What if the Infernals WEREN'T made from Solar Shards?

[Thief of Words]

I was doing some mulling over Exalted and the Infernals, and it occurred to me to wonder what if the Infernals weren't made from Solar shards, but Lunar ones. To begin with, the transhuman and transformative nature of the Infernal Exaltation maps closer to Lunar themes than Solar ones. For another, where Abyssal/Solar Exaltation maps on a simple dynamic of opposites, Infernals are a different beast entirely.


Given the nature of Chimerism, it's already been stated that the Lunar Exaltation is more malleable and susceptible to alteration by an external force than the Solar one (given the lack of the Sun's immutability in Luna's purview).


How would one go about making that work? And what in the setting would change as a result?

 

[Grey]

Oh, hey, one of the little-seen returning Patternspider members had a pretty cool write-up somewhere for Infernal Lunars. I'll see if I can turn it up.

 

[The Dark Wizard]

[QUOTE="Thief of Words]I was doing some mulling over Exalted and the Infernals, and it occurred to me to wonder what if the Infernals weren't made from Solar shards, but Lunar ones. To begin with, the transhuman and transformative nature of the Infernal Exaltation maps closer to Lunar themes than Solar ones. For another, where Abyssal/Solar Exaltation maps on a simple dynamic of opposites, Infernals are a different beast entirely.
Given the nature of Chimerism, it's already been stated that the Lunar Exaltation is more malleable and susceptible to alteration by an external force than the Solar one (given the lack of the Sun's immutability in Luna's purview).


How would one go about making that work? And what in the setting would change as a result?

[/QUOTE]
Not sure how much of the setting would change but lunars being infernals could work because of their nature.

Oh, hey, one of the little-seen returning Patternspider members had a pretty cool write-up somewhere for Infernal Lunars. I'll see if I can turn it up.

Let us know when you find it seems like it would be a good read.

 

[Thief of Words]

[QUOTE="The Dark Wizard]Not sure how much of the setting would change but lunars being infernals could work because of their nature.

[/QUOTE]
Honestly, it seems to make more sense than them being Solars, by nature. But no, we can't have that, it would have a major facet of the setting not be wholly dependent upon the Solars! [/shock][/horror]

 

[Grey]

BAM


Not a detailed, mechanical writeup, but there you go. Good idea-seed.


If I didn't respond to monkeying with Exalted crunch the same as the errata team does Sidereal Charms, I'd go nuts with Vitriolic Tattoos.


...Huh. Protagonist of Far Cry 3 could be a Lunar maybe

 

[Thief of Words]

Eh, tangential at best. I'm not talking Akuma. Or artifact tweaks. I'm talking what if the Infernal Exaltations were (from conception to finish) always meant to be and were corrupted Lunar shards. I always felt like the variety of solaroids just did so much to forcibly backseat other splats in terms of their own potential for cool and warped shenanigans.

 

[Thief of Words]

I just...I feel like there's just so much promise to Exalted, so much awesome potential to things that will never see the light of day in the official line because of how Solar-centric they made things. It's my big number 1 hope for 3rd Ed, really. Even more so than more manageable mechanics, I want to see better fluff. Fluff that represents a creation where more than just 300 people out of Billions per generation actually genuinely matter. (Odd freak exceptions and fate-shenanigans like the Perfect and the Empress aside.) I want to see a history of Creation that's rich with texture. I want to see awesome things and societies shaped by all the Exalted. And by mortals too! After all, Cosmic superpowers aside, even counting dragonblooded and Alchemicals, there are only tens of thousands of Exalts at ANY given point (barring the sheer numbers of DBs in the First Age), but there are (counting Autochthonia) tens of billions, maybe more, mortals who exist at any given time. I...I want Exalted to leave grimderp-you-can't-affect-anything-lastingly-or-meaningfully-unless-you're-a-special-snowflake to games like Midnight and 40k.

 

[Thief of Words]

Above all else, though, I want to get back that feeling of excitement and adventure I felt when I first sat down for a one-shot in this strange new system called Exalted. Back when I first met my then-gaming group and played games run by a friend who ran the most excellent Exalted games.


Seriously, we had an entire campaign we played as mortals. Mortals sent back in time and forced to masquerade as First Age Solars. In Hollow. A week before the Usurpation. We survived. And not just that, we actually managed to (maybe) make a few changes in the process.

 

[Grey]

I do believe 3E is meant to beef up the role of mortals quite a bit.


And really, even with the Solar-wank it is one of the most detailed and intricate settings I've met. I do share your exasperation with the glinty bastards, though.

 

[Chained Divinity]

Much as I think it'd be interesting, Infernals-as-Solar shards makes more sense.


Solars are meant to be a perfect version of humanity, therefore a corruption of them being the perfect aliens is oddly appropriate.

 

[The Dark Wizard]

[QUOTE="Chained Divinity]Much as I think it'd be interesting, Infernals-as-Solar shards makes more sense.
Solars are meant to be a perfect version of humanity, therefore a corruption of them being the perfect aliens is oddly appropriate.

[/QUOTE]
Can't argue with you there.

