The UnExalted Nation

[Master of Malfeasance]

Primoridials create the Gods, Gods create Exalted from humans, big war ensues, Primordials fall, Exalts rule creation.


But what if....


a mortal nation (because nearly all humans were strictly mortal at that time) was cursed that her children could never Exalt?


The ideas I've been throwing around-


The forgotten kingdom is intentionally forgotten and isolated because it knows that there are some REALLY big, bad things out there.


This kingdom hates Exalts of every kind, and barely tolerates Thaumaturges and Elemental-blooded.  I figure by this time, nearly everyone has a little elemental blood in them, enough to make them look cool, but not much else.


Maybe they have a group of pure strain humans whom they revere as their "perfect people"


Access to high technology-  A nation that had to deal with Creation in any capacity would need some way to even the odds, to go toe-to-toe with wayward Exalts, powerful spirits, and so forth.


Maybe they found a way to channel essence from the earth without being Exalted.


This would make them the most dangerous nation in Creation.  If regular people knew there was a country where normal people had black-powder weapons, and could pilot warstriders by themselves, they would flock there in the thousands.


Everyone who had ever believed creation unfair (which it is) or yearned to take down a DB, or even a belligerent Lunar.


Fair folk would find people who had ordered the natural world and understood it better than anyone else in creation to be terrifying.  Probably vice versa.


I'm picturing an Escaflowne-type scenario, with Warlock-engineers, where the standing army is made up of Warstrider cavalry and heavy troops and armor types like Gunzosha or Ashigaru would be comparatively much rarer.


Maybe in addition to being able to siphon essence from the earth (doesn't take much, considering that no matter how many solars are in one place spending peripheral essence, the land doesn't seem to mind) maybe they can get it from spirits, gods, and Exalts as well.


Now this land has been geographically isolated for many thousands of years, perhaps spared the great contagion, perhaps not, though probably not, but now it's built itself to the limit.  No more room, they have to start gobbling up outlying villages that were probably only nominally aware of the kingdom in their midst, assuming the airships (built like helicopters, or possibly the drogues from the North) were some kind of freakish spirit.


A bit like Autocthonians meets Lookshy, in the end, I guess.

 

[Haku1]

Hey...


It's not a bad idea to have... I'm assuming that the players would be placed inside said kingdom... yes?


Okay... this kingdom you're describing requires quite a number of things in order to work.


1) This curse - would presumably be solar circle in its effect, and would most likely hit on anyone living in the kingdom or where it's located. This would mean that dragonblooded in the shogunate would avoid that region, as their kids wouldn't exalt in that area. WHich would explain why they got left alone in the past.


2) Location-wise... I would suggest it be some place REALLY out of the way, as other-wise... the powers that be (dragonblooded and their followers / lunars and their beastmen and such / solars / gods) would take an unhealthy interest in said kingdom. I strongly suggest it occupies several large valleys in the mountains at the source of the meander river.


3) Patron - because let's be honest... being human is all well and good... but having a god as your ally or backer... would make for good sense. Especially if he or her status as the patron god of said kingdom is on the rise with said kingdom.


4) I would also suggest that thaumaturges be the main-stay of the population. That EVERY adult in that kingdom can channel essence and has the merits 'essence awareness' or 'essence mastery' or someway of channeling essence from their education system.


5) Also, it should be noted that Celestial Exalted can craft artifacts up to 5+, and dragonblooded up to 3 (higher if they go bigger and more ineffecient). I think it's telling that -mortals- are not mentioned in any capacity beyond assistants. So, I would suggest that you be generous and allow mortals to craft artifacts of level 1 (and 2 to 3 only if they go REALLY huge and ineffecient, 4+ is impossible). Of course, they might have a First Age Factory Catheral buried deep under their kingdom and this is the source of their toys.


6) Also, the elite of the elite would be twinked out thaumaturges who know kung-fu (terresterial martial arts) and are able to go toe to toe with dragonblooded one on one and win. Against young Celestial exalted, they stand a chance of winning if they play it smart with their group tactices.


http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/wiki.pl?Th ... oicMortals


http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/wiki.pl?Ra ... rtalLimits


7) Also, it's not impossible for mortals to use war-striders, they just need hearthstones and be willing to committ almost all their essence into said toy. However, an alternative, you might want to think is essence batteries. Nice big jade cyclinders that they hook their essence cannons, implosion bows and other toys to for power.


