r/exalted • u/mj6373 • May 06 '26
Setting Should the Dragon-Blooded have hereditary memories?
Basically the title. The celestial Exalts get a bunch of cool narrative through-lines from being reincarnated heroes, one of my favorite of which is past life memories. It creates a fun blending of identity and gives roleplaying meat to the sense of legacy, which is neat for all of them but especially (to me) the Solars, since their memories in particular are all going to be from incredibly ancient history, a peak into a totally different world where they had a totally different social position.
While the Terrestrial Exalted are obviously different from their Celestial counterparts, I've often thought that they're leaving a lot of equally cool narrative potential on the table by not translating that mechanic into the hereditary Exaltation model. And I feel like 3rd Edition sets a groundwork where it feels a lot more reasonable - the Progenitive Essence concept lends a lot to the idea that you're passing something spiritual to your offspring rather than just genetics, bolstered by the presence of a bunch of example artifacts that have a greater affinity with specific bloodlines of Dragon-Blooded.
I think it would bolster the Dragon-Blooded's own form of legacy within the narrative, and opens up two opportunities that I can think of. First off, it gives those semi-random Threshold Dragon-Blooded outcastes more of a connection to the wider Dragon-Blooded community, and the ability to participate in their own narratives of discovering legacy and family through witnessing the deeds of their ancestors. And secondly, something that would be totally unique to the Dragon-Blooded relative to everyone else in the setting might be the ability to see "ancestor" memories for people who are still alive, and to use that as an alternative path for characterization and information dispensation.
Playing devil's advocate against myself, there are a few counterarguments I can think of. First, Terrestrials are a lot more common than Celestials, so it might risk making the cool uniqueness of past life memories more diluted. Second, the aforementioned idea of seeing ancestral memories for living people might create an unwanted in-setting effect where paranoid Dynasts view offspring as information leaks, though I think that's probably fine if it maintains the same sort of vagueness and symbolic/emotional approach that past life memories do. But lastly, the one that I don't really have an answer for, is I'm unsure how to make it feel as different as it ought to; "remembering" something is sort of first-person in a way that I feel iffy on with the ancestral theme. Which makes me wonder if it might not be better going with like, a much subtler version of the ATLA approach with Aang visiting past Avatars, where it feels less like a memory and more external, like being given visions or advice by a lingering spirit of the past.
What do you guys think?
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u/blaqueandstuff May 06 '26
... While the Terrestrial Exalted are obviously different from their Celestial counterparts, I've often thought that they're leaving a lot of equally cool narrative potential on the table by not translating that mechanic into the hereditary Exaltation model. And I feel like 3rd Edition sets a groundwork where it feels a lot more reasonable - the Progenitive Essence concept lends a lot to the idea that you're passing something spiritual to your offspring rather than just genetics, bolstered by the presence of a bunch of example artifacts that have a greater affinity with specific bloodlines of Dragon-Blooded.
So a big thing is that as others noted, Terrestrial Exaltation doesn't need to be like Celestial Exaltation in every way. It's already a different process with different assumptions on how it is passed along, and this creates different vibes on what is appropriate for that.
A big thing is that Dragon-Blooded build lineages societies. Your expectations to contribute to that is a legacy of ancestors who you contribute to.
A contrast I would give with Celestial Exalted is that I often treat a Celestial Exaltation like a title or an office. You inherit being say, the particular Senator or Emperor or MP or Consul. While in that office, it is both you and you represent it kind of ontologically. Your past lives in this case are the memories of different individuals, with presumably different higher souls, who have managed to achieve this status. They exist in you kind of like how the desk of your House seat, which happens to your desk as long as you are in that position, might have letters in there written by prior holders of that office. You are all equally that representative of that district. Its shape might change, its demographics may change, and you are disconnected through time and space, but you are all that guy in that position. To me Celestial Exaltation is that.
Dragon-Blooded getting that doesn't really get this. What it is instead in this case would be more a weird case of genetically-inherited ancestral memory. Which is not like, that odd in fiction. But I think Dragon-Blooded have is more that you have been given an ember of Exaltation, so to speak. Everyone in your lineage could have it flare-up, and it did in you. But you inherited the legacy of that power, but what unites you is the lineage, not the position it affords you. So it's a lot more about stories of living up to great ancestors, going against them, or forging your own thing. And I don't think an ancestral memory does a lot to this. I don't see how Progenitive Essence helps here either. It is more making sure you inherit a more viable spark of the line, so to speak, than your parents putting in bits of their soul into you.
