarlet Empress''.
-->"My children, my subjects, people of Creation: fall silent! Hear me, your Scarlet Empress, champion of Creation, eternal ruler of the Blessed Isle! For years I turned my face from this world to commune with the dragon of my aspect and his four equal peers! And now, with my return from meditative isolation, this lawless tumult ends! Today I set right the crumbling hierarchy of my government, my legions, and the great houses! And woe be unto whoever defies me in this righteous cause!"
* BadassBookworm: The Imperial Manse was built by Autochthon and expanded on by Solar savants, and was meant for Solar hands alone. The Dragon-Blooded Scarlet Empress was able to use it to save Creation from the Fair Folk.
** She's also one of the greatest Dragon-Blooded sorcerers ever.
* BigEntrance: An utterly epic one in one of the comics from ''Return of the Scarlet Empress'', where she used the Imperial Manse to broadcast a message that most of Creation hears.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: [[spoiler:More subtly than most in ''Return of the Scarlet Empress'', but the Ebon Dragon did something ''nasty'' to her mind.]]
* TheChessmaster: In her position, there's no other choice.
* DealWithTheDevil: One possible option if she dies during the events of ''Return of the Scarlet Empress''. The [[EldritchAbomination Neverborn]] are so impressed by her that they offer the former Empress a deal, which she accepts. She ends up meeting the Princess Magnificent with Lips of Coral and Robes of Black Feathers on the edge of Oblivion, where she ends up tearing the Deathlord to pieces and absorbing some of her power, becoming the Scarlet Phoenix Astride the World, becoming the 14th Deathlord, thus gaining the full power of a Deathlord, and most of her original power as a Dragon-Blooded.
* DeathEqualsRedemption: One possible option if she dies during the events of ''Return of the Scarlet Empress''. She ends up in the Underworld free of the Ebon Dragon's influence, and decides to overthrow the Deathlords, getting in contact with some ancient Solar ghosts, and convincing them to try and pray to the Unconquered Sun. He answers their prayers, and empowers them and any ghosts who join the Scarlet Empresses's cause, rendering them immune to magic and charms that would force them to betray her cause, rendering them immune to any attempts to summon, command or destroy them with spells or necromancy, and are no longer considered creatures of darkness, creating a force that poses a great risk to the Deathlords.
* DishingOutDirt: Don't let [[LadyInRed her]] [[FireIsRed outfit]] fool you, she's originally an Earth Aspect (themed after a ruby).
* TheDreaded: When she returns in ''Return of the Scarlet Empress'', most of the Realm's enemies are terrified, including the ''Deathlords''.
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: Averted completely. One of the strict canons about her is that she was TheGadfly; the founder of the All-Seeing Eye barely avoided execution for a rather insulting marriage proposal because he backpedaled hilariously.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Her characterization is deliberately ambiguous, to the point where you can play her as anything from a [[WellIntentionedExtremist tragic, heroic figure]] who [[NecessarilyEvil had no choice but to do some awful things to save all Creation]] to an [[EvilOverlord out-and-out supervillain]] -- but in any interpretation, she's ''not'' someone you want to cross.
* IDidWhatIHadToDo: We don't really know much about the Empress as a person, but this is pretty much the cornerstone of her characterization -- it's not that she lacks a conscience, but if she has to do something horrible to achieve her goals, she'll do it without hesitation and cry about it later. (In private.)
* ImmortalitySeeker: The reason she wanted to write the original Broken Winged Crane. Her fear was when she died of old age, all of her accomplishments would be undone by the new ruler.
* KingInTheMountain: The missing Empress is rapidly on her way to becoming this sort of figure in the Realm's folklore.
** At least until a Solar's Daiklave cuts her down.
* KingIncognito: Popular folklore has it that during her periodic unexplained absences, she was traveling the Realm undercover as an ordinary peasant. This is completely untrue... probably.
* LadyOfBlackMagic: One of the most accomplished sorcerers the Dragon-Blooded Host ever produced.
** This is in part because she has [[UpgradeArtifact the Mantle of Brigid]] which lets her cast Celestial Circle sorcery.
** And the [[UpgradeArtifact Wedding Band of the Scarlet Bride]] lets her cast Solar Circle sorcery.
* LadyOfWar: Also one of their greatest generals -- and remember, she started as a common soldier.
* MotherOfAThousandYoung: Ancestor of ten thousand young is more accurate. While she is only the mother of about a dozen children, when all her descendants are added together, she has birthed the strongest and most numerous Dragon-Blooded bloodline in the history of Creation.
** She has a charm that increases her Essence pools by an amount related to the magnitude of the unit that would be created if all her living Dragon-Blooded descendants where collected together. The magnitude of this unit is 9, which means that the number of her living Dragon-Blooded descendants is over 5,000. This means that ''at least half'' of the Dragon-Blooded in the Realm are descended from the Scarlet Empress.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: The Scarlet Empress's original name has long since been forgotten. At your discretion, there may be a plot hook there.
* PimpedOutDress: Wears one worthy of someone called the Scarlet Empress.
* RagsToRoyalty: We know very, very little about her background before becoming Empress, but pretty much the one thing that's clear is that she was no one important. The higher-ups in Lookshy had never even heard of her.
** In ''Return of the Scarlet Empress'' it's stated that in the First Age, all she would have considered good for would be a lieutenant, a regional administrator or a Solar's concubine.
* Really700YearsOld: The Realm has been around for over 700 years (its calendar is in its 768th year) and she was alive before that.
* RightfulKingReturns: Rescuing the Empress is a common potential goal for Terrestrial games. (Rather subverted if you go with the storyline in ''Return of the Scarlet Empress''.)
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: She created the Scarlet Dynasty after using the Sword of Creation (something she shouldn't have been able to use) to repel the Fair Folk, and ruled it for over 700 years.
* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: One of her lovers noticed her crying in her sleep.
* UnderestimatingBadassery: A lot of people did this to her, including the oldest and most powerful Celestial Exalted.
** [[spoiler:She did this herself during the events of ''Return of the Scarlet Empress'', underestimating the abilities of [[TheChessmaster The Chessmasters]] that held power in the South, although her Infernal allies meant she was still able to succeed.]]
* VetinariJobSecurity: The Empress designed the entire Imperial system so that it would collapse without her -- and when she vanished, that's exactly what started happening.

!!'''The Mouth of Peace'''

The effective leader of the Immaculate Faith as practiced within the Realm and its satrapies and tributaries. The current Mouth of Peace is from House Mnemon, but is resisting efforts by her esteemed grandmother to relocate the Order's headquarters from the Palace Sublime in Sion to the Imperial City where it (and she) would be easily exploited politically.

