Exalted General — /exg/

>ensuring stability
>trying to make one empire dominate everything
>an empire that actively bullies Gods
>an empire with literally no succession plans and an inability to operate without it's figurehead whatsoever to the point the entire shit heap is collapsing in under 5 years because she got ganked/went missing/is now a cocksleeve for AKU, THE MASTER OF EVIL/etc.
>it's also filled to the brim with absolute corruption at every level
>it's also pushing a factually wrong religion
>ensuring
>stability

I know you can chalk this all up to the curse, but even the most corrupt agent of Heaven could look at that for two seconds and realize it's a shitty Sidereal project thats gone tits up and definitely shouldn't be considered their job, just a pet project that flopped, hard.

No, they do actually get some years/decades of off time every few decades/centuries

>>an empire that actively bullies Gods
Terrestrial gods are barely gods though.
Rest of it spot on tho

A bigger question is how haven't the Sid's co-opted the Realm Defense Grid. You're telling me an organization filled with people who were alive during the actual First Age somehow couldn't get control of that shit, but a random no-name Dragonblooded could, and they couldn't just mindrape the shit out of her or punch her into unreality and install a figurehead that won't actively try to undermine them?

Or is this too another byproduct of "Sidereals literally can do nothing right, ever"?

Making spirits your bitch, seeing spirits, interacting with spirits, controlling spirits, mostly things to do with spirits.

Oh, let's not forget, there's one charm n Occult that lets you survive any attack that would kill you by bringing you to 1hp instead. It fails if you only have 1hp left, obviously.

Is you mom a shenanigan? Because I'm pretty sure she's what they get into.

Oh, and don't forget!

>said empire is also causing massive friction with damn near every society it meets, to the point the rest of the world that isn't under their heel actively tends to hate the shit out of them
>is literally in a cold war with another kingdom thats sitting on enough First Age weapons to nuke everything into literal glass
>said kingdom will also never back down from the Scarlet empire because they look at the head of said empire as a ill bred retard who lucked her way into the keys for the biggest gun in the world
>first thing the leader of said empire did when they got keys to said gun was to broadcast a message telling everyone to join her or fucking die by said gun
>head of the empire literally tries her best to keep even her own society in the shitter by being a contradictory bitch in a fools game of politiking
>ensuring
>stability

>>trying to make one empire dominate everything
This is better for stability than a bunch of equally powerful nations, though. As far as Heaven is concerned, one empire dominating everything should be just fine. Desirable, even.

>>an empire that actively bullies Gods
Celestial gods can't be bothered to pay attention to the Terrestrial Bureaucracy, and aren't bullied by the Immaculate Order themselves.

>>an empire with literally no succession plans and an inability to operate without it's figurehead whatsoever to the point the entire shit heap is collapsing in under 5 years because she got ganked/went missing/is now a cocksleeve for AKU, THE MASTER OF EVIL/etc.
Actually realizing this state of affairs would require Heaven to give a shit about the Creation instead of just assuming that everything's fine as long as Yu-Shan is there and Ambrosia keeps flowing in. Aside from that, the Empress' succession plan of "I need no successor because I'm going to rule forever" should seem kind of reasonable to entities who do actually live forever and who, if they're paying attention, know that the Empress seems to have some way to actually make that plan a reality.

>>it's also filled to the brim with absolute corruption at every level
There's plenty of corruption, sure. Not more of it than in other organizations, though, and certainly not as much as within the Celestial Bureaucracy.

>>it's also pushing a factually wrong religion
So? Nobody cares about what mortals believe as long as gods get their Ambrosia, which is currently plentiful.

To the extent that gods even care about the Creation, propping up the Realm absolutely can be sold as the best currently available way of maintaining stability.

Yup, war gods are going to love that shit, and less warlike gods have reasn to be satisfied with the fact that there's little chance of any of the Realm's enemies to actually shatter the satus quo.

