/exg/ - Exalted General

And now 2,000 more on top of that. God damn it this has ruined by Dragonblood Exaltation ratio formulas.

Well, back to the drawing board.

Now what I want to know is the sort of shit that the sorcerors of Ysyr have pulled to be able to contend with an empire ruled by 2000 Dragonblooded.

It should be theoretically possible for them to pull off Finesse 1, Ambition 2 Solar Workings, Finesse 3 Celestial Workings, or Finesse 5 Terrestrial Workings.

Any thoughts? Personally, I'd be tempted to give them things like the Pillar Men from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (created with Ambition 3 Celestial Workings, on a par with 2nd Circle Demons).

Is that the leak stats? The preview for Hundred Devils Night Parade has different stats then this pastebin.

Plot magic. Pure plot magic. One does not stop 2000 exalted though magic tricks.

They could have some sort of Powerful N/A artifact that amps their magic. Their could be a magic engine that feeds their specific kind of sorcery making them able to cast celestial level spells within their territory.

Solar Circle Workings, user. For supernatural minions, they've got 2nd Circle Demons, Lesser Elemental Dragons, maybe some Liminal Exalted, and almost certainly masses of 1st Circle soldiers in addition to their mortal mutant janissaries.

Solar Workings would take fucking decades for mortals to accomplish.

>So a preview of The Realm has been posted on onyx path. What do you guys think of it?
I think Prasad offers a great alternative to playing a Dragonblood from the Blessed Isle or Lookshy.

I'm very excited for this book but do they plan on releasing it alongside Dagonbloods or before?

After Dragonbloods.

Arms->Dragonblooded->Realm

>pastebin.com/RmUiuBKR
> She prioritizes her career above all else, and has not made any effort to settle down and marry a man or woman as a result.
Why would a Realm Dragon-Blooded marry homosexually? They're supposed to marry to make children.

Sorcery isn't exactly "magic tricks", though.

Nobody's suggested that sorcerers of Ysyr shit out Solar Circle Workings constantly. They've probably managed a few of those,´, though, and thse few would be a big deal. More generally, Ysyr probably had centuries o build its sorcerous infrastructure and crreate all kinds of powerful weapons and servants before it first came in meaningful contact with Prasad.

So, let's say you have a Perfect Circle of more-or-less starting Exalted, and you're a region which is marked for re-conquest by the Realm. You want to give the Realm a real bloody nose by fucking with them.

How do you go about it? Assuming that your guys have - at most - minor artifacts between them, daiklaives and so on. (And assuming that you're fairly popular.)

Raise as big an army as you can, train them up as well as you can. One of you having the Tiger-Warrior Training Technique would help a lot. Keep a low profile until the invasion force is there to maintain the element of surprise. Try and use that element of surprise to take down the general and as many other high-ranking officers as you can.

>tfw be checking threads
>tfw sleep is suddenly banished from mine eyes as I see "Dragon-Blooded Charm Previews!"
Between this and finding out that WFRP game is still open, it's already been a good day.

That's the leak, yeah. I had forgotten to check for monthly releases. The link at is also from the leak.
Do you have a link to the new write ups?

Just don't go there. There was good part of recent thread dedicated to this and it didn't end well. We are grandpas that need to stick with the times.

This, with the added caveat of spending a little time beforehand stockpiling a shitload of money and getting your Twilight a bunch of mortal acolytes to induct into sorcery.

Because of mentally ill authors.

I wouldn't call them mentally ill. Most of them are just deluded when it comes to human rights. They have good intentions with idea than nobody should suffer discrimination. And that is fine.

NOW what they don't understand most people don't suffer discrimination. When discrimination happens it is usually individual cases. Problem happens when the people they are fighting for are not normal. They are screaming, raving lunatics. They will be aggressive, hateful, obnoxious people who will attack you if you have different opinion that doesn't align with their own; and their reasoning is that society is aggressive and tries to attack their freedoms.

In short, most writers are people who believe in human spirit and they are trying to help their fellow men not realizing that they are protecting and glorifying lunatics.

Depends on how far you want to go with it and how much time you have. Tiger warrior training is a must. Try to rally up the local gods for help. If you have sorcery then use it to load the place down with traps that will screw them over. Though personally I would just train everyone and take off.

Why are they jacking up DB numbers again?

New areas mostly I think.

