Exalted Beginner

I'm starting to get more and more into Exalted, to the point where I almost think I'm ready to play, but the biggest hurdle in all of this for me is my unfamiliarity with the system it runs on.

I've only played about 6-8 months of DND 5e, and that's the extent of my tabletop rpgs experience (for tabletop in general I've been playing 40k for a bit less time, but that's not relevant to my knowledge).

Is there anything any veterans can share about the game? Which playstyles work better than others, details on how the system works, overpowered/underpowered skills/talents/whatever the term is, etc?

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>Is there anything any veterans can share about the game?

Sure. First off, go for 3rd edition, it is the best mechanics the game has had. Keep things simple to start off with, and just use the foes in the book itself since there isn't much material for 3E out yet.

To be characters from a game called exalted they seem so... uninterested

Second, don't be too worried about the power of PC's. They're supposed to be strong, as Exalted is less about overcoming obstacles, as what you're going to do when they're overcome. Say you liberate a small city state. What now? Who's gonna govern it? You probably decimated part of their standing forces and possibly killed off their leadership. Are you just going to leave it to collapse, or are you in charge now?

The art in 3E is honestly pretty shit all around. It was clearly the last thing they did, and paid the least amount of money for.

Just swipe art from these threads or the internet, it usually captures the feel much better anyway. Especially since 3E for whatever reason, took a much more "western fantasy" approach to a lot of the art which both doesn't fit the setting, and looks painfully generic.

The traditional overpowered skill (for Solars at least) is usually Melee. Melee's always been the best for Solars in every edition, because it does a lot, and does it well. That doesn't mean other fighting skills are bad, just Melee tends to edge them out.

This differs greatly for other Exalt types. Sidereals basically never touch anything but Martial Arts, for example, due to how they function.

In any case, things in 3E tend to be much more focused overall, due to Supernal's now being a thing. It basically allows a character damn near unlimited access to one skill's Charms, bypassing the usual big restriction on taking Charms: Essence. Whatever is the character's Supernal, they ignore the Essence requirement for determining if they can take any given charm from that ability. So you can have fresh Solars running around with top tier Charms in a single thing. Which is fine, this intended. You're supposed to be movers and shakers.

Although, there are a couple good pieces inside the Ex3 corebook. Pic related, as it is, in my opinion, the best piece in the entire book.

>It was clearly the last thing they did, and paid the least amount of money for.

And a lot of it was plagiarized

That said, theres some things that are kind of weak points in the system. A lot of people hate the Craft's system and Charm trees. A lot of people find issues with Martial Arts due to requiring a surcharge and being something of a point sink now. But neither of these are worth bothering to try and modify for newcomers to the system, so just play it as is.

It's not a bad piece, but man, beyond the fact Volfer is standing there in his underoo's, it's otherwise pretty damn generic looking. Thats my biggest problem, personally, with a lot of 3E art. That pic wouldn't look out of place at all in a D&D book or similar. They completely disregarded the games heavily asian/anime art roots in most of the art.

That too. Oh man, that was a shitshow from start to finish wasn't it? Still, it's a lot easier to find good art than it is to find good rules. So I'm "happy" the art was shit and not the rules.

What about sorcery? That stuck out to me when I was reading through because I'm usually a huge fan of magic in whatever fantasy thing I'm in at the moment. How does it compare to melee or other skills in general?

Also thank you
I believe you're all the same user but just in case thank all of you

Sorcery's in a good place in 3E, so you should have some fun with it. In older editions, it was a lot more volatile and basically a complete joke if you tried to use it for anything combat related (outside of a few spells, anyway).

And yeah those are all me. I usually hang around Exalted threads to dump art when I post.

Anyway, lets see, what else...

Oh, yeah. If your experience so far is nothing but D&D, well...Exalted doesn't really work like that. Theres no daily powers, usually not much dungeon delving, no CR's or levels or whatever. You have to eyeball if things are gonna be too hard/too easy for your players. There can definitely be power disparity's in the game because you're pretty free to choose what you want to do, and not everything is gonna be created equal.

One thing to mention is action economy in 3E is pretty low. Characters usually get 1 attack, and thats it, most of the time. There are Charms that let you get multiple attacks, but those tend to be more costly than most other Charms. Multiple dudes on one guy can turn out very ugly, depending on how they're built. Or it can just be one dude mowing through a bunch easily, again, all depending how they're built.

If you've only got DnD in mind, some things are going to seem real weird to you.

