Tell me about Exalted

[Truth Seeker]

The background IIRC,

In the beginning, the Primordial Gods wove Creation and all the creatures within it. To rule the mortal realms they put a portion of their own power into exceptional mortals. The Unconquered Sun created the Solar Exalted, the leaders and powerful generals of the First Age. The Moon Goddess created the Lunars to act as their consorts and companions, while the Five Maidens created the Sidereals to act as wise counsellers and sages. The great elemental dragons created the Dragon-Blooded to act as enforcers of the Solar's will, and to serve in their armies. Though these Exalted were weaker, they were much more numerous. This was the First Age, an era when unimaginable wonders were crafted.

However, the Solars became arrogant in their rule, claiming to speak for the Unconquered Sun. He withdrew his favor, and the Dragon-Blooded rose up in revolt, slaying the Solars and sending the Lunars and Sidereals (some of them anyway) into exile. The Dragon-Blooded ruled for many centuries, until the Great Contagion. This wiped out 9/10ths of the population, and really signaled the end of the long decline since the rule of the Solars. It was after this time that the Scarlett Empress reunited the Realm under her banner. Through her negotiations and marriages she secured a firm hold on the Realm.

Five years ago, the Empress vanished. The Dragon-blooded nobles have pulled most of their armies from Threshold back to the Blessed Isle, waiting for any sign of weakness amoung the others. And the Solars have returned, in vast numbers. The long tradition of the Wyld Hunt, where newly exalted Solars were hunted and slain as demons, has started to collapse as there aren't enough troops to maintain it. There's a new variety of Exalted as well, the Abyssal. These creatures are mirror image to the Solars, having domain over the undead and cursing their foes.

This is the world that the PCs come into. The character is basically a demigod - a reincarnation of heros of a lost age. He is thought to be a demon or 'anathema' by much of the population and is hunted whenever he shows his power. And that power is considerable. Starting Exalted can defeat mortal armies, start cults that will last for generations, and change the face of the world. They get some XP and they can do really fancy stuff.

I really like the game myself, much better than high level D&D.

I couldn't have said that better.

One major difference in this game, versus D&D, is the survival factor, this game is pure insane, lethal...since I played it from the first edition days...that has been niche for me, in really enjoying the game, back then, before a certain GM ruined the taste for me.

Just started playing it, late last year, , so far, it has been blast...and one more thing, if not mention here, although the PCs can get very powerful in this game...the current GM has stress to me, that there is stuff in several books(supplements, or updates to previous material) that still can hand the PCs their bums...if needed, at any time.

I check it out...he wasn't kidding...that Epic book, yes, that is what is called...pales in comparsion...period.

 

[Skywalker]

People have already covered a lot so I will mention just 2 things that I find particularly about Exalted:

1. Due to the power levels at creation, you are left with a lot of freedom to create the PC concept you want and enjoy. After a short time, most players will look to add in the fragile and tragic elements often found in mythic characters to counterbalance this power. As such, Exalted doesn't really feel like high level D&D to me. Exalted has so much power that ends up not being about power, in a strange kind of way.

2. Exalted is a great device for many modern media. Not just anime but the game seems to promote descriptions by camera angle, ideas and characters from a range of movies that are currently popular such as Troy and Hero. D&D tends to draw heavily on fantasy which has a much smaller component in modern media. For example, my last Exalted game was heavily influenced by Sergio Leon Westerns. We had gun/sword-slingers, extreme closeups and long slow dialogue. Fantastic fun.

 

[Qlippoth]

I've been amassing the books for a couple of years now, and I'm trying to find the opportune moment to introduce Exalted to my (presumably) non-gaming anime-fan friends (watched House of Flying Daggers last week, and the "crowd" response was enough for me to consider broaching the topic of RPGs to them.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Weapons of the Gods looks nice too.

It's more specifically Wuxia and Chinese where Exalted is more Anime and generically epic.

