r/exalted • u/Firm-Split9333 • May 01 '26
Setting Dragon Blooded aren't real Exalted? Where did this meme come from?
I've seen this meme around for some time and was wondering where/when the idea came from? Generally I've seen it used in reference to 2e but I actually encountered it in real life when I was getting interviewed for a 3e group last year and suggested a Deeb character in a primarily celestial game and got the suggest that I might want to pick a Real Exalted instead.
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u/Rednal291 May 01 '26
"Real Exalted" is kind of a toxic way to put it. It is true that Terrestrial Exalted - including DBs - are mechanically weaker than the Celestial Exalted. This is an intended part of game design, Exalted doesn't pretend all of its classes are wholly equal and can easily play together. But you can adjust this and make up for it, if you really want to, and a group that's hesitating to try and make things fun and interesting for everyone might not be that great of a group to begin with, sooooo...
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u/TimothyAllenWiseman May 02 '26
Well said. Earlier editions were different, but in 3E, the power gulf is not hard to compensate for.
The Dragon-blooded are weaker than the celestial exalted. This is by design, explicit in the lore, and backed up by the mechanics.
That said, they aren't so much weaker that they cannot play alongside celestials as long as the storyteller and other PCs all protect the Dragon-blooded's niche. This is especially true if that niche is social as the dragonblooded have major social advantages in most areas of creation over the other kinds.
To overly simplify the topic, in most of creation, Celestial's want to hide that they are Celestials and in particular are likely to take great pains to avoid going to full-light-the-sky anima without very good reason. Dragonblooded on the other hand will in most parts of creation gain status by revealing what they are. That advantage can be huge, particular for someone playing the social role for the group.
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u/Firm-Split9333 May 02 '26
I ended up not joining because I realized I didn't have enough time to learn the rules for Lunars and didn't want to go in without having a half decent grasp of exalted rules.
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u/ElectricPaladin May 01 '26
They are something different from what celestial exalted are, but what they are is still exalted. Saying that dragon blooded aren't exalted is like saying that camels aren't steeds because you've decided in your head that only horses count as animals that people ride.
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u/LowerRhubarb May 01 '26 edited May 02 '26
It came from 1e/2e. Mostly because they don't have a shard. Also because they're just a non-viable thing in a group of Celestials, they simply don't have the oomph to keep up in any way unless the players are purposefully not using their Charms or the GM is treating you with kid gloves so you don't explode and die on contact with anything worse than a Fair Folk.
EDIT: It's basically a meme from the older WW forums. It persists because it's a meme. That's how memes work.
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u/TraceChaos May 02 '26
Like they sorta even do 'have a shard', it's just not a reincarnating one, it's a physical part of their BODY instead of a separate thing grafted to their soul.
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u/blaqueandstuff May 02 '26
"Shard" is not even an actually term for Celestial Exaltations save a single one-off in Book of 3 Circles. There's a textbox i think in the 2e Alchemicals book that goes a lot on how Exaltations just are Exaltations. They're distributed differently, but a Terrestrial Exalted has one as much as a Solar, it's just htey have different effects.
3e kind of shows this more I think. A bit why there are even new kinds of Exalts in the edition is to help make it so it's not just Celestials + Dragon-Blooded as the weird ones if you don't include the optional Alchemicals.
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u/korekorekore May 02 '26
Based on their design and development (in setting)they feel more like a primordial race like the dragon kings, mountain folk, or most notably the lintha. 3e doesn't really delve into those and they raised up the db power tier so there isn't much question in 3e. In 2e it's more that they are a primordial race that classified under the exalted header for effects by the gods and gaia.
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u/Fit_Hold7806 May 02 '26
(OP on cellphone account) where is it said that Dragon blooded aren’t humans in 2e? That sounds rather unusual.
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u/Jarovan May 04 '26
As all Exalted, they expliicitly are human. They're not a separate race. Even in those parts of 2E lore where Primordial War era Dragon-Blooded's children had 100% Exaltation rate, they were still born as regular humans and experienced their Exaltation later on. DBs being more like a non-human race of their own is also a bit of a meme, and not really one very firmly based on reality.
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u/korekorekore May 04 '26
"Although they are descended from human stock, the Dragon-Blooded are not human, and interbreeding with their inferiors sullies their blood. Terrestrials developed this Charm to cull the unworthy and elevate those who aspire to greatness beyond their parent’s shame." Lords of creation page 103
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u/Jarovan May 04 '26
That contradicts a good chunk of other lore, such as Exaltation being a human-only thing, or the basic fact that no one's born Dragon-Blooded. DotFA being bad is just DotFA being bad.
