Blaque/SettingChanges

Blaque's Setting Changes

This is a list of various setting changes, not necessairly house rules, that I have made for my games. Note that there are some things based on houserules, but those are covered in the appropriate section of my wikipage (Blaque), so go there if you'd like.

Anyhow, here are the areas, divided first by regions, then by subject. Enjoy.

The Realm

This is the first place. Not much is really changed here to be honest, save for the following:

• The Realm is a bit more magitech heavy then the book ssem to put it. While not Lookshy, it still is rather technologically advanced, with many magitech devices used by Terrestrials, such as railways, artificial lighting and indoor plumbing in larger cities, and so on.

• As a correlation, the Realm employs a warstrider fang standard with each Imperial legion. The exceptions to this is the Red Piss Legion, and those legions who's fangs have been recalled to the Blessed Isle by a couple Houses, such as the one in Harborhead, for possible upcoming civil war.

• Gunzousha and ashigaru do exist in the Realm, but they were a very elite unit under direct control of the Empress. With her disappearance, the unit has since been dismantled by conservatives in the government, and all members executed. This was mainly the doing of House Mnemon, who always saw the concept of humans exalted to such status as against the Immaculate teachings, though others in House Iselsi also assisted in the operation.

• The Realm does print large-scale media such as newspapers, but these are tightly regulated by the Immaculate Order and All-Seeing Eye. They are rather propaganda-filled, and not the most trustworthy of things about.

• Most of the cities on the Blessed Isle start getting into the high hundred thousands or even over a million. The Imperial City itself has a population of about two and a half million, the largest city in the world.

Halta

I was not satisfied with a good bit in Kingdom of Halta. Mainly, its size, and general overly coolness. As such, here are some random thoughts on it:

• Halta as a nation technically stops existing a few hundred miles East of Chanta. Even then, the city's actual influence is rather spread out, and not very wide-spread, looking more like a wide spiderweb then an actual blob on areas that aren't the border.

• Chanta has a population of about 1 million. The other Haltan cities have populations of in the hundreds of thousands at most. This is the human populations, sentient animals might raise things into the higher numbers, but Halta doesn't suddenly have more million people cities then the Realm.

Lookshy

Once again, there was a bit of "place worship" I think going on here a bit. I like Lookshy overall, but I felt like dirtying it up a bit, so here's some major things:

• While the blasting of the Gunzota Redoubt did clear a lot of corruption of the Lookshyan government of the time, the people in charge technically used it as a way to get rid of all their rivals. As the years passed, they have grown rather complacent and corrupt themselves, and though now Lookshy is a lot more stable for it, it is now basically a one-party dictatorship governmentally, where those who don't cow to the party line get the shaft.

• Many governments are actually nowadays bullied into Lookshyan contracts, mainly due to the fact that if they don't pay up, they are still employed by their neighboors. Many contract renewals take this into account nowadays.

Harborhead

• I ended up cutting this country in half to be honest. Was too big for my liking. The satrapy's border now lies about a hundred miles east of Bent Creek, making it the frontier of the region, rather then the interior. The new freespace is replaced by new kingdoms and a shadowland, to be described whenever I get to it.

The Lunars

• The Silver Pact is a lot looser and smaller then as presented in the Lunar book. It only claims a third, rather hten half, the Lunar Host. Simalerly, it is mostly a network to get young Lunars Casted and stave off the Wyld. Once Casted, a Lunar is really allowed to do what htey want, but mutal aide is expected now and again. Its more one of those "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" sorta things.

• Some Lunars DO frequent Yu-Shan. These are usually elder No Moons, such as Raksi, but since any Celestial Exalt with Essence 6+ can be let in, or by a simaler token, any Lunar with a good reason to do so, it seems strange that them going in isn't mentioned much at all. Go figure that I guess.

The Locust Crusade

• The Locust Crusade is assumed to be default in games I run. Mainly, it goes up through Gem and to the Lap as described in Time of Tumult and in more detail in Exalted: the Autochthonians. However, unliek the entire Locust War, Paragon doesn't fall as the Realm eventually becomes enough of a stop-gap to cut the Autocthonians off, and political and disease issues in yugash cause the Crusade to go into reconsolidation mode, the Nation of Yugash within Creation eventually setting on its borders.