Realm was always about Ten Thousand Dragons and there was another Ten Thousand outside of it. But we may have never thought about Lost Egg numbers. That combined with the new areas adding on an additional 5k seems fine.

The whole "10k Dragons" thing was meant to include just Realm DB's. That means Lost Egg numbers that join the Realm.

Now they've got 15k+Lost Eggs, or am I reading this wrong?

I don't think the Realm had literally 10 000 DRagon-Blooded before, at least on in 2E:

You read it wrong. They say the Realm has 15k total. 5k of that 15k are Lost Eggs. So 10k Dynasts and 5k pickups.

You're reading it wrong. There are 10,000 DBs that are Dynasts. Then they have 5,000 DBs that are Lost Eggs is literally any DB that isn't part of the Dynasty. Mortals in peasant families that Exalt on the Blessed Isle are Lost Eggs, as are mortals who Exalt way out in the Threshold that come to the Blessed Isle or are scooped up by some other DBs.

Outcastes are any DBs that actively don't want to be part of the Realm, or by this reading, Lookshy as well.

Considering how big Creation is supposed to be it makes sense to increase Dragonblood numbers.

What ratio do you think there should be between mortals and DBs? How many mortals per Dragonblooded?

That depends. What is the population of Creation?

Doesn't matter, what's the ratio you feel is right?

1 DB every 1,000 mortals? 1 DB every 100,000? What's your ro

Somewhere between 1,000 to 5,000 mortals per Dragonblood.

And the population of Creation does matter when deciding it. If creation's population is 1 billion with a Dragonblood ration of 1 per 100,000 mortals then that would result in only 10,000 Dragonbloods.

Less than one per 10,000. Aside from that feeling right to me, I think it's also close to what the ration was before. Well, maybe it was more like 1 DB for 20,000 mortals in 2E. I seem to recall there were roughly half a billion mortals in the Creation.

The ratio is the only thing that matters because it gives you the proportion that feels correct. It determines their rarity and it determines their relative value and the sort of problems that expect a Dragonblood response. The total population is unimportant.

A 1:10 ratio would mean there's enough DBs to solve almost every problem while a 1:100,000 means they are much rarer and the world is impacted much less by their presence. The ratio being the important thing is it lets you see what positions could possibly be filled by Dragonbloods versus requiring mortals to manage things.

The population of Creation is somewhere around 500 million and we have around maybe 30,000 DBs now. The 25,000 previously mentioned and the 2,000 in Presad. Adding another 3k for random other places that the devs didn't included in the original 25k number.

That gives us a 1:~17,000 ratio. Adding more DBs will lower this ratio, drastically changing the makeup of societies, most importantly the Realm.

>half a billion mortals in the Creation.
That seems rather low for Creation's size.

>The population of Creation is somewhere around 500 million and we have around maybe 30,000 DBs now. The 25,000 previously mentioned and the 2,000 in Presad. Adding another 3k for random other places that the devs didn't included in the original 25k number.

Those would be the 5000 outcasts.

Nope.

>Vance: The Realm has ~15,000 Dragon-Blooded, of whom ~5000 are Lost Eggs. Lookshy has ~5,000, and there are ~5000 Outcastes.

>Q: Is that separate from the outcaste 5000 as well?

>Vance: Yes, it's separate.

Minton also said that Lookshy only has 3000 Dragonblooded. So the extra 2000 are not extra anymore.

Very close, I've been working with a friend to try and figure this sort of shit out. From what we've been able to gather this is our best guess at the population and number of Dragonblooded.

First Age: 10 billion Mortals. ~1 million DBs
This gives us a baseline of 1:10,000. The best ratio we can really expect since this was when the DB purity was still very high.

Shogunate: ~7 billion Mortals. 500 thousand DBs
Here we get a 1:14,000. Arrived at this due to increased breeding with mortals and likely large casualties after the Usurpation and the warring in the Shogunate.

Post-Contagion: 700 million Mortals. 50 thousand DBs
Same ratio, 1:14,000 but 9/10th of everything died and affected every pretty evenly so we get 1/10th as many mortals and DBs

Post-Balorian Crusade: 300 million Mortals. 10 thousand DBs
Here we get a 1:30,000 ratio, a large die off of mortals from the Balorian Crusade however a much larger die off of DBs since they'd likely be on the front and dying a lot more. 60% mortals die off, 80% of DBs die off.