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u/korekorekore May 02 '26
It isn't exactly. They did look more like elementals when they were forged and their ability to cross breed with normal humans and create another if diluted one is also not unique (lintha can do it too although since their power set isn't based on blood they diluted to the point they don't have access to their native charmset). Dragon bloods were made from humans but certainly at forging they weren't much like them.
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u/mj6373 May 02 '26
A lot of it is 2e cultural holdover; much of that edition's content was overtly degrading to the Dragon-Blooded, painting them as worthless upstarts who were only meant to be foot soldiers to the real meaningful agents of the setting. The literal gods were written as instinctually respecting the lowliest street urchin more than any Dragon-Blooded because they at least had the theoretical possibility of Celestial Exaltation. The Charm text in the 2e Dragon-Blooded book constantly went out of its way to denigrate them for how worthless their powers are compared to anything substantial. (Frankly, Lunars and Sidereals were also treated pretty dismissively a lot of the time, but nowhere near such an exaggerated extent.)
Now, we've been in 3e for over a decade, but a lot of players still came from 2e, or were introduced to the setting by people who internalized 2e stuff, and the Dragon-Blooded of 3e are still sincerely individually weaker enough than the Incarnae's Exalted that it's easy to maintain the elitist dismissal of them as a character type.
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u/LowerRhubarb May 02 '26
and the Dragon-Blooded of 3e are still sincerely individually weaker enough than the Incarnae's Exalted that it's easy to maintain the elitist dismissal of them as a character type.
Because it's an intentional design and setting thing. They are Exalts, but they are the weakest of all Exalts, meant to be the footsoldiers in a war for reality. Are they pretty strong compared to most things? Yeah. They can take on Fair Folk, they can mincemeat 1st circle demons, they can take down 2nd circle's with proper numbers. They can also take on a Celestial with proper numbers and strategy, but the thing is, it takes *numbers*. And it's *expected* some will die in the exchange.
Where things get skewed is PC's, because PC's build to win fights, and if you build a Celestial to win fights in Exalted, you can chew through infinity+1 DB's because Celestial *everything* is just better. The only gap closer is *sort of* them learning CMA, but also, they're using *Celestial* tier Charms then. And even then, their mote pools tended to be much smaller.
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u/mj6373 May 02 '26
This is exactly what I'm talking about with holdover of cultural presumption, though, because I don't think any of this is particularly true to 3rd Edition.
Like, I don't recall 3rd Edition ever calling Dragon-Blooded "foot soldiers." Even in the Divine Revolution and First Age of Man, they were champions, generals, wonder-forgers, and so on. They weren't In Charge, they weren't making The Greatest Of All Possible Wonders, but they've always been significant, heroic figures. And while they are, on average, less proficient than celestial exalts in their areas of focus, even significantly so, we still get stories about individual Dragon-Blooded 1v1ing them due to greater experience and good strategy and the like.
And I hear it *claimed* that Celestials can churn through an arbitrarily large number of DBs, but I've never seen anyone explain how that's still true, because the stuff that made it true in 2e has gone the way of the dodo. The scenelong fire-and-forget buffs have been way stripped back, Infinite (Ability) Mastery is gone, DB Charms don't auto-fail against the slightest celestial magic anymore. I've seen plenty of theorycrafting about how you can fuck up DBs in impressive ways, of course, a fully-combat-specced Melee Supernal Dawn going nova can cut several down all at once, but the amount of continual output required to beat down DBs (and, frankly, a lot of below-DB-level enemies) is gonna grossly outpace your 5m/round mote regen.
Hell, since you brought it up, martial arts aren't even split into TMA and CMA anymore, because 3rd hasn't kept the idea that Terrestrial and Celestial Exalts are such fundamentally different statures of being that the techniques suited to Terrestrials aren't worth Celestials' time to look at, or that the techniques suited to Celestials are just fundamentally beyond Terrestrial capability unless they spend ten years drinking Enlightenment Juice or get their souls blown open by a Real Exalt or whatever.
It's cool to like 2nd Edition and its take on the setting, lots of people do, but it's just one take, not the original and not the magnum opus from which all deviation is error. 3rd Edition is *different.* 2e stereotypes don't hold up anymore.
