How to Run Exalted

By

Peter Schaefer

(This essay is also posted on Ex Libris Nocturnis. Both the author and the site admins are aware of this)

What makes a hero? Is it holding the pass against one hundred men while your companions flee? Could it be laboring for one hundred and one days and nights to forge a weapon of light that can strike down evil? Does riding for seven days without rest and convincing a hostile lord to parley rather than fight a hero make?

Yes.

White Wolf's Exalted is a game about heroes. The game is based in the Age of Sorrows, an era when the golden age died a thousand years ago and the silver age followed it shortly after. Petty warlords vie for control and out-of-control minor gods demand worship. The majority of Creation pays tribute to the Realm, a powerful empire run by the few who are more than mere mortal and ruled over by the twin monoliths of the Immaculate Order and the Scarlet Empress for the past 800 years.

But times are changing. The Scarlet Empress has disappeared and the Realm is collapsing into civil war. Shadowlands blight the world wherever death can find a foothold, and champions of the Underworld ride forth. Barbarians threaten all civilization from the edges of Creation. Heroes are appearing outside the Realm and are rocking the world to its very foundations. And some mysterious, powerful people stand in the shadow and tug at strings, playing destiny like a puppet.

The best of the best, those who persevere against all odds, the ones who strain human skill to the limit, they are singled out by the most powerful of the gods and Exalted. Given great power to forward the cause of the being that has chosen them, these people become larger than life.

One representation of their power is the ability to use Charms. All types of Exalted have their own Charm sets that represent supernormal abilities or out-and-out magic. These Charms are fueled by Essence; Exalted’s basic measure of character power is the Permanent Essence rating, and the measure of immediately available power is temporary Essence.

The most powerful of the Exalts are the Solars. Exalted by the Unconquered Sun, they have not come to the world in such numbers for nearly a millennium. Now they are considered demons and hunted as demonic anathema by the vastly influential Immaculate Order. Only the lapse in hunting caused by the chaos in the Realm has allowed the Solars to gain any sort of understanding and control over their power before being found.

The other Exalts are the Dragon-Blooded, the rulers of the Realm; the Sidereals, masters of bending fate and astrology; Lunars, feral, shapeshifting warriors who prowl the chaotic Wyld, where reality breaks down at the edges of Creation, waiting for a chance to return to the world; and Abyssals, yet an enigma, powerful Exalts who appear to be dark shadows of the light that the Solars bring to the world.

Apart from the wholly worldly dangers of politics, war, illness and even other Exalts, there are more alien sources of fear. The Fair Folk are creatures of the Wyld. Born of the chaos that lurks beyond the edges of Creation, they take upon themselves a constant form to feed upon their favorite delicacy — the hopes and dreams of mortal man.

The Underworld, where the dead dwell, impinges upon the world of the living in Shadowlands. Deathlords rule many of these shadowlands and much of the Underworld, and both the ethereal spirits and the shambling bodies of the dead serve them, not to mention the greatest of the Deathlords' servants, the Abyssal Exalts.

Malfeas is the home of the demons and their princes, the Yozis, who ruled Creation before the Gods and the Exalted forced them to surrender. The Yozis are trapped in their twisted city of iron and brass, bound by oaths sworn upon their own names.

The Solars started as the stars of the show, and they are the only Exalted detailed in the core rulebook. But as massive supplements for the game continue to be produced each of the Exalted have become playable characters. Each Exalt type lends itself to a certain sort of game.

Solars, Exalting from any walk of life into the role of a god's hand in the world, have many options. From leading archaeological expeditions through ancient ruins to battling invading barbarians or demons to gathering a nation to build power, any game is appropriate as long as it's epic. Thematically, Solar powers center around pure supernal ability and glorious might. The power of the Sun that they wield can awe mortals and sear demons and undead.

As rulers of a corrupt and crumbling Empire, the Dragon-Blooded lend themselves wonderfully to games of Byzantine plans and political mischief, as the missing Empress sparks a fierce and subtle competition for the throne. Yet apart from these hopeful and cunning schemes are others. Some wish only to keep the Realm whole, and some seek only a good time, be it through adventure or more classical hedonism. Dragon-Blooded powers are centered around manipulation of the five elements: Fire, Earth, Wood, Air, and Water.

Feral and instinctive, the Lunars sneer at the nature of civilization from the Wyld borders of Creation. Nearly all belong to the Silver Pact, a complex series of social strictures and taboos that have helped the Lunars survive a millennium on the edge of reality. Their monstrous warforms earn them immense respect (and fear) from the local barbarian tribes, and many wish to lead these primitives in to conquer the pitiful civilized world. Lunar games tend toward a myriad of ways to undermine or correct the society they see as unfit and flawed, whether by invasion or bloodless coup. Lunars’ Charms are based on the ability to change their shapes, a gift from Luna, their patron.

The Abyssals are Exalted at the instant of death by the Deathlords, born anew into a half-life to champion the cause of the Void. Those loyal to their dark origin spend their time advancing the causes of their Deathlords in the Underworld and increasing the creep of death into the world of the living. Some rebel against their destiny of oblivion, and some may actually achieve redemption in the eyes of the Celestial gods. The magic the Abyssals wield is reflective of their dark natures: decay and entropy come naturally to them, as does a remarkable efficiency in killing.

Considering themselves the secret masters of the world, Sidereals move among the gods in the bureaucracies of heaven. Their games tend toward using their considerable powers to keep whole the weave of fate. Since the Deathlords, the Fair Folk, and the Yozis and their servants are the largest sources of tears in destiny, many stories require the Exalts to repair the damage. Others involve corruption in the Celestial Bureaucracy or the fate-bending effects that even other Exalts have, when powerful enough. Sensibly enough, the Charms of the Sidereals are generally direct manipulations of fate.