Of course, the above assumes minimal outside manipulation from PC and powerful NPC sorts.

The Mountain Folk

A lot about the Jadeborn is still too much. As others have argued, the fact that nothing in the setting stops them if the Great Ease is broken, at least, makes me want to tone some things down with them. SO with that:

• There are 1 million total Jadeborn, not 10. Additionally, only 1,000 comprise the Council of Artisans. This also brings the number of workers to 600,000, and warriors to 400,000. Much more in line with the militaries of the rest of Creation, especially with their technology levels and whatnot still being on Shogunate level, something only maintained by Lookshy right now, and to an extent, the Realm.

• I've pondered on saying the Mountain Folk have always had Castes. Its just that in the Primordial times, they had much more numerous numbers. THey simply got their asses owned like the Dragon Kings did. Also, back then, while all were Enlightened, they sitll had Patterns and such. The Great Gease merely screwed those not-Artisans abouts.

Fair Folk

• Balor is renamed to Ravana. Similarly, the Fomorians to Asura. This keeps more in line with the more Sanskrit-origin names and titles used about in the Fair Folk book.

The Gods and Heaven

• The Unconquered Sun, Luna, and Five Maidens aren't totally useless. They still pick their Exalted. They still would rather the world be better. The games do distract them a lot, but the Maidens still give out the plans, and the Sun, theoretcially, can do mor e then play. Its just that he's still a little bit bitter over what happened the first time, and so is letting Solars hang on their own a bit more then he use to.

• Simalerly, Lytek just gives canidates tot he gods for Exaltation, not the final result.

Old Realm Stuff

• The Solar Deliberative used a Mayan-style Long Count to keep track of what year it is. In fact, the calendar still exists in modfied form in Autochthonia. Basically, instead of showing a date as something like the 1,456th year of the Solar Deliberative, it'd be soemthing like a series of numbers strung out that add to that. I'm nto about ot do the math now.

• The First Age technically lasts until the Contagion. The Shogunate is the second epoch of the First Age.

• Not every Solar was batshit at the end of the First Age. But such individuals (Prolly about two or three really fresh Exaltations, or a really old guy who still felt there was value ot what he had) were kinda outshined by the assholery that the other Exalted had. Records might still exist of htem though.

Tech of the Ages

Magical technology sort of has a series of "stages" and looks to them that I'd like to discuss for reference:

• First Age stuff was just Wondrous Magic Cool Stuff. You have giant ships that fly because they can. Magic swords that help lead armies. Weather machines that take the forms of strange wire latices. The opium-pissing dinosaurs. Flying cities of crystal. Stuff like that. Things look mystical, magical, very Platonic idealic. You don't have many moving parts much of the time, lots of an artistic look to it, and all that.

• Dragon King tech, by comparision, had a techno-tribal look to it is best I can describe. Many thing stook on the form of primative jewelry, grown-looked, carved-looking, ect. You got the veggie technology also, which adds to the primal, organic look of hteir stuff.

• Mountain Folk stuff looks retro-tech. Say you were in the 1885's, and tried t predict what technology would be like in 2005. So things have a lot of smooth white surfaces, wires, cables and all that underneath boroque Germanic, Italian, or Greek design. For those who know, I always see the Guild in the anime Last Exile. Lots of geometric shapes, a cermaic look to a lot of things, and weird spinny things as necessary.

• Shogunate Era stuff starts with the hardcore mechanical stuff. Things still may be mechanical in nature, with pistons, rivets, gears, wires, and steam. But there is still a bit of art to the designs of such things. there are glowing rune plates on things. Shipes and automata look like animals still. And while the implosion bow or Essence canon look pretty crude, they still glow all cool like, have a pseudo-kanji look to the glyphs, and are made into pretty shape sand whatnot. Still an art to things, even if it is sitll basically an Apache helicopter.