PCs might seem OP. This is normal. Exalted is about big fucking heroes, so they're expected to be way above most "usual" problems they'll encounter, and you're gonna have to pull out the big guns when you want to actually challenge them. Which brings me to the next point.

Scale is gonna seem weird to you. A typical game of Exalted won't be as narratively confined as what you're gonna be used to from DnD. First of all, "Dungeon crawl as plot for a couple sessions, then back to the city to find more adventure" does not tend to work, mostly because that Dungeon's not gonna last long unless you're being a deliberate prick of a DM. Most likely, the Night player will get through it alone in 30 minutes, nab anything of importance, assassinate the boss, and be back for supper. Conversely, the big guns I mentioned above might involve dropping an actual army, god, or cathedral on them, or blowing up the city they're in because the necromancer-spy who's been tailing them finally found the remains of the giant behemoth underneath. In other words, things can get wild quick, and quickly involve many more people than you'd first expected.

Not having to write your entire adventure might seem weird to you. Exalted's setting is extremely detailed, especially if you start mining previous editions for good material. Coupled with that, PCs will have very obvious drives and goals from the onset. Thus, you don't write an adventure so much as set the scene, place the actors, give the first push and let it all fall into place as your PCs drive the entire plot themselves.

Having a PC with no fighting abilities whatsoever might seem weird to you.

GMing rules for Exalted that might go directly opposite to popular GMing wisdom :

- The Players sometimes have more narrative agency than the GM.
- Don't hesitate to split the party.
- It will go just as planned, because you didn't plan anything.

>Theres no daily powers

Well, almost no daily powers. That was a bit of a mistake for me to phrase it like that. I should've said "most things in the game do not have a use restriction on them. As long as you can pay the listed costs, you can use it. Some things do have other restrictions, but those are usually the exception, not the rule".

>a lot of it was plagiarized

Incorrect. Two pieces were plagiarized, one of which (Ketchup Carjack looking into the Loom) managed the supreme tour-de-force of plagiarizing many pieces at once.

One (the dinos fighting in a river one) was said to have been plagiarized by some, but I remain unconvinced.

I'm not aware of any other ones. Two to three out of everything in the book rings a lot like "too much", as one would be enough for that, but doesn't sound like "a lot".

...

Why are most of them white?

Clearly some inspiration going on here, but I wouldn't say it's similar enough to count as plagiarism.

Because creation has more light skinned folk than dark skinned folk and on top of that one of the major dark skinned characters is drawn white in this picture because the artist got triggered by the idea of a black person with red hair.

To expound on combat abilities quite a bit.

Melee is the "do everything" ability. No matter what kind of fight you're in, you'll have something that you can use to come out on top. It's also very good at overcoming high defence enemies, thanks to clash based charms. It's mix of defence and offence allows you to take it with no supplementary defensive abilities such as Dodge or Resistance.

Archery wants to stay far away from enemies. It's slow to start up, but a single decisive attack can be all it needs to take down an enemy. It also has a number of area control tricks.

Thrown wants to end the fight immediately, and has a number of tricks for going first and dealing damage on your first turn. For this reason it goes well with Stealth, a little too well, some might argue.

Brawl is great for dueling and 1-on-1 fights. It can deal insane amounts of damage focusing on one guy, which is great if you end up wrestling a Kaiju. It has little in the way of defensive tricks, and hates to be outnumbered.

Martial Arts is an umbrella term, there are currently 11 publish, and they are all quite specialized. White Reaper eats up armies, but struggles against small groups and in duels, Ebon Shadow synergizes with Stealth, Black Claw turns every onlooker against your opponent by making you appear weak and helpless, and so on.

Dodge and Resistance are fighting styles unto themselves, but have no way to end a fight, which necessitates the need for one of the above abilities.

The actual issue is the artist is asian and, surprisingly, people from more homogeneous regions tend to make art that's more homogeneous.

Yup, that's pretty much the conclusion I arrived at at the time too.

I'm feeling like we're focussing a lot on Combat Abilities in these answers. C'mon Anons, those are only 6 out of 26 abilities. Exalted's cool because you can do so much more than fight, and with style.

I mean look at something like Lore and the amount of shenanigans you can get up to with just that and a bit of social backing. Hell, have one of the other PCs ensure your protection, ain't nothing happening to you with your Dawn Bodyguard around!

Combat is quickly and easily quantifiable in any game. "I can spend X Essence over Y Turns to kill Z enemies before I lose any health."