* TheAllegedBoss: Between the fact that her grandmother is using her considerable power to try to control the Order through her (along with the rest of the Realm and anything else Mnemon fancies) and that she is really nothing more than a pawn of Chejop Kejak, she actually has a lot less self-determination than most believers think.
* HighPriest: The [[CrystalDragonJesus Crystal Dragon Buddha]] nature of the Immaculate Order makes her more of a High Lama. Note that the Immaculate Order is effectively the state religion of the Realm. Which means that schismatic groups that also follow the Immaculate Philosophy, but which do not accept the authority of the Realm (e.g. Lookshy), are not prone to taking pronouncements from the Palace Sublime very seriously.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: The Mouth of Peace is expected to sever all ties to their life outside of the Immaculate Order. This includes ceasing to use their name, or allow others to use it.
* PunnyName: "Mouth of Peace" = "Mouthpiece", which is what she and the Immaculate Faith in general are for the Bronze Faction Sidereals. In fact, Chejop Kejak, who often poses as the Mouth of Peace's oddly forgettable secretary, symbolically has an office ''above'' hers in the tallest tower of the Palace Sublime.

!!'''Mnemon'''

The iconic Earth Aspect of First and Second Edition. The eldest living daughter of the Scarlet Empress, which carries its own associations by the boatload. Mnemon is considered by many to be the prime candidate for the throne now that the Empress has vanished -- and if it wasn't for the fact that she's also considered by many to be an utterly ruthless, power-hungry [[JerkAss jerkass]], she might have claimed it by now (and in fact, that's part of the reason she has supporters, in that she is campaigning on acting ''exactly'' like her mother if given the Throne). She's a skilled architect, an accomplished sorceress, head of her own noble house... and one of the few Dragon-Blooded who is fully aware of the existence of Sidereals.

* AffablyEvil: In Third Edition. She's temperamental and power-hungry, still, but she genuinely cares about her House and the Realm, being a devout Immaculate too despite knowing the origins of the religion. She's just extremely paranoid for justifiable reasons and ruthlessly dedicated to continuing her mother's will.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: She's the daughter of the ''Scarlet Empress''. It comes with the territory. The day she Exalted, her older brother tried to have her killed via a poisoned suit of armor. This was not the last time he tried.
* CainAndAbel: Believe it or not, she's ''Abel''; her brother Ragara tried to assassinate her repeatedly even as teenagers. Part of her motive for seeking the Throne is to stop his House from running the Realm to the ground and to free her House from its debts to Ragara.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Dodging repeated assassination attempts from your sociopathic brother will ruin your ability to trust.
* EvilMatriarch: How she runs House Mnemon (albeit with a more AffablyEvil bent in 3E).
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Up till her Exaltation, she was a quiet girl with no outstanding talents who lived in terror of her mother and her elder siblings Sesus and Ragara. Now she's considered the heir apparent to TheEmpire.
* GenerationXerox: This is one of her problems in 3E; she's ''too much'' like her mother, and everyone is aware that Empress Mnemon would be a continuation of the Scarlet Empress. Given how much of an autocrat Her Redness was, the Houses are not fans of giving up autonomy, especially to a woman who has developed her family's legendary grudges against several of them.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: She's got quite the temper on her, and the other Houses know it -- if they could find the right compromise candidate, they'd throw all their support behind them rather than let Mnemon take the throne. Mnemon's fully aware of this, too -- the only reason she hasn't taken the throne is that she knows she can't keep it at this time.
* LaResistance: [[spoiler: Ends up running an underground movement in ''Return of the Scarlet Empress'' once she realizes just who her mother's new husband is.]]
* LadyOfBlackMagic: Probably the most powerful sorcerer in the Dynasty now that her mother's gone.
* MagicMisfire: When she was studying at the Versino, she chose the wrong moment to try to peek in on the summoning of a Second Circle Demon. As a result, the school got utterly destroyed, she only survived by casting Invulnerable Skin of Bronze, and the site had to be salted and warded afterwards, with the Heptagram being set up in its place.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Mnemon is 399 years old, which is something of an accomplishment in and of itself for a Dragon-Blood, but doesn't look like she's pushing her thirties.
* PragmaticVillainy: Despite her honest piety in the Immaculate Order, Mnemon is only wary of the returning Solars, rather than outright hatred of them.
* TheResenter: Mnemon's capacity for grudges is legendary, but even taking that into account she really, really, ''really'' doesn't like her sister V'neef. A large part of it stems from the fact that V'neef seemingly effortlessly projects an ideal of being the second coming of the Empress in temperament, ability and appearance, all coming naturally to her and before she's even reached the age of 60, while Mnemon very publicly and painstakingly made a show of crafting her entire public persona as the Scarlet Empress 2.0 over the course of ''centuries'' - from her perspective, V'neef managed to effortlessly attain an image in a relatively short time that Mnemon has dedicated her entire life to cultivating, and it drives her ''absolutely nuts''.
* SummonMagic: Not only is Mnemon a highly-skilled summoner in her own right, she also possesses an artifact that makes her one of the few Terrestrial sorcerers able to summon Second Circle Demons.
* TookALevelInKindness: In Third Edition she's significantly more mature and calm than previously portrayed, and given several sympathetic traits like her honest spirituality.
* [[WellDoneSonGuy "Well Done, Daughter" Girl]]: One of the relatively rare cases where the issues revolve around living up to her ''mother'''s legacy, a situation not helped in the present day by the fact she feels she is second fiddle to V'neef in her mothers eyes.

!!'''Cathak Cainan'''

A powerful elder Fire Aspect and the current head of House Cathak, Cainan exemplifies all that the Scarlet Dynasty says a Dragon-Blood ought to be: a mighty warrior, a grandfather many times over, a devout practitioner of the Immaculate Faith, passionately devoted to serving the Realm and upholding its traditions above all else. He's perhaps the most respected political leader in the entire Realm, and in some ways, it's a wonder that he hasn't been urged into taking the Scarlet Throne.

Except that, well, the problem with elder statesmen is the "elder" part. Cainan's health isn't declining yet, but with a few centuries already under his belt, it's clear to everyone that he hasn't got long left -- and the Sidereals of the Bronze Faction have foreseen that the thread of his life will run out in perhaps a decade or so. Putting Cainan on the throne wouldn't actually resolve the succession crisis so much as delay it for a few years, so those looking to avert civil war sigh regretfully over WhatCouldHaveBeen and turn their attention to other candidates. On the other hand, though, Cainan's endorsement could mean a great deal to some of those others...