>ensuring stability
>trying to make one empire dominate everything
Unification is dream of every civilization. Realm is good when you are invaded by Fair Folk or Wyld Barbarians. Then you cry for help. Rest of the time you tell the Realm to fuck off. This sound like "fuck the police! Help me officer! Rape! Rape!"
>an empire that actively bullies Gods
Gods should stop being lazy, corrupt cunts. Also Solars, Lunars etc. don't bully gods since when exactly? All Exalted are bullies
>an empire with literally no succession plans and an inability to operate without it's figurehead
There is no need for succession if ruler is practically immortal and has her fate rearranged constantly so nothing bad happens to her. Also Realm could function without empress. Empress only has last vote if the laws or decrees would be passed or not. Think Commander-in-chief. If her presence was needed at every level then Realm would break apart. Just bloody imagine how many levels of bureaucracy each office has. Now imagine every all the daily tasks and cases every office has.
>it's also filled to the brim with absolute corruption at every level
Corruption exists in every society. You can't remove it. Only regulate it. It was regulated when empress was around.
>it's also pushing a factually wrong religion
Every religion is wrong
>ensuring
>stability
You are better off living as a slave in shitty conditions on the Blessed Island than a slave in shitty conditions in the Threshold.

also a free full ocult exelency means you ( probably) can cast a spell in a turn, wich can be very useful

>A bigger question is how haven't the Sid's co-opted the Realm Defense Grid.
Is that a thing in 3e?

I'm kinda hoping not.

>With the power of the Realm Defense Grid, she annihilated the Fair Folk hosts and sent them screaming and boiling back out of Creation.

>With control of the Realm Defense Grid, the officer was now the mightiest being in Creation. There was little left of the old shogunate—the shogun whom she had served, and most of his children and children’s children were gone. With fire and fury, she wrested the remnants of her world from the hands of her enemies and cowed oaths of fealty from the rest. From her isle at the center of Creation, she consolidated allies and resources and named herself Empress.

So yeah in the 3e core.

>le randomly hoping everything from previous editions is gone face xD

Really. Its like saying I hope Exalted is not Exalted anymore.

That might sound stupid, but a lot of people actually think that way judging from conversations about the 3rd edition.

really depends on what the Bronze Faction actually wants

There are many holes in the writing and players need to fill in the blanks (this in some cases would be considered bad writing).

Here are my opinions:
Usurpation happened and everything Solar was considered Anathema material and was promptly destroyed.
They weren't able to destroy N/A manse. Seal it up. Destroy all evidence of its existence.
Sidereals fuck up with Tapestry of Fate, make a huge hole in it and disappear from mortal memory. They create Shogunate so DragonBloods run mortal realm while Sidereal work in Heaven's office.
Skip around 1,000 years. Contagion and Fair Folk invasion happens. future empress finds some information on the imperial manse (or was given by the Sids while she was looking for some last resort weapon. Sids also want Creation to survive but can't work in the open)
She goes in with some people. Most die from defense measures and traps.
She gets control of the imperial manse and Wyld is pushed back.

>Why wouldn't Sids take control over the Imperial manse?
1. There are only 100 Sids at any given time. Even now they are overworked.
2. They work in the shadows for millenia. Also their immaculate religion is old as shogunate itself. They are considered anathema. Do you think Creation would welcome them back with open arms?
3. Shogunate was destroyed. They needed a new organization that would be in charge of mortal realm. While they didn't really like the idea of most powerful weapon resting in the hands of one mortal they also didn’t have a choice. They need the Empress as a figurehead in Creation. Also they need some sort of stability in the Creation. Empress having a biggest gun in Creation helps keep rest of the Creation in check. Especially considering that almost immediately there was a Seven Tiger Generals invasion on the Blessed Isle.

That is what is called compromise.

Forgot to mention Sids also have factions. While they will work together to save Creation no way in hell would Gold Faction give Imperial Manse to Bronze Faction. They didn't agree to usurpation but were forced by majority vote. They didn't forget about that and they won't let it happen again.

While Gold and Bronze members will work together for Creation's benefit you can make sure they are also looking for ways to undermine each other and tip the scales of power. If you asked Gold faction they would reinstate Solars the very instant they had majority vote.

>an empire that actively bullies Gods
Most of the gods need bullying. I mean we're talking the 'offer the firstborn of each household to me as a living sacrifice or else I'm going to murder every one of you' kind of thing. Actively threatening them with ninja hit squads is literally one hundred percent justified.

>everything Solar was considered Anathema material and was promptly destroyed.
[citation needed]

Are you new to Exalted? You heard of exalted when 3rd edition came out?

Early editions are known for information of destroying artifacts, changing history facts. Artifacts and wonders exploding and falling apart because only Solars had the ability to maintain them.

No, I'm asking you that because it clashes with previous editions. Solar graves in fact were laden full of their magic items because nobody wanted pissed off solar ghosts. All sorts of larger architectural things were used long into the shogunate and even the current time, as much as possible before they fell apart at any rate.