Most other abilities, save Craft and Sorcerous Workings tend to have more narrative based outcomes. But since you want to talk about them, what do you have to say?

Well, considering OP comes from DnD, I'd start by saying that even though what you just said about combat is true, Exalted does support the kind of playstyle where combat can simply not be a thing that happens for a number of sessions.

Combat can be a big part of the game, but encounter design in Exalted doesn't have to involve physical combat. The wealth of non-combat abilities available, and the fact they're all supported to the same degree as combat abilities are, allows the GM a lot of creativity when it comes to challenging players and populating their world.

I think that divide you talk about is worth mentioning in itself. Combat Abilities give you different ways to kick arse, while non combat abilities will make you Moses or a master of trade or the sneakiest sneak to ever sneak, and those things are ofter way more important than fighting prowess.

Moreover, they can make combat characters feel more rounded, while providing very attractive options. A dip in Presence or Athletics is a very good idea for any combat-oriented character, for example.

So I guess what I have to say is that I encourage OP not to focus too much on combat abilities at first if they want to understand the variety that makes Exalted so interesting, and exactly how powerful Solar charms can get. Combat might be easily quantifyable, but God-King's Shrike is definitely easier to apprehend as an example.

what is a campaign of exalted about? does it starts with you are solars and you all meet in a tavern

This is a hard question to answer. An Exalted campaign is really about whatever the PCs want it to be about. As for me, I like to keep in mind that the Realm (the largest government in the world who want to crush the returning Solars because they think they're demons) is currently without a head. That means not only that the Realm's influence on the rest of the world is slipping for the first time in hundreds of years, but also that every major player in the Realm has a stake in the succession war. No matter what the PCs are doing, the Realm almost always figures into the goings-on of an Exalted campaign, if only because there's no better way to win yourself the favor of the Great Houses than to take down a powerful group of Anathema.

Besides that, Exalted campaigns could be about founding a new Solar empire, taking down the Realm, saving the Realm, plundering the vaults of Heaven, plundering the riches of Hell, plundering the secrets of the Underworld, destroying the Guild, or stopping any of the half-dozen potential apocalypses that could be on the verge of destroying Creation. Really, it's up to the players. Solars, as a rule, have big dreams and not a lot can meaningfully impede them from chasing those dreams. If the Dawn wants to be the greatest swordsman in the cosmos, then his part of the game is about perfecting his skills to whatever their limits are and seeking out ever stronger opponents. If the Twilight wants to rebuild the greatest wonders of the First Age, then her part of the game is going to be about raiding ancient libraries that haven't been unearthed in thousands of years and searching the world over for Sorcery's greatest secrets.

The default assumption, IIRC, is that all of the players have been Solar Exalts for a year or less, and all already know each other. So from that you could go, "You all stand before the king, who has heard of your deeds" or "You all arrive at the gates of [City Name] only to find that [plot hook has happened]" or "You open the door to the ancient temple and step inside, the first people to do so in over 1,000 years."

Another recommendation is to start a game of Mortals and have them Exalt by the end of the first session. This lets them come to grips with the system without needing to worry about Essence or charms. It's also not a bad idea to do the latter as a one shot with very player, and then time skip to where they're all together.

When did Demetheus become a proud atheist?

Anyone got giant animals made of human bones with human skulls for a face? Mantis preferably, but others are welcome.

OP here,

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to this. I still have some questions, but this has helped exponentially

Also, sorry but I don't know who that is, along with anyone else in the actual picture. I just needed something to put for the file.

If you can tell me where I can find out more about individuals from Creation, then I'd be happy to do more research, but as it stands I really just know the Scarlet Empress, a bit of that one Bronze faction Sidereal, and some random exigent who saved her farming village from a horde of Fair Folk

Keep asking questions, that'll let people answer'em. Also the guy above is joking, it's because one of the Exalt's looks like he's wearing a fedora.

Is there any goodcomprehensive writeup of the lore? I mean especially the details. After skimming the books i have a good idea of the general tone but no about the people of the setting, their languages, manners habits etc. The stuff you need to fill in for some colour

Did OP post official art? That's Weiss from RWBY standing in for the Twillight chick.

Page 12 of the Ex3 core book. And again on pages 38 and 39.

What's your favourite bit of art from the book What's you least favourite?

Is there a good premade starter available?

>What's your favourite bit of art from the book What's you least favourite?

I wouldn't need to ask if it was official if I had looked through that book.

