Revision as of 13:30, 26 January 2006

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The Heroic Exalted

All comments and suggestions welcome, this is my new pet project and any help offered will be appreciated

Introduction : An Explaination of the Origins of the Heroic Exalted

Character Creation : Character Creation rules

The Warrior Caste

The Healer Caste

The Demagogue Caste

The Sorceror Caste

The Shadow Caste

Attribute Charms

Comments

Let it be known that I'm gonna be watching this. Eeeeeenteresink. --DarkheartOne

• Cool! Hope you like it! If you have any suggestions or ideas to help out feel free to chime in. BTW: just updated the Melee and Occult charms under The Warrior Caste and The Sorceror Caste respectively. -MadGreenSon

I don't mean to jump down your throat - I think this is a really cool idea - but I want to get this out before you go too far, and implementing the advice takes too much work. Here it is: you need a methodology. By that, I mean a pattern, a reason for things. For example, you say that the Heroic Exalted (by which I'm assuming you mean the unaligned exalts released by Autobot at the end of one of the Locust Crusade scenarios) are bad at Sorcery, and don't say why. Your castes have the same problem. To me, they sort of read like the Solar castes, only you've changed the favored abilities around. Consider the actual Solars: their castes have a strong methodology. Each is based on something the sun does (rise, hang in the sky, set, sit on the far side of the world and leave everything in darkness, be eclipsed by the moon), and that caste's powers match an interpretation of that state. The Lunar castes are the same way. The Dragon-Blooded aspects are, in my opinion, the best example of a strong caste methodology. Each is an element in the five-element scheme of Exalted, and each has powers and abilities that follow that element. What you need to do with your castes, in my opinion, is decide on a set of archetypes that the Heroic Exalted are going to follow. Make them heroic archetypes, and they can be the Strong Hero (warrior/warleader), the Wise Hero (sorcery and some leadership), the Cunning Hero (sneakiness and brains-over-brawn), the Compassionate Hero (healing and defense) with a little blurb about which legendary heroes fall into which archetype. Make them archetypes of the human experience and you can have Warrior (combat badass), Leader (social/leadership), Crafter (creation and lore), Scholar (lore and sorcery), Outsider (sneakiness). Hell, make each of them castes a thinly-veiled 'perfections' of the other exalt types, like the Sun Hero Caste (brave, strong, and badass), Moon Hero Caste (cunning and sneaky), Star Hero Caste (smart and sorcerous), and Earth Hero Caste (compassionate and leadery). Basically, you have to do something.

And, finally, I had a brainstorm, take it or leave it. How about letting the Heroic Exalted base their charms off anything on their character sheet, giving them the feel of exalts without any limitation on how their essence can flow. That means Attribute Charms, which effect the exalt, Ability Charms, which effect the world around the exalt, Virtue Charms, which directly effect hearts and minds, Willpower Charms, which effect essence, and even Background Charms, which are subtle and less overtly powerful, but far-reaching (Ally-Summoning Gesture, an Allies •••, Essence •• charm, which allows you to discover that someone in the city-sized area you are in is either a friend of yours, or someone capable of being a friend!). Ok, that's weird, but I kind of like it. -- Seraph

• • A lot of this has to do with how my mind works when I'm creating game stuff, I usually think of how then think of why. The Heroics are bad at Sorcery (though without limit in potential) because Sorcery is unnatural to humanity. At the same time, their potential in Sorcery isn't limited because humanity has limitess potential (which is why Autocthon reccomended using them when creating the Exaltation concept rather than doing something empowering to the Dragon Kings or making something like the Alchemicals.
    

The Castes are broken down that way because I feel it is a natural way to break them down. It's not so much aspects of Heroisim as it is this: Achilles, Paracelsius, Demosthenes, Merlin and Sho Kosugi have come to town and are ready to kick ass and save humanity. It's really more complicated than that, but I'll have to write more later. Life Calls -MadGreenSon

Background Charms? ... Ooh! Ooh ooh! I am so stealing that idea for heroic Exalts. - FrivYeti

How about basing the castes on the virtues? They wouldn't be about what characters do but how they foremost approach the world. Are they compassionate toward all, do they seek to resist indulging themselves in the temptations of the world... -- Stanoje

I'm with FrivYeti on using Backgrounds. It suits the fact that they're mortals given the power, but not from a god, but for simply being mortal and in the right place. Virtues feels too much like a spirit, but backgrounds exemplifies that they are chosen of no-one, exalts for the mortals. - Trithne