8) If you're really evil...  defeated dragonblooded, godblooded are handed over to their patron god or to the cathedral factory... and later comes a nice essence battery that's by chance just large enough for a human if they're curled up in it. I shall say no more and leave the rest to your imagination.


9) Helicopters, I wouldn't have in the setting. Air-ships and gliders on the other hand would be cool to have for aerial support.


10) if you want bolters, go with crossbows with bolts (that are elementally empowered or enchanted to explode on successful hits). You don't really need black-powder or such.

 

[Heaven's Thunder Hammer]

I really like Haku's idea of harness the power of exalts to forge any worthwhile artifacts. It means they'd also be nabbing various types of other elementals as well right?


The only other way I can see for them to have access to higher level artifacts is if in fact, this Patron God has a very large following of lesser gods that build the artifacts for the mortals.

 

[Haku1]

I really like Haku's idea of harness the power of exalts to forge any worthwhile artifacts. It means they'd also be nabbing various types of other elementals as well right?
The only other way I can see for them to have access to higher level artifacts is if in fact, this Patron God has a very large following of lesser gods that build the artifacts for the mortals.

Heh heh heh... I should note that I wasn't refering to harnessing captive exalts and getting them to make your artifacts... slave labour never leads to anything good.


No... I was thinking more... captive powersource

 

[Master of Malfeasance]

I like the captive power source idea... captured, or lobotomized Air elementals powering the 'striders worn by drop troops who deploy from airships.


The everyone channels essence thing I like A LOT.  Instead of a couple of beings of god-like power, you have a nation of heroic (or nearly so) mortals.  People who have become this way because they had no other choice.


As for helicopter-esque airships, I didn't mean strafing the Fair Folk from an Apache (whoah!) I meant a more tech/less magi version of the airships that already exist.  Take a galleon or a barge, and instead of a mast, you have rotors (I think they included something like this in Final Fantasies 2 and 9).


I'm picturing the capitol city in an almost steampunk setting.  Maybe give them some outrageous architectural edge like concrete so they can make the place look even more alien to the average creation dweller.

 

[Master of Malfeasance]

Here's an evil thought:


In the UnExalted nation, the whole population is cursed never to Exalt in any way.  It's the population, not there area where they live (in fact, they probably had some kind of mass exodus).


What if they got out and started intermarrying and breeding in creation?


Fast forward a hundred generations:  No more Exalted.


What happens to the shards then?  What happens to the Primordials who hate the Exalted?  The gods?  The Fair Folk?

 

[Haku1]

I like the captive power source idea... captured, or lobotomized Air elementals powering the 'striders worn by drop troops who deploy from airships.
The everyone channels essence thing I like A LOT.  Instead of a couple of beings of god-like power, you have a nation of heroic (or nearly so) mortals.  People who have become this way because they had no other choice.


As for helicopter-esque airships, I didn't mean strafing the Fair Folk from an Apache (whoah!) I meant a more tech/less magi version of the airships that already exist.  Take a galleon or a barge, and instead of a mast, you have rotors (I think they included something like this in Final Fantasies 2 and 9).


I'm picturing the capitol city in an almost steampunk setting.  Maybe give them some outrageous architectural edge like concrete so they can make the place look even more alien to the average creation dweller.

Mmmmh... I don't think you can really do that... lobotomize elementals... without getting some REALLY unwanted attention from Yu-shan. Besides, I  don't really think drop-warstriders are the most effective way of using those toys, as you than run the risk of damaging them.


As for the essence channeling, pretty much... they had to adapt or die.


As for the airships... mmmh... you DO know that the images of those things show propellers and sails, right? I'm talking about the Hislanti League airships, and those are basically a Galleon with a ballon on top.


The First Age/Shogunate type airships are murder to make and maintain.


But yeah... knock yourself out.


***


Pink Peach Generator


'For the namebrand you can count on to power your apartment complex'


Artifact ~ NA


Function ~ Power source


In the first age, the was a great dependancy on essence to power alot of things, ranging from weapons, to vehicles to even buildings.


There were many solutions to this problem, ranging from hearthstone adaptors, essence storage devices, essence convertors and so on. As the Solars DID believe in free enterprise, they allowed exalts to form companies to manufacture and distribute such fixes for civilian use.


One of the smaller companies run by a Twilight, supplied essence generators that worked by converting ambient essence with a internal store of chemicals that could NOT be exposed to air or light. While they didn't last very long, a mere two centuries on average (there have been cases of such generators last for up to three centuries or more, but those were extremely rare case), they were able to supply constant power and in larger quantities then a hearthstone would.