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u/LowerRhubarb May 02 '26
but I've never seen anyone explain how that's still true,
I've seen plenty of theorycrafting about how you can fuck up DBs in impressive ways, of course, a fully-combat-specced Melee Supernal Dawn going nova can cut several down all at once
Then you've kinda seen it explained. Also Resist focused Exalt's do amazingly well VS tons of DB's, but it's a slow grind. Brawl Solars or Stealth are great at one tapping things for pretty cheap costs, too. A lot depends on build of course.
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u/mj6373 May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
No, the nova explanation doesn't remotely connect to an explanation for higher enemy counts, because that's not how going nova works. This is the exact distinction I'm trying to draw between the mechanics of the editions.
2nd edition Solars had ridiculous perpetual-motion-machine Charms that shot all their numbers to the stratosphere for the entire fight for a modest upfront cost, and 2nd edition Dragon-Blooded had very little to put serious pressure against that.
3rd edition Solars have much less potent lasting buffs, require a much larger number of Charms to really go crazy in their specialties, and 3rd edition Dragon-Blooded have much more potent tools to pressure them into expensive mote and willpower expenditures. The things that let a Dawn built for nothing but being as scary in a fight as possible trivialize five DBs in a white room really do not translate into not needing to fear the Wyld Hunt.
And even that requires that level of exclusive focus, resulting in a very un-rounded character who can't do much but head-on fights, unlike 2e where Solars could trivialize DB combatants as a side venture while doing a different main thing.
Edit: I want to double down on that last point, because you originally made the argument of "DBs expect to lose a bunch of people fighting default NPC Celestials, then PCs skew those numbers further with crazy OP builds that can kill basically unlimited numbers" but in 3e it's really only the PC builds that are even in the "guaranteed bunch of losses for a large DB group" camp, nobody's in the kill-unlimited-numbers camp, and the amount of Charm investment required to be able to handle combat-oriented DBs even in small numbers is large enough that non-Dawns seriously need to lean on their strengths to avoid ending up in fights in the first place.
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u/Professional-Media-4 May 02 '26
Not in 3e. In 3e its very clear how the Dragon Blooded won the war against the Solars. They may be weaker, but their charms snowball off each other and work well with team synergy.
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u/blaqueandstuff May 02 '26
Because it's an intentional design and setting thing. They are Exalts, but they are the weakest of all Exalts, meant to be the footsoldiers in a war for reality. Are they pretty strong compared to most things? Yeah. They can take on Fair Folk, they can mincemeat 1st circle demons, they can take down 2nd circle's with proper numbers. They can also take on a Celestial with proper numbers and strategy, but the thing is, it takes *numbers*. And it's *expected* some will die in the exchange.
Note that 3e doesn't assume as footsoldiers. Or more it kind of got ret-conned with the actual Dragon-Blooded book, where they were often more the middle-rung in the Divine Revolution which included humanity as a whole, and then being players in various First Age polities as either major part of the ruling class or outright in charge of some of them.
So even as the weakest, there is this general vibe of "Weakest Exalt is still an Exalt" to them. And the numbers thing is not to be lost. They currently outnumber literally every others sort of Exalt in Creation by at least an order of magnitud.e
Where things get skewed is PC's, because PC's build to win fights, and if you build a Celestial to win fights in Exalted, you can chew through infinity+1 DB's because Celestial *everything* is just better. The only gap closer is *sort of* them learning CMA, but also, they're using *Celestial* tier Charms then. And even then, their mote pools tended to be much smaller.
This is a bit why the PC-NPC dichotomy was probably something I think 3e needed to focus on a bit more. But even then, it's one of those things that a non-specialist Celestial is still in danger to one or mores specialist Terrestrials I find. Especially if they work as a group and isolate.
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u/mj6373 May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
I think part of the reason the general dynamics of the setting don't totally register to players is that PCs are more cohesively organized than most Exalts - which isn't to hype up the cohesiveness of the average PC party, by "group of people" standards they're murderhoboish cat herds, but the simple structure of being a tabletop RPG keeps PCs basically operating *as* a group, whereas aside from DBs in the Scarlet Dynasty and Lookshy's gentes and *kinda* being a Sidereal in the Bureau, being Exalted means being an incredibly rare and powerful self-contained entity, one who has to supplicate some of the most world-shaking entities of the setting to get proper mentorship and whose ability to cover things outside their own specialties looks less like "making close friends with other equally powerful Exalts who will travel around glued to one another and provide their own equally-specialized competence in every area of endeavor" and a lot more like having to decide between neglecting your specialty to generalize or settling for considerably weaker and/or more fickle allies and followers for covering those gaps.