* BadassBureaucrat: He is so mighty, widely respected and so skilled as a stateman, about the only thing that will kill him now [[FeelingTheirAge is time]].
%%%* FieryRedhead: ''Very'' literally.
* MassiveNumberedSiblings: Was one of eight children. He himself has fathered ''fifty eight'' children, and ''all'' of them are supposedly legitimate! (his poor, sore, wife!)
* MrFanservice: Well, the way Melissa Uran drew him, anyway. Cainan's sexiness became something of a meme on the Freedom Stone forums in particular.
* WarriorMonk: Trained at the Cloister of Wisdom, but went on to a career in the Legions rather than taking vows as an actual monk.

!!'''Cathak Drogath'''

Drogath managed to be such a nasty little [[RoyalBrat snob]] and [[TheBully bully]] from a young age that his own family was more resigned than proud to hear he'd Exalted as a Fire Aspect. His attitude failed to improve thereafter, and once he'd graduated from [[MilitaryAcademy the House of Bells]] at the bottom of his class, he was shipped off to “oversee House Cathak's assets” in Chiaroscuro, [[ReassignedToAntarctica a transparent excuse to get him as far out of the way as possible]]. He's still there, scheming for a way back into his family's good graces and generally being the same evil little git he always was.

... Unless, that is, you take the chapter comics in ''Return of the Scarlet Empress'' as canon, in which case he [[HeroicSacrifice finally]] manages to [[TheAtoner redeem himself]] in [[DyingMomentOfAwesome about the most awesome way imaginable]].

* BloodKnight: He really does have the temperament to make a fine soldier. It's too bad delight in hurting people is his only real qualification for the job.
* LackOfEmpathy: Exalted while beating a patrician teacher for trying to explain to him that it's not always hilarious when unpleasant things happen to other people.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: Chiaroscuro is an important city, it's just that they only need to pay lip service to the Realm.
* RoyalBrat: "Do you know who my parents are?!" was a favorite phrase of Drogath's in his schoolyard bully days. A case of {{Irony}} because his parents actually do not approve of these tantrums, since Dynast children are expected to act with dignity and maturity even as children. Which is why his inflated ego does not translate into elevated status once he reaches actual adulthood.
* SchoolyardBullyAllGrownUp
* TheUnfavorite: His father's graduation present to him was a fire pearl. This is the equivalent of giving a cigarette lighter... ''to someone who can already start fires at will anyway''.

!!'''Cynis Denovah Avaku'''

Second Edition's iconic Fire Aspect. Born to a disgraced and impoverished household within the most decadent of the Realm's Great Houses, Avaku has lived his whole life with one goal: to make the Denovah family respectable once more. So far, he's doing better than anyone could have expected -- he Exalted as a Fire Aspect despite his unimpressive breeding, managed to earn admission to the Realm's most prestigious MilitaryAcademy, and is currently serving an exemplary career in [[BadassArmy the Legions]].

Aside from his military accomplishments, Avaku is notable for being about as good a guy as you could possibly expect from a loyal son of a corrupt and decadent slave society; when the game's developers need a generic heroic Dynast to appear in a chapter comic or illustration, he's often the one they pick.

* AntiVillain: While he himself is a decent person, he ''does'' murder a kid to protect his family's drug money. He is having trouble reconciling the two.
* DefectorFromDecadence: His appearance in the 2nd Edition core book implies that he could pretty easily become one of these, with just a small push from the player characters...
* EyepatchOfPower: He's a badass, and he has a big black one.
* FieryRedhead: [[PlayingWithFire ...yep.]]
* GoodParents: His own parents sacrificed virtually everything they had to pay for his education, and when he Exalted to get him into the House of Bells. He in turn is very devoted to his son and daughter, and he wants to provide for and protect them as best he can. Which is the main reason he puts up with the immoral business activities of House Cynis.
* HappilyMarried: His ArrangedMarriage to the [[MuggleBornOfMages un-Exalted]] Mnemon Caras Minata is one of the most loving and healthy relationships we see in canon.
* HeroicSecondWind: "I'm a student of Hesiesh. Let me show you what that means."
* ImpoverishedPatrician: He's a Dynast, but his family is almost completely out of money because they haven't been producing Dragon-Blooded. He's trying to turn this around, but the way House Cynis makes money is through murder, slavery and drug dealing, which he's really not on board with.
* MayflyDecemberRomance: One of his biggest regrets is that he truly loves his wife, and that his lifespan is about three to four times what hers is, so she will die of old age before he hits middle age.
* MyCountryRightOrWrong: He disapproves of a lot of things the Realm does. And a lot of things the Legions do. And a lot of things House Cynis does. But he's an absolute patriot with respect to all three.

!!'''Sesus Nagezzer''', a.k.a. '''The Slug'''

First Edition's iconic Wood Aspect, an [[RetiredBadass ex-general]] and [[GuileHero consummate manipulator]]. He's very much a self-made man; born into a family of warriors, the naturally bookish and quiet Nagezzer was [[KidsAreCruel made the focus of his elder brothers' bullying]], his Exaltation coming after a prank nearly knocked him unconscious...underwater. Unfortunately for his standing with his [[AbusiveParents already domineering]] mother, he nearly killed his brother in a [[DisproportionateRetribution rage]], and was shipped off to the House of Bells. [[BullyingADragon His luck with bullies didn't improve]], which is how he was first introduced to the providing of legally-questionable products -- there's a lot of misery one can avert if you can score your classmates some drugs and hookers.

He quickly proved himself a [[TheStrategist master tactician]], but one day, he had the misfortune of trying to subdue a rather wily god who'd figured out that it didn't need to fight Nagezzer's men -- just evade and outlast them. After six days of trying to track the evasive spirit, his demoralized and exhausted men began to believe ''he'' was letting it get away, so to provide an example, he decided to draw out the spirit...[[SuicidalOverconfidence alone]]. [[CurbStompBattle He was found several days later with the general appearance of Swiss cheese, and with permanent loss of function in his right leg]].

Unable to teach himself the Martial Arts style needed to help restore the use of his leg, he was honorably discharged and inherited his family estate. He proceeded to transform it into a regular DenOfIniquity, his [[BalloonBelly growing weight problem]] eventually earning him the moniker of "the Slug".

And this is why people underestimate him.

While he did go through a rather bad patch after his injury, Nagezzer was soon able to pick himself up and decided to pursue a [[TheChessmaster different way]] of serving the Realm; being a vice merchant, as it turns out, allows one to stick one's nose in other people's DirtyBusiness, and given how the Scarlet Dynasty is a DeadlyDecadentCourt ''by design'', this means the Slug is also one of the best powerbrokers around. This, combined with his [[PatrioticFervor nigh-unparalleled]] loyalty to the Realm, has quietly turned him into a lynchpin of its social cohesion.

And he needs all that power, because with the disappearance of the Empress, he's about the only thing holding it together.