But I love the descriptions of the base mechanics for Weapons of the Gods and there's a lot of crossover between the two in terms of important authors.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

The third, and most powerful, are Spells. Spells are divided into two major groups: Sorcery and Necromancy. Sorcery is more generalist, while Necromancy is highly focused on death and destruction. Each of these is then divided into three circles - Sorcery has Terrestrial, Celestial, and Solar circle, while Necromancy has Shadowlands, Labyrinth and Void circle.

Just for some general guidelines:

Terrestrial Circle sorcery is for elimination small armies of mortal soldiers.

Solar Circle sorcery is for destroying cities and most of the surrounding countryside.

Fortunately, only the Solar Exalted can cast the latter, and most of these spells have been lost for a couple of thousands of years. But given time, some enterprising Solar will reinvent them.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Just for some general guidelines:

Terrestrial Circle sorcery is for elimination small armies of mortal soldiers.

Solar Circle sorcery is for destroying cities and most of the surrounding countryside.

Fortunately, only the Solar Exalted can cast the latter, and most of these spells have been lost for a couple of thousands of years. But given time, some enterprising Solar will reinvent them.

You forgot celestial circle sorcery, which is pretty much just as terrible as Solar except that it has spells that can be used to destroy cities rather than spells that are explicitly titled:

City Destroying Disaster Spell.

More or less the difference between a party of high level DnD adventurers burning a city to the ground and the wrath of God laying waste to Sodom.

 

[Tiberius]

Someone on (I think) RPG.net had a nice way of thinking about the circles of sorcery. IIRC, it looked like this:

Terrestrial Circle Sorcery is D&D-style magic. Fireballs, messaging spells, travelling long distances by tornado, and such flashy effects belong here.

Celestial Circle Sorcery is Tolkienesque magic. Powerful, often subtle magics live here, as do some flashy and really powerful ones. Examples include binding others in eternal loyalty, teleportation, poisoning with a touch, destroying the walls of a city, and transforming into living iron sporting a vast array of weapons.

Solar Circle Sorcery is Biblical magic. Creation of new species, ensuring the victory of armies, placing a permanant fog upon an area, raising magical strongholds from the very earth, revoking the very existence of a target, and causing the devistation of the countryside by means of a rain of acidic poison are all possible to the ultimate sorcerers.

Necromancy, being the underworld analog, is similarly terrible, but more limited in scope.

 

[Welverin]

I never played it, though I did work on a licensed Exalted Playstation game.

How far along was the game before the company went in the tank?

 

[barsoomcore]

So I just came back from my FLGS and broke down and purchased a couple of Exalted books -- an "Adventure Locale" (apparently in Exalted it's impossible to publish modules), and a Sorcery book called something I can't recall because the cover of the book is an absolutely gorgeous painting of a woman's crotch and that pretty much took everything else out of my brain for a while.

Then I discovered I'd bought it.

Well, hope it's good.

I'm planning on using Exalted to run a game set in the prehistory of Barsoom. I'll keep everyone posted on how it goes...

 

[Welverin]

So I just came back from my FLGS and broke down and purchased a couple of Exalted books -- an "Adventure Locale" (apparently in Exalted it's impossible to publish modules),

Well they can, and in fact have (Time of Tumult and the freebie Tomb of Five Corners), but it would seem Geoff has decided to go away from that. I rather expect it's related to his view that they can't tell how powerful a set of characters is so there's no point in making that could possibly be affected by that.

Anyway, which one did you get?

and a Sorcery book called something I can't recall because the cover of the book is an absolutely gorgeous painting of a woman's crotch and that pretty much took everything else out of my brain for a while.

Hmm. guess you're one of the fans and not one of the offended (boy did that one get a lot of discussion on the official boards when WW first released the cover image). Oh, it's called Savant and Sorcereer for anyone interested, and it's a replacement, of a sort, for The Book of Three Circles.