Everything with Solar TM on it was either destroyed, had serial numbers scrapped off, buried under ton of dirt or censored in the archives "you don't have authorization for this classified information".

Also when you think about it there are very few artifacts and even less really powerful artifacts in the world. Those are things that survived the purge or things that Sids didn't find.

Now I'm thinking of there being a Vault (with extremely powerful artifacts Sids couldn't destroy) and Solar going for bank robbery.

>Everything with Solar TM on it was either destroyed, had serial numbers scrapped off, buried under ton of dirt or censored in the archives "you don't have authorization for this classified information".
Not really. This is why I asked you for some sort of source for this notion of yours which flies in the face of the fact that even in the present day the dynasts use orichalcum artifacts all the time.

>Those are things that survived the purge or things that Sids didn't find.
Sids weren't destroying "solar things" at all. If any of that sort of purging had happened, it would have been the immaculates doing it on their own initiative.

Also Remember Conkey is the Number 1 War God. Instability is a factor in every society because of it.

I've only ever played 3E and my understanding of Exalted is pretty limited. Why do Sidereals not just work towards removing the Great Curse?

Simply put, it's beyond the scope of their powers. While exalts are able to do things that the gods who exalted them cannot, they're essentially still bound by the rough powerlevels involved. Primordials made everything, and they decreed that the Great Curse exists. It's a fundamental rule of creation.

So, theoretically it could be removed, like if you brought back Autocthon somehow and asked him really nicely, but even if that worked you'd still basically be donkey-punching the Loom of Fate.

Because they're hobbled by in general not knowing about it and in particular by their own great curse. Just like the incarnae don't do it because they're hobbled by the games of divinity and Lytek doesn't do it because he sees nothing wrong with it.

Nah, even reverting an exaltation back to a solar one removes the great curse and makes that exaltation immune from ever suffering from anything of the sort again, IIRC. It's just that people in general either don't know about it, are suffering from some sort of insanity or other issue preventing them from doing anything useful about it, or actually don't mind it.

Sids created Immaculate order. Both for damage control and new propaganda purposes.

Sids wouldn't destroy artifacts if they didn't have to. They would remove information on it. If it wasn't able to hide its origin and people would ask "why are we using anathema products?" that particular thing had to go. Immaculate Order is old as Shogunate.

Any true information on Usurpation is dangerous because it fucks with current state of affairs. Leaving evidence that could lead to questions, or even worse answers, is something you don't leave when you decide to rewrite historical evidence. Even majority of DragonBlooded only know the "official" truth. There were corrupt beings that terrorized the world and were killed by DB saviors. Their creations are evil and only few worthy are able to wield them. If anathema are destroyed why are we living in their manses? Nope. We destroyed their foul dwellings, purified the land and built on top of it our sacred shrines. (we mostly just changed history logs on origin etc)

you get the picture

In 2e, the only ones that knew about the Great Curse were Lytek and Saturn. I don't know how it is in 3e, but it's generally not knowing it's a thing that exists.

too put it lightly they can't. First they don't know about the Curse. Second you wouldn't ask a family doctor that practices common medicine to do brain surgery on you. They just don't have the ability to change something that was made by Creators of the universe.

Not saturn, Jupiter. Always get secrets and endings mixed up.

>Sids created Immaculate order. Both for damage control and new propaganda purposes.
They use the immaculates as pawns, that doesn't mean they control their every move.

>Sids wouldn't destroy artifacts if they didn't have to.
Yes, and that's why they don't.

>you get the picture
All you're saying sounds like an interesting interpretation user, but it doesn't really sound like anything I've read in any official material, and in many places goes against it.

The parties interested in this as a whole would be able to do it fine if several things weren't preventing them from even making the attempt.

>They just don't have the ability to change something that was made by Creators of the universe.
Isn't that kinda the point of exalted?

That might have changed now, not sure what exactly to make of it
nishkriya.theanathema.com/Posts/Details/16955

It absolutely is. Those guys are giving you their own interpretations, or rather guesswork. The great curse is a big mystery without official answers.

I think it's pretty obvious just from a casual inspection of Creation that the Incarnae are nowhere near as good at making shit work properly as the Primordials were. They never even repopulated heaven after the Great Contagion, which should have been an A#1 priority.

Even if the Primordials were the biggest assholes to have ever lived, at least they were able to make something that isn't holding on by a thread. I'm not at all convinced it's so trivially easy for the Incarnae to fix bugs in Creation.

Sure, as long as you ignore one of the if not the biggest and most often mentioned themes surrounding the incarnae, that makes perfect sense.