* AdiposeRex: He isn't a king, but he is a noble and very important to the Realm. He is also very fat.
* CreepyTwins: He has a pair of them as his personal assistants/concubines/bodyguards.
* FatBastard: This is pretty much how the Scarlet Dynasty views him. He's happy to live down to their expectations -- it provides an excellent cover.
* HandicappedBadass: Don't let the fact that he's obese and crippled fool you -- get within range of his cane and you should probably budget the medical cost for concussions in advance, as Manosque Cyan finds out in a comic.
* HeroicSelfDeprecation: He wrestles with self-loathing, largely as a result of being loyal to a militaristic society that despises anyone who's incapable of military service.
* KavorkaMan: Despite being about as physically attractive as, well, a Slug, he seems to have won the hearts of his personal assistants. Somewhat justified in that they're two of the few people Nagezzer has let get close to him emotionally, and thus they can see that there's a [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold good man]] underneath that flab.
* LargeAndInCharge: As a function of being a chubby Dynast.
* MrViceGuy: [[BigEater Gluttony]] has always been something of a passion for him, and part of the reason he's so wide is that he lapsed into compulsive eating during his post-crippling depression. He's also the very ideal of a patriot, and despite what you may think about the Realm, he's still very selfless in his defense of it.
* MyCountryRightOrWrong: Everything he does -- even the vice trade -- is for the good of the Realm.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Over the years, he's cultivated an image as a peerless hedonist, all the while arranging backroom deals, hiring mercenaries, sabotaging idiots, and doing whatever else he feels necessary to protect the Realm.
* TheStoner: Subverted. He's a habitual druggie, but he's also a paragon of self-control; none of his vices have blunted his mind much.
* StoutStrength: He can't run anymore, but he's kept up the other parts of his old training regimen.

!!'''Sesus Rafara'''

First Edition's iconic Fire Aspect.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was probably the happiest little girl in the kingdom. She didn't see her parents much, but she didn't mind that, because she had two nursemaids who were the best caretakers any child could ask for. They told her stories and braided her hair and were never, ever mean to her, and she loved them very much.

This idyllic life came to an end one day when the girl's mother noticed how her daughter was being "coddled" and had the two nursemaids fed alive to sharks while the girl watched, screaming. Fortunately for the little girl, just before her mother could murder her too, she Exalted as an Aspect of Fire.

After perhaps the most traumatic Exaltation on record, Sesus Rafara wasn't sent to any of the normal secondary schools. Instead, she was drafted into a special program. Kept isolated from society, she was educated to view the culture of the Realm from an outsider's perspective. To teach her to avoid emotional vulnerability, she was repeatedly betrayed in both large and small ways by anyone she came to trust. The project was a smashing success, and today Rafara is one of the Realm's most accomplished spies, infiltrators and assassins.

She is still waiting for the chance to kill her mother.

%%* AbusiveParents: Um, ''wow''.%%ZCE
* BreakTheCutie: Pretty much the overriding theme of her whole life.
%%* ConsummateLiar
* ContractOnTheHitman: She believes it's only a matter of time.
* TheCynic: Can you blame her?
* HitmanWithAHeart: ''Mostly'' subverted. House Sesus took an innocent child and did their very best to turn her into a remorseless sociopath, and they almost entirely succeeded... but there's a few hints here and there that she hasn't been rendered ''quite'' so heartless as her handlers would like to believe.
* HumansAreBastards: That's what her whole life has taught her to think, anyway.
* InLoveWithTheMark: It's not clear whether "love" is the right word, but assigning her to spy on Tepet Ejava... may have been a mistake.
%%* JadeColoredGlasses
* MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: House Sesus is heading for a ''big'' one. It turns out some people don't appreciate being used as a tool their whole lives to further their corrupt family's petty political goals.
%%* {{Ninja}}
* ProfessionalKiller: Or Apprenticed Killer, as the case may be.
* {{Tykebomb}}: Um, yeah...

!!'''Sesus Chenow Lahor'''

A real piece of work. First appeared in the venerable adventure book ''Time of Tumult'' as the distillation of the Realm's jackassery towards everyone in Creation who is not a Dynast. Revealed in ''Aspect Book: Fire'' to actually be even worse than that.

* DisproportionateRetribution: People who talk back to him don't tend to live very long.
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: Type 2; he's got a sense of humor, but it's the really nasty kind. And he doesn't realize the other Dynasts aren't laughing ''with'' him...
* NeverMyFault: The disproportionately high casualty rate in units commanded by Lahor are completely the fault of his terrifying enemies and have nothing at all to do with his LackOfEmpathy toward his own troops.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Played with. He was assigned to Wangler's Knob (the ass end of nowhere, as far as the Realm is concerned) because he raped a young woman... which wouldn't have been a big deal if she hadn't Exalted as a Dragon-Blood during the attack.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: As a result of the rape, although so far he's too thick to realize it and is still treating the whole thing like a vacation.
* WeHaveReserves: Always his preferred tactic as a military commander.

!!'''Tepet Ejava'''

Second Edition's iconic Wood Aspect. The woman who would become known as the Roseblack was literally born on the battlefield[[labelnote:*]]alright, in her mother's command tent on the eve of battle, but close enough[[/labelnote]], to a family with a long history of distinguished military service. Exalting at a young age, she was already certain of what she wanted to do with her life: she applied to the House of Bells as soon as she could and enrolled in the Legions immediately upon graduating. Her rise through the ranks was swift and steady.

Then came the Battle of Futile Blood, where the bulk of House Tepet's forces were decimated. Now the beggared general of a ruined House, Ejava was assigned to lead the Vermillion Legion -- more commonly known as [[ArmyOfThievesAndWhores "the Red-Piss Legion,"]] the beggars, strays, drunks, and drafted criminals of the army.

But those who thought her career was over were ''very'' wrong. To everyone's shock, under Ejava's leadership the Red-Piss Legion was swiftly transformed into a disciplined and effective fighting force that won a series of stunning victories. Today, the Roseblack is one of the Realm's most beloved and popular war heroes, as well as the leader of a highly skilled army that bears her [[UndyingLoyalty astonishing personal loyalty]]... and that kind of thing makes a DeadlyDecadentCourt in the middle of a succession crisis very, very nervous. Several of House Tepet's enemies in the Deliberative have been quietly making plans to have her killed before she can march on the Blessed Isle and declare herself Empress. Ironically, there's a good chance those very efforts will end up goading her into doing exactly what they're afraid of.

