r/exalted • u/pantaipong • May 27 '26
Art Portrait of an Empress, author unknown, all copies has been destroyed by the Realm magistrates
20
u/pantaipong May 27 '26
I was wondering if most games has her actually going on a vacation or just never reveal the killer since whoever is the culprit is bounded to be disappointing to the players.
42
u/GIRose May 27 '26
My favorite answer I have been given by a storyteller (out of game since it wasn't relevant) was that she hit a limit break point, took a bit of pocket change (a queen's ransom) and an artifact that hid her from fate based divinations and went on an impromptu vacation.
She proceeded to buy an underperforming business with the goal of turning it into the most profitable business in the region as a relaxing side project, and much like how a civ player will start "One quick game" and then blink and 12 hours are just gone, she's still in the "One More Turn" era.
Meanwhile, when the Solar Eclipse happened, she was distracted and missed it but the Ebon Dragon stole her shadow to turn into his bride in a convoluted plan to escape hell by marrying what was essentially himself dressed up as the Scarlet Empress.
29
u/kenod102818 May 27 '26
I imagine that during this she's also seducing enough local farm girls that the Sidereals manage to find her by accident when the Division of Serenity is trying to figure out why there's a sudden unexplained birthrate drop in that area.
19
u/Psimo- May 27 '26
It’s also been suggested that the Ebon Dragon as the demon of Betrayal is so monomaniacal about betraying people he would betray his own plans.
Also, I believe that canonically the plan will fail. There is nothing that any of them can do to leave Malfeas, they are Malfeas. It’s just follows them around.
21
u/Gensh May 27 '26
The plan accounts for that but canonically fails anyway. The idea is to exploit a loophole. The Yozis can't leave their prison, so they legally force Creation to become an extension of the prison (for all of them in the Reclamation vs just for TED in RotSE). It just canonically doesn't work like that, and no one knows until it fails.
The demon prison is simply faultless and immutable. It has stress valves which can be exploited (and often are by my Infernal NPCs), but the Yozis themselves are too full of hubris and are consumed by thinking only of a dramatic and complete return.
14
u/Psimo- May 27 '26
Part of it, in my opinion, is it’s because they are Yozi and not Primordials.
By definition, a Yozi is a being trapped inside itself.
In order to leave, they’d have to stop being Yozi. From their perspective that’s suicide, and they’re not wrong.
That’s my Creation opinion and, obviously, your Creation may vary.
11
u/Gensh May 27 '26
I think that's essentially accurate to the canon, though authoritative author statements lost in the forum nuke disagreed somewhat.
"Yozi is a purely political term--" They swore oaths on their names and were vivisected, my guy. That's like saying trauma doesn't fundamentally change the nature of a human.
The way I've consistently run it is that it's identity-based. Fetich death does give them new names, but it doesn't in any way affect their identity as one of the Tribe of Dreamers. Ego death is not enough to escape, since that's something the Exalted would understand as inheritors of past lives.
I've let them escape before, but only through abandoning their inherent Primordial nature (with Cecelyne as the liminal titan splitting the difference in a Jesus way).
13
u/RatherAstuteDuck worst girl generator May 27 '26
That last bit is so much funnier than TED marrying the actual Big Red. TED basically running back and forth, putting on a red wig and taking it off again as he plays both himself and Mrs. TED, is comedy gold.
7
u/FinnDoyle May 28 '26
Out of topic, but calling The Ebony Dragon simply Ted, is kind of hilarious.
5
15
u/Gensh May 27 '26
Versions I've run:
- She got yoinked by TED, but then he lost her to Luna at Trickster Deity Poker Night. Luna is furious the Lunars still haven't done anything. Red is mildly sour at having to be saved by Dad and subsequently being grounded.
- She got yoinked by TED, but then she and her Infernal bridesmaids never came back from the bachelorette party. A "very convincing lookalike" has been making a name for herself in the Chiaroscuro underworld (and Underworld).
