Masters of Essence

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Diamond Viper

New Member
So, I've been wondering: Exalted has been aroud for a while and I am sure many of you (either In or out of Character) may have wondered


"Hey Mr. Owl, what happens past Ess 5?"


I;ve been actually thinking that Exalted might need a book (official or fanmade) that portrays powerful exalted of all kinds, their choices, their psychology, the way participating in history altering events during the past 300 (or so) years of their lives alters their perspectives.


In short, pretty much sth like masters of the art, with a chaper detailing uber-charm development. Not charm trees, since high-ess charms must be detailed to the game's needs, but a short guide on the limits of your power.


Also, the way your power growth affects the Great Curse. With my team, we came up with a simple mechanic:


For every decade past his first 100 years of life, the Exalt gains on PERMANENT dot in his Limit Break, with a max number of dots equal to his permanent Essence. Seems logical, especially if you consider the madness that overtook the Ancient Solars, which actually is a very often burst of Limit Breaks...


So, whaddaya think?
 
I think you just volunteered yourself.


I want it on my desk by Monday morning.


-S
 
I think 1 dot every 10 years is a bit fast considering how long Solars live.  The First Age was sopposed to be idealic, fueled with growth as the Solar armies pushed the borders of Creation back further then they were before.  Twilights spent hundreds of years building the artifacts that fueled the growth, and cities and infrastructure were developed and perfected.  1 dot every 100 years seems more plausible, that way after 1000 years of growth, then the insanity comes not just when they hit 200 years old.  


There should be some required Virtue roll against your lowest Virtue, and if you fail then you gain a point.  That way not all the the Solars will go nuts at once, but it is a gradual thing that slowly developed over the millianum.  


I think it should max out at (10 - lowest Virtue), otherwise the Solars are in a permanent  Limit break and it makes it a bit hard to ignore that all the Soloars go permanently nuts after a 1000 years or so.  It should become easier for them to Limit break but it should not be a permanate state they live in.
 
that is assuming Uteck that all solars are going to have essence 10. I agree perhaps gaining one perminant dot every hundred years, max of your essence sounds reasonable to me. We had a simular system in the group I used to play in. That with age comes greater curse. Of course aging effects were a little different, we had it set so every 200 years past the first 500 you gain a point of greater curse. Making solars that have been around since the first age, quite a bit loopy, but not dangerous. Of course we also followed the greater curse limit in from the book. I can't recall it now, but I think it was a max of 5.
 
Of course this all depends on what point of view you use.  Did the various curses cause the Solars to act the way they did and turn most beings against them, or was it their own arrogance and ego that pushed everone to turn against them?  After all, the Siderials were affected by it also, and it was their plan to imprison the Solars.  So perhaps they made their prophecy self-fulfilling?  Perhaps the real curse was to divide the various Exalts against each other and without their unity they are weak?


Or perhaps some combo of all?


I like to think that not all Solars were corrupt but that some were considered 'good' by the people who served under him/her.  Of course they may have had enemies among their own kind and may have met their end that way, or the 'trust no Solar' policy saved them for last since they were not an immediate threat. ( Which would make an interesting story for a Deathlord.)


After all, not every Solar alive at the time of the usurpation would be an old one form the beginning of the first age.  There would be accidents and fatalities along the border and fighting the Fay.  Mistakes happen and Twilites blow up mountains along with themselves, Dawns charge swarms of things and get hacked down, and so on.  I just don't like blanket statements that all old Solars must be insane.  There can be 1 or 2 reasonable ones, but their voices would not be heard over the clamor of the the rest of the Deliberative.
 
That's where we differ, Uteck. I like the blanket statement of All Solars Go Nuts. When, where, and how are left to a vairable.


To me, the "good" solars that were old were still nuts. But their virtue flaw was likely something a little on the calmer side. Perhaps 'Heart of Tears'. Yeah, even the ancient Solar can be precieved as a "good-guy" when he breaks down crying after watching a bunch of people die.
 
