Vervain/Inspiration

Inspiration for Exalted

I do, yes, get ideas from quite random places. They include the following, and many more. I'm sort of listing these partly because I want to keep track of such things, partly as a resource for my players, and partly because I woke up considerably earlier than I intended to.

Anime

• Samurai Champloo -- A series nominally taking place in a traditional Japanese setting. Some neat examples of stunts, mostly, and some cool ideas for ways of fighting (and Exalted is all about the cool, so this can't be bad). I have to admit that the MA game I'm probably going to start running soon is quite shamelessly based off Samurai Champloo in a few respects.

• Spirited Away -- It's eye-candy, but it's eye-candy which makes me think of Yu-Shan and Gods in Exalted. It's the thing I get people to look at if they can't seem to get the idea about such things.

• Naruto -- Oh god. Help me. This anime takes over your life, and some part of you can acknowlege that it's not really that great but you can't stop watching it anyway. Anyway: I keep imposing aspects of the Hidden Leaf Village on Lookshy (obviously with fewer ninjas and more normal soldiers, though the ninja remain present). This may be the fault of my DM, but his description of the place seemed to overlap with the village a great deal. Also, again with the stunts. And some of those effects they use could be acheived by charms and sorcery... which is a good incentive for people to make their descriptions of charm use cooler, which is something my group occasionally needs to do.

• Last Exile -- This coment is only valid if you want to portray the Sidereals as a sinister manipulative force, but there are moments when the Guild makes me think of them. It's not that the Sidereals are evil in the way the guild is, but it's the way that they are, most of the time, not where you expect them to be, and not doing what you expect them to do. The comparison isn't great because the Guild is not a hidden force at work on the world, but they do pull a lot of manipulation to ensure things work out in the way they want. The primary difference, of course, is that the Guild is concerned with its own power, not the smooth running of the world although I get the impression that interest in the smooth running of the world is a pretence they like to use sometimes; but then perhaps a Solar who 'discovered' the Sidereals might think of them as the evil manipulators. There's a certain detatchment and self-certainty about the Guild...

Movies

I'm gonna be horribly obvious here, for a start, and go for the ones which I'm sure are readily apparent to everyone...

• Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon -- These all basically fall into the 'stunts/neat use of athletics charms' category. I will add for Hero that there are scenes which also make me think of a few aspects of the Dreaming Pearl Courtesan style MA (though obviously without the whole 'turning into a giant freaky pearlescent beast and then accidentaly voiping yourself out of existence' aspect).

Books, Plays, Comics

I studied classics before deciding to be an archaeologist instead. You've been warned.

• Almost any Greek Tragedy. I'm thinking of the great and powerful hero, the concept of hubris, and the concept of the one fatal flaw of character. I'm sure this can't be accidental similarity; it's very much the greek concept of the tragic hero that the solars are set up to become. Particular reference to the plays 'Antigone' (with Creon as the flawed hero. Limit-break: heart of flint. Never, ever tell me that limit break is an easy get-out) and 'Hippolytus', actually for a different reason -- this being an example of why not to piss off a powerful spirit, perhaps. 'King Oedipus' actually isn't my first choice of example because it's... weird. Oedipus suffers only from attepted avoidance of fate and low temperance, which makes it more interesting for a mortal-level game, as the Exalted are less tied down by fate. 'Agamemnon' is good stuff too, though Agamemnon is much, much more of a bastard and less of a flawed hero. Oathbreaking = BAD, people.

• The Tantalus Cycle -- I mention this because, while I could just say the Iliad and the Odyssey, you've probably already encountered these and gone 'oooh, inspiration'. The Tantalus Cycle is something everyone should see (it's a set of plays) but which few people will be able to, I think. It's not something which gets performed often, because it IS an entire play-cycle of ten plays. I was lucky enough to see it when it was first on tour and got a script for it at the time. It's all very interesting, and a nice modern take on the stories, incorporating the Iliad, the Odyssey, and elements of some greek tragedy like Agamemnon. (It's remarkably sympathetic to the character of Agamemnon, actually, and in this he does come across as simply a flawed hero not a total git). The plays cover the build-up to the War (from Helen's birth onwards), the war, and the aftermath (following the captives from Troy and their fortunes). It's extremely inspiring, in a great many ways. Odysseus is still a Night caste, by the way. Interesting stuff in here about the hard choices leaders have to make.