• Autochthonian stuff looks pretty much the least "magical" of th setting's magitech. Their Artifacts have cables, pistons, turbines, fans, and all that sorta jazz. The parts that would of been artistic runes and whatnot on Creation's machines that needed them have simple geometric patterns and designs, more like a microchip then a picture. There is little effort given to Form beyond the pseudo-Aztec shaping to thing slike armor, equipment, and the few decorations on things there is. Ugly, greasy, industrial or diesal-level technology look mainly.

• Modern Realm and Lookshayan stuff looks like the Shogunate stuff, mixed a bit with the Autochthonain things too. Though, the Realm leans mroe on the Chinese or Roman look, while the Lookshyans keep a mroe traditional faux-Japanese look to things.

• Haslanti is on its way to becoming a Machine God Cult in the next few years. Mainly because its been found that certain prayers have attracted rather exotic elementals that may lead to the developement of newer, better flying machinery. Basically, given a couple years in-game, they'll probably develope flying machines utilizing the weird Autochthonian-style elementals that do exist in Creation here and there. Otherwise, their technology is pretty much Renaissance-level. They got a lot of the Italian City States vibe to me, only they also happen to be Germanic. Which is cool, I say So expect a lot of DaVinci-stye machines powered by thing slike Lightning Elementals and stuff cool like that.

• Meanwhile, Varang is going a different route with its machinery. They utilize a lot more of clockwork thing then the Haslanti's very primative magitech. They simply use a lot of things with cranks, pullies, windings, and whatnot. Not a scrap of real magic is really used in much of their designs beyond basic thaumaturgical rituals. Most of them are powered either by winding, or cranks. This of course does include things like spinny deathy blade war machines, and Roman-style bullista, but overall, the Varang City States are too focuse don using hteir stuff for timepieces to do more with it.

• The rest of Creation is pretty much on various stages of Pax Romana, Medeival China, or Post-Spanish Mexicah. Medical technology is decent, people know of infection and atleast some sense of sanitary practices. While the printing press is limited to places with the infastructure to support it (Nexus and Lookshy) or the clockwork skill to care (Varang and Haslanti), books are not nearly as rare as with Medeival Europe.

Primordial Personalities

I'm with others in the idea that the Primordials probably deserved to get kicked out. How I generally see it is that while they weren't really hostile, they just didn't care about anyone but themselve too much. They might throw out random things like a volcano eurption here, a random new species there, or change the weather here, just to se what happens. Not only do things like various races of creatures go extinct, or people die, the gods have to then come in and clean up the mess.

Then, when the gods think they got it all done, another Primordial does it again out of boredom. Then the gods ask if they can have some sort of reward for this, and then are totally ignored, 'cept for Gaia and Autochthon, who the rest don't seem to like that much.

After the Solars took over, Creation just became more stable then they were before. The weather ran more to benefit everyone. The gods got reward from their job. And new species didn't just come out of no where to take over stuff. And meanwhile, the already demon-like Yozis became fully such, and very pissed.

Gaia was probably the only Primordial ever actually nice to anyone. In my games, she is actually the weakest Primordial, Cecylene being more the one in charge of Creation's workings then Gaia, who merely had the basic representations of thing slike Life, Happiness, and the Elements. Cecylene was the details. She always treated the gods well, spoke out for one shs ethought needed notice, and all that. This is why the gods never saw her as a threat, unlike Autochthon, who was a bitter forge-god who actualy kicked ass rather directly.

Comments

I fixed a few typos and orthographic errors. Should "cow to the party line" be "toe the party line"? And should the reference to "the Great Ease" near the beginning of the entry on Mountain Folk be "the Great Geas"? Editing aside, this is a cool deal. I like your changes to Creation, especially as they all fit together as a whole -- and I like that you posted them for us to see. :) -Okensha

Thanks for the editing assitance. As I've noted in other things of mine, I'm not all that good a proof-reader (I tend to miss stuff even when I do), so edit-sharking stuff is handy:) Oh, and thanks for commentary too.

Stuff. Blaque