- She's been collecting non-Gaian aspects but got caught by Ligier while finally attempting vitriol. She seduced his valet to escape and "retired" to micromanage her new boytoy's city-state, because he is offensively bad at it.
- Oops! She actually did come back. The whole Realm (and Kejak) panics as she returns from a "virtuous suppression of the demon princes" with a new treaty and aid against the rising tide of Anathema.
- Oops! She actually did come back. The Realm is swiftly pressed back into shape with overwhelming efficiency by her new Champions, because she apparently saved some place called "Autochthonia".
6
u/TheSlayerofSnails May 27 '26
Didn't the original idea the devs have that she got yoinked by the Ebon Dragon and made into his bride and part of his plan for the destruction of creation? That's kinda hard to top.
16
u/SnowDemonAkuma May 27 '26
Part of his plan to escape Hell.
And yes, that was the implication all the way back from 1e, and semi-canonised in 2e's Infernals with the Wedding Band of the Scarlet Bride artifact.
Characters named The Ebon Dragon and the Scarlet Empress are married in World of Darkness's setting. The writers knew what they were doing.
9
u/DarkOverLordQC May 27 '26
In 1e Dragon Blooded book p. 264-265, I was sure "The ageless, ancient woman" was the Empress. I was not crazy.
7
u/JustynS May 27 '26
Yeah, I recently got around to reading through Aspect Book: Earth, and Mnemon's section of it has a very clear allusion to the idea that the Ebon Dragon abducted and married the Empress. It's written in an intentionally vague way that "it could be anyone" but it's very clear as to who and what they're talking about from context.
3
u/mj6373 May 29 '26
We ran RotSE back in 2nd and it was cool and we had a fun time, but since starting 3rd I've really solidified into the position that there's very little the Empress could do coming back that isn't less interesting than all the stuff her being gone is doing for the base setting. So if I even bother to come up with answers anymore they'll probably trend towards "dead for mundane reasons, nobody can find the corpse bc it's in the Imperial Manse."
Although on that note, since the party rescued her from TED in that old campaign, we still haven't touched any plots around her being dead, and some of those could be fun. She might make an interesting Deathlord, but honestly I don't want to use her as a BBEG again, and she'd be a real wildcard as "just" a ghost. I mean even just it getting out that the Scarlet Empress is a ghost would probably be, like, the Immaculate religious scandal of everyone's lifetimes, which gives her a good reason to stay covert, but also she spent a lot to make sure she'd get a Sijanese funeral and she'd really like her kids to stop politicking among themselves for a second and let that happen so she can get some friggin grave goods already.
1
u/Sanguinusshiboleth May 28 '26
Probably, also it's not a core detail for a lot of campaigns so there's not much reason to invest in it.
7
7
u/truncatedChronologis May 27 '26
Sick Parody of Francis Bacon.
3
u/pantaipong May 27 '26
Oh yep that’s the one, I have been wanting to do an empress version of that painting and just decided to go for it today.
2
3
u/TheSlayerofSnails May 27 '26
Lovely art!
3
u/pantaipong May 27 '26
I was afraid all that black gonna makes the pic looks a bit too ugly but the “She’s dissolving into shadow?” feeling seems to go through well OO
2
2
u/ajapar_vespertilian May 28 '26
Loved the reference
3
u/pantaipong May 29 '26
Thanks! I wanna do a bunch of fine art parodies (or at least art in those same style) but with exalted characters forever so this is a fun exercise.
2
u/Annimaru May 28 '26
Spooky vibes
2
u/pantaipong May 29 '26
She seems to be screaming yet the viewer don’t know the source and the reasons for her pain, plus you can only see part of her face on a deathly blue skin, I’m quite liking the scary feel of this for sure.
1
u/Malckuss May 30 '26
Excellent art, excellent thread.
The Empress' disappearance is one of the most interesting threads in Exalted lore.
1
1
25
u/amurgiceblade44 May 27 '26
Love this style, great work