There's the Tomb of Five Corners quickstart on drivethru

>He's moving to Exalted after 6 months of 5e as his only gaming background
OP, I'm very, very proud of you. Expanding from your first system is a real challenge, and it's a very good thing that you're doing.

Honestly, the best thing you can do is stick to it. Stick to it, and learn other systems as well. Spend time with them until you're completely out of your run and you become comfortable with new systems easily.

>Tomb of Five Corners
It's shit.

Thanks guys. I am not op but I have been in two games of Exalted so far. One short first, then a long one. And let me tell you it took a lot of time to "sorta" get used to it. (Not completely mind you)

Even now, after four month of playing that longer campaign, there were many things I've been struggling to come into terms with, and asking /exg/ didn't help any. But these advices did. Thanks a lot again.

Honestly I find the art from all Edition to be pretty shit. People keep saying it's a great anime game but every time I look at the art it feels like those Tokyopop American "Manga", especially with all the super diversity when I was expecting nothing but Asians and Indians.

>especially with all the super diversity when I was expecting nothing but Asians and Indians

Fun fact: Exalted was originally going to be nothing but black people, because the original idea was that they'd be the people the Sun favored most and the only ones to survive the Primordial era.

I don't believe you.

...

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>especially with all the super diversity when I was expecting nothing but Asians and Indians.

From an entire world?

...

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Art is most rpgs is shit because it has no cohesion or unity of theme. Good examples of art style unity are planescape books, one ring rpg and 5ed D&D.

Uran's art looks so fucking good as linework and watercolor. Whoever the colorist was for E3 should be fucking fired, they ruined that beautiful fucking linework.

And if it was Uran themselves that did it, they need to go back to doing only linework and watercolors.

I think they need to hire only Melissa for artwork. With the speed the books are published she has enough time create art for entire book.

I certainly wouldn't say no to that.

I actually just ran my first session of this last weekend. Been wondering where the generals went. Lot of bookkeeping involved and the players weren't too clued up on the rules but the end report was they enjoyed it.

Hitting them with the Social Influence rules next session so interesting to see how that goes.

>Been wondering where the generals went

Whoever usually makes them hasn't been making them. I'd make one, but...I'd do it poorly. I don't care to maintain a detailed OP, let alone one filled with old resources. If I did it it'd be little more than a picture and the words "Exalted General" at the top.

Not that user, but I've heard this claim too. I'm not sure if it is actually true or not. Same with the "Dragon-Blooded were originally going to be the game's core splat" thing.

We're newlt minted Essence 2 PCs in our Exalted game, and one of the biggest ways we've found to help with the bookkeeping is cheatsheets. Each one of us have written up cheatsheets and charm combos with costs, etc; as well as knowing how our own charms work (with page references as needed). The core mechanics are pretty simple: it's how the charms modify that system that really bogs it down.

The social rules are awesome IF you use them correctly. Just be aware it's very much a "long game" situation - the rules rewards scouting out and researching your opposition in a big way.

I'd run a quick combat test against myself to feel it out beforehand and I'd recommended to the players to develop a "fighting style" charms to use when and in tandem with which etc, but it still took the first fight for them to figure things out.

More for me just keeping track of Onslaught and other types of penalties etc. I'll probably make myself a quick checklist whenever someone's round comes up. I also had some fan made cheat sheet but I found it kinda variable in usefulness. I also noticed its missing the Command rules though that won't come up for a bit anyway.

I think I figured out another boundry I have Exalted. Reading all these advices, I realized that I am trying to fix things. Fix the gorlillion amount of problems the setting is fighting with and what's making everyone's lives worse.

But the setting of Exalted, despite it's very deep layers, is ultimately a setting that is (aside from very rare stories) meant to be destroyed.

The chances are that every faction could be saved/satisfied, is incredibly slim. Not just because it would take a LOT, even by exalt standards, but also because the players are all playing people with the capacity to understand, and the desire to make things better is very unlikely. Not to mention the incredible lenght of the campaign it would take.

It is much simpler just focusing on one or two problems, and destroy the rest.
As another guy put earlier; we play shakers and movers. You don't fix things mostly by shaking and moving them.

Pic also related. I also tried to go by logic too many times.
Note to self; Next time just make a classic epic character where I don't have to worry about the mortals.

I only make one if something important happens or we were mid-discussion when the thread closed. Nothing important ever happens though. I am still wondering how hard it is to draw daiklaves.

