PureMadness/ShiningHistory

History of the Shining Exalted

The Eighth Incarna

Aether was created by Autocthon on the design of the Primordial Hyperion, to provide a constant, never-ending light for Creation, and under his command, unlike the Unconquered Sun. Autocthon, with the help of the Primordials Gaia, Cecylene, and Hyperion himself, created Aether. She shone brightly in the night, providing the same function then that the Unconquered Sun and Ligier did in the day, but her light was soft and soothing, unlike that of Ligier. She was the Brightest Star, the Eidolon of Light.

However, discontent gradually grew within her, as Luna was created. Was she nothing but a tool then, to be replaced? She still shone, but her light was muffled by sorrow. Eventually, when the Incarnae decided to rebel, she did also, and, with the aid of Autocthon, created the Shining Exalted. The Shining Exalted were 500 in number, 500 champions of Aether who fought for her.

The Primordial War

In the Primordial War, every variant of exalted shone out. The Solars were lawgivers, the golden champions and leaders of the Exalted Host. The Lunars were stewards, guarding their fellows and supporting them. The Sidereals were viziers, advisers and trainers who worked fate, manipulating it to their advantage. The Dragon-Blooded were humble infantry willing to fight to the very last. And the Lightbringers were the shock troops, the elite soldiers. They created openings for their fellow Exalted to exploit, they held the line to the last, they stood against the countless abominations that the Primordials spawned. They were there with the first Primordial died, and they fought the others in great epic battles.

And then came their greatest failure.

Death of an Incarna

The epic battle between Aether and the terrible, Behemoth known as Briareos, the Hundred-Handed One, a Behemoth powerful enough to slay gods, came relatively unexpected in the Primordial War. Hyperion, the selfsame Primordial that had created Aether, unleashed a massive army, a thousand thousand of his strongest and most powerful spawn, to kill Aether in an ambush far from the main element of the Dragon-Blooded host, lead by the Behemoth Briareos. The Shining Exalted rushed to Aether's side, fighting as hard as they could against the innumerable horde of monstrosities, just to reach her and aid in the battle. And then Briareos fought the goddess himself, ripping into her flesh, fighting against her blades of cutting light. In a heroic sacrifice, Aether slowed down Briareos, although she could have easily fled, wounding him deeply, stabbing into his flesh, as the Hundred-Handed One, deeply wounded and desperate, ripped out her heart and slew her.

The Shining Exalted fought to the last, knowing that although their shards would survive, they could not allow their physical bodies to go unpunished for their lack of action. Briareos fell upon that day, and so did all of Hyperion's army, and when the Dragon-Blooded found the corpses of Aether's chosen, they built a memorial, now lost to time, that honoured the nobility and loyalty of the Lightbringers.

Imprisonment

The shards of the Shining Exalted were kept in Lytek's cabinet, ready for Exaltation, until a Circle of Sidereals discovered them. The Sidereals, fearing that the Shards had been driven mad by the death of Aether, decided to imprison them.

They imprisoned them by making a prison of Jade, and keeping a group of Raksha within it to spin tales around the Exaltations, leading them to believe that they had entered mortals, when in fact they had not. They then cast the prison into the Inner Sea.

The Sidereals, many centuries later. cast the Exaltation-shards of the Solars into the prison, and called it the Jade Prison, but the shards of the Shining Exalted remained within, until the Deathlords struck.

Liberation

When the Deathlords broke into the Jade Prison, the Exalt-shards of the Shining Exalted at once saw the truth - that this was but an illusion, a trap meant to imprison them. They moved ephemerally, beyond the Deathlords' grasp, and sought out worthy mortals to Exalt. Only fifteen Shining Exalted have Exalted thus far, and Lytek's only knowledge of them is of a new type of Exaltation shard, one he dimly remembers from very long ago, and is unwilling to tell anyone about it.