Sounds like the Robert Jordan books of 'The Wheel of Time' series.  In that (up until Rand cleanes the Source) every man that develops the power goes insane and dies.  Some in a small little hiccup, others in flaming destruction.  There were entire bands of lady sorcerers dedicated to hunting down the men with the power and either killing them or rendering them helpless by cutting them off from the Source.


Why not the same with Solars?  The beings that cursed them are far beyond their power, and without some major mojo to stop it, even the most well intentioned Solar will eventually become a raving lunatic overcome by their paranoia and arogance.
 
Sherwood said:
(up until Rand cleanes the Source) every man that develops the power goes insane and dies.
Click to expand...
Hey! Thanks for spoiling it, asshole! I'm only on book 3!


;)


-S
 
Sorry.  I just finished number 11 and I am seriously tweaking for 12 to come out.  Best fantasy series I've ever read.
 
Agreed in that it's a wonderful series, but it took him long enough to begin to wrap up some of these story lines . . . now if I can just get GRR Martin to get his last book out . . .


Oh well, back to the Incarnations of Immortality
 
Seriously though, has anyone EVER played a game for characters past Ess 5? How did you handle the raw power of the chars? I mean, we are currently at Ess 5 and about 350xp average and we are pretty much engines of shiny utter destruction!


Sorry about the 10 years, that was a typo...
 
I think past Essence 5, the characters can stop diddling around with things like the Realm,  and start handling Creation's BIG problems.
 
Yeah, like every time you go to the grocery store and they stay 'paper or plastic'.  How am I to decide?  Oh, mighty Solars!  Come to our rescue!
 
after ess 5, your into the big pond, untill then everything has been small potatos, rather then just twarting the deathlords at ess 6, you start looking at a way to just be rid of the shadowlands and clean up the realms of the dead, rather then just stop the greedy small time sprits, your matching into Yu-Shan and fixing things your damn self, forget pushing the fey back in minor battles, lead a great war agenst them and push the boundrys of creation further...


then again at ess 6 you might have very well started your own realm and it needs to be maintained, while not always as exciting as mass combat and the like, trying to run a kingdom with a group of others who seem to be getting a little weird and you dont know if you can trust them while your trying to make nice with the neighbors and show the rest of creation your not some monster can be pretty good roleplaying too...


and like everyone ealse said, at ess 6+ your curse is nicely nitched in your soul, witch may make some intristing social dynamics among the circle when they all start being suspechious of the others motives no matter what they are doing.
 
Another way would be to give an exalt one permanent limit break dot for every permanent essence point he has above 5.


I could accept 2 permanent limit break dots for every essence point above 5 if it unlikely for exalts to reach high essence levels, but in my game most exalts strive for the pinnacle of essence their age allows so no need to do it this way.


A book about elder exalted of all kinds should eventually be published I believe or rather... I hope.


After all a being 1000 years old has a completely different psycology than one 30 years old. The same difference a 30 year old man has with a 1 year old baby. Also every exalt type should change in a different way as it ages, like the Lunars for example becoming more territorial and so on...


High essence exalts might end up seeming weird and insane just by the virtue of their age and power not really needing a great curse for that.


More high essence charms would also be nice since there are so few of them around.
 
I think the entire concept is wrong, cannonically.  If you give them a permanent Limit point every decade after 100 years, then at 200, they are permanently insane, less than a tenth of their total lifespan.


Who would let an insane monster live for THAT LONG?


If it's every century, then it happens at 1000 years, still only a third to a quarter of their lifespan.


Permanent Essence?


Maybe, but that would push them to complete insanity as they power up, going crazy every month or so if they try to do anything.


How about half of permanent Essence in permanent Limit Points?


Or when they fail a check on their guiding Virtue, make them roll their permanent Essence to determine how many points they get?  With a successful roll and spending a WP, make it double their roll.


I'm not using any of this, so it's no big deal to me.  I just think you are screwing your players with the Limit Break alterations.
 
I don't think the limit break becomes more potent as they go up. I think that the limit break is only the first, most apparant influence of the Great Curse.