***


At least that's the convienent lie fed to the public by the Twilight and his cohorts, the generator isn't truly a generator, it instead uses a terresterial exalted, one who has been causing trouble, speaking out against the social order and generally being an trouble-maker.


This terresterial simply disappears, and is assumed to have been 'disappeared' by a Night caste. They are instead wisked away to a factory cathedral hidden in the hinterlands of Creation. There, their appearances are modified (always into attractive females, if they weren't female), their minds... calmed down. They are then strapped into the generator, and sealed up after the artifact is confirmed to be able to maintain its 'source' in biological statsis (no need for food or water), and can tap the essence in the exalt, who isn't able to tap into the essence within her body.


Dampening fields in the device also ensure that the exalt's anima flux does not kick in, nor does the annima banner.


It is unknown what would happen, should a celestial exalt be trapped in such a device.


In any event, the Twilight eventually reincarnated due to old age and was then given training by her 'new' partners and given back her 'old' position... just in time for the Ursuption to occur. Strangely, she was one of the solar exalts who couldn't be unaccounted for. It is assumed that she is one of the solars running about, hidden in some secret base, causing problems for the terresterial exalted.

 

[Haku1]

Here's an evil thought:
In the UnExalted nation, the whole population is cursed never to Exalt in any way.  It's the population, not there area where they live (in fact, they probably had some kind of mass exodus).


What if they got out and started intermarrying and breeding in creation?


Fast forward a hundred generations:  No more Exalted.


What happens to the shards then?  What happens to the Primordials who hate the Exalted?  The gods?  The Fair Folk?

Then Creation is pooched. See, either Fair Folk, Neverborn & Deathlords, the Demons or some such win and doom Creation. The gods... they'll likely take over Creation and run it now that the Exalted are gone from the picture.

 

[uteck]

Pillars of Creation by Terry Goodkind is about a group of people who are unaffected by magic that breed true and were imprisoned in a valley by the wizards. They were affected by death magic as all mortals are, so that was the only thing that could contain them, until the magic failed.


I like the idea of it being the land that does it, otherwise they would have spread out over a much larger area.  It just takes 1 male with chiseled good looks and a out of control libido to spawn hundreds of children who will also breed true.  It would only take 4 or 5 generations before a village or small town is all affected from just 1 child, provided it survives and and also breeds.


Unless there is something that holds them in place, they would have spread over most of Creation.  Or they are a new development brought about by the Deathlords to weaken the Dragon-Blooded and loosed onto creation to breed the Exalts into extinction.

 

[Master of Malfeasance]

Part of my idea stemmed from Terry Goodkind's creation.  I would have to say, though, that my own UnExalted kingdom would not be populated by pussies who make my blood pressure rise when I read about them (goooooooooooood Author).

 

[Jakk Bey]

I used a similar idea in the Long Second Age to power the Mystech in that setting.  Captive Spirits, locked into a crystal matrix that inscribes their bond--and in that setting the Celestial Bureacracy has been bribed by gifts of Essence to provide malcontents and offenders in the Heavenly Order to serve as powersources for the Mystech devices.


In a similar vein, the UnExalted Nation could have worked out a deal with Yu-Shan to punish Spirits that have made some God or power angry.  A few hundred years powering an Airship might teach an Air Elemental some respect, or at least the folly of getting caught. If the nation is small enough, and trapped to a small locale, then the Spirits given over to them are accounted for, and in return, the kingdom kicks over a tithe of worship, maybe some sacrifices, maybe all of the Manses in the country have been refined over the years to feed directly into their patron God's account. Or they managed to get a favor owed to them before they were cursed, and the God is still bound by it's promise to watch over them.


After all this time though, maybe they aren't interested in meeting anyone else. They have strict population controls, because while they might have Mana Generators and all sorts of nifty toys, they know that they can't spread too far, or the Exalts will find them.  They might even go so far as to sterilize anyone who wants to leave their lands, ala the Lintha, so that their bloodlines can't be comprimised. They practice all sorts of methods to keep their own bloodlines from being too closely bred--all of their children are raised in creches, and cared for by the State, not a family. No passing of lands or property along inheritance either, so you have a meritocracy in the stead of kings and princes.


