Davidl/VictorianAgeExalted
So I was thinking about how to do Exalted Modern, incorporating as much of the background and imagery of "standard" Exalted as possible. It occurred to me that a truly "modern" Realm couldn't be world-dominating on the basis of having 10,000 Terrestrial Exalts in command of it - even a powerful Dragon-Blood is going to go squish in the face of a cruise missile.
So, move the clock back. When was the last time in history when individual battlefield prowess counted for as much as technology? When was the last time a single empire straddled the globe on the strength of its elites? Yeah, baby, the Victorian Age!
It all works! I brainstormed with by buddy and got some cool stuff.
MBM here: I'm the "buddy." The Victorian Exalted thing was Davidl's idea but wanted to make sure I got credit for providing some of the ideas presented here. heh heh</b>
The Realm is Europe, and most of the rest of the world is the Threshold. The Dynastic Houses are the various European nations, each with their own colonies, areas of influence, strengths and weaknesses. The immortal Queen Victoria vanished 5 years ago, leaving the European houses to bicker over her legacy. Lookshy is the United States, a small, scrappy nation with power belying its youth, provided by it's First Age technology. The uncharted realms of the poles, the deep jungles of the Congo and the Amazon, the uncharted deserts, the Himalayas, all the white places on turn-of-the-century maps, these are the Wyld areas, ruled by the reclusive Lunar exalts.
You get some cool imagery. A Dragon-Blood British army officer played by Michael Caine, fighting off hordes of Zulus with his service daiklaive and red jade-handled revolver. Shaka, of course, can change form and rip mortals in half with his bare claws. The Old West with the gunfight at the OK Corral in bullet time, a newly Solar-exalted Wyatt Earp whupping ass in the name of justice. The Man with No Name as a morally ambivalent exalt bounty hunter. You could even throw in Stephen King's Gunfighter as a Dawn caste Solar. With all the unknown in the American West, you could certainly plop a shadowland or two in there. Sherlock Holmes is probably an Air-aspected detective (since he's working openly in the heart of the Realm), but if you wanted to be a bit more adventurous he could certainly be a Twilight. Jack the Ripper is clearly an Abyssal. Transylvania is a shadowland, naturally. You could even throw in Solar exalt Teddy Roosevelt, the Bull Moose of North America!
And what about Sidereals? It'd be easy (although perhaps a little bit cynical) to just change the Immaculate Philosophy into a generic "Church", with priests who kick ass for the Elemental Dragons, and leave the Sidereals as they are - shadowy manipulators of the fate of the world. Supernatural Freemasons, basically. I think I like that.
First Age tech would have to be re-thought too, since in the Victorian Age high tech is new. As I'm doing this to keep the Exalted background as much as possible, I wouldn't want to say that First Age magitech is all newly-invented stuff. So I'd probably posit the First Age as something Atlantean, with ancient Greeks and Romans weilding bizarre magics which are still ocassionaly uncovered - downplay FA stuff in general, and give magic that's widespread in the "present day" (Terrifying Dragon Armor and so on) a more clockwork flavor. Hmm, this is probably the trickiest part. Any thoughts?
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Comments
I like. I like very much. Do go on ! :) - Etrangere
Neat. And surely Sherlock Holmes is a Sidereal Exalt? - Quendalon
Hmm. Except that Holmes is a famous detective. I guess you could argue that it's a Resplendant Destiny, but his methods are mostly about focused application of brainpower (which is classic Investigation stuff) rather than wacky coincidences. Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently would be a Sidereal detective. ;) <b>- Davidl
Holmes is pretty much a dead lock for a Twilight, no matter what CB: Night says. Him and Moriarty both. Speaking of which, have you read Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics? They might make good inspiration.\\ ...if we're mapping the Immaculate Order onto the Church, then would Jesuits all be kung fu masters?\\ ...and I guess Queen Victoria would have to have super powers, too.\\
_Ikselam
I should have known you'd read League. Rather good, isn't it? I have to admit, this idea is interesting, but I've already done something similar using Adventure!, which I felt captured Victorian Age heroes rather better than Exalted. Maybe it's just me, but the over-the-top antics of Exalted don't fit that setting too well... Of course, mad as I am for Victoriana of any kind, I'll be watching what others come up with here with great interest. - Guybrush
I really like the idea of kung-fu Jesuits. MBM</b>
So, what are the other major Victorian players in this era? Where do Russia, Prussia, France, Spain and the Orient map into Exalted?\\ I'm kinda seeing the decaying Russian aristocracy as terribly Abyssal- or, possibly, an experiment in Gold Faction Sidereals gone horribly wrong, with Rasputan playing the Sidereal Advisor to the Romanov Solars gone power mad and corrupt. (Sidenote- am I crossing my timelines here?)\\ Where is France during the Victorian era- specifically, with regards to the Emperor of Elba, Napolean. For some reason, I see him as a Bull of the North type- but I may just be insane.\\ Not real sure about Prussia, Itally or Spain...