Current Year: 500 million Mortals. ~30,000 DBs
1:~17,000 ratio. DBs aren't dying at the same rates as in the Balorian Crusade so they bounce back a good bit faster on top of the organized eugenics the Empress has implemented leads to a fairly logical amount. Blood purity is still very far from the First Age and Shogunate numbers due to increased breeding with Mortals to get those numbers up fast.

It's about right. Creation is overall smaller but has a better land area to ocean ratio which leads to a bit more habitable land but I'd guess Creation is a bit more dangerous so I'd say it's fair to compare them.

The world population on Earth was ~500 million somewhere in 1300-1500 is the best guess. Roughly comparable technology in health and agriculture. I derived the 300 million number for post-Balorian Crusade from going back in our world about 800 years from the 500 million population mark which gives us 280-310 million people. Which I feel makes a good amount of sense.

Where was that mentioned? Do you have a link?

forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/exalted/1069023-ask-the-devs/page208

Ah yeah I saw it as soon as I asked, I was in the Dev thread making sure I had the numbers right.

Well that means my calculations aren't fucked, so that's good.

You could argue that gods could lead to more production.

I think 1 billion is a better number but 500 million is fine.

Doesn't "ten thousand" in chinese culture usually mean 'a very large number' rather than a literal ten thousand?

Most gods aren't all that active in the matters of men, though, and I'd say that supernatural dangers of the Creation probably balance its supernatural boons.

It does, and that's probably the the sense where the expression is used in Ten Thousand Dragons.

That's what neomah are for

I seem to recall the Realm pretty anti-demon.

Yeah, except when Mnemon is around, because she gets to flout all the rules for absolutely no fucking reason.

She is the Empress's eldest surviving child (Though Ragara is older but is either on death's door and/or suffering from dementia)

Isn't she also supposed to be ridiculously devout too? And don't the Immac's really not like anyone summoning demons?

She is a devotee of the Immaculate Order, and one of her daughters is the current Mouth of Peace. The main difference between her and the Empress herself is that unlike her mother, she genuinely believes in the Immaculate Order.

As for demon summoning, it's still legal in the Realm if you're licensed for it. Technically a Dragonblood is supposed to shepherd mortals rather than abuse them to, according to the Immaculate Order. Sorcery itself is stigmatized, though only in some Great Houses.

Heaven itself actually approves of summoning First Circle Demons to do your bitch work because it reinforces Demons' place at the very bottom of the Celestial Order.

>Devout

Isn't she in the know about the Sidereals? Is it possible to be devout to something that is a fabrication used to keep the nation in check?

Her mother is in the know, but the most Mnemon herself has is suspicions.

> Complaining about that
> In exalted, where everyone is Bi
It's common practice in the realm, they're just expected to pump out DB heirs, through lovers.

Not true, they don't want a shit ton of DBs with zero impulse control and poor upbringing in the Realm they actually strive for a spiritually enlightened, well educated, composed noble class. They should only be officially having kids in wedlock and anything outside of that isn't considered legitimate.

Further, DB marriages are 99% political, meant to bring two families together for mutual benefit. For though the child will be born into the mother's House, the father keeps his own name and it is still recognized as his child, the child's deeds reflect well on both the mother and the father. This way the parent Houses want to maintain and not cause harm to one another because it could cause harm to the child Dragonblood or from their perspective an important asset. So both Houses want to stay cool.

Now, homosexuality has little to no stigma in the Realm in fact often times it is seen as a much more intelligent and reliable way to avoid bastards. Two dudes fucking can't have a kid, neither can two ladies fucking. But for them to get married? There's barely any point. That marriage won't further the House's goals in any way real other than the alliance derived from the two members presumably liking one another.

Continued with a quote from a writer.

>Because the Dynasty is in so many ways so terrible, it feels really weird to keep all those terrible factors and then say "Despite their natalism and domineering attitude towards their children and focus on filial piety and borderline-to-obviously-not-borderline abusive childrearing techniques, the Dynasty is surprisingly tolerant and enlightened when it comes to same-sex relationships!" ...but it also feels unconscionable to tell LGBT players "Ahah, even now after you can get gay married in real life, the primary social play venue of our imaginary fantasyland does not support gay marriage for your original characters (do not steal), because of reasons!" The setting exists the way it does because we write it that way. You can't hide behind "But it makes no sense because setting" when you're the reason the setting is the way it is.