>They say that if you sail across the ocean that you will find the land of fairies.
>And in this fairy realm there is a king on top of a tower on top of a mountain that rests on top of an elephant on top of a turtle on top of an ant known as One Story in Ten Acts.
> And One Story has ten heads and twenty arms and the fangs of a daffodil, the roar of a housecat and wields as his weapon a golden thread plucked from a ray of sunlight.
>And at the end of each era one of One Story' heads closes its eyes and another opens its eyes.
>And inscribed in the closed eyes of One Story's heads are the histories of many lost and forgotten things and secretes best left forgotten.
Felt like making up a creation fairy story. How true it is, whether the myth or the reflection in the wyld came first and other details would be up to you.

No it isn't. Exalted are powerful but some things are out of their scope.

Too put in context. To beat the Creators of reality you needed 2 Primordials that said fuck you to rest of their crew. One of those primordials had to invent Exaltation. Most powerful gods had to permanently and irreversibly reduce their power. You need 700 Celestial Exalted who are most awesome at what they do. They lead 10,000, or maybe even more, DB army.

Dead Primordials are actually asleep because they can't think straight because they are so furious. Imprisoned Primoridals are only imprisoned because their gave their own word.

So you have creatures that are in a coma and creatures that went into voluntary prison because they didn't like the idea of a coma.

>le randomly hoping everything from previous editions is gone face xD
The Realm Defense Grid basically didn't exist in 2e aside from being a dull win condition.

Sure, it was technically there, but it was such a ludicrously powerful object that actually interacting with it was all but guaranteed never to happen--and if it did happen it would alter the power balance of the entire campaign setting to the point where the game was basically over. You might as well have freed the Yozi.

So, yes, I'd be fine with the RDG no longer being a thing.

>No, I'm asking you that because it clashes with previous editions.
Dude, his post starts with "Here are my opinions:"

What the fuck did you expect?

No. Nothing is beyond the exalted... at least in theory. That's a central theme of the setting.

None of the things you list are arguments against the exalted being able to do it. They are arguments that a lot of power went into their creation.

I hope they get rid of the redundant Yozi, we don't need over a dozen when only six of them matter.

But OP, what if a sidereal tells you to do the opposite of what he needs you to do?

He can't, that's his great curse.

They had better not take away the Sidereal charm to do exactly that. It's so funny.

Except for that part about how they're constrained by the deity that exalted them. They're also constrained by their essence being something slightly alien to them, which is why it's a) limited and why b) anima exists.

Exalted not being capable of absolutely fucking anything isn't actually a problem, though. They're still crazy stronk and are more than able to do anything you'd reasonably want to do in an RPG. If you want to play a complete freeform game like Amber or some bullshit, that's fine, but it's not what Exalted is for.

Central theme of a setting is: everyone is a cunt who thinks everybody else, except him, are cunts.

Despite the fact that for most editions now it's been treated as little more than "Perfectly fine until you have a 20 minute long psychotic, screaming, blood rage episode", somehow, no one notices something is wrong, and the few that do never tell anyone because "lol why bother telling anyone this important information?".

Doubly retarded because in 1E the Gods knew a death curse was coming and built a shield against it, and it bounced off the shield and hit the Exalt's instead. And then still no one could figure out maybe, just maybe, it was that death curse by those pesky Primordials mucking everything up.

Exalted was a problematic dumpsterfire. Replacing it can only be an improvement

From all these responses, things are clearer but there's still a few questions I'm wondering about.
Why have those deities that are aware of the Great Curse not made it known to the Sidereals so that it could be taken into account in their plans?
Could a Primordial be subjugated to be forced into removing the Great Curse?
Are all these dots not being connected so the setting can exist/players can have something to do if they want to restore Creation to its pre Solar falling glory?

>Except for that part about how they're constrained by the deity that exalted them.
Good thing the deities that exalted them include surpassing all constraints in different ways in their portfolios. Well, sol and luna definitely do, in their own ways. Not sure about the maidens, but since those are incarnae too, I'm going with 'probably'.

>UCS and Autobot creating solars

>UCS: "These Exaltations won't catalyze. What am I doing wrong?"
>Autochthon: "Let me see that. Hm. Are you putting everything you have into this?"
>UCS: "Of course not. Nothing can withstand that."
>Autobot: "These Exaltations are insufficiently awesome. You must push yourself to your limits."
>UCS: "But I have none."
>Autobot: "Nevertheless."

