Exalted: A Setting Betrayed
I have a dream, that one day every setting will deliver on it's premises.
(Cover art and all the other pieces by Seat Admiral)
Exalted is a fantasy role playing series, originally published by the infamous White Wolf company, better known for the World of Darkness series of games (the best known of which is Vampire the Masquerade), in 2001. Though smaller, it retains a niche following to this day and is now on it’s Third Edition.
To anyone who knows anything about White Wolf, it is clear that these guys were at the vanguard of what would become wokism as far back as the 90’s – VtM is pretty much the quintessential artefact of 90’s edgy leftism, sitting comfortably next to Hot Topic. A trend that White Wolf’s modern successor, Onyx Path has wholly embraced. So why are you writing of what surely is leftist tripe?
Because Exalted can’t be, despite the developers best efforts.
It’s in the setting, you see. Exalted is probably one of the best truly pagan worlds in fiction. Rather than a polytheist skin on medieval Catholicism your standard fantasy world gives you, an eclectic and interesting mix of oriental and occidental mythologies and theological systems unfolds itself, weaving itself deep into the history and story of Creation, the world of Exalted. In this capacity the stand-out are the Primordials, the stand in for Titans of Greek myth. And that is not even getting to the Exalted themselves.
But for that, I need to tell a rather long story rather briefly.
This is the history of creation. In the begginning, there was only the Wyld, the primordial chaos of essence. Then came to be the Primordials, who shaped Creation out of the wyld and reigned as divine lords over all that they created – most importantly, gods, who were to be stewards of Creation as they themselves played the Games of Divinity. This was the Age of Glory. The Primordials were not gentle maststers however. The Unconquered Sun, the greatest of the gods led them against their creators in the Divine Revolution. However, they had a problem – not being fools, the Priomordials had placed a geass on the deities, forbidding them to strike their masters – but not on humans, weak and feeble as they had seemed. So, to circumwent that were created the Exalted.
With the aid of the traitor primordial Autochton, the great artificer, the Incarna, the divinities of the celestial objects, and first among the gods, poured much of their power into exaltations, which would be bestowed upon mortals of their Choosing. The Unconquered Sun, the Daystar, created three hundred Solar exaltations, his chosen always the first in anything they set their mind to, leaders of men, builders of empires, God-Kings and Prophet Princes. Luna, the silvery, shifting Moon created four hundred exaltations – free and untamed shape shifters, though not the equals of Solars in potential, adaptable and fierce, eventually the spouses of the Solars. The Five Maidens of fate, the stars in the sky - a hundred Siddereals total, men with a thousand faces, weavers of and maintainers of destiny, seers and astrologers, who would be the viziers of the Solars. And lastly, another traitor primordial, Gaia, the earth, and mistress of the Elemental Dragons would create the elemental lineages of the Dragonblooded. Their elemental powers descended through their bloodlines, though they were far the inferior of the Celestial exalted, these Terrestrials outnumbered them greatly. They would be the footsoldiers of the Divine Revolution and the officers of the world to come.
With the help of the Exalted the Divine Revolution succeeded, slaying some of the Primordials and imprisoning the rest under an absolutely binding surrender oath, after killing them turned out to be a very bad idea for the continued existence of Creation (as the cycle of life and death wasn’t able to properly handle the death of one). Afterwards, the Unconquered Sun bestowed upon the Solars Creation to rule, while the Gods took Yu-Shan, the Heavenly City and with it – the Games of Divinity.
So began the First Age. A Heroic Golden Age of advancement and prosperity, that, with some incidents of course, lasted for millennia. But the Primordials were nothing if not sore losers, and had cursed the exalted with a peculiar insanity, the Great Curse. This curse overcame the Solars by the end of that Age and they grew terrible in brilliant tyranny, as the Sun turned from Creation, disappearing into the Jade Pleasure Dome. Foreseeing a terrible end if they were able to remain as lords, the Siddereals conspired with the Dragonblooded to betray their masters, kill them and imprison their incantations. They succeeded, with nearly all Solar exaltations locked away, though the Lunars couldn’t be, as they fled to the hinterlands of Creation to fight the Long War. The Sidereals removed themselves from history and went to Yu-Shan to manage the Celestial Bureucracy, leaving the Dragonblooded in chare of ruling as the Shogunate.