Honestly I think they should just get some Korean or Japanese artists to do most of the art.

>That said, theres some things that are kind of weak points in the system. A lot of people hate the Craft's system and Charm trees. A lot of people find issues with Martial Arts due to requiring a surcharge and being something of a point sink now. But neither of these are worth bothering to try and modify for newcomers to the system, so just play it as is.

Well if you want to have a Crafter have fun then I would. Especially when you can cut the 50+ charm tree for Craft down to the average charm tree size by cutting any mention of the word Crafting slot or Craft XP gaining charms. Then just ditch the Craft slots and Crafting XP needed to finish mechanics.

I'm just saying it sort of takes away from the theme when you suddenly throw Africans or Europeans into your Anime inspired kung-fu game.

Nah. Although I love oriental art Japs, Koreans and Chinese all have broken understanding of English. And secondly Melissa Uran is a iconic artist for Exalted game line. She isn't on same high level of quality as many asians but her art isn't lifeless. Her artwork in previous editions wasn't always superb but when she nailed it she fucking NAILED it.

It's also sword and sandals based with a heavy inspiration of Greek Myth.

I understand what you are saying but it falls short when Japs themselves prefer medieval european fantasy (but they still include 1,000 times folded katana).

...

The dude does not even know how the game works yet and you already want him to start fiddling around with homebrew?

user, be reasonable now.

As well as Bronze Age inspired, and Bronze Age Civilizations were mostly situated in northern africa and the middle east.

The crafter in me hurts user. I think of the other crafters.

Yeah I have a slight feeling that come from the authors not actually understanding anything about actual asian religions and the fact that Ki (Essence) is just something that everyone has access to if you understand how to use it.

Certainly but man do they also love the ever loving shit out of there historical/mythological fiction. Plus there is the Chinese element in there as well.

I've seen enough Japanese and Koreans that understand English, at least in writing, that I don't think that hiring them would be to far fetched. Of course I'd be willing to shell out whatever money I need for translation in order to get someone like Akira Toriyama to do some art for it so take that as you will.

>But the setting of Exalted, despite it's very deep layers, is ultimately a setting that is (aside from very rare stories) meant to be destroyed.

Well its meant for the Solars to shitkick the status quo's ass and take names yes. If you are the storyteller there are quite a few Solar circles out there doing exactly what your group is doing. Let them take care of the other issues. They can become issues later if you want. But then again I've had games where the Realm survives.

>implying they shouldn't be

>not being the one Solar who realizes that the return of a solar Empire would also destroy the world, as it nearly did last time
>not finding some compromise with the Sidereals to fix creation

Honestly the only real way to pull it off seems to be to kick down Conkers door and tell him he's a fucking faggot and everything's on fire SO PUT THE XBOX DOWN

Be aware that the game is very difficult to run in an organized fashion because there are the most frustrating mechanics of all: charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, sidereal charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, edgelords, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, abyssals, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, infernals, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms, charms and CHARMS.

That's a pretty unique opinion. How contrarian of you.

They did that once. Look up the cover for Savant and the Sorcerer.

A) Pick up your daiklave and sheath at the same time and cast away your sheath.
B) Don't have a full sheath. Have a sheath that is partly open with a clasp around the grip. Undo the clasp and pull your sword a little and it's free.
C) Wrap your daiklave in silk and carry it freely, discard the silk at the start of a fight.
D) Don't be shy, carry a godmetal surfboard on your shoulder like a badass.
E) Elsewhere.

Or let someone else deal with homebrewing. docs.google.com/document/d/1Pgj4L-Rmv2BK3efYhq6JAJx63WTI4k2q0IrlTi3KDZk/edit#heading=h.eteroqopy1xc

>Yeah I have a slight feeling that come from the authors not actually understanding anything about actual asian religions and the fact that Ki (Essence) is just something that everyone has access to if you understand how to use it.
What? You'll have to elaborate on this, user. Not on the nature of Ki, but on how it's relevant to Exalted.

>Same with the "Dragon-Blooded were originally going to be the game's core splat" thing.
That one is definitely true.

Play Godbound instead.

This.

I'm sorry but I'm onboard with trading shitty fake anime art for shitty genuine anime art. I most certainly don't want my book to look like it's some fucking Anima wannabe.

The great thing about the asian inspirations in Exated is that it doesn't draw from Anime so much as from the same sources as Anime does. Actual anime inspirations aren't actually that numerous.