>Are all these dots not being connected so the setting can exist
Yes. White Wolf world building involves a generous helping of all the major players being incapable of working towards their own interests and not fucking talking to each other.

>Exalted are powerful but some things are out of their scope.

The only thing outside of the Exalted's scope are the actual, supposed to never be broken rules of the setting. No time travel, no rezzing the dead, and...Thats it. And those aren't even in setting rules really, they're just "Shit that cannot happen, period, because it would fuck up the game and introduce more fuck ups if you introduced it".

Even THOSE things are within the scope of the exalted, with examples in actual canon material. It's just that those effects are very high essence and sidereal martial arts tier stuff.

Depends who you are asking.
1. Sids can't do anything about Great Curse so why tell them?
2. Sids treated Lytek (god of exaltation) like crap during the Usurpation. He was taken hostage in his own office. Rest of the Heaven hate Sids. Lyteks hate is on totally different level. He won't help those faggots.
3. If you can awake a primordial from his coma. Also have fun with his revenge on Creation when you don't have 1st Age Exalt hit squad.

>Are all these dots not being connected so the setting can exist/players can have something to do if they want to restore Creation to its pre Solar falling glory?

Less that, more the extremely poor planning and lack of canon bible to beat writers over the head with when they do something stupid. White Wolf was shit at writing, and Onyx Path is just WW rebranded.

And yet, Lunars are weaker than Solars. Dragonblooded are weaker than Lunars. They inherently have limitations because there are people who are better than they are, and furthermore are better than they ever CAN be.

Solars can't just create things (or uncreate things) out of nothing the same way Primordials did. They have to go DEEP into the wyld for that, and it's a whole campaign goal just by itself. They can't just say "man, I like coffee" and suddenly the universe is a coffee bean. They can't just decide they don't like Steve and therefore Steve never existed. They aren't omnipotent, therefore limitations exist.

>Solars can't just create things (or uncreate things) out of nothing the same way Primordials did. They have to go DEEP into the wyld for that

What do you think Creation was made out of? Hint: Deep Wyld.

Pure Wyld.

Constraints are thematic, user. Lunars survive beyond all limits, just as solars are perfect beyond all limits. If they determine that the survival of creation necessitates removing the great curse, the lunars would put on their war paint and go wrestle it and eat its heart, all reason and impossibility be completely damned. That's what lunars do. Similar for other exalted.

The reason it doesn't happen is because almost nobody even knows about it, and if anyone new learned about it it would be a massive undertaking which just hasn't been started yet at the starting point of exalted games.

But it absolutely CAN be done.

1. SMA fuckery likely could, but that's the same sort of likely as saying Solars would be able to cure it.
2. Lytek doesn't hate Sidereals. He hates the faggots that imprisoned him in his office. He's very cozy with the Gold Faction.

Lytek actually can't talk about it because he'd be censured and likely killed and replaced for not making people aware of it sooner. He spent a hugeass time working on it by himself and basically has realized that he can't fix it by himself but is also at the point that his keeping quiet is criminal incompetence at least.

Note this is all 2e and if 3e adjusted shit I accept being a faggot.

Don't forget to mention that the Exalted suffered heavy casualties as well, but they managed to win by Celestia Exaltations choosing new hosts and Terrestrials having kids. Maybe not the last one, considering that a DBs balls only work properly every decade or so.

>considering that a DBs balls only work properly every decade or so

This will never not be funny to me. Goddamn this new fluff is equal parts shit and hilarious.

I thought that was a given. I also think it helped that Primordials were occupied by Games of Divinity and don't have same concept of time as mortals do. They don't think in day to day basis. Hell maybe not even weeks or months.

youtube.com/watch?v=6MJFz3pmMT4

"DBs can't build an army because their balls don't work" is going to be the new "Thrown charms make the Usurpation impossible" of Ex3. Mark my words.

So what you're saying is, due to the inability for a male Dragonblooded to perform, the female will need some kind of stronger male, to properly fertilize her, because her husband's balls won't work, for possibly up to 20 years, right?

Gee, I wonder if the writers of DB 3E have some kind of...Fetish? And I wonder what it would be called? What kind of fetish would involve some impotent man having his wife being banged by a stronger, more virile man whose balls can actually do the job, hmmm...

the women suffer from the same deficiency.

yeah I feel like this needs to be emphasized--female Terrestrials also run out of exaltation mojo; a dragon-blooded woman can't just keep sleeping with multiple fresh studs and consistently hit maximum exaltation chance.

