HumbleLunars/TheLunars
Oh, so very very much in progress.
At night, the Suns sleep and remember of past and future glories. The Stars lie in their lonely bed and dream of thinks to come. The Chosen of Luna lie awake at watch, and the dreams that come to them are old indeed.
Long ago the
The First Age Lunars were pretty darn nice. Some of this was simply what they didn't do - they didn't limit break monsterously as the Solars did. Often, they were champions of people and causes the other Exalts forgot or found beneath their notice. Sometimes they tried to keep the Solars under some kind of control - but only sometimes.
The Lunars sinned by ommission in a big way. Some of them loved their spouses too much. Some of them had other causes, often very noble ideas, that distracted their attention. Think of it as curing cancer while Rome burned. Also, they just wern't that organized. The First Age Lunars often didn't like each other and didn't see any reason to organize. Some Solar set up a "Lunar Deliberative", but it didn't do much. The Lunars kept in touch via smaller meetings, interlocking circles, and sorcery. The Lunars did nothing, so the Sidereals had to act.
A lot of Lunars were killed, and more than a few followed their mates into the Jade Prison. Some of them fled to the edges of the world. There had always been a sizable minority of Lunars who ruled strange kingdoms near the Wyld, and they welcomed their fellows.
Time passed, the Fair Folk invaded. And I'm skipping a few years =P
Setting: This brings us, sort of, to the present days. The setting is the Threshold, with a *very* Dark Ages feel. The focus on poverty, "ordinairy folk", and the ruins of the first age. Barbarians make an appearance, for sure, but they're not the focus. Read the Iliad, read King Lear. This is going to have a more miedival Europe feel than some parts of the game. There's one huge exception, though - these people arn't ignorant.
There are lots of ruins, and they contain the relics of the first age. These are mostly relatively mundane objects that just happen to have been made out of imperishable material. There are a few warstriders, but there are more imperishable houses that provide shelter from the snow.
This needs to be handled with extreme care, or it will end up looking like some cheesy sci fi where everybody is living in a bombshelter and worshipping a broke down chevrolet. Avoid portraying the Threshold dwellers as being ignorant or having no understanding of how their technology works. They understand perfectly well how their technology works, probably better than the average Lookshy Engineer understands his warstrider. The problem isn't that they're ignorant, the problem is that they're fucking poor. They know how to operate the airplane, they know what its supposed to do. But they'd need three hearthstones and a part that can only be made by a Solar, so there it is.
I'm not sure this can work, and we may have to punt. But that's a thought.
The Lunars are born into this poverty and shit, and they have to put the pieces together. Its similiar to the Solar setup. Except the Solars can get beyond it, just by walking onto the stage. They can make the 14 successuss Craft roll to make the Thousand Forged Dragon go. They can make the 14 successus Performance roll to unite an army. They can rebuild the world.
Lunars can't. They can help people or they can kill people or they can change people. They can challenge the Deathlords and the Fair Folk and the Realm. They can make the world a better place. But at the end of the day, they would still be ruling over the Second Age. A much nicer Second Age, but still the Second Age.
Does that make any sense at all?
The Lunars are alien gods and forces of nature....yet strangely human.
The Silver Pact plays a reduced role, being something of a foil. Its there, but....well, the Lunars are 300 people with no home base and very mixed transportation and communication networks, spread out over an area the size of Creation. They don't really have any way to hold a meeting. Instead, it tends to be more of a rumor network. You run into another Lunar, you fill each other in, you move on.
History's most triumphant failures, Lunars stand proud in the darkness or languish kingly on garbage thrones, ruling empires of nobodies at the edges of Creation or among the unloved places of the cities. Since the fall of the last age some have wandered Creation, tired and ragged eyes dragged after their tireless ancient bodies. Barbarian Kingdoms are raised amid the ruins on the Threshold, poor and despised mortals and forgotton Chosen looking on each other with eyes to sad to judge.
That, minus about 50 adjectives, is the story of the Lunars. Solars exalt in a moment of boldness that seeks victory, and their lives are a triumph and a glory. Lunars exalt in a moment of hard earned failure. Theyir mortal lives were full of struggle and hardship. They did everything they could do to fight and survive, but events were stacked againist them, and they lost. When it is all but over, Luna embraces her Chosen. Some roar with rage, giants crushing towers that had loomed over them a moment before. Some, their battles already lost, withdraw from society to find better things in the wilderness. But all are well aquanted with just how nasty Creation can be.
In this, they are not unlike their elders. The Lunars of the First Age knew well the crimes of their spouses. They knew something horrible would follow. They could have stopped the horrors wrought by the Solars and thus avoided the Usurpation and what followed. But they did not.
During the first age, many Lunars lived in the Creation spanning empire of the Solars. They stood besides their spouses, their humility lending a human touch to thier spouses might. They championed moral causes that were too uninteresting or too small to attract their spouses' attention. Perhaps they worked to protect Gaia againist the ravages of First Age industry, perhaps they fed the unpopular Barbarians living outside the Deliberative's reach. Perhaps they devoloped cures for diseases that killed relatively few - Cystic Fibrosis rather than AIDS. No Solar would appear to protect a traveler from bandits - but a Lunar might stoop to do so. For this, the Lunars became the most popular Exalts of the first age. They were Saints and Boddhisattvas, and when they spoke, all of humanity listened.
They saw clearly the madness of the Solars, but they did nothing to stop it. Some loved their spouses too much. Some were afraid of their spouses. Some simply did not like their fellow Lunars and so did not organize as the Sidereals did. As the Solars became more and more terrible, Lunars withdrew further into their pet causes.
Not all Lunars submitted themselves to the Solars. There had always been those who did not take a Solar spouse, but instead journeyed into the lands near the Wyld. Their they built frontier kingdoms, populated by the most adventurous mortals from Creation. Alien fauna roamed as beautiful gossamer architecture dominated the cityscapes. These Lunars too knew the crimes of the Solars, but they thought it would mean nothing to them, self-sufficent at the edge of the world.
And so in the end, the Lunars left little mark on history. They knew but would not act. When the Sidereals and Dragon Blooded came, most Lunars fought and died protecting their Solar lovers. A few stood aside weeping or fled into the wilderness, their to join their brothers at the edge of the world. Some of them sought to marshall armies from the Wyld, some of them tried to build new lives. Great alien kingdoms ruled the edge of the world, a counterpoint to the Dragon Blooded Shogunate in the center.
Then the Contagion struck and the Fae came. Lunar society was virtually destroyed, although the Lunars themselves survived, as they always had. Some wandered the earth, some started over with Barbarian people in the Threshold.