>I only make one if something important happens

Ahh, ok, I see the problem then. Don't do that. Thats not really how Generals work. You just keep making them when the old one dies, otherwise people just sit there not making one. It's an RPG man, news ain't gonna come often, and some generals by default will have no news (ones for old games that aren't made anymore).

>Yeah I have a slight feeling that come from the authors not actually understanding anything about actual asian religions and the fact that Ki (Essence) is just something that everyone has access to if you understand how to use it.

In 2e this was slightly less true. Awakened Essence, however rare, was still something mortals could achieve. Also, all of the lore about Essence is derived just as much from aether and prana as from ki.

>The chances are that every faction could be saved/satisfied, is incredibly slim.

Dude, like, the reason a good 50% of the factions are complete and total dickwads is precisely so you don't want to save the fucks. Bronze faction? Realm? Nope, into the fucking blender they go. Deathlords? Right into Creation's shitter, to be flushed forever. Demons,Yozi? Fuck'em, they can't get out anyway. Perfect of Paragon? Shove the stick up his ass and then throw him into a volcano. Etc.

You're not supposed to want to save these 'tards, you're supposed to want to rip them asunder (possibly literally) and then remake something better in their place.

Yes, the problem with rpg art isn't where it's from, it's how much is paid for it. Most publishers want lots of art but don't want to pay very well for it, so even good artists tend not to do their best work because the amount of time a freelance artist can spend on a given commissioned piece is directly relative to how much they're getting paid for it.

HTK is a great artist though. Peoples problem with S&S was that they were fucking prudes. HTK's shit isn't even half as lewd as today's Japanese fucking card games meant for kid.

Both were true. Thankfully, both were also discarded, because a world of only black people is boring, and the DB's are the most boring, lifeless, generic part of the entire setting, being "guy with elemental powers".

Don't do this, Godbound is shit.

>Using OSR to run Exalted

>You're not supposed to want to save these 'tards, you're supposed to want to rip them asunder (possibly literally) and then remake something better in their place.
Deathlords are the only outright black-and-white evil among the people you listed, though. Most Bronze Faction SIdereals just try to do their job of keeping the reality together. People in the Realm are people, some of them ruthless fucks, some actually pretty decent guys. The Perfect runs a city-state whose main distinction is that its laws are better enforced than those of other places - the laws themselves aren't particularly unreasonable or oppressive. I mean, there are plenty of in-setting reasons for wanting to tear any of the people you listed asunder, but that's hardly the only reasonable reaction to their actions, and not necessarily the best, most most morally sound or most pragmatic one.

>I'm sorry but I'm onboard with trading shitty fake anime art for shitty genuine anime art.

What I meant was :
- I'm sorry but I'm NOT onboard with trading shitty fake anime art for shitty genuine anime art.

Meaning I'd rather we have good art, wherever it's from.

Now I'm also fine with most of the pieces in the corebook. Some are corny as shit but still enjoyable (Trauma Bear). Some are actually good (Blue Twilight for some reason I really like). A lot of them are, as was said by some above, just unremarkable.

A few are shameful : OP's one for example, and Scarlet's Photoshopped Thigh chief among them for the general fucking disaster that picture is.

Nah, it was gratuitous weeb shit. Her outfit is retarded, the cameltoe is ridiculous and center view and the obsidian butterflies are gold phantoms. It's a pretty bad picture all-round.

>The Perfect runs a city-state whose main distinction is that its laws are better enforced than those of other places - the laws themselves aren't particularly unreasonable or oppressive.
Only if you're okay with a perfectly totalitarian state. You sign the oath at a young age and it costs money to ever leave.

>People in the Realm are people, some of them ruthless fucks, some actually pretty decent guys

Yeah, the problem is they're all indoctrinated into a completely, literally false religion, and their entire system is filled with sycophants and inundated with ages of corruption.

The only way that shit is getting fixed is to burn it all. They're basically North Korea in fantasy form, minus the starvation.

>false religion

Something like 95% of the Immaculate teachings are either objectively true, the written laws of how Heaven operates or are at least pretty good ideas for how gods should interact with mortals without exploiting them. Literally the only parts of the faith that are complete bullshit relate to either spiritual purity and the rights and privileges that come with it or revisionist history.

Yeah, the Immaculate Faith is based on an older vaguely Confucianist religion. It talks a lot about helping those lesser than you and gods doing their jobs instead of using their power to extort their believers. It's also spiritually fulfilling.