>So gay marriage in the Dynasty in 3e is no longer just not a thing. All the factors motivating its discouragement are still around -- the Realm's interest in strong inheritence tracking and precise lineage records, its distrust of sorcerers and demons, the unreliability of sorcerous workings -- but they also exist in the context of a world that's been run by god- and element-chosen heroes shaping the world according to their epic passions since the dawn of history.

So, gay marriage is a thing now because it'd feel kind of mean to LGBT people and they can easily rewrite the setting to have it make sense.

I don't know what you have been smoking.

You have a really weird vision of Realm. Marriage is for alliance and making DragonBlood heirs. That being said no normal human being would allow for his partner (even just for political marriage) to make a child and try to tell you it is your own. Cathak Cainan's father almost killed his wife when he found out one of children wasn't his own. Leedal Kes and his wife are both homosexual. Reason why they are married is because their petitioned their families and are trying their best to keep that marriage profitable to their families. Marriages can be made void in the Realm. Just because they prefer company of their own sex didn't stop them from siring 6 children. Duty to the Realm comes first.

Affairs are common place because DragonBlood live for 300 years and stay in their prime for almost entirety of it. That doesn't mean affairs are open and public knowledge. Facts and proofs are weapons that can be used to ruin someone. And sometimes just rumors are enough to ruin a family. Either their social and political status or the family destroys itself because there is no more trust between them.

And lastly, when it comes to homosexuality Realm doesn't have the same view as we do. Weakness in women and effeminacy in men is not allowed. DB is a warrior culture and being "soft" is a weakness that isn't allowed.

Haha. Why I'm not surprised that that was written by Stephen Lea Sheppard? Few times I seen his posts on the boards it is mostly about "look how progressive and enlighten we are".

No they're not. They're supposed to produce LEGITIMATE heirs. That's the whole point of marriage, so you don't create aberrant or bastard bloodlines. The Realm wants to keep the power of the DB Exaltation where they can track it, because they're effectively running an eugenics program.

It makes no sense to have a homosexual marriage and to conceive through lovers, because that is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the Realm's objective. Look at Ledaal Kes: He's gay as hell and his wife is a lesbian, but he's still conceived multiple legitimate children with her.

I don't know why you guys are even trying anymore. It is a lost cause. You are trying to reason with a crowd that will complain why there are no black transexuals in viking campaign.

God fucking dammit.

I just can't deal with shit anymore.

What build do you recommend for playing pic related with the serial numbers carefully filed off?

Solar Melee and a better picture of her than that.

Baiken was my jam, after Faust, of course.

I do think they fucked up with choosing to use the word effeminacy. DB men and women are equal, there wouldn't be any connotation of weakness when you call someone womanly of feminine therefore such words wouldn't really exist. They should have used weak and soft as negative traits that DB culture seeks to avoid in both men and women.

Does anyone have "recommended readings/watchings" for people trying to get into the atmosphere of the game?

I've got a play list more than a read list, though there are some books in it. But most of it is manga and games.

FF4
FF6
FF7
FF9
Romance of the 3 Kingdoms
Dynasty Warriors
Hellsing (not the OVA, read the manga),
Berserk (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NOT ANYTHING BUT THE MANGA, JUST READ THE MANGA, ONLY THE MANGA)
Any number of 60's, 70's, and 80's kung fu flicks. All of them, really. Just watch all of them.
Kung Fu Hustle
Indiana Jones (all except 4 obviously)
Shinobi (PS2)
Metal Gear Solid (all)
Metal Gear Rising Revengence
Guilty Gear (Xrd and above)
Soul Calibur

I miss the fujos, I prefer them and their seme uke bullshit to this nonsense

You could largely ignore them unlike these people.

Tales from the Flat Earth is pretty good, and Exalted's setting took a lot of inspiration from the series. I've only read two books so far, but I'd recommend it.

I would suggest Three Kingdoms tv series (you can watch entire thing on youtube) and Thunderbolt Fantasy

...

This show works pretty well, especially for presenting the few things that must be true for the more fatalist parts of Exalted.
youtube.com/watch?v=HmhVK9onFLY

>That doesn't mean affairs are open and public knowledge.
They kind of are, though. 1E DB book states that it's polite to sort of pretend to keep affairs secret - not talking about them openly in public and so on - but they usually aren't actually secrets. Everyone knowing who you're fucking is not a big deal as long as everyone has room to act like they don't know who you're fucking, so rumours about these things obviously aren't enough to ruin anyone or anything. Other than that you're completely right, though.