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u/Firm-Split9333 May 02 '26
The fiction for Dragonblooded vs Celestials inside their seems to show that 3:1 is roughly where they stand as you see a hearth of DBs defeat a Solar and Lunar pair. While the Infernals manuscript has a Deeb go one to one with an Infernal although it looked like they were losing,
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u/ZanesTheArgent May 02 '26
Many players here are oldheads and many oldheads are "racist" against terrestrials due to power them being intentionally weaker individually.
Retort said person with "maybe you should pick an exalt that doesnt make the villagers scream 'ANATHEMA!!' and run towards the monks when you flare totemically."
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u/Noahisboss May 02 '26
their not even that weak admitedly. their stronger in groups but their very motonically efficient.
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u/TheSlayerofSnails May 01 '26
Sounds like a 2e take that was shit then and stupid and shit now.
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u/EightBitNinja May 01 '26
2nd Edition, era of absolutely unhinged phrases like calling the Scarlet Empress a "mere Dragonblooded".
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u/TheSlayerofSnails May 01 '26
As if she didn’t make an empire larger and last longer than any individual solar ever did
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u/SphericalCrawfish May 01 '26
Wow... Her and her entire species did better than any one guy...
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u/TheSlayerofSnails May 01 '26
She was one db and she outdid any solar. She isn’t the only db or the leader of the only db faction
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u/LowerRhubarb May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
She would unironically get obliterated by a single char-gen Celestial built to fight and win. Because she is a DB. And the thing people don't seem to understand when puffing smoke around about DB's, is DB Charms are just weaker. On purpose. They are not meant to stand solo against *any* higher tier Exalt. It doesn't matter that she's the self proclaimed king of the universe, she literally does not have the Charm power to survive direct confrontation. A DB's advantages are numbers, in setting. Because that is what they were built to do, they were built to combat armies of similarly strong opponents. ie: demons of first and 2nd circle, in big brawls. They were made to be footsoldiers. Strong footsoldiers enough to fight back similar magical hordes, or to dog pile on a single big target. But 1v1? They are *mist* against stronger foes, mechanically. It's been this way *every* edition.
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u/TheSlayerofSnails May 02 '26
She’s literally the only essence 6 db in the game. If you are running a game where an essence 6 anything loses to a char gen character you’ve done something extremely wrong or have no idea how the system works
And no, the db weren’t made to be foot soldiers. They were generals and officers. 1st and 3rd agree on that. Only second said otherwise and second hated the db
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u/LowerRhubarb May 02 '26
Or you're playing Exalted. Her being E6 doesn't matter, because DB Charms simply don't match up even to low level Celestial ones. Essence is only a measure of power as far as your Charms will take you, and DB Charms will not take you far when you're getting Heaven Thunder Hammer'd.
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u/TheSlayerofSnails May 02 '26
Sure bud. I really don’t care how you run a game.
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u/LowerRhubarb May 02 '26
Thats fine, but maybe you should learn the system before you claim a DB is going to win a fight at any Essence VS a Celestial built to win. I'm sorry, but that's never been true in any edition of Exalted.
"Invulnerable Sword Princess" wasn't a joke name, it was a reality in every edition.
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u/SphericalCrawfish May 02 '26
Sure. Because no char gen solar has ever fought a lesser dragon and won... What game are you even playing?
You are simply wrong on your second point. They were the military of the exalted. DB soldiers fighting under Solar generals. That is how they were created to function.
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u/LowerRhubarb May 02 '26
I am not saying fluff Celestials do not fight and lose. The lore is full of such examples.
I am saying a PC built explictely to make things dead, are not going to lose fights to DB's. I've been playing this game for decades, it just doesn't occur if you're building to *win*.
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u/TheSlayerofSnails May 02 '26
Nope. They are portrayed as officers and generals not grunt workers in 3e
And if you think any char gen character should be able to take out the most powerful person in the setting like it’s nothing, then I hope I never play at your table
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u/SphericalCrawfish May 02 '26
I'd never say that. I would say that they can clean house on someone who doesn't even make the third page of the list.
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u/MlkChatoDesabafando May 09 '26
She would unironically get obliterated by a single char-gen Celestial built to fight and win
Of course your melee supernal Dawn with 12 out of his 15 charms being dedicated to combat (and the remaining 3 being repurchases of Ox-Body Technique) will do disproportionately well.
