Alchemical book hints at lost exalted

[Dezeroth]

The pieces of the puzzle are there. But for now, no one in Creation or Autochthonia is in a position to realize that the pattern does not match. Autochthon had no way to anticipate the possibility of the Abyssal Exalted… did he? Is it possible the Machine God intended another form of Celestial Exalt, one capable of attuning to soulsteel? If so, why? That dark material was all but unknown outside of Autochthon’s own body at the time of the Primordial War. And if not, does that mean the potential for becoming their own antitheses was an intentional design element of the Solars? The Adamant Caste further confuses matters.Even if the Soulsteel Caste could be somehow tied to the Abyssal Exalted, the Adamant Caste does not remotely map to anything with which Creation’s Exalted are familiar. Were the Great Maker’s plans more extensive than anyone has ever had reason to suspect? The Contagion, the Usurpation and the Three Spheres Cataclysm erased great swaths of history. It is unlikely these mysteries will ever be solved. Certainly Authochthon, silent and dying, will shed no light on them. Still, no force is capable of


destroying a Celestial Exaltation, so if the Soulsteel and Adamant Castes were prototype designs for yet more varieties of Chosen, what happened to the missing Exaltations?


qouted from a side bar on page 222 in the manual of exalted power: alchemicals


so any idea what the 2 possible missing exalted types are, or is the soulsteel exalt supposed to be the abyssal, then that leaves the adamant, anyone have any ideas

 

[Thanqol]

Probably Autobot's pet project. Interestingly, Malfeas proposed that a sixth element and elemental pole be added to Creation (Vitrol) before the primordial war, but IIRC Gaia vetoed it. Autobot probably Had Plans he could not see through.


(Narratively, I regard this plot thread as benign clutter. In the majority of games, this speculation of Exalt types would add to the 7+ splats that already fight for attention, and are thus unnecessary. If your particular campaign features, say, all Solars becoming Abyssals then it might serve your purposes to have an extra superweapon lying around. In general, making a whole bunch of other random people across Creation Exalt rarely serves anyone's individual agenda.)

 

[Brickwall]

Hey, man, sometimes people like to throw their own stuff into Exalted. If it's fun, who cares?


I honestly don't see how any of this is any more extraneous than, say, Nox, or the Sixth Maiden, both of which are CANON (sort of).


Honestly, Autochthon's designs might be more extensive than were ever realized, but I think it goes back further than lost Exalted. All the Exalted were borne of the power of Incarnae or Gaia, who all had a specific material that resonated with them. But what about Soulsteel and Adamant? Maybe there was SUPPOSED to be an Incarnum that presided over lost souls, but someone found a workaround with Lethe. Maybe there once WAS an Incarnum that resonated with Adamant, but this one was loyal to the gods, and there were never Exaltations made for him/her. So, yes, there's a loose plot thread. I just don't think you followed it back far enough.

 

[Thanqol]

Er, that's what I said. It's benign clutter. In the vast majority of cases it's completely irrelevent to everything, but it's a useful thing to have lying around in case your game is uniquely suited to use it. As opposed to, say, dumb clutter like walls of charms or the Chrysilis Grotesque.


For the record, Nox is great as a myth (Five Maidens kicking ass) and as a potential Oversight. He's something that fits into an existing splat smoothly and naturally. Any "Sixth Maiden" or other 'lost' Incarnae pretty much have to be fabricated from whole cloth - and that is something that is very difficult to justify narratively in the majority of cases.


Soulsteel makes sense as an Alchies design: Autobot is half Neverborn, and is directly responsible for the creation of the Void, so I see the Soulsteel caste as being a pretty natural result of being mind-melded with your insane dead self.


(Also, "Canon" is a dirty word, so I wouldn't throw it around like that. : P )

 

[EZahn]

I remember a missing/dead Maiden being mentioned in Storyteller's, but I don't think there was ANYTHING about her in MoEP:Siddies.

 

[Captain Hesperus]

I remember a missing/dead Maiden being mentioned in Storyteller's, but I don't think there was ANYTHING about her in MoEP:Siddies.

Pluto, the Maiden of Hours, who was slain by SWLIHN. Source: Lands of Creation, DotFA, pg. 7.


Following this line, I wonder what Neptune would have been the Maiden of?


And let's not consider the possibilities presented by Uranus.....


Captain Hesperus

 

[Mr. S]

Following this line, I wonder what Neptune would have been the Maiden of?


And let's not consider the possibilities presented by Uranus.....

Is Neptune that weeping maiden mentioned in the west wyld?

 

[cyl]

IIRC it was clearly put out that SWLIHN destroyed concepts and celestial gods that had chosen. Most of them were killed, but the remaining chosen went mad and destroyed themselves.

 

[Thanqol]

IIRC it was clearly put out that SWLIHN destroyed concepts and celestial gods that had chosen. Most of them were killed, but the remaining chosen went mad and destroyed themselves.

Which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Killing an Incarnae causes all their Exalts to go mad and somehow suicide their shards? Seriously? Didn't they see the logical conclusion of the Yozi killing the Sun, who could not defend against them, and thus ending the War right there? Or the immense deprotagonization of the Solars that their sanity is reliant on some golden dude they've never met? Not to mention that Return of the Scarlet Empress flat-out contradicts this by having the Sun's death be a powerup for his Exalted, not a go-mad-and-die switch.