Instead, I think the most potent effect of the Great Curse comes from trying to avoid limit break. That is, Exalts eventually notice that they snap if they repress their emotions too often... and so, they start giving full reign to their passions all the time so that the limit break never happens. Then you end up with Exalts taking herds of concubines, lashing out violently whenever they're slightly agitated, and so on... all in an attempt to avoid flipping out.


It's insidious.
 
I agree with Jukashi: assigning permenant points is an easy way to devalue the effects of the curse.


Although in the same line of thinking, I would argue that many Solars/Lunars would go the opposite way: remember that massive boost to willpower you get when you limit break? When your willpower can go higher than it's permenant rating?


I see temporary willpower as a yardstick of invigoration, for lack of a better word.


When someone has full willpower, they feel top of the world, like they could fell mountains. It's like when you get out of the bed on a sunny day, and your beautiful ladyfriend (or boyfriend) is already up with your favourite breakfast. It's payday and you know exactly what you wanna do with yourself.


In contrast, I see someone with little willpower as being close to depression: like those days when nothing cheers you up and the littlest things seem to irritate you. Your temper's short and you're giving out to people you love even as you know you're in the wrong.


Although limit breaks like "Kill your friends and family" might encourage a Solar to hide from his limit break and go into excesses of avoiding his "trigger", the exact opposite could happen for a Solar who doesn't mind limit breaking! An Ascetic might learn that by travelling the world and observing the crappiness of comfortable life, he is infused with new energy to go forth and demonstrate how virtuous his life without possessions is.. or something.


A heart-of-flint solar might actually revel in challenges that trigger his limit, because after a few days of cruelty he feels better than he ever had before exalting (temporary willpower 12, anyone?)


In otherwords, what I'm saying is that the curse can and should speak for itself. The solars might frequently sin against their virtues, like a compassionate solar killing to attain limit, because it feels so good when the pent-up energy within them snaps and they gain that virtue in temporary points. Others might, as Jukashi notes, become obsessively compassionate to the point of being psychotically controlling, attempting to prevent death or suffering even as he/she curtails freedom, all in an attempt to prevent limit breaking.


Consider too the normal psychological impact of seeing your family's blood on your hands, and feeling great even as you are wracked by guilt. Solars just went mad because they didn't and couldn't understand why they were doing what they did. People go crazy. Especially when they're 400 years old, smarter than any psychologist can fathom, and have seen and done things no human mind can take. Even without the curse, they'd probably go mad.


As to high essence charms, Sol Invictus. I say it again: Sol Invictus. There needs to be a new one for second ed though, just to add some higher-essence stuff to fulfill the new standard of solar power. 2nd Ed's different..
 
an idea on charms... for a Dragon blooded high essence charm..


A craft char... something aiding large scale construction... since they have almost no "flashy" construction charms.
 
They have that. It's the one that adds to other's craft ratings.


In a large-scale construction, you have an architect, a team of overseers, and a great deal of peons following orders. A dragonblood need only make all of the overseers into superlative artisans, and he's already halfway to finishing that manse super-fast.
 
Another chamr Idea... if this allready exists let me know.


a buerucracy charm taht lets a merchant connect with a buyer willing to buy anything he has at fair prices.


Any problem with that?
 
hmmn 3 possibletys really. in orders of least to most powerful


Absolutely nothing


Helps him FIND one


it makes one appear out of nowhere,
 
Charms don't tend to break the laws of.. everything. They just make the exalt amazingly good, or allow the same for those around him. In other words, having a charm that just conveniently pops a merchant into existance? Not really. Unless you want "Glorious Solar Convenient Merchant", although anything you buy from him would likely dissapear when you decommit the essence.


So if there's no possibility of a market at all, then the charm is unlikely to help. Of course, the charm you suggest already exists in 2nd ed: just look again at the two standalone bureaucracy charms: one of them more or less finds you a buyer or seller if one exists, and offers insight into markets and trade. It's great.
 
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