There is no conspiracy to make traditional games politically correct. Characters in fiction and gaming communities simply change with respect to the latest cultural values. But you fedora-tipping cancerous fucks always blame imaginary SocJus boogeymen when people start hating you for the shit that you do. As long as you continue to refuse act like decent human beings, people will keep noticing.

But of course, you will keep blaming imaginary "SJWs", "poseurs" and "normies" when you the public hates you for the scum you are. And let's not even get started on how you all react to games becoming more popular and easily accessible.

>Realm was always about Ten Thousand Dragons
In 2e the Realm explicitly has ~20k DBs. 'Ten Thousand' is just a Chinese way of saying 'a lot.'

>There is no conspiracy to make traditional games politically correct

Are you seriously believing the shit you are saying?

Why the fuck would you respond to obvious shitposting, especially shitposting done with an old, stale pasta? Were you dropped on your head as a child or something?

Because with time I'm seriously not sure anymore if someone is shitposting or actually standing behind what they are saying. I knew individuals that went with wage gap and similar shit. Would never predict that happening.

There's an old pasta with no connection to the post it replied to. It's obvious shitposting. You have some genuine brain problems if you even entertained the thought of that post being anything else.

>So, gay marriage is a thing now because it'd feel kind of mean to LGBT people and they can easily rewrite the setting to have it make sense.
It should be noted that one of the first replies to Sheppard's statement was from a gay guy who basically went "Eh, I liked the old way better". On the positive side, Sheppard makes it seem like gay marriage is still rare and unusual rather than commonplace. I can deal with some extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances managing to subvert the social expectations without becoming pariahs.

There is no conspiracy to make traditional games politically incorrect. Characters in fiction and gaming communities simply change with respect to the latest cultural values. But you diversity-shilling cancerous fucks always blame imaginary /pol/ boogeymen when people start hating you for the shit that you do. As long as you continue to refuse act like decent human beings, people will keep noticing.

But of course, you will keep blaming imaginary "Kekistani", "misogynists" and "fedoras" when you the public hates you for the scum you are. And let's not even get started on how you all react to games becoming more complex and interesting.

Lookshy has been dropped to 3,000 in the Ask The Devs thread.

lol why are you fucking dorks getting mad about an imaginary bisexual again

Because they're very serious about their 2e fluff. I wonder how many people from sufficient velocity post here, that would explain a lot.

I know it shouldn't annoy me, but as a non-LGBT person who has played both LGBT and non-LGBT characters I am irked at the phrase:-

> it also feels unconscionable to tell LGBT players "Ahah, even now after you can get gay married in real life, the primary social play venue of our imaginary fantasyland does not support gay marriage for your original characters (do not steal), because of reasons!"

What am I to read here? That non-LGBT can't have LGBT OC donuts steels? That it's okay to tell non-LGBT players that their character can't marry because reasons? It's just an unnecessary qualifier to tag onto that comment.

Okay Kevin

Also God-Hand for Solar Brawl fun

So, anons, Lookshy has 1 Royal (Artifact N/A) Warstrider, while the Realm has 3.

A Craft Supernal Twilight uses Sorcery to send a message to them: Call off any Wyld Hunts targeting himself and his Circle, and he'll make them Royal Warstriders in exchange for Dragonblooded wives.

How do you picture Lookshy responding to this?

There'll probably be people both for and against it. An N/A Warstrider is a really tempting offer, but Lookshy has managed to fend off the Realm with the resources it has so far, and consorting with the foul Anathema is just wrong as far as the Lookshy's religion is conserned. If I was the ST in a situation like that, I'd say that Lookshy would, by default, reject that offer, but not without discussion. Clever schemes and diplomacy might change this outcome. Dragon-Blooded wives might be too much, though.

The manga Kingdom is Exalted as fuck. It's also really good. It tells the story of the unification of China during the Warring States Period, from the point of view of Qin. Most generals and high-end bureocrats are hilariously superhuman in either body, mind or both. Also the way they conceptualize the relation between armies and they leaders is very Exalted-y.

Probably something like this.

youtube.com/watch?v=6PqMe7fydq4

The Ravages of Time is a great adaptation of the Romance of Three Kingdoms. It does, however, focus much more on the schemers. Still, DONT PURSUE LU BU!

Feng Shen Ji has amazing art and a very Exalted feel, but it isn't that great of a plot. It suffers the Bleach syndrome...