* ArmyOfThievesAndWhores: The Red-Piss Legion is a textbook example.
* {{Expy}}: Of one UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar.
* FatalAttractor: Three great loves in her life (two men and one woman), all dead after a fairly brief time with her.
* JackOfAllStats: When it comes to the skills of a military commander. Arada -- himself one of the Realm's greatest generals -- says he's a ''slightly'' better tactician than she is when it comes to his particular area of expertise... but she completely outstrips him in absolutely everything else.
* LadyOfWar: Oh, yes.
* MagneticHero: There are people Ejava's never even heard of who are currently putting their lives on the line to protect her from her enemies.
* FatherToHisMen: Her main asset in the coming civil war is the UndyingLoyalty she inspires in the soldiers serving under her.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: After the crushing defeat of her forces, she was assigned command of the Vermillion, more colloquially known as "[[ArmyOfThievesAndWhores the Red-Piss Legion]]."
* ReassignmentBackfire: She's actually managed to turn the Red-Piss Legion into a crack fighting force that's intensely loyal... to her personally, not to the Deliberative.
* ReluctantRuler: Ejava would sincerely like nothing better than to be serving a commander-in-chief who was truly worthy of her loyalty. Unfortunately, she's reluctantly coming to the conclusion that there's no better candidate for the job than her.
* TragicMonster: [[spoiler: In Return of the Scarlet Empress, she has a possible fate as second in command of the Scarlet Empress...because she's been turned into a mind-controlled puppet.]]
* UnfriendlyFire: The main reason she hasn't announced her candidacy for regent is that she's wholly aware this could happen if she does so while she's in the field.
* WillTheyOrWontThey: Has a long-term flirtation going on with Ragara Nova, the Prefect of Chanos.
* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: As any general has to be.

!!'''Tepet Arada'''

The iconic Air Aspect of First and Second Edition, Arada overcame a troubled childhood that saw him packed off to reform school to become one of the Realm's greatest heroes. He once [[DavidVersusGoliath slew one of the Solar Anathema]] just to make a point, and his military accomplishments are nearly unparalleled. Since the height of his career, though, he's fallen almost as far as he once rose.

Sent against the armies of a powerful Solar warlord without clear intel on what he was getting into, Arada's forces suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Futile Blood. House Tepet was left broken and impoverished, and Arada retired in utter disgrace. Since then, he's withdrawn from Dynastic society and is ostensibly living as an Immaculate hermit, although he actually spends most of his time looking for comfort at the bottom of a sake bottle. Considering the mess his favorite granddaughter Ejava is likely to find herself in soon, though, it remains to be seen whether he'll be forced out of retirement...

* AchillesInHisTent: What he's been doing since the Battle of Futile Blood.
%%* CoolOldGuy
* GeniusBruiser: A casual summary of his life story could easily give you the impression that he's not much more than a soldier and a bit of a thug. Pay close attention to his sections in ''Aspect Book: Air'', though, and you'll realize he is a ''ferociously'' intelligent man.
* NiceToTheWaiter: He'll accept quite a lot of backtalk from mortals if he thinks they've got a point -- something that's very unusual for a Dynast.
%%* OldSoldier
* ProperlyParanoid: His belief that the Tepet Legions were set up by the other Great Houses, who feared House Tepet's military might, is largely based on his own bitterness and paranoia. It is also probably true.
%%* RetiredBadass

!!'''Tepet Lisara'''

Something of a {{Foil}} for her cousin Ejava, the Fire-Aspected Lisara is generally regarded by House Tepet's elders as a disappointment. Both her parents are noted generals and she graduated with honors from the Realm's most exclusive military academy, so expectations for her career were very high. However, so far she's accomplished absolutely nothing of note, and currently holds the unenviable position of second-in-command of a minor garrison near Chiaroscuro.

Fortunately for Lisara, no one has yet realized just how big of a failure she actually is. In reality, she only managed to get as far as she has in life through a combination of nepotism, seduction, and blackmail. Constantly overshadowed by her more hardworking and talented cousin, it was Lisara who got the Roseblack removed from the field at a crucial moment out of sheer petty jealousy, and it was Lisara who suggested the ill-conceived strategy against the Bull of the North that led House Tepet to ruin.

* DoesNotLikeMen: For absolutely no apparent reason. Currently she spends most of her time amusing herself by assigning male officers under her command to menial chores or pointless suicide missions. Note that sexism against women is basically nonexistent in the Realm, which borders on an outright {{Matriarchy}}, so Lisara manages to be a weird DistaffCounterpart to the StrawMisogynist (a Straw Misandrist?) ''without'' actually qualifying as a StrawFeminist.
* NeverMyFault: Lisara is just as oblivious to her own incompetence as everyone around her is.
* PaperTiger: As an NPC, she makes a deliciously hateable antagonist who'll go down like a punk as soon as the player characters turn their attention to her.
%%* SmallNameBigEgo
* UnknownRival: She wants to bring down the Bull of the North... not to atone for her mistakes or avenge her fallen kin, but because she views him as her own personal nemesis, despite the fact that he's thousands of miles away and has almost certainly never heard of her.
* TheVamp: How she got everything she has in Dynastic society.

!!'''Tepet Elana'''

Elana's easy to recognize when she appears in illustrations or chapter comics -- a short woman with close-cropped blond hair, carrying a [[{{BFS}} huge-ass sword]]. Rather spoiled by her mortal older brothers, young Elana began acting out in her grief and rage after they were killed in battle, and was eventually shipped off to reform school. There, she was unlucky enough for one of the combat instructors to take a special interest in her, beating her savagely. She devoted herself to training for revenge, and her first act after Exalting as an Air Aspect was to kill him in a duel. Afterward, she found that he had left behind a letter of recommendation for her, to be sent to the Realm's finest military schools in the event of his death at her hands.

Still dogged by her unsavory past, Elana was unable to find a better position than as a junior officer in the [[ArmyOfThievesAndWhores Red-Piss Legion]], where she served for nearly a century. Her moment of glory came at the Battle of Five Fangs, when the legion was ordered to retreat, leaving the wounded to be devoured by the cannibal horde they'd been fighting. Elana defied orders to stay behind with her troops, [[YouShallNotPass defending the wounded]] for over 48 hours until reinforcements arrived. The accomplishment was celebrated in story and song as the Two Day Fast ([[DontExplainTheJoke because the cannibals didn't get their meal, get it?]]), and Elana retired a hero. The public acclaim was rather startling to Elana, who'd expected to be court martialed for disobedience... but not as startling as being summoned to an audience with the Scarlet Empress.

It, uh, [[BatheHerAndBringHerToMe didn't go the way she expected]]. After spending about a month in the Imperial Palace as the Empress's [[ParentalIncest lover]], Elana left to continue serving the Empress -- now as one of the Realm's wandering magistrates.