 

[Thief of Words]

[QUOTE="The Dark Wizard]Can't argue with you there.

[/QUOTE]
Ah, but I wholeheartedly disagree. It's distinctly inappropriate, since their perfect opposite already exists in Abyssals. It's made all the MORE so by the Solar themes of Immutability and Perfection. Change and transformation (so inherent in Infernal Exaltation) are distinctly Lunar themes. Solars as Infernals makes no thematic sense whatsoever.

 

[DeusExAlice]

Just a thought squibble. What if the change and transformation aspect is more from the yozi essence rather than a thematic sense? The Yozi can end up changing into an entirely new entity with a fetich soul death.


Plus it seems delightfully justified they warped, beat and molded those who laid them low into tools that will (hopefully) free them one day.


I too wish for the infernal-lunar

 

[Mei]

Ehhh... Less Solaroids = better.

 

[Thief of Words]

Just a thought squibble. What if the change and transformation aspect is more from the yozi essence rather than a thematic sense? The Yozi can end up changing into an entirely new entity with a fetich soul death.
Plus it seems delightfully justified they warped, beat and molded those who laid them low into tools that will (hopefully) free them one day.


I too wish for the infernal-lunar

And the Lunars didn't? See? This attitude is what I detest about the state of the setting in terms of the presumption that Solar pre-imminence must equal NOBODY BUT SOLARS EVER MATTERED OR WILL MATTER!


The change is due to Yozi nature, BUT the solar immutibility is due to the Sun's nature. The two should conflict. If solar nature was sufficient to overcome Yozi nature before, then it still should be.

 

[Thief of Words]

TLR: Solars are too overemphasized and the setting would be a better place if there was less focus on them in favor of making room in the spotlight for others. Or, to put it another way, the setting needs to stop acting like the Sun was the only Incarnae that mattered and ditto for his chosen regarding the Exalted.

 

[Mei]

The only problem with Lunars-as-Infernals is the fact that I don't think a Lunar shard can remain bound in a thing like what they keep Infernal shards in.

 

[Thief of Words]

Would they really need to? Given the Lunar propensity toward growth and change, I'd imagine that once the seeds of their tarnishing were set in the Lunar shards, they'd almost corrupt themselves. Beyond that, you could simply shift the Lunar status as walkers-between-worlds would actually probably benefit the Yozis.


And why do you think you couldn't bind a lunar shard thusly if you could a solar shard (by the setting's presumption of OOOH SOLAR SHARD SO MUCH BETTER THAN ALL OTHER EXALTATIONLULZHEHEHE)?

 

[Mei]

Because then the Sidereals would have bound the Lunar shards in the Jade Prison as well.


Being bound is a BAD thing. Luna doesn't seem the type that could ever be bound, I think her chosen are the same. Corrupted? Sure. Everything in Exalted can be Corrupted.

 

[Thief of Words]

Or the Sidereals only really cared about removing the Solars from the picture. The fluff as written implies they didn't deem it wise to remove ALL the other Celestial Exalted from the picture on a permanent basis.

 

[Mei]

I view it as that the Lunar shards couldn't be placed in the Jade Prison.

 

[Grey]

Maybe the Wyld-taint made Lunars ineligible? And the mechanics-as-setting concept of Exalted maybe Yozi Charms are just incompatible with the Lunar Charm structure entirely. On the other hand, pure Essence pre-reqs, so I don't know...


I fukken love Infernal Charms, though.

 

[Chained Divinity]

[QUOTE="Thief of Words]Ah, but I wholeheartedly disagree. It's distinctly inappropriate, since their perfect opposite already exists in Abyssals. It's made all the MORE so by the Solar themes of Immutability and Perfection. Change and transformation (so inherent in Infernal Exaltation) are distinctly Lunar themes. Solars as Infernals makes no thematic sense whatsoever.

[/QUOTE]
But Infernals, as they are now, aren't meant to be the perfect opposite of Solars. It's just...


...well, Solars are meant to be perfect along human lines. Like humans, only better. So it's totally reasonable to assume that a Malfean version of Solars would be "Perfect along the Yozi lines". Which means becoming like the Yozis, who are already perfect along the Yozi lines.


Lunars are about change, true, but they're about change into anything and everything rather than change along some specific plan. Restricting that set of changes to Malfean changes alone just seems limiting for them...since theoretically, they OUGHT to be able to do that anyway.

 

[Thief of Words]

[QUOTE="Chained Divinity]But Infernals, as they are now, aren't meant to be the perfect opposite of Solars. It's just...
...well, Solars are meant to be perfect along human lines. Like humans, only better. So it's totally reasonable to assume that a Malfean version of Solars would be "Perfect along the Yozi lines". Which means becoming like the Yozis, who are already perfect along the Yozi lines.


Lunars are about change, true, but they're about change into anything and everything rather than change along some specific plan. Restricting that set of changes to Malfean changes alone just seems limiting for them...since theoretically, they OUGHT to be able to do that anyway.

[/QUOTE]
We're going to have to agree to disagree, because I still wholeheartedly think you're wrong on this particular point.

 

[Mei]

I thought the Primordials didn't really care for humanity in general.