This system lasted for 500 years, until the Great Contagion, a massive, extremely deadly plague swept Creation. Seeing it’s weakness, the Raksha, half formed creatures of the Wyld that stalk the borders of the World seeking to feast on souls were united and launched a massive crusade to destroy shaped existance once and for all. They were thwarted, barely by a Dragonblooded officer activating a First Age superweapon, the Sword of Creation and wiping out the Raksha in a tide of fire. She would go on to become the Scarlet Empress, and, with Sidereal assistance, building a great Empire in the heart of the world, with the Great Houses of her descent as it’s stewards and armies, a Dominion that would last for seven centuries.
Until now. The Empress is gone. Her Dynasty turns upon each other. Enemies long defeated again sharpen their blades for war. And the Ancient kings, the Solar Exalted, have returned.
And in Exalted you play as one.
That’s the basic pitch, and I hope you see the problem for a progressive with this. First of all, forget progress, the world is clearly cyclical, with some version of Hesiod’s Ages, with the Time of Tumult, the time that the game is set, being the beginning of the Age of Bronze, as the order of the Sidereals collapses and the Dragonblooded come to truly rule Creation as warlords. Now of course, you can just say that this is the setting conceit of living in a dying world, and just make everyone an Alphabet soup person or a caricature of people progressives do not like, as they especially with 3e, now fully in the age of the SJW have well done. Originally Exalted was written by a libertarian and had that aughts and early 10’s edginess, especially second edition.
The real problem comes with the Solars, and that problem is called Great Man history.
As is well known, the modern progressive historian has nothing but contempt for such notions – but the entire premise of the main Exalted type rests upon it. The Return of the Solar Exalted is a wrench in the cycle, the waking of the Once and Future King in the world’s time of need, to restore order and justice to a realm in chaos. But to such a vision, of the uniting conqueror, the Resturitor Orbis, the modern mind rails against. This is most obvious in the example of GRRM, and his inability to finish a Song of Ice and Fire. As originally opened by Dave Greene, and recently eloquently put in either a Substack Essay or Xitter post which escapes me, sadly, the ever cynical mind of the modern cannot really admit to this trope – no glorious restoration can be seen in his mind’s eye, and thus no good ending, no climax of the arc of history of a restoration of the Order, only misery and death. A fact of Martin’s work, and the reason he can’t write a satisfying ending. Gritty, but perhaps not realistic. The same conceit plagues the writers of the Third Edition of Exalted(This game basically has a complete lore rewrite every edition).
Therefore many things have been rewritten to mitigate this, bending the setting over backwards.
First of all, from the roughly Mediterranean basin size of remaining Creation in the old editions, it is now several times the size of Earth, constraining the ability of characters to act via sheer distance. Solars are much less powerful now – forget wiping out armies of dragonblooded, it’s maybe a squad. The masculine-coded Solars are much stronger than the feminine-coded Lunars? Can’t have that, so they are nearly the same strength and actively fighting the Scarlet Empire. Except now the entire settings premise is broken because the Realm’s collapse is a historical inevitability thanks to the Lunars and the Solars are so weak that them showing up is basically a blip on the radar. So your return of the Solar Exalted is at best the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress and you can at best hope to build a kingdom. Plus a hundred other things. It is hard to convince a setting more thoroughly betrayed by it’s writers.
The image of Samson, chained by the pharisees as they feast and drink at his expense, comes to mind.
And yet, despite failing to get a game, my thoughts circle back to it. There really is a lot of good in it (and a lot of cringe too, though they are cringe about it, there actually was a lot objectionable to good sense in 2e). If there ever is a fictional property that deserves to be baptised, it is Exalted, I think, and I hope that one day, like he did for Samson, God will give it the strength to break it’s chains.
At least I will be marginally more likely to get a game.
