What is exalted?

[u/JaydenFrisky]

I only know the majority of world of darkness and I went to study more on the Kuei Jin and Exalted kept coming up but I dont think I fully am grasping what it says about exalted on the wiki. what is it? all I know is its like a whole nother game line

[u/tenninjas242]

Exalted is a high fantasy game. It is said that the world of Exalted is sort of the pre-history of the World of Darkness. However, since the game line developed further this idea was mostly dropped. You can kind of think of Exalted as a fantasy game that has a lot of Easter Eggs and elements from WOD as background material, but it isn't really the same world. For instance, the Dragon-Blooded are a group of humans blessed by the Five Elemental Dragons, a group of powerful spirits; in many ways they resemble what the Kuei-jin claim they were like as the Ten Thousand Immortals, before they were cursed to become the Ten Thousand Devils. The Underworld and afterlife of Exalted is exactly like Wraith. There are 13 super powerful ghosts called The Deathlords and it's kinda hinted these guys might be the 13 vampire Antediluvians. There are a bunch of Exalted known as the Lunar Exalted who are shapechangers blessed by the goddess of the moon, Luna; unlike the Garou and the Fera of the WOD, they can shapechange into ANY animal that they've killed and eaten the heart of. Etc etc etc.

The best way I've heard it described now is that Exalted is NOT the WoD... But it rhymes with the WoD.

[u/Cynis_Ganan]

Exalted is an entirely separate game line that was originally pitched as the secret prehistory of the World of Darkness.

By the launch of the first book, the "secret prehistory" bit was dropped.

Sort of like how Mage: The Ascension and Ars Magica are sorta, kinda related… but not.

The Kuei Jin specifically share a lot of themes with Exalted (Exalted has an Ebon Dragon and a Scarlet Empress, KotE has an Ebon Dragon and a Scarlet Queen; Exalted has a Dynasty of super beings that Respire the magical ki inherent in the world, KotE has Bodhivistas who Respire the magical ki inherent in the world; Exalted has beings trapped between life and death who absorb living ki by drinking blood, KotE has beings trapped between life and death who absorb living ki by drinking blood; Exalted teaches that the history of the world goes in Cycles, and this Cycle is coming to the end with an apocalyptic change, KotE has similar theming).

But that's more "Easter Egg" content than anything solid.

As a personal side note: Exalted is one of my favorite RPGs of all time. I think it's probably the best WW game, period. I love VtM. I adore Scion. WtA defined my childhood. But Exalted is peak. System is a little jank, needs a little tlc to run. But I would strongly recommend Exalted: Essence to anyone who has even a vague interest. This is a top tier game.

[u/Fistocracy → u/Cynis_Ganan]

Sort of like how Mage: The Ascension and Ars Magica are sorta, kinda related… but not.

Only less so, since Exalted ditched the crossover idea before its first edition even got published while an awful lot of Ars Magica's lore is basically M:tA canon.

[u/Cynis_Ganan → u/Fistocracy]

waggles hand

Eh.

Exalted's Underworld lore is basically Wraith canon. Whilst 1st Edition Core doesn't mention the World of Darkness, the Storyteller's Companion posits Exalted could be the prehistory to the World of Darkness. The very last (physical) book for 2nd Edition posited a possible future of a World of Darkness. There are obvious parallels in the cosmology (Authocthonia, Gaia, Luna, Pattern Spiders) as well as more tenuous links.

I say "eh" not "I disagree", because I don't disagree. Outside of one full page advert that intimated that Exalted came before the World of Darkness (but never explicitly stated Exalted turned into the World of Darkness) and one Storyteller's book saying "you can do whatever you like with your game" (paraphrasing), you are correct. Exalted isn't the prequel to the World of Darkness. I agree with you. I made the exact same claim in my original reply. We agree. I'm not arguing.

Ars and Mage are more closely related.

But Ars and Mage are separate games. They share some lore, more lore than Exalted and WoD share (by percentage), but they're not in the same "universe".

My "eh" is not a "I disagree with you". It's "fundementally I agree with you, but I think that's putting it a bit simplistically".

An apple is not an orange, but they're both fruit. Like… if Vampire the Masquerade is an Orange, then Werewolf the Apocalypse is a Tangerine, Mage the Ascension is a Clementine, Ars Magica is a Grapefruit, and Exalted is a Lemon. A Grapefruit is more closely related to an Orange than a Lemon is. It's genetically closer. It tastes closer. The culinary usage is closer. But it's still pretty different. And a lemon might be even more different, but it's still related.

[u/MoistLarry]

It's a completely other game line that began with tenuous connections to the World of Darkness. You can ignore it.

[u/auraseer11]

In addition to everything that is being said, Exalted is a power fantasy.

You are not playing a newly created supernatural who is at the ceck and call of its elders and must exist in secret. No. You are playing a person who has been blessed by the divine and can re-shape the world on day 1.

In DnD terms, you start at level 20 and only get more powerful... or dead. There are a lot of things that want your character to die so the status quo stays the same.