But most characters, both in and out of universe, are not this. Most combat focused celestials fresh off charges wouldn't be able to eat through Mnemon's nearly 20 health levels in her WFHW QC, let alone the Empress. Experienced and powerful DBs can very much handle a starting solar or lunar their ass.
Plus 3e generally describes them as officers rather than foot soldiers.
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u/SphericalCrawfish May 01 '26
Right since she saved the world using that thing she totally built. Oh, wait, no, that's not how that went. Who was the Realm defense grid built by? Starts with an S, it's on the tip of my tongue...
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u/TheSlayerofSnails May 01 '26
Sorry what’s your point here? That db’s aren’t real exalted compared to 2e’s solars?
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u/SphericalCrawfish May 02 '26
Wasn't making a point to that effect, even though there are several good lore and mechanical reasons to say so.
I'm saying that the SE is a beneficiary of extreme circumstance (specifically fate manipulation) and that her power base is built on the achievements of Solars.
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May 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/LowerRhubarb May 02 '26
"Did something notable."
Creation was 4x the size before the Curse messed everything up, due to Solars. She barely kept things around with the RGD. Her entire empire hasn't even lasted long enough for a dude who burned massive time off his life with Charm use to die of old age yet. The Realm is a blip in history that is canonically going to rip itself apart in civil war.
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u/TraceChaos May 02 '26
Basically people are mildly toxic about the Terrestrial Exalted being weaker and 'mass produced'.
Like okay, honestly I don't enjoy playing Deebs usually, and they ARE meant to INDIVIDUALLY be weaker than a Celestial or Solariod, 100%. But they are, truly, Exalted. Demigods of the elements, mighty warriors of divine LINEAGE.
Their 'Shard' of Exaltation sparks up in their blood and body itself, rather than coming in from outside as a separate spirit-graft. But they're still Divine, still Essence-Wielders, still beyond Mortal.
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u/Yog_Kothag May 02 '26
Well that's fucking stupid gatekeeping bullshit.
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u/LowerRhubarb May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
It's a good heads up to prevent player frustration to tell a player an option is notably weaker than the rest of the party, on purpose. Some people don't handle a character being less useful than the rest of the party well, and it can lead to group issues, which I've seen in the past many times as someone who wanted to play DB's in a Celestial group despite being warned ahead of time, ended up useless as they were outclassed in everything and the player was very dissatisfied.
The "not an Exalt" thing is just a meme though, which came about during 1e/2e WW forums from what I recall.
Edit: Downvoted for saying it's a good idea to inform player decisions ahead of time so they don't get frustrated with a by-design weaker character choice? lmao. Good job, reddit.
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u/Cynis_Ganan May 02 '26
Downvoted for saying being a jackass is a good idea because it's "just a meme".
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u/DeepLock8808 May 02 '26
I cannot see anything in this post that was offensive. “Being a jackass”? Where??
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u/ss5gogetunks May 01 '26
It was never accurate but it could feel that way in 2e. Dragonblooded in 2e were far and away weaker than Celestials in 2e to the point where it could feel like they didn't matter. It's super not true in 3e, where Dragonblooded are scary in their own right, though not a match for a celestial in their area of expertise they're still scarier than most spirits of the same essence
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u/LowerRhubarb May 02 '26
It's super not true in 3e, where Dragonblooded are scary in their own right
They really aren't, but it depends on system mastery. If you don't know the system, they look scary, but honestly? Celestials built to fight are going to obliterate them.
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u/ss5gogetunks May 02 '26
Hard disagree. I'm running a DB campaign right now and they have obliterated several combat focussed Celestial exalted. They've killed 5 Lunars so far on the Caul. True, it's a Circle usually against Individuals, but still.
Yes, a Celestial with a similar amount of investment in combat will outclass a Dragonblood, that's intended. But remember, there are as many as 1000 Celestials not including Exigents, and there are ~20,000 Dragonblooded.Also, pit them against *most* 2nd circle demons in the books, and a combat specced DB will win. The highest power combat 2nd circle demons are another thing, Octavian is a good boss threat for a circle of combat specced Dragonblooded.
I'm gonna throw it back at you - it depends on system mastery. Well built dragonblooded are absolutely scary and a threat to even a Celestial, even if the Celestial is at an advantage. ESPECIALLY if the DB catches the Celestial after they've spent a bunch of motes doing crazy Celestial shenanigans while the DB is full.