* ArrangedMarriage: House Tepet is getting ''really'' impatient with her efforts to put it off. So is House Peleps, the family of her betrothed.
* MayflyDecemberRomance: With her mortal assistant, [[Literature/TheSilmarillion Beren]].
* SmallGirlBigGun: Or sword, anyway. In many illustrations, it bears a distinct resemblance to [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Cloud Strife's buster sword]].
* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: Not Elana herself -- she got just a glimpse of the human being behind the Scarlet Empress's imperial facade, and became quite fond of her.
* YouShallNotPass: The Two Day Fast.

!!'''Ledaal Kes'''

An Air Aspect and House Ledaal's dark horse candidate for the throne, Kes is a genius, an accomplished sorcerer, a successful member of the Thousand Scales ''and'' an agent of the All-Seeing Eye -- but he's best known for his mastery of the game of [[VariantChess Gateway]]. He is also dogged by rumors about his association with the unsavory Sesus Nagezzer and the, ahem, ''proclivities'' of Kes and his wife Ragara Szaya, but this is rather minor compared to, say, what House Cynis considers a better-than-average party. Really, the critical flaw in his possible candidacy is that, while he's well-liked and politically viable, Kes himself [[GotVolunteered is not among his supporters]].

Still, if Mnemon and Ejava come down with a case of death, he may not have much of a choice...

%%* {{Bishounen}}
* ChessWithDeath: A chapter comic in ''Compass of Celestial Directions: Malfeas'' has him challenging Sigereth (a Second Circle demon whose entire being revolves around the playing of games of skill) to a Gateway match in order to rescue Szaya, with Kes' own soul at stake if he loses.
* ChildhoodFriendRomance: He and Szaya met back when they were [[ChildProdigy the two youngest players on the competitive Gateway circuit]].
* ClaspYourHandsIfYouDeceive: Does this pose in a comic when he counters an attempt by Mnemon to psych him out using an angyalka demon (their MagicMusic causes people to be reminded of the events of their lives, thus setting those with a DarkAndTroubledPast off balance -- [[IdiotBall except he doesn't have one, while Mnemon herself has an inferiority complex and mommy issues]]).
* DavidVersusGoliath: Statistically, he has no chance of beating Sigereth. Nevertheless, fans and writers alike agree that somehow he's going to find a way to pull it off.
** In the final comic in ''Return of the Scarlet Empress'' it turns out he won.
* DeadpanSnarker: He was actually the first to refer to the Scarlet Empress as "Her Redness." It has since become a FanNickname.
* {{Expy}}: Lionel Kes is apparently the StraightGay Film/JamesBond of the [[AlternateUniverse Exalted Modern]] {{Elseworld}}.
* HappilyMarried: Kes enjoys a very happy relationship with Ragara Szaya, despite the two being [[EveryoneIsBi among the very few people in Creation]] to canonically score a 6 on the Kinsey scale.
* IfItsYouItsOkay: Averted. Sure, Kes and Szaya have managed to produce the requisite number of heirs, but the only way they're able to ''enjoy'' sex with each other is through shapeshifting magics or the summoning of [[HornyDevils neomah]].
* IncompatibleOrientation: With Szaya, on both sides. They worked it out, though.
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Kes is a bureaucrat and about as uninterested in combat as a Dynast can get away with; Szaya is a career military officer.
* NonActionGuy: Part of the reason he's not a serious candidate for the throne -- the Realm [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority wouldn't follow a leader who can't fight well]].
* PlatonicLifePartners: With Szaya. Okay, the "platonic" part is rather complicated, since they're married and they do enjoy having orgies together and occasionally using magic to switch to each other's preferred gender. But in their natural forms, they're not the least bit attracted to each other, they're just [=BFFs=].
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: Oh so much. Played a game against the Scarlet Empress herself at the age of eight, and often uses the game to tweak his opponents in ways that go beyond the board.
* StraightGay: Well, by real-world modern-day Western standards, although he's almost femmy for a Dynast.

!!'''Peleps Deled'''

Even as a young boy, Peleps Deled knew he was different from other children. They didn't understand his deep yearning for spiritual fulfillment. They didn't understand the all-consuming importance of the Immaculate Faith's holy mission to bring righteousness to the world. Most of all, they didn't understand that all his opinions were absolute objective truth and anyone who disagreed with him was obviously wrong.

He thought he might find some peers at the Cloister of Wisdom, but tragically, his fellow students there proved to be just as misguided. Most frustrating of all, even after he patiently explained their errors, they'd simply cling to their false beliefs. When debate failed, there was only one thing to do: challenge whoever disagreed with him to a martial arts duel and beat the heresy out of them. If they failed to survive the process, well, they must not have been enlightened enough.

Possessed of truly impenetrable self-righteousness, Deled's stymied all his teachers' attempts to encourage him to develop some scrap of humility. Unfortunately, his nearly unmatched prowess in martial arts is too valuable to waste, so instead of giving up and having him assassinated, his superiors have traditionally settled for making him someone else's problem. His uncle sent him to the Immaculate Order so he'd stop beating up family members, and the Immaculates sent him to the Wyld Hunt so he'd stop beating up fellow monks. After his boss retired for political reasons, this made him the master of his own branch of the Hunt. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Oops]].

The iconic Water Aspect of First and Second Edition and a notorious total nutjob, Deled has amassed a remarkable amount of disgust on both sides of the fourth wall: fans love to hate him, and the other Dynasts are fervently hoping he'll get himself killed chasing Anathema.

* ArrogantKungFuGuy: Little Deled's uncle, thinking to teach the boy some humility, showed him a kata that could only be performed correctly by an Exalt. Deled ''Exalted while trying to practice it''.
* BadBoss: Those under his command frequently suffer "accidents" if he finds their piety lacking. Considering his standards, it's amazing he has any subordinates left.
* BladeOnAStick: Wields a jade dire lance.
* CircularReasoning: Deled knows his beliefs are correct, because [[RightMakesMight martial prowess comes from spiritual enlightenment]], and he's never lost a duel. How does he know that martial prowess comes from spiritual enlightenment? Because he's extremely spiritually enlightened and he's never lost a duel.
* TheFundamentalist: The only thing he's more serious about than martial arts is his faith in the Immaculate Order. In the incident inspiring his assignment to the Hunt, he killed a fellow initiate for disagreeing with ''a single preposition'' in a statement about an abstract theological issue (''by'' vs ''of'').
* HateSink: ''No one,'' in-universe or out, wants anything to do with this psycho.
* KnightTemplar: When it comes to the Anathema... or heretics... or people who fail to acknowledge the obvious rightness of his position once he's explained something.
* RightMakesMight: According to Deled, this is the source of his talent for martial arts. The sad thing is that this isn't even that far off from Immaculate teachings, merely taken to an extreme.
* UriahGambit: The reason he's been left in the Hunt with little support. The Realm is starving the Wyld Hunt in hopes that Deled will either get himself killed or fail so catastrophically that he has to be replaced.