As for Europe, I was basically thinking all of Europe, rather than just Britain, would be a good Realm analog. So the various Dynastic houses would map into various Eurpoean nations. Britain is probably roughly Mnemon, while a house on the wane like Tepet would translate to a nation on the wane like, say, Spain. Prussia, France, even Russia, would all "just" be Dynastic houses, in various states of rise and decline. Victorian Colonies = Exalted Satrapies, etc. You will have to change some things, like adding a European Union Deliberative about 100 years too early, but since it's basically powerless anyway it's not a big deal. Of course, adding magic changes a lot, too, heh - adding the immortal sorceress Queen Victoria, for one thing.\\ I was a bit worried about China, too, but it could easily be a rather powerful Threshold nation with access to plenty of mystical defenses - there are enough of these in the canon setting that it's easy to imagine. It's just that a nation like India, say, wasn't strong enough to keep the European Realm (House Britain) from putting in a puppet government, while China was. You could even give China its own DBs, but that would ruin the symmetry. <b>- Davidl
China could be the Fae, I guess...
Yu-Shan would be 'over' the sunken isle of Atlantis then?
- Senji
Hmm, wherever. Since I'm using a round Earth, there isn't really a "center" like in the canonical Creation. And since the Elemental "Poles" and Wyld areas lie in deeply elemental places (the North and South Poles, deep jungles like the Amazon and Congo, huge deserts like the Sahara, high mountains like the Himalayas and Rockies, uncharted areas of the seas, et cetera), I don't really think the "Chinese as Fae" fits so well. They have an amazingly ordered society, for one thing, which is about as un-Fae-like as you could hope to get. Nah, I think I'd personally have the Chinese as, well, Chinese, heh. Give them mysterious magic and First Age tech out the wazoo, sure, and strong connections to the Celestial Bureaucracy (and Gold Faction Sidereal Mandarins? maybe), but they're definitely human. -Davidl
One quibble. You suggested Teddy Roosevelt, the Bull Moose of North America as a Solar Exalt, but wouldn't he be Lunar? I mean, I'm envisioning his Deadly Beastman Transformation half-moose form, and it's freaking me out already.
"The antlers . . . the hideous, hideous antlers."
- Myca
I love the wiki, because this is the greatest thing ever! League is deffinitly inspirational, for this situation. The Wild West with Solar Fast Guns of Unconcoured Sun Justice would be cool. And the Michael Caine immagery its genius, but I would see Sean Connery. ~ JackT
About First Age Tech, wasn't Egyptology all the rage somewhere in this time period? Especially given the sun-centered cosmology of Exalted, it might be workable for ancient Egypt to be the First Age analog for the setting. This way, in addition to Dragon-Blooded victorians and Solar gunslingers, you could play square-jawed explorers and tomb raiders roaming Egypt for ancient lore and devices. The tech itself would be half clockwork, half talisman, and the really nasty stuff would be giant, immobile and buried beneath the sands (or hidden in pyramids). - LordAuran
I sort of see the First Age here as a generic 'ancient time' encompassing not only Egypt, but Greece and Sumer, with Rome perhaps surviving as the Shogunate? Or was there a corresponding period in this setting? But then, the Romans did ape in a militaristic sort of way the Hellenistic culture in the same manner the Shogunate tried to cling to the glories of the First Age. -- TheT