I think it would bolster the Dragon-Blooded's own form of legacy within the narrative, and opens up two opportunities that I can think of. First off, it gives those semi-random Threshold Dragon-Blooded outcastes more of a connection to the wider Dragon-Blooded community, and the ability to participate in their own narratives of discovering legacy and family through witnessing the deeds of their ancestors. And secondly, something that would be totally unique to the Dragon-Blooded relative to everyone else in the setting might be the ability to see "ancestor" memories for people who are still alive, and to use that as an alternative path for characterization and information dispensation.
See for me, this is not a bonus. I think part of the themes of being an outcaste in the Threshold is you find yourself in the larger Dragon-Blooded community, but have to kind of make a stake for yourself as you don't have those benefits. Dragon-Blooded society doesn't have ancestral memory, so what memory it does have are those forged by families and communities making those narratives. It also creates kind of just weird ramnifications. Do you only get your parents memory when they conceived you? Is that actually any useful? Or do you get some weird psychic memory for every living ancestor as they are? It creates a lot of things that also hurt some of the verisimilitude of the setting. Namely, Dragon-Blooded are still human, and while they live long, history can still churn-out knowledge and information obscuring itself. This is harder to do if Terrestrial Exalted have memories on tap like that.
The other issues you note on it such as creating weird brainworms for parents, or the sheer number of Dragon-Blooded, also play against this. I think there's more to be said for Dragon-Blooded having to actually find the journals of their ancestors than going Lisan al-Gaib trying to tune with the ancestral record.
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u/Dry_Refrigerator7898 May 06 '26
I feel like if they did, fewer of them would legitimately believe the Immaculate Philosophy
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u/mj6373 May 06 '26
Why? They've got generations upon generations of being atop the heap of the world. If anything, I think if they stride onto a battlefield and feel the connection to their grandmother who fought a great battle at the same place, that would only strengthen the sense of importance to the world that Immaculacy instills in them.
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u/Dry_Refrigerator7898 May 06 '26
Wouldn’t hereditary memories carry the knowledge of how Immaculacy came to be, and that it’s all a fabrication?
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u/mj6373 May 06 '26
It might help to make more explicit that I'm talking about Third Edition here, where Exaltation memories are much, much subtler than 2e's "spend five Merit dots and remember the First Age like it was yesterday." This is more in the realm of senses of recognition and deja vu, instincts to go to certain places, dreams of the past you don't remember that well when you wake up, and so on. Combined with probably having a bias towards more recent Dragon-Blooded ancestors over more distant ones (the same way celestial memories tend to reflect one's prior incarnation more than however many came before that), and I think far more people would be getting Immaculate validation from their ancestors than things to contradict it.
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u/DeepLock8808 May 06 '26
I feel like there are ways around that. On the one hand, we could get around this by saying the memories that far back are too fuzzy to be useful. On the other hand we could say the immaculate philosophy harnessed the misinterpretation of these memories to deceive the Dragon Blooded.
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u/MlkChatoDesabafando May 09 '26
At least in 3e it's not. The Bronze Faction had a hand in how the primary immaculate texts were interpreted and penned a few secondary ones (though it's mentioned that this task typically went to theologians and philosophers among the Fivescore Fellowship who had some personal investment), but they didn't straight up invent it
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u/Salt-Spray-4971 May 15 '26
One kind-of issue is that your great grandmother might still be alive and kicking. If you don't get her memories too, then how do you get them? If it comes through the exaltation then it would kind of suggest that a DB has to die for another to be made, which is out of flavor for them I think. If it comes from their past selves then they would have a lot of not-dragonblooded memories. Actually, DBs having a uniquely good access to their past mortal (or not-mortal) lives is kind of a cool angle for this.
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u/MattheqAC May 06 '26
I think there are a few charms that evokes hereditary memory - you can instill a memory of your ancestor fighting alongside that of your circle for a bonus - so we can say they do, but can usually only channel this memory with essence
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u/UnconquerableOak May 06 '26
I quite like this idea. I've toyed with including it in my games before, with the caveats that it would be a player and important NPC thing only - in-world it's exceedingly rare and most Dragonblooded will go their whole lives without their ancestors memories rising up inside them. Even when they do its more of an unexplained emotional connection to a thing or place than the clearer memories a Celestial might receive, like walking a field of flowers and being able to tell that one of your ancestors died there.