!!'''Peleps Taguro'''

A martial arts master of House Peleps, he is devoted to the Wyld Hunt as well as in love with Lidaal Aruna. Taguro forms the BigBadDuumvirate of the [[ComicBook/{{Exalted}} Udon comic]] with her and serves as a first-hand perspective on how Dragon-Blooded society works.

* ArrogantKungFuGuy: To the extreme.
* {{Expy}}: Subverted. A Wyld Hunt-obsessed Peleps should invoke Deled, but Taguro is a much nicer person.
* GreenEyedMonster: Seems to be this way to Cathak Drogath's relationship to Aruna.
* PyrrhicVictory: [[spoiler: He manages to kill a Solar Exalted, which is normally a feat for the ages. Unfortunately, it will just reincarnate and he was forced to run with his tail between his legs--showing he's NotSoDifferent from Cathak Drogath]].

!!'''Ragara'''
The Empress's eldest son and oldest living child period, Ragara is vicious, cunning, and utterly sociopathic. Filled with little love for his family or the nation his House nominally serves, the Empress realized early on that Ragara would try to overthrow her at the earliest opportunity. Either unwilling or unable to put her son to death, she instead put to work many schemes to keep Ragara beholden to her and the Realm as a whole. While Ragara was never able to actually kill any of his siblings to make his ascension to the throne a certain thing, he did not lack for trying, with his most famous and favorite subject of torment being his little sister Mnemon, and only Mnemon and the Empress herself could be said to have a larger impact on the political dynamics of the Great Houses.

Of course, this was all when Ragara was young. Now, he is an infirm old man, only kept alive by his sword, as his body siphons the life force of an entrapped Solar soul contained inside it. His House is one of the most dominant in the Realm, so affluent and wealthy it is effectively the Realm's official bank. But still, he silently rages he was never able to make his ascension absolute and uncontested...

* TheAtoner: Subverted. He's become sincerely regretful over how he acted in his youth... at least partly because it didn't work, and on some level he's still trying to make his House the ultimate victor of the succession crisis as a way to undo his failure.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: He was so mono-maniacally hyperfocused on ensuring that he was the heir apparent of the Empress who would survive to adulthood that Her Redness - who, keep in mind, ''deliberately'' fostered outright enmity between her children's Houses to ensure none of them would unite against her - had to impose numerous decrees and threats to keep him from actually killing off his siblings. He's also a financial wunderkind who pretty much ''defined'' how to use and take advantage of economic dominance as a political tool within the Realm, and his policies have pretty much made his House one of the most dominant and well connected in the Realm - only ''two'' Houses do not owe any form of outstanding debt to him, and only because they explicitly avoided doing business with House Ragara at any cost. Even Mnemon, much as she despises her brother, was unable to avoid getting trapped in his web of debtors.
* CainAndAbel: He's the Cain. To everyone. The amount of siblings he ''did not'' try to kill can probably be counted on one hand, and those ones are probably only because they likely died before he could actually put in motion any plans to do so. His most famous Abel is Mnemon, and he can be considered the major reason why she's become so messed up in adulthood.
* DarkLordOnLifeSupport: By every reasonable metric, Ragara should be dead, as he is positively ancient by Dragonblood standards. Only his attunement to his daiklave is keeping him alive at this point, and even then its potency is beginning to run dry. Whether he is aware of this, and if he is what measures he is taking to remedy the situation, are unknown.
* EvilOldFolks: Even older than his sister Mnemon, and with the Empress missing and for all intents and purposes considered dead, may very well be the oldest known living Dragon-Blood in Creation. Unlike his sister, however, he very much looks his age, and is only kept alive by his cursed sword feeding him the life force of a Solar's soul. He has long since withdrawn from formally ruling his House and has spent his days in retirement living in seclusion on an island off the coast of the Blessed Isle.
* HeelFaithTurn: Subverted. He's become more faithful to the Immaculate Order in his old age, but it's only a Major Intimacy; the more prominent part of his personality is still TheResenter.
* ParentalFavoritism: A very unusual example. He started off as his mother's favorite child, he started feeling snubbed by the fact he never got named heir presumptive, and from this started his CainAndAbel routine and soon fell out of favor as a result. That said, if ''anyone'' else tried to pull off any of the things Ragara has done, they would have been executed and wiped from the ledgers without a second thought. The very fact that Ragara - both the individual and the House - still exists in the present day, let alone with the pedigree they have, is explicitly pointed out as a major sign that, regardless of any matters regarding succession, the Empress still had a large degree of affection towards her eldest son.
* PetTheDog: As shown in his writeup in ''Heirs to the Shogunate'', he actually does care for his House and Hearthmates, though his MorallyBankruptBanker side is more prominent by far.
* RetiredMonster: As mentioned above, he's gotten too old and infirm to lead his House or employ assassination attempts against his siblings anymore. While he ''has'' come to regret ''some'' of the things he's done, he feels nothing but scorn and frustration over having not pulled it off.
* TheEvilPrince: He ''really'' did not take the fact he wasn't named heir to the throne despite being the initial favorite well.
* TheResenter: Of his siblings, his mother, his age... Ragara is angry about a lot of things.
* WasItReallyWorthIt: He's started to wonder this.
* WellDoneSonGuy: He started off as this towards his ''mother,'' the Scarlet Empress. Then he [[TheEvilPrince got worse]].

!!'''Ragara Myrrun'''

Mastery of supernatural martial arts generally takes a degree of spiritual focus that other Charms don't usually require. That goes double for Dragon-Blooded learning Celestial Martial Arts, which don't come naturally to them; it takes special initiation Charms as well as intense meditation and plain hard work for a Terrestrial Exalt to achieve the necessary purification of soul and body. As for Sidereal Martial Arts, they've always remained entirely out of reach.

Until now. Bronze Faction Sidereal Anys Syn, the inventor of the Five Dragon styles and Creation's premier martial artist, thinks she may have finally found a suitable candidate in Ragara Myrrun. An elder Earth Aspect and one of only a few living Immaculate grandmasters, Myrrun's mastery of Essence and expertise in the martial arts is second to none. He currently spends almost all his time in the Palace Sublime, writing martial arts treatises that are used throughout the Realm... and secretly training with Anys Syn in his spare time. He's already mastered numerous Celestial styles, and his sifu feels that with the proper rituals of purification and preparation, he'll be ready for initiation into the final level of martial arts mastery soon. If she's right, and the process turns out to be repeatable, this could be the secret weapon the Bronze Faction has been waiting for -- a way to produce large numbers of warriors who could be near-equals to the Solar Exalted in combat, able to push back the Fair Folk hordes and maintain Creation's infrastructure without turning to the Solars or Lunars for help.

