Thus Spake Zaranephilpal/InfernalEvolution
In-game, you're spot on. Primordial Exalted are in the process of becoming Something Else. The specifics vary, but there is a strongg transhumanism element.
Out of game, I'm the same guy who has designed every single Primordial Exalted Charms set, plus the elder DB stuff. This is because the theme you identified was wholly intrinsic to my design paradigm for these beings from the get-go.
It varies. Abyssals start out as basically dark and scary ultraviolent Solars, but as they progress they get more undead and weirder. Horrible. You see traces of it in X1 and notably more in X2. One day, maybe you'll see high Essence Charms for them and you'll understand, but I stand by my assertion that Abyssals are becoming something worse than the Deathlords. Possibly even worse than the Neverborn. Down and down you go, and how far the rabbit hole goes, well, let's just hope they don't get there. In the end, the deathknights touch a dark thing purer than the Neverborn in its absolute evil. Immortal Malevolence Enslavement cuts out the middle man, but it is only a beginning. What happens when you cut out the Neverborn and become a direct avatar of Oblivion?
Alchemicals will expand eventually if they keep raising Essence, though we've been a bit more clever about it this edition (you'll see). This doesn't make them more like Autochthon, because he's not a city. They become Something Else, something similar for being mechanistic, but that's about it.
Green Sun Princes draw from multiple Yozis. There is a developmental path they could follow that would probably craft them in the image of a single titan, but it wouldn't make them a component of that being. Akuma fill that niche and warlocks are fully autonomous. The important thing, however, is that unlike the Ebon Dragon -- who is the sum and total of all Ebon Dragon Charms and therefore completely limited by them -- a Green Sun Prince can combine different elements of different Yozis to become something new, something different, something awesome. Something that no Yozi has the breadth to become.
A Solar is never going to really go outside miraculous human. The miracles may keep getting bigger, but the Lawgiver remains a human being with superpowers. I think Queen k'Tula ran into this problem and had to devise alternate means of development because her Charms refused to integrate cleanly with her new body and kept assuming she was still human.
Lunars do have a path to become Something Else. Chimerism. I didn't say it was a good path, though. Of course, with upper tier Knacks, the range of stuff they can learn to be and still be a Lunar is so enormous as to effectively allow transhumanism you can take off and put on like clothes.
Sidereals don't have elder Charms to grow into something weird, but Sidereal Martial Arts are pretty damn weird and at least one of the styles alters you fundamantally by practicing it.
You're thinking small. If a path is given, it's being provided as an example to show you that there are paths by which to evolve. Unless one path is specifically stated as being the only open route, then assume it's intended to inspire. Green Sun Princes aren't going to just be a two-Yozi hybrid. They'll be drawing on all the Reclamation Yozis, and more importantly, doing things utterly beyond the Primordials' capability to imagine in the process. Half-Malfean, half-Pyrian is not remotely adequate to explain that sort of path.
High Essence characters are rare, so by default, their Charms tend to be fairly distinct if not outright unique. This is not always going to be so. If Solar Bob invents Mountain-Cleaving Blow for Melee and it's awesome, other elder Melee masters are probably going to go "Sweet!" and develop the Charm, too. This could mean learning from Bob or reinventing the Charm on their own now that they know it's possible. In other cases, especially given how weird elders can get, their peers will say "Um, yeah..." and just move along quickly away from the freak.
Every Exalt forges his own path. There are currents, but Exaltation comes with the power to swim against the stream. Infernals are the most open-ended Exalted in their evolution process (of which I'm aware), so they fit perfectly in your modality. Alchemicals are a bit more limited, but even they have options. Everyone should have options.
Yes and no. You could learn high Essence Malfean Charms, certainly. He does have them, and they rock. But those Charms are simply one being's take on what they could be. One of the selling points of the Reclamation is that Green Sun Princes are clever little monkey titans who innovate and develop stuff the Yozis haven't ever thought up. Designing new Charms is really doing what warlocks are supposed to do, not going against the grain. Where you are right is that it is slower to invent a new Charm than learn an existing one from a training time standpoint.
What would that mean? As in, could you develop Adrian Charms for Adorjan? Or Charms for the King of the Primordials to graft onto Malfeas? No. That's too far afield from the purviews that they have have become. But maybe you mean something else. Please elaborate.
I'm one of the "Yozis can't escape, but the Exalted might be able to bust them out" people, so I think we're mostly on the same page. Evolve out of hell is certainly one story arc that could be explored in a "Break out" saga. It is hardly the only one, nor are you apt to see any mechanical way to accomplish it provided to you.
Yozis have Primordial Charms. They're extra fucked up with madness and bitterness and pain that wasn't part of the Primordials they used to be, but they are still Primordial Charms. There are many, many ways that Green Sun Princes can evolve. They have options the Yozis don't.
If you have the Malfean excellency and the Ophidian Excellency, you aren't driven insane by an inability to reconcile them. You just have more options on how you can act with supernatural awesome backing you up. Green Sun Princes can think as people do and then augment their options with Primordial magic. In contrast, Yozis can't think beyond their purviews. If their Excellency wouldn't support the action, it's unthinkable, in the same way that a Blood Ape can't really think beyond bone-crunching violence. To the degree that Malfeas is a genius -- and he is -- he's an idiot savant genius who understands every possible nuance of force and bullying, but knows jack shit about mercy or guile. It's not because he isn't smart enough. He just can't. Green Sun Princes are already superior to their masters for not being limited that way.
For Primordial Charms to be fair, the Imperfections must remain and be glaring barn-sized weaknesses. You don't get to close the gap with new Charms.