Seriously > :|

 

[cyl]

IIRC SWLIHN popped her orb in raw vindictive spite just before Malfeas closed in on her, so the war had already been won.


And there were mentions here and there of Heroic Exalts, mortals with a shard tied to no god... which to me indicates that there is indeed a spiritual bond between the god and the exalt.


After all, if the source of your power and the principles it stands for doesn't exist anymore (and I mean "has been kicked so hard that it has never actually existed"), your essence might indeed fire back.

 

[Thanqol]

IIRC SWLIHN popped her orb in raw vindictive spite just before Malfeas closed in on her, so the war had already been won.
And there were mentions here and there of Heroic Exalts, mortals with a shard tied to no god... which to me indicates that there is indeed a spiritual bond between the god and the exalt.


After all, if the source of your power and the principles it stands for doesn't exist anymore (and I mean "has been kicked so hard that it has never actually existed"), your essence might indeed fire back.

How does this not address the fact that if this was a viable technique to stop the Exalted, the Primordials would have used it?


The whole thing about the Exalted is they can't be stopped, or permanently killed. It's like Lytek's cabinet all over again, except worse: While it is implied that the Primordials killed Lytek's predecessor in the War and it didn't stop the Exaltation process, if killing an Incarnae would stop the Exaltation process then the Primordials absolutely would have killed the Incarnae.

 

[Dezeroth]

who knows, it might just be hints that some new books will come out detailing "lost" exalted types, i just think it would be fun, the more choices there are the more you can customize your gaming

 

[sebsmith]

the Adamant Caste does not remotely map to anything with which Creation’s Exalted are familiar

Oversight

 

[cyl]

How does this not address the fact that if this was a viable technique to stop the Exalted, the Primordials would have used it?

Well, it's like the books says.


They were caught off guard by what seemed to be inoffensive bugs to them.


They thought they could squash them easily (and they did), but by the time they understood what they were and how hard those bugs could kick, it was already too late for them.


The fact that they killed Lytek's predecessor proves that they had very little understanding of the essence themselves.

The whole thing about the Exalted is they can't be stopped, or permanently killed.

Oooh I don't know about that. Kill every human being (which the Contagion almost did) and there are no more hosts for the essences.
IMHO the Prims did not slay either of the Incarnae or the humans - though they could have dissolved their sorry asses into nothing as they almost completely did with the Dragon Kings - is because they somehow "needed" them / did not want to have to create them all over again.

 

[wordman]

For reference, The wiki has a page of fan-made non-canonical exalted. Some of these are explicitly the tinkerings of Autochthon.

 

[Moonstone Spider]

Oooh I don't know about that. Kill every human being (which the Contagion almost did) and there are no more hosts for the essences.
IMHO the Prims did not slay either of the Incarnae or the humans - though they could have dissolved their sorry asses into nothing as they almost completely did with the Dragon Kings - is because they somehow "needed" them / did not want to have to create them all over again.

Don't know about the Incarnae but killing humanity won't stop the Exalted. The Storyteller section of the Lunar Sourcebook specifically has as one of it's campaign ideas an "After Humanity" game where it states the Exaltations, if bereft of any human hosts, will start empowering choice cats, squirrels, and dogs instead. As a failsafe, Exalted Lunar animals automatically get "Human" as their totem so the human species can be rebuilt and re-exalted later.


Possibly the Primordials realized this and left mankind alone because defeat was humiliating enough as it was, being smacked down by a goldfish taking vengeance for the death of it's beloved owner would be unbearable.

 

[Brickwall]

Technically, only the Lunar Exaltations are stated to be applicable to animals, because of how protean they are. But, honestly, I think you could totally twist things up and play Exalted - Watership Down.

 

[cyl]

Correct me if I'm wrong but... I thought the Contagion killed everything, humans, plants and beasts alike.


I remember reading about the bio agents responsible for the decomposition of the bodies were dying resulting in a pile of corpse in perfect condition, and the gates of heaven being closed to avoid contamination.


It might have been incidental though.

 

[Teln]

You're absolutely right--that's from CoCD: Yu-Shan. The Contagion killed plants, animals, fish, it even killed the bacteria that are responsible for decomposition. There's mention of an entire subspecies of wolverines being wiped out in a matter of weeks, making its god the first one unemployed by the Contagion.

 

[Moonstone Spider]

But can't Solar Medicine cure the contagion?


Anyway, it's not stated outright that Solars can exalt animals, but since the animals that get a Lunar exaltation can always take the shape of humans, they'll always be able to bring back the human bodies for Solar shards later. All it really takes is the Deathlords missing one insignificant clam near the bottom of the ocean deep in the west. It'll Exalt as a lunar, impregnate itself (It can be done if you're willing to expend the knacks), and spawn a whole army of clam-lunars and beastman clams who will then retake the surface (With no humans, the death knights can't replace their losses) and then repopulate creation with humans who will exalt as solars and use Wyld Cauldron and Craft: Genesis to rebuild all the other life-forms.


That's actually a remarkably creepy idea if you think over the implications. But it'll work. The Incarnae actually have a plan for "Only one living thing in all creation."

 

[cyl]

Nah what I meant was there is a possible game over, and it nearly happened.