• Herodotus' Histories, which I note were actually mentioned in the core rules, somewhat weirdly. I view this mostly as having good bits on culture and the perception of culture.

• Plutarch's biographies of famous Greeks and Romans (the volumes they seem to be found in around here divide them into Greek and Roman lives) -- Plutarch deals with warriors and sometimes touches on the tactics they used and the way famous battles were lost and won. He also deals with political figures, which I take to be decent inspiration for the Realm quite a lot of the time, especially the Roman ones. He has a taste for scandal which fits with the Realm pretty well too, and likes to pick up on random little details about people's private lives while sometimes glossing over quite major events. All very interesting from a social scandal perspective and when thinking about how Realm socialites think about each other.

And on a less Classical note:

• The Sandman comics, by Neil Gaiman, still make me think of Fair Folk from time to time. Shaping combat feels a little like The Oldest Game in my mind, too, and the sort of shifting nature of The Dreaming according to Morpheus' will... (I think the fact that some people refer to him as 'lord shaper' doesn't lessen the comparison made in my mind, either) (and I realise I said 'less classical' and then started talking about Morpheus. Shut up.)

• A three-in-one deal here: Fire and Hemlock is a book by Diana Wynne Jones and concerns Fair Folk in a way which is at times somewhat fitting to Exalted, though it has a modern setting. It references the poems 'Tam Lin' and 'Thomas the Rhymer', both of which are in middle-english (it's not very hard to understand but requires a little persistance), though Fire and Hemlock has them 'translated' into Modern English, with a section at the beginning of each chapter. Thomas is carried off by the queen of faerie, and the description of the journey is what I'm really getting at here -- what comes after isn't so fitting to Exalted, but how they travel is. Similar case with Tam Lin, but what's most fitting here is the series of 'transformations' the queen of faerie makes Tam appear to go through towards the end of the poem...

• Stardust by Neil Gaiman. More Fair Folk, sorry. This is actually a really sweet book, but the town of Wall and its attitude towards the wall it takes its name from and what lies beyond is neat.

• Earthsea, by Ursula LeGuin. I love these books, and they make me think very much of the West at times. I also think the concept of things having true names which give a degree of power over them is a singuarly interesting one. The only aspect of Exalted I can think of that it actually applies to is Demons, and perhaps the way in which remembering the names of things keeps them solid and provides some sort of protection against the spread of the Wyld. But oh well. It's something I'm occasionally tempted to incorporate, but then I realise I just secretly want an Earthsea RPG.

Music

This section is pretty much totally irrelevant to anything. I just thought I'd mention some songs which I find good in terms of theme or mood for Exalted. Much of it, strangely, is futurepop. Go figure? I listen to this music when I write for Exalted, usually.

• Songs by VNV Nation:

'Airships' is obviously a song about remembering the first age. Also, theme song for my Rathess game.

'Darkangel' has something of a Lunar feel to it, I find. I think it would almost be interesting to build a character around this song.

'Epicentre' feels all Abyssal, but could also be applied to Solars without understanding of what they've become. But mostly Abyssals.

'Arclight' is sort of all about the future and becoming strong. And I like that. And I think it fits Exalted.

VNV Nation probaby generally sounds like a really strange choice for Exalted music. It's very synth-driven, very electronic. But also quite grand in the sort of subject matter songs tend to cover, with a kind of strange mysticism to some songs which I always found fitting. It's dramatic music, at the heart of it, and that's what I think makes it work, in my mind.

• Songs by Assemblage 23

'Light' is a wonderful song. I was informed one day that it sounded like a song about one of my characters but I think it's just a song about Solars.

'Fallen Down' is... interesting... I include it mostly because it makes me think of a couple of signature characters who show up in one of the Aspect books (Earth), one of whom is a Terrestrial monk, the other being a Solar who came from one of the great houses. Just random musings, don't mind me.

• Songs by the Cruxshadows

'Winterborn' is an interesting song. It makes me think of Exalted but I can't quite decide why.