Of course, it could also just end up [[SuperPowerMeltdown blowing up a large portion of the Blessed Isle]]. But hey, [[ForScience science!]]

%%* DangerousForbiddenTechnique
* DeadlyUpgrade: Myrrun's fate is left open as a plot hook for Storytellers, but WordOfGod says the default result is a ''spectacular'' case of ExplosiveOverclocking.
* GoneHorriblyWrong: ''So'' many ways this could go. The sidebar that describes the project is titled "Boom!"
* HeroicRROD: What will likely happen.
%%* JustThinkOfThePotential
* SuperMode: On the off-chance that it works, a whole new realm of badass has opened up for Terrestrial games!
* SuperPowerMeltdown: This is what has happened to every other Dragon-Blood that tried to learn Sidereal martial arts, and there's no reason to believe that Myrrun is any different.

!!'''V'neef'''

The youngest living child of the Scarlet Empress, V'neef was conceived as something of an experiment in the genetics of Terrestrial Exaltation. Her father had the purest Dragon-Blooded heritage of any of the Empress's consorts, and as expected, V'neef Exalted at a young age and grew into a powerful Wood Aspect. The Empress granted her the right to found her own Great House at an unprecedentedly young age, and though the House remains small, it boasts a very high rate of Exaltation as well as a strong financial base.

The Empress seemed quite pleased with her youngest daughter, and there's speculation that had she designated a successor, V'neef might very well have been it. V'neef, however, believes that as nice as it might be to take the Scarlet Throne herself or through one of her children, she just doesn't have the necessary power base yet, and she's willing to settle for a candidate with whom she can build a strong alliance. A quiet, pleasant woman, V'neef's ambition is quite a bit subtler than that of most of her siblings... but ultimately no less powerful.

* BlueBlood: Not only a child of the Empress, but the one with the purest Dragon-Blooded pedigree of them all.
* CainAndAbel: Mnemon respects and even kind of likes her little sister, but she will not hesitate to kill her rather than let her take the throne. Made more explicit in Third Edition, where V'neef is said to resemble the Empress more than Mnemon herself does, which is ''precisely'' the image Mnemon's been trying to cultivate for centuries.
* TheCharmer: In ''The Manual of Exalted Power: Dragon-Blooded'', there's an illustration of Mnemon, Tepet Ejava, Cathak Cainan, Cynis Denovah Avaku, and Ledaal Kes at one of V'neef's parties, all laughing and having a good time together as they listen to V'neef tell a story. Now scroll up and read the bios for those people, and you'll see that V'neef's social abilities have got to be ''terrifying''.
* ParentalFavoritism: The Empress's support for House V'neef might have just been her standard policy of playing the Great Houses against one another, but Mnemon, at least, believes that the Empress genuinely liked V'neef best.
* SilkHidingSteel: V'neef doesn't overtly rule her House with an iron fist the way some others (*cough* Mnemon) do. Because of this, many people make the mistake of thinking she's not a politically powerful figure. They are very, very wrong, and she likes it that way.

!!'''V'neef Bijar'''

Ask anyone in the Realm about the major dark horse candidates for the Scarlet Throne, and they might bring up Ledaal Kes, or Sesus Nagezzer, or V'neef herself. But V'neef Bijar just might have a better chance than any of them... and nobody knows it but her.

Sure, she's got no political experience and no base of supporters. But did the Scarlet Empress have those things when ''she'' took the throne? No -- what she had was the Sword of Creation, which made all those other factors irrelevant. And that's what Bijar intends to have.

For the last three years, the Fire-Aspected Bijar has been using her position as House V'neef's head security expert to research the defenses around the Realm Defense Grid, ostensibly in order to try to reverse-engineer them. What no one knows is that she's very quietly been working on breaking them, and has already made her way past the outer layer of defenses. If she makes it all the way inside, the struggle for the Scarlet Throne is likely to come to a very abrupt end -- one that absolutely no one is expecting.

* CuttingTheKnot: Bijar's realized that if someone can take control of the Realm Defense Grid, none of the military maneuvering and political scheming the other candidates are spending all their effort on is going to matter one bit.
* NoSocialSkills: Well, not quite ''none'', but she's notably lacking in tact and social graces for a Dynast, and especially for a child of V'neef. Her default mode of social interaction comes across as intensely abrasive and condescending, something she's entirely unaware of.
* SurroundedByIdiots: Not really -- she just has unrealistically high expectations of everyone around her.
* TheUnfavorite: Bijar is the least favorite child of V'neef, who finds her untrustworthy and rather obsessive (both of which are absolutely true).

!!'''Karal Linwei'''
An up and coming military commander of the Seventh Legion in Lookshy and a potent Fire Aspect for someone just past the age of seventy. It has been taken as a given until recently that she will become a prominent member of the General Staff, and more. Her career is currently in danger due to the scandal that her mortal daughter Fire Orchid has become one of the hated Anathema (she has in fact Exalted as a Solar).

* ThatThingIsNotMyChild: Has not made up her mind on this yet. Fire Orchid is not exactly marching around Lookshy flaunting her Solar exaltation, and Linwei has no idea if the rumors are true or not. She is now searching for her daughter in order to determine whether or not she truly has become an Anathema, and if so how she will react to the situation.

!!'''Anjei Marama'''

!!'''Saibok Gauto'''

A First Age character in the ''Dreams of the First Age'' boxed set.

The oldest Terrestrial ever recorded, Gauto was born some point in the Time of Glory and fought in the Primordial War... and he's managed to outlive Solars simply by living a simple life in harmony with the elements, enduring at least into the Era of Dreams (roughly thirty-five centuries after the end of the Primordial War). His longevity still produces a demand for tissue samples from the Solar Deliberative, however, and the years have taken a major toll on his mind and physique. As a result of his infirmities, the Deliberative has a Dragon King nurse looking after him.

In fact, he isn't all that infirm. His simple life has brought him a great measure of wisdom and enlightenment - his Motivation in its entirety is "Be." A close friend to Kejak, he advises the Sidereal on a broad range of deep and important topics using only allegories involving flowers, his specialty, never even wondering what the actual issue is. Indeed, Gauto has no idea that Kejak is asking his advice on the upcoming Usurpation.

[[center: [- [[Characters/{{Exalted}} Top Index]] | Characters/ExaltedExalted ('''Exalted of Creation''') | [[Characters/ExaltedSpirits Spirits]] | [[Characters/ExaltedOther Other]] ]] -]