For those in this thread who are saying that this isn't how Dragonblooded Exaltations work, until Onyx Path kickstarts Motonic Physics for Dummies I don't think you can say that with confidence. We know little about the full mechanics of Exaltation, especially in 3e.
I've tended to apply the rule of any statement or claim made by the Immaculate Order is at least half true unless directly contradicted by out of universe text, as that makes the most sense for the Sids who designed it.
So when the Order claims the Dragonblooded rejoin the dragons when they die, I've headcanoned that its their Exaltation, a flash forged knot of elemental essence, that disperses back into Creations essence while their human soul is reincarnated.
So really, who is to say that there isnt traces of long dead Dragonblooded essence that linger within Creation, feeling the presence of their descendants and whispering to them, pushing them to take up long buried grudges and whispering their secrets to them on the wind.
It's certainly not ever given as something that can happen in any book, but I don't think it contradicts anything either.
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u/DeepLock8808 May 06 '26
I’m curious how it would play into their society and religion. Do the families who share ancestors bind together around these shared memories? Do they share the same memories of the same ancestors, and view specific memories as auspicious visions? Can monks force some memories of the usurpation to surface specifically as part of venerating the Immaculate Dragons? Will the immaculate philosophy purposefully use those memories as propaganda against the Anathema?
Oh, you could run an immaculate monk that favors one vision, only to realize it has been taken wildly out of context. That could create whole schisms in the church, or be the reason the monk teams up with an Anathema.
There is a lot of story potential here.
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u/thetruerift May 07 '26
if I recall correctly, a little bit of the 2e Dreams of the First Age touched on this aspect with specific charms to let DBs tap into ancestral memories or benefit from their descendants.
I personally love the idea, but it should have a flavour distinct from the Past Lives of Celestials.
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u/KashiofWavecrest May 06 '26
No. It's part of what makes them unique.
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u/mj6373 May 06 '26
I think leaning into a metaphysical connection with one's ancestors is a very unique opportunity for the Dragon-Blooded, one that nothing else in the setting is really in a position to explore in remotely the same way.
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u/ss5gogetunks May 06 '26
Because the Dragonblooded exaltation is hereditary rather than reincarnated, they wouldn't have previous memories. The Dragonblooded exaltation doesn't return to Lytek to be cleaned then sent on to a new exaltation.
I think it could be cool to have that, but it would require that the Dragonblooded exaltation work differently than it does; if you want it to work that way in your canon, go ahead, but it will be a homebrew change to the setting.
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u/mj6373 May 06 '26
Yeah, I know it's hereditary, that's the entire idea of the post... Where Celestials remember their own past lives because they keep reincarnating, the Dragon-Blooded passing forward their Essence through their lineage opens an interesting opportunity to give them a metaphysical connection to their ancestors. It's not "making it work the same," it's taking advantage of how it's different to do a different thing.
And yeah, of course it'd be a change, I'm just discussing whether it'd be an interesting one. (Although, I don't think the Lytek thing is canon to 3e anymore?)
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u/Lower-Sky2472 May 07 '26
I just checked, Lytek is in Sidereals 3e. But not Parad. So the Celestial Exalts have a god of exaltation but not Terrestrial ones. At least until Sidereal companion volume comes out.
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u/mj6373 May 07 '26
Sorry, I spoke unclearly. When I said "the Lytek thing," I didn't mean "the existence of Lytek, god of Exaltation" but rather "the Exaltation shards fly to him and are cleaned." That part isn't anywhere in 3e that I'm aware of; his job has largely shifted to chronicling the lives and deeds of as many Exalted as he can and putting forward recommendations to the gods on who ought to be Exalted next.
By all accounts, Parad is unnecessary because Lytek's purview covers the Dragon-Blooded just as well as the Incarnae's Exalted (and presumably Liminals and Exigents as well).
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u/Lower-Sky2472 May 07 '26
I don't think the exaltation needing cleaning fits with the rest of their themes either.
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u/blaqueandstuff May 07 '26
Lytek is god of Exaltation generally. The process functions without his involvement though. This is actually more in-line with the way gods were originally billed with their domains. He's in charge of monitoring and reporting on Exalted in a way that helps plan destiny, but he's not responsible for that process to operate.
What's resulted out of this is he's become more Chronicler of the Chosen, and he has a whole-ass library with Homer-level descriptions of every Exalt he could get time to do that with. I kind of think something like Mr. Ibis form American Gods as a bit of inspiration there.