Alright, not as bad as I thought then. Although it does make me sad I can't declare this DB's Get Cucked Edition.

Honestly, it's a lot easier to fix the former than the latter. All they have to do is say 'how fast your fertility-essence recharges is proportional to the strength of your breeding - in times long lost it would take less than a year for a couple to regenerate their essence'.

I liked it better when it just worked like real life: Shitting out too many kids too close together was a bad thing for the wife, and Dynast's were obligated to shit out at least one kid, but spent most of their time being political shitheads rather than banging to shit out new soldiers.

.....i dont follow third edition fluff. did they remove THE cool thing of the DBs, the hereditary minor exaltation?

wtf, im glad second edition is complete.

Yeah, the old was worked 100%, no idea why they decided to fix what ain't broke by introducing something contrived and weird.

They didn't remove it. They just made it so a DB's balls shut off once they blow their load of magical dragon jizz for 20 years or so.

It actually would be funnier, I think, if the DB women took on mortal lovers instead. Something about the woman taking on a completely mundane lover while her husband can do nothing. The absolute crème de la crème, though? House Nellens, in all of its monogamous, hand holding, low breeding glory. They'd be the envy of every other house.

actually, if it takes 20 years for full mojo rampage, which gives it to X% chance for a single individual child to be a dragon blooded, and both individuals provide an equal amount of potency, it would be more likely to produce dragon blooded than if two individuals waited for the full time. however it would probably be looked down upon in high dragonblooded society.

>yeah I feel like this needs to be emphasized
It probably will be. We don't have the book yet, all we know we know from offhand dev quotes. I'm sure this will be either some sidebar or an entry in the fluff chapter that talks about it.

Not all Yozis getting an equal mount of attention isn't what 'redundant' means. All of the Yozis mentioned seem pretty distinct from each other, and having some Yozis be forgotten in the Creation is fine.

I agree, I like that there's a lot of Yozis.

They can still conceive asshat it's just that subsequent children have a lower (much lower if the gap was very small) chance of Exalting.

The old way suffered from some serious dissonance. They set women as equal to men when it came to hazardous duty, the DBs while schtick being that they're all soldiers. That doesn't really work when you have women still being the bottleneck of population growth. The culture should have overwhelmingly had women in safe positions within the civilization out of the front lines and should consider a woman more valuable than a man, much like most every culture on Earth did. 9 women and 1 man won't really suffer a slowdown when it comes to repopulation. That's 9 kids in about a year. Meanwhile 9 men and 1 woman will only have 1 kid a year.

So we have two conflicting ideas. DB population growth is locked behind female population and an egalitarian society where men and women are expected to fight on the front lines of an ever burning war. They didn't want to change the egalitarian aspect of the Realm since this is White Wolf and they've always been pretty progressive about this sort of shit. So what's the answer? Make men and women suffer the same "cooldown" between Dragonblood children, specifically a cooldown longer than pregnancy.

Now with both men and women having to wait for the optimal output of DB children this would result in a much more egalitarian society. Men and women would be needed in equal number to ensure the highest possible DB growth and replacement rate. 1 man and 9 women could still have 9 children a year but only the first conceived would have any likely chances of Exalting. That way it would be equal to the 9 men and 1 woman. Both sides have to wait the same amount of time for the other to recharge leading the ideal ratio away from "as many women as possible" to much closer to a 1 to 1 men to women. Leading to a society where they don't value a man's life over a woman's or vice versa

It isn't even that contrived in the context. That there's more to passing on the blood of the Dragons than just genes is fine. There's nothing wrong with this.

>Yeah, the old was worked 100%
It didn't that much.

The basic question I still haven't found an answer to is why doesn't the realm have like several hundred thousand DB's by now. The most common answer of 'The DB's wouldn't want to put out that many' doesn't hold much weight. The empress more or less got to arbitrarily dictate the values held by the realm thanks to the status she held from saving the world from two apocalypses and being one of the hands writing the rules of the religion everyone in the world is going to be believing. If she wanted she could decide that the realm thinks sleeping around and pumping out kids is amazing, and people would think that way if they're raised in a culture that tells them so from the moment of their birth.

was there a positive stable growth? honestly it might be that they felt they've had all the time in the world.

The Realm maybe started with 4,000 Dragonbloods at the beginning when the Scarlet Empress took over. It's not too outlandish with their ridiculous death rates and the dice roll that is a kid Exalting that they would only grow slowly.