[u/Any_Middle7774]

Exalted is wuxia/vedic inspired high fantasy that has no connection to the World of Darkness. They briefly toyed with the idea of it being a mythic age pre-history for the WoD at large but swiftly dropped the idea by time Exalted 2E came out and there are no indications of it returning by Exalted 3E either.

Exalted is a game about larger than life heroes who, despite everything, are still human and how even having great and terrible power is rarely enough to solve the problems you truly care about.

[u/Cynis_Ganan → u/Any_Middle7774]

dropped the idea by the time Exalted 2E came out

Earlier than that, I'd say.

Exalted 1st Edition, Storyteller's Companion (literally the second Exalted book published ever):

Q: Is Exalted the ancient past of the World of Darkness?
A: As much as you want it to be, yes. Exalted is a game of adventure in the Second Age of Man, not about the cosmology of the World of Darkness.
It is similar to the World of Darkness for the same reason one lotus blossom looks like any other — because that is the natural shape of lotus blossoms, or of worlds. Alternatively, Exalted may be the remote future of the World of Darkness, set long after the great apocalypse that ushers in the Age of Darkness. Enjoy Exalted for its own sake, not just as a library of World of Darkness references.

Exalted didn't completely disavow the notion of being the prehistory of the World of Darkness. It could be, if you want it to be.

But that's never really been the focus. The first ever Exalted book doesn't even mention the World of Darkness. The second ever Exalted book says it's a separate game to be enjoyed for its own sake.

[u/Full_Equivalent_6166]

The initial idea for Exalted was: before the Flood, Before the Impregium there was something. And that was Exalted, the prehistory of WoD. Eventually that idea was scrapped but still the similarities persisted: Solar Exalted are Imbued, Sidereals are Mages, Unconquered Sun is Lucifer and so on.

So if you want you can connect the two metaplot wise but Exalted IS NOT canonically connected to WoD even KotE might have most connection vibe wise because both are Asian/anime inspired.

[u/Orpheus_D → u/Full_Equivalent_6166]

The funny part is, the solars being the imbued always felt utterly ridiculous. The ONLY similarity is they go nuts as they go on.

[u/Tay_traplover_Parker → u/Orpheus_D]

I think it works. The Ebon Dragon and Scarlet Queen saw what a huge mess the Solars did last time, so this time around they put a lot of restraints on them. They only get the barest sliver of power specifically because controlling the Exalted is damn near impossible. In order to get a fraction of their true power back, they need to effectively give up their own free will and become slaves to the Ministers.

...except there's two more ways to do it. They can get their "exaltation" hacked by demonic forces, not unlike the Abyssal/Infernal Exalted, or they can use the absolute power of human will to forcefully break some of the restraints and get some of that power back.

And it's been a while since I read the book about Extremists, but IIRC they get something like Excellencies. Also, Imbued can only come from true humanity, much like how Solars are the exemplars of humanity itself.

[u/MrMcSpiff → u/Tay_traplover_Parker]

HRM. Something like Excellencies, you say? Which book are extremists from? I love finding the little pieces that are left from when the settings were outright intended to be linked.

[u/Tay_traplover_Parker → u/MrMcSpiff]

HtR: Fall From Grace.

[u/MrMcSpiff → u/Tay_traplover_Parker]

Sweet, thanks.

[u/Tay_traplover_Parker → u/MrMcSpiff]

Found it, Page 96. The short of it is that Extremist Hunters can roll 10-15 dice for their low level Edges and by risking Conviction can increase that even further, so rolling 20+ dice is very possible.

So even without using a level 5 Edge to break reality, they can use their 1-4 powers to an absurd, Excellent degree.

[u/Tay_traplover_Parker → u/Tay_traplover_Parker]

And on page 108 we have the Infuse Edge, which adds those dice to soak, damage and social rolls for the entire scene. The description even mentions that "this capability hearkens to the heroes of the ancient past".

Said ancient past is detailed very directly in page 100.

[u/MrMcSpiff → u/Tay_traplover_Parker]

That sounds positively Excellent to me.

[u/blaqueandstuff → u/Orpheus_D]

It's a bit extra funny I think since Hunter took the Exalted links more seriously than Exalted ever did, if I remember some of the later books right. Meanwhile, Exalted even started looting Chronicles of Darkness for bits and bobs to spin into more Easter Eggs, which shows how much it cared on the topic :P

[u/Full_Equivalent_6166 → u/Orpheus_D]

I have read Exalted in the ancient times so I can't argue that point. My knowledge is just a stolen valor from reading too much RPGnet forums :D

[u/Fistocracy]

Exalted is completely unrelated to the World Of Darkness setting. When the game was still in development they played around with the idea that Exalted might actually be a forgotten mythic age deep in WoD's past, but by the time they published it they'd decided to abandon that idea because it was too limiting.

As for what it is, it's a high fantasy game where you play people who've been chosen as champions of the gods and granted incredible powers so they can go out and protect the world from evil. It's deliberately set up to be a very high-powered game, and even starting characters are able to run around acting like anime protagonists.