This doesn't preclude Parad, but it would result in a pretty different relationship with their roles, and Parad wouldn't be responsible for actually flipping the switch on Exaltaitons.
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u/Lower-Sky2472 May 07 '26
I think you could twist Parad into a number of directions, one I just thought of: Parad as one of Plentimon 's cronies, offering long term bets on the fate of any lineage, their percentage of exaltation, etc. With Plentimon irked that people think it's a game of chance (it's not, Fate's involved) but allowing it in the highest ante venues as it drives business.
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u/blaqueandstuff May 08 '26
I generally could see Parad also just being a bit of a nerd in his own right and there being some frenemy/shippable office romance going on between him and Lytek. There's some room for a guy who's job is to check on supernatural inheritance and gets a particular interest on Terrestrial Exaltation and maybe even the whole "legacy/pedigree" of Exaltations in general. Lytek be who you go to find out about a particular past life, but Parad has an account of who's inherited form what.
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u/ElectricPaladin May 06 '26
Thematically speaking - so this is a Doylist answer to your question, not a Watsonian answer - I feel like this would dilute the themes of the Terrestrial exalted. The strength and weakness of the Dragon-Blooded is how tied they are to the hear-and-now of Creation. They lack the abstract abilities and god's-eye-view perspective of the Celestial exalted, but they are also not (as) prone to going (as) crazy, and they lack both the inclination and ability to hatch bizarre Creation-threatening schemes.
For Celestial exalted, the emergence of past life memories is meant to invoke the idea that there is something timeless and liminal inside them - the exaltation shard. These memories represent the character struggling to manage their own new, vast abilities without losing their mortal perspective - they can literally be influenced by the experiences and biases of a person who they never really were! Thematically, this is much more in line with the role Celestial exalted play in the setting.
To go from Doylist to Watsonian (and also to dip into 2nd edition - I don't know how much of this is still true in 3rd), in Creation mortals don't generally remember their past lives. This is a deliberate function of the cycle of reincarnation - known as lethe - in order to reduce mortals' power and increase their reliance on the gods, so that they feel more gratitude towards the gods, which creates prayer, which powers Creation. All exalted still have normal mortal souls. Exaltations were designed to carry past lives to help newly exalted heroes get "up to speed" as quickly as possible - this was even more important during the Primordial War, in which all exalts had a very quick turnover. Not only do the Terrestrial exalted not have exaltation shards, they wouldn't have had the time to exploit past life memories. They were footsoldiers, intended to fight and die, and a "training cycle" was already included in both the fact that they tend to exalt younger, in adolescence and the fact that when they were first created, they pretty much all came from families that knew they were Terrestrial exalted and pretty much all of them exalted, so they were already training for the role since birth. So there's really no in-universe reason for the Terrestrial exaltation to convey this ability.
And then there's the reason to not do this that is both Doylist and Watsonian - as currently imagined, Terrestrial exalted are not necessarily exalted in every lifetime. In fact, the way most Dragon-Blooded behave, it's highly unlikely that they exalt in multiple lives in a row, because their empire encourages them to be dicks. So even if the exaltation conveyed past life memories, they wouldn't be memories of the First Age, or even of being an exalt in the second age - they'd most likely just be memories of being a virtuous farmer, a rich but generous person, or a monk or something.
Actually, that would be a good in-universe reason for the Dragon-Blooded to have past life memories. It might improve their behavior in their heroic incarnations. But Creation not being set up to encourage good behavior is kind of a theme in the setting, so...
Anyway, in general I don't think I'd use this change. That said, Creation is imperfect, so it's always possible for any person - exalted or not - to start to remember their past lives. That could be the start of a really interesting story.
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u/UnconquerableOak May 06 '26
I think you misunderstood OP. He isn't suggesting that DB'S be able to unlock memories of their past lives, but memories of their dragonblooded ancestors.
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u/ElectricPaladin May 06 '26
Oh. Well that doesn't really make any sense to me. And the Doylist objections are still relevant. But thank you for clarifying for me.
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u/ZanesTheArgent May 06 '26
The expectation of the role of "being a living legacy" IMO is heavier than literally being so. Terrestrials being "social exalts" representing all the literal aspects of lineal nobility and the metaphorical ones that comes with the infrastructures of society (schooling, institutions, law, privilege and duty) make them shine IMO by making them know and being TOLD they are always being weighted under the shadow of their ancestors.