Maybe the lands were hidden by the Wyld--First Age engines reinforced their community against the ravages of the Fae and the Wyld, keeping their integrity, but it bred a martial culture to combat incursions. Mandatory military service, castes for service, and maybe several of their holy men have gained the Essence Awareness and Essence Mastery Merits. Their Thaumaturges are their engnineers and priests who serve their patron god, and several perhaps have even Chiminage from their patron as well. Their holy men, and most powerful Thaumaturges have been Invested by their God to allow them to serve it better.


And that's where the kicker comes from. The God is using its hidden cache of preserved First Age Mortals, who've been cursed, and thus are dependant on the patronage of this God for most of their protection against the Wyld--but there is a Portal in the center of their lands that allowed them over the years to return to the Creation at certain times, to perform services for their lord. Be that stealing goodies, wrecking rivals, or securing areas or Artifacts for the God to use in other games of power, and these UnExalted, but powerful Thaumaturges with access to some serious First Age goodies have acted as that God's private goon squad. Mystech ninjas are go.


You can then have a lot of Wyld taints from their long time in the Wyld, even protected under the shield of their generator, there were still accidents over the years, breaches and attacks, AND the God has been meddling for a long while, so that there are plenty of God Bloods in the mix, and regimented into a caste structure that they have accepted as neccessary to their survival since the Wyld swallowed their lands.


But their lands have been regurgitated out of a Wyld zone, whole and unharmed. The Curse still binds them, and their culture doesn't mix well with others--they tend to sterilize the Wyld tainted to keep them from breeding, and all the soldiers who left on missions for their God were sterilized as well, not just to preserve their bloodlines, but to prevent those soldiers from bringing back Wyld taints. Big taboos on marrying outside. Big taboos for anyone to leave without it. Big reverence for their God, and to preserve the integrity of their people.


They have their Mystech, powered by Spirits that have offended their God, or its friends--possibly even sanctioned by the Celestial Bureacracy, as a kind of punishment detail and the Spirits are bound by an oath never to reveal the details.


But something has gone awry. Someone in the Celestial Bureacracy has tumbled on the Gods' dirty little secret, maybe by accident a Sidereal has found out details, an Eclipse has stumbled onto records on a trip to Yu Shan, or maybe a God who has felt slighted in some way by the goings on has let things slip, eager to tumble the Kingdom's patron from favor in the Celestial Bureacracy, seeking to take its place.  


And with the Kingdom now back in the Creation--in some distant corner in the South, West, or North--the agents of the Patron no longer need to travel through its portal. They aren't interested in trade, or slaves, but are now being sent on missions more often.


Discovery, now that they are back in the Creation is only a matter of time, and these agents are doing their best to keep their Kingdom a secret. Maybe infiltrating quietly into the Guild with Thaumaturgical goodies of their own devising, so that they can keep track of things, and excising those who might pose a threat to the security of their lands.

 

[Andrew02]

Part of my idea stemmed from Terry Goodkind's creation.  I would have to say' date=' though, that my own UnExalted kingdom would not be populated by pussies who make my blood pressure rise when I read about them (goooooooooooood Author).[/quote']
Kinda makes you wish Richard had taken more after his father, doesn't it?


Get some pure blooded D'Harans together and knock them out.

 

[Sherwood]

If I were to pull this into my work, I would have these people isolated in some way that normal modes of transportation could not get to - that would explain why they have never been encountered before.  I also like the idea of using other Exalts as a fuel supply to run their magical materials and their Factory Cathedral.  But now their supply is running low, and they are now looking for a new source of 'fuel'.  They construct a bridge to Creation and start scouting out and find a world filled with new sources of power to tap into.  This would be a threat from outside the known design of fate, so it is a surprise to the Sidreals struggling to marshal up some sort of recon leading to a more organized resistance.  Perhaps a threat big enough to call off the Wyld Hunt?  How would that affect the world?  Hmmmm.

 

[Persell]

if I could say this.


this is just a suggestion but if you want fairness then exalted may be the WRONG game for you.


read the players guide in the "I have moral objections" part.


not the second "This is fiction" thing but the first answer.


still its not a bad argument but I'd like to point out that if the blood was infectious the gods would have exterminated the people as diseased.

 

[Seiraryu]

Careful Jakk.  You're stepping into White-Wolf type confabulations there.  I liked it better when they just hated Exalted, were cursed not to Exalt ever, and were all Heroic Mortals and had control of their essence.


I think it's an interesting idea.  Just don't overcomplicate.  That's a problem with a lot of White-Wolf stuff.


It's a good idea.