AlchemicalAscendant
Alchemical Exalted
Part of the ExaltedAscendent setting.
The first Alchemicals were created out of sorrow.
And hope.
The Solar exalted were mighty, mighty beyond all… and this included their life span. The Lunars and Siderals equaled them, of course, but the Lunars had their own duties as the marchwardens and guardians of creation from the Wyld, and the Siderals were equally occupied by the loom of fate.
The Solars took mortal brides and lovers, and dragon blooded lovers…yet that ensured the same dreadful ending—one day, their lover would pass and leave the solar, alone. The problem grew serious, especially when one Solar, in the grips of a limit break, choose to follow his mortal lover into death.
The loss of an experienced Solar stunned the Deliberative. The Solars were the mightiest of the Exalted after all, and losing even one of them to suicide was a blow…yet it must be admitted the Lunars agreed with the Solars about the pain that such separations brought—the Siderals kept their own council.
Many methods were tried to allow mortals to live—but they all suffered from two flaws. The first was a minor one for the might of the deliberative—they were expensive. The second was not minor—that being dependent on the solars turned them from partners to ornaments, and poisoned the relationship nearly as badly as death would. Few Solars chose weaklings to be their partners, and only weaklings would tolerate becoming mere toys.
But the Copper spiders had an idea. The legions of the Ironblooded had served the deliberative and the Lunars (though the Lunars preferred their own bioengineered war machines) well…and they were immortal, being constructs. If they could figure a way to contain the soul of a mortal and install it into a construct…
It was impossible, many said. Which is never a good thing to tell a copper spider. They gathered themselves, along with the most brilliant of the other Exalts, and consulted with Autocthon and his divine ministers. They worked, and labored, and created entirely new spells as the Great Maker showed them his first blueprints for the “prototype” exalts…
And one day, they returned to the Deliberative with the solution, bearing soul gems in their hands. The first test subject was Mara Jade eye, an ancient Dragon Blooded mistress of a Dawn Caste Solar…and when she arose from the conversion vat, an alchemical (not simply an alchemical, but a hybrid alchemical), soul gem gleaming in her forehead, Her solar husband rejoiced…and the Copper Spiders were insufferably proud for the next several decades… as was Autocthon—he always enjoyed it when people used technology to “Change the rules.”
The implications were lost on noone—what had started as a way to solve the problem of the short lived nature of most mates was now nothing less than a form of exaltation under the control of the deliberative. As expensive as it was, as hard as it was, it was something that could radically change the balance of power, and the Celestial Incarna watched with some concern.
The Deliberative was also to some degree, concerned. A vision of creation beggared by the demands for ever more alchemical exalted convinced them that there had to be limits put on the process. It was decided that every solar would have the right to have one mortal converted into an alchemical per incarnation. Not all mortals could survive the process, and the deliberative also mandated that such mortals could be no less than 100 years old, and must have unlocked their own essence. God bloods, half castes and Dragon bloods would also be considered.
But over the next thousand years, the number of Alchemical Exalts grew, not all of them aging lovers, but mortal heroes and warriors. In fact, the Deliberative established the “great Contest” during which a mortal who was judged worthy would be granted immortality as an alchemical.
Soul gems were also developed to higher levels—in fact many mortals implanted with soul gems gained the ability to use their essence in…unusual ways. The Gem souled started to become significant as servants of the deliberative.
And it was this that in one respect helped bring on the collapse and usurpation. The Deliberative conceived the idea, egged on by the great curse, to grant ALL mortals soul gems, which would do nothing less than take the control of reincarnations out of heavens hands. Combined with the growing madness of some Solars, this was the final straw that led heaven to agree to stay out of the Siderals way during the usurpation—with the added caveat that all soul gemmed mortals would have their gems broken, their souls once again freed to enter the cycle of reincarnation.
But, perhaps intentionally, the Gods left the Alchemicals out of the demand—tacitly agreeing that they were no longer mortal.
The Usurpation was ugly and terrible—many Alchemicals, some of them nothing less than flying war machines with legions of drone warriors, fought on both sides. Others simply fled into the fringes, joining with the Lunars in their lonely defense of creation from the fair folk. Others joined the Jade Born, serving them as fellow followers of the Great Maker.
The ironblooded and Gemblooded almost all perished. The most powerful constructs that had been mass produced, and mortals with a death sentence hanging over them, respectively, they had no reason to betray the solars. Most of them were destroyed with some few fleeing to the far reaches of creation. A few ,a very few, joined the Jade Blooded, or the Lunars, but most fell.
But in the Time of Tumult some of them have returned—be they old Ironblooded being reactivated in lost manses, or gemblooded learning how to create (or possess) a new body, they are no longer lost to creation…
And the Alchemical exalted are returning as well-- whether as mighty hidden Manse Fortresses in the reaches, or powerful allies of the Jadeborn, or newly ensoulgemmed heroes, they are returning.
For they share the nature of the Great Maker…and the Great Maker’s nature is to repair and upgrade….and there is a great deal of repairing and upgrading that needs to be done.
minor changes
Needless to say, there are a few minor changes to Alchemicals. For one, they don't have access to protocals and use terrestrial and celestial sorcery. For another, many larger alchemicals become vehicles rather than cities, with the exception of a few who are with the mountain folk.
