Blood and Sand

[crashmurdoch]

I just watched Season 1 of Sparticus: Blood and Sand the other day, and I thought to myself that the setting would make a great starting point for an Exalted Game. PCs could be Gladiators, citizens, slaves, nobles, etc, while the cruel and arrogant nobles could be Dragon Bloods just waiting to be put in their place by newly Exalted Solars.


In case anyone hasn't seen it, here's the trailer:




What do you guys think?

 

[Heaven's Thunder Hammer]

WTF!!!!!!!!


WOW!!


This looks FUCKING AWESOME!


Dude. What were you talking about agian?


oh right... Exalted. Yeah. Could work for a bit as a heroic mortal game. Eventually they'd be told to kll each other. But, definitely good start to a game.

 

[skafte]

I watched the first 2 or 3 episodes before being sure I didn't like it. Sure there are some inspiration for bloody stunts, and the idea of Sparticus as a pre-Exalted character is good, but besides from that I just found it poor in every way.

 

[crashmurdoch]

As the series goes on you get to see the political manuevering of the nobles and such. It's the setting in general outside the arena that I was thinking would be a great example of the Corrupt Dragon-blood society. It would be a great place for the PCs to start out mortal, having to put up with their powerful dragon-blood overlords, only to Exalt and finally have the ability to take revenge.


The dragon blooded seem to me to be rather like the noblity of Rome while they're physical style of dress seems to have more of an asian feel.

 

[DasDom]

That's like to old saying the legion would resemble roman legions...the problem with our take on whats "typically asian" is influenced by wuxia, which mostly depicts Qing Dynasty (even those stories set in earlier eras) and samurai movies set in feudal japan... which isn't the whole thing, not even by half.


Roman nobility has nothing in terms of backstabbing, corrupt decadence on the nobility of late han or ming dynasty.

 

[crashmurdoch]

Honestly that's why I said "seems to me." I struggled for a bit of time to wrap my brain around the way that the Exalted world works, and I imagine, depending on how you look at it, we could both be right. Since Exalted wasn't directly pulled from one source, anything is possible right?

 

[DasDom]

Exalted is the sinkhole of High Fantasy anyway, and using Roman times as a template for Exalted conjures some compelling mental images: The Scarlet Empire done in the way of the Roman Empire, Lookshy as Sparta, An-Teng as Achaiminidean Persia...Mostly its the Martial Arts stuff which keeps me from trying it...While wrestling and boxing are ancient techniques, it just doesn't have the same ring to it as Kung Fu.

 

[crashmurdoch]

Actually I was thinking attitude and manerisms rather than appearance, weapons, and fighting styles. Lookshy does have a very Sparta-like society, and before the Outcasts book came out I imagined them as very Western like. Now I think of them as sort of Spartan mixed with Feudal Japan. Dynastic Dragon-blood nobles are very roman in many ways, and the whole Scarlet Dynasty is very much reminiscent of the Roman Empire in decline.