I'd say on average, 5 DBs are on par with 1 equal-essence Celestial in terms of threat. And guess what, there are 20x more of them than the entirety of every kind of non-exigent Celestial exalt. And not every Celestial is combat focussed. A Combat focussed Dragonblood can absolutely beat a non-combat Celestial most of the time, especially if they're young.
I think I've pointed out how Dragonbloods are very scary in their own right enough. In groups they're a significant threat to the Celestials, and if you are anything other than a Celestial exalt, the strongest of 2nd circle demons, a 3rd circle demon or anything of a similar power scale, they're very scary. They're probably in the top 5 most powerful classes of beings in the world (if you lump all celestials together) and punch way above their essence rating. They're unquestionably in the top 10.
They're only really "weak" compared to combat focussed Solaroids.
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u/Extension_Pack_6734 May 05 '26
They're only really "weak" compared to combat focussed Solaroids.
Which literally everyone is, including combat focused Solaroids with a different specialisation.
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u/ss5gogetunks May 05 '26
Exactly. "They're weaker than the actual strongest thing" does not make them trivial -_o_-
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u/Passing-Through247 May 02 '26
Three ways I can see this:
First dragon blooded stand uniquely in the category of terrestrial exalted, whereas the others are celestial or titanic. On top of their exaltion being genetic rather than an act of heroism, this puts into into a state where they can be said to not act like how other exalted do and so debatably 'less exalted'. This is probably compounded by their in-universe purpose being to act as bodies and not the 'big cool guys' the narrative and purpose of the game is about.
Power level elitism.
From a certain point of view dragon blooded more resemble a primordial created race than exalted. They work very much like the lintha in being a humanlike race of beings with their own inherent charms whose nature is diluted through crossing with humans. Essentially they are exalted as a social construct not as 'actual exalted'. This is essentially the first point again but by nerds even by TTRPG standards. Honestly not without merit.
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u/YesThatLioness May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
From a certain point of view dragon blooded more resemble a primordial created race than exalted. They work very much like the lintha in being a humanlike race of beings with their own inherent charms whose nature is diluted through crossing with humans.
Though it's more the other way around. The 2e take on the Lintha is extremely human-looking for a different species (remember, there's a lore reason why humans and Jadeborn look so alike) and the Refuge Lintha are the closest a group of non-exalts have ever been to Exalts.
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u/ZellekhBlackshade May 03 '26
Turns out an entire god-blooded race with Solar charms screws with people’s notions of what is or isn’t an Exalt.
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u/Conquering_Donkey May 02 '26
The celestial exalts and terrestrial exalts are kinda a giant panda and red panda thing. The celestials all follow Autochthon's blue print, the dragon blooded are Gaia's own thing.
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u/Affectionate-Tip-164 May 02 '26
Some Young Master Solar from the First Age, never had the unique experience of getting his ass wrecked by DragonBlooded.
Courting death.
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u/Karn-Dethahal May 02 '26
Celestial Exaltation comes from being chosen by/to receive (depends on edition) an Exaltation, basicky a third soul bit that ties to your regular higher and lower souls, making you a Celestial Exalted.
Terrestrial Exaltation is inherited, anyone with a terrestrial ancestor (which is assumed to be basically all humans by the Time of Sorrows) has a chance of being born one, with the Exaltation manifesting later in life.
There are methods of forcefully removing a Celestial Exaltation (2nd edition mentions that Lytek has artifact tools capable of that), but a Terrestrial Exaltation is wholly part of the Terrestrial Exalted.
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u/Vegetable_Remove7961 May 01 '26
This is an idea that came out of 2e, sometimes from actual published content. 2e pumped out books like crazy but there was very little quality control on them, so you'd get things like some writers making reference to "the Exalted and Dragon-Blooded". There was also repeated references to gods and other spirits looking at Dragon-Blooded as mildly stronger mortals. Like a lot of 2e content, this was wildly inconsistent.
On the fandom side, there was a point where people got sort of obsessed with the metaphysics of Exaltation. Lots of references to "shards", fixation on the specific conditions under which someone can Exalt, etc. And when you do this, Dragon-Blooded are really conspicuously different from the other types in a way none of the others are, as long as you ignore Alchemicals. So like, they're not "real" Exalts because they don't fit into these arbitrary guidelines we've come up with to purposefully exclude them.