Obviously, by using the differences available between Exalts one can create a party appropriate to any style of play. But don't let yourself be constrained even by these — Dragon-Blooded can swear themselves to the darkness of the Void and Lunars can use their shape-shifting powers to play very effective political games in high society. Each is flexible enough for any sort of game.

Without stretching the game's capabilities in any manner I have run a basic scout-and-rescue, heroes in war, political intrigue, a murder-mystery, dramatic love scenes, and a duel for the fate of the world, among many other beautiful scenes, for one set of characters. No trouble whatsoever, as far as the system was concerned, although some of those drew me to the limit (good murder-mysteries are hard).

Exalted is worth playing for its setting and its mood. Its setting is original in the world of fantasy today, and draws from a number of oriental, historical, and literary sources. More importantly, the developer of the game has a very solid and consistent world-vision for Exalted that makes it inspiringly cohesive throughout. It isn't losing focus and falling apart as more supplements are produced. The world is detailed enough that the reader can get a good feeling for the setting, but large enough that a full chronicle could take place without ever visiting a canonical location.

The mood is the most important. Inspired by anime and wuxia, John Woo and the Brothers Wachowski, the game's feel is meant to be epic. Wherever the characters are, they are some of the most important people ever and in the middle of something serious — because if they aren't, why are you playing them? Perhaps they won't change the world, but something very big is going down in their lives right now, and it's important that you be there to watch.

Supporting that feel is the stunts mechanic, whereby the more cool an action is, the more likely it is to succeed. Players are rewarded for clever and epic ideas and rousing descriptions that involve people in the game with extra dice to their dice pools and the recovery of spent Essence or Willpower.

A modified Storyteller mechanic is present in Exalted: A dice pool of d10s is rolled and any die that comes up seven or greater is a success; Exalts and heroic mortals who roll tens count these as two successes.

I'll admit that there are some aspects of the system that I don't like dealing with. Some of the armor encumbrance rules wound up to be too much bean-counting for my group to handle. Not all of the Charms are entirely clear, and a few have been officially or unofficially covered in errata by developer or writer.

The biggest problem with this game is curtailing the massive scales of power that even beginning Exalted can achieve. Rather, the biggest problem is realizing that you don't have to. As a game of epic scale, immediately after chargen players can have the ability to rewrite others' memories, defend without fail against any attack, hurl a thousand daggers to inflict massive amounts of damage, discover all the plotting in a lord's court in less than a week, or build works of master craftsmanship in a day.

The challenge this presents isn't to make things bigger and harder to beat, but to let the characters be powerful in accordance with the epic tone of the game. And with characters of epic power must come characters of epic story — the tales of Exalted are meant to be as big as you can imagine.. Just be wary during character generation — the lone wolf ninja who has no family or friends and loves no one has no place in Exalted. Unless he loves no one because of a tortured past wherein he was bereft of his family in a hideous war which numbed his emotions to the point where he could no longer feel — until the band of ragtag heroes he got caught up in re-taught him the meaning of friendship and compassion. That's okay. Especially if he gets to fight the guy who killed his family and turned out to be the main villain.

The following is a session which my players and all I remember fondly. The old group had lost a member, and met up with their new compatriots — a diplomatic merchant and a boastful warrior — gambling and hurling rocks, respectively. They teamed up in short order and tried to figure out why the city they had approached was locked up, letting none in or out. Of course, the party had to gain access to the city’s harbor to continue their journey in search of a Dragon-Blooded sage… but that’s a longer story.

With a tremendous speech about his lost love being married to his foul brother (a fantastic stunt – the phrase, “Brothers in love!” will still get us going over a year later), one of them reduced the gate guards to tears, and one particularly sorrow-hearted fellow let them through a secret entrance into the city library. Which is where they met the librarian – the woman who would become one character’s dearest love — who was also a Sidereal spy. The group learned that the city was shut because their store of ancient and dangerous artifacts had been raided, and they were set to investigate.

The demon that had nicked those artifacts tempted one of the characters with a magical dagger, and he stole into the city's center in the night and slew its leader — for the demon wanted the man's soul, from which she could forge great things. Before all this mystery could come to light, however, the city found itself besieged by a mercenary army — and one character's mother yet lived outside the walls! There was a rush for safety, and in light of his power, bravery, and inspiring presence, one of the Solars was elevated to the position of General — the highest rank of governance, here, as well as military command. He outlined a plan, loosed the soldiers, and then he and his went forth to fight as well — and combated the Dragon-Blooded instigators hidden in the eye of the mercenary storm.

In the end, the city was saved. But by revealing himself as a Solar, Anathema under the Immaculate Faith, the man made General was loved for a minute and loathed for a year. His own mother turned her back on him. Not all did, though, and they left behind them a core of admiration and a spark of hope for the Solars' kind. Perhaps they are not evil. They also took with them a follower who was too taken with their heroism to stay behind — and the shy librarian.

If you and your players like a rollicking good time with over-the-top, classical heroes, powerful stories with important goals, and an intricate and rich setting, Exalted is the game for you. You can easily run a game with nothing but the Core book and your imagination, but for a more filled-out setting, I suggest you also pick up Scavenger Sons and Games of Divinity. Enjoy!

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Exalted and all associated terms are property of White Wolf Game Studio and this article is not intended as a challenge to these or any other copyrights.

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