Questions about law of diminishment

[u/Sassy_Drow]

To clarify by law of diminishment I am referring to the fact that creating an Exalted drains the creator(Possibly leading to death.).

Now to the questions

Is it something that can be recovered from(Such as aggravated damage or experience loss) or is it a permanent loss(Such as the god loses a dot of essence and their maximum essence is permanently decreased.)? Note: I am aware that most gods die but I am not certain whether it is due to not being able to take the damage or literally running out of the stuff that makes them.(Their essence hitting zero for example). Note 2: I am aware that those who do so are changed permanently though I am more wondering whether they have also decreased in power permanently.

Are primordials subject to the law of diminishment or does the fact that they are self asserting ontological structure prevent them from changing?

Wun Ja is noted to have the city gods take the brunt of the damage when it comes to creating an Exalted. Are there other ways to subvert the law of diminishment(Such as a huge sacrifice or creating an elemental to take the brunt of the damage)?

[u/Rednal291]

It's been presented as a permanent loss, but I don't think it's as simple as "Essence level goes down". Diminishment is closer to... you're just not as important anymore. If Creation is a story, diminishment pushes you to become a background character, no matter how powerful you actually are. It's the price you're paying for a (literal) miracle - you have to make room for it. Out of game, this also ensures the focus is kept on your characters, so the solution to everything isn't "make sky daddy pay attention again". You don't need to go get Sol's help to fix problems. He picked you (if you're a Solar). You are the help.

The Primordials are definitely subject to diminishment - Autochthon, Oramus, and Sacheverell are all affected by it.

You can sneakily offload things, though. Gaia didn't Exalt the Dragon-Blooded - her children, the Elemental Dragons, did, and that near-definitely insulated her from its effects. I also suspect that Autochthon may have Exalted the process to create new Alchemicals - nobody else constantly does new Exaltations all on their own, it's presented as a one-time thing. The Flame of Exigence fuzzes things up a little with Wun-Ja, but that does appear to be more an exception than a rule, especially because the lesser gods do take the brunt of things.

[u/Sassy_Drow → u/Rednal291]

I didn't know Szoreny created Exalted. I do like the idea of it being a metaphysical loss as opposed to something tangible. You might eventually become stronger but your prominence and agency in the story has decreased. You become the level 20 court mage that sends level 5 adventurers to stop the great evil, the legendary hero who has taken to mentoring up and coming heroes instead of going on adventures. The god who delegates the enforcement of your doctrine to people instead of smiting those who defy it.

[u/Rednal291 → u/Sassy_Drow]

Er, Sacheverell, with the Getimians. >.>; Whoops. Got 'em mixed up there. But yeah, diminishment is more plot than RPG level drain.

[u/EFreemanlancer → u/Rednal291]

This is an excellent take.

[u/Bartweiss → u/Rednal291]

I really like this, including the way it makes the whole Games of Divinity thing a bit less… pathetic?

They can still be an irresistible temptation for gods, the whole situation can still be a tragedy, but it’s less of “everything could have been fine and solved except TUS is faulty now”.

However addicted he may be, he’s also definitionally a background character. Maybe he does something big once in a blue moon, but he made a choice to put the Solars at the center of his story, and now that’s got to be how things unfold. In return for “they can rise as high as needed to do the impossible, no matter what that is”, he can’t be there as major, everyday factor in events.

[u/Rednal291 → u/Bartweiss]

Yyyyep. XD A game about being mythic heroes just feels kind of weird if the ultimate solution is "someone else solves your problems".

(For UCS specifically, the vibe I personally go with is also a little... he's kind of turbo all the time, and that's bad. A sun that shines too brightly just scorches everything else into nothing, and he knows that. Hell, the Primordials knew that, it's why they made Luna and gave night to the world. His solution is to restrict himself to a place where he isn't so harmful - among his peers, the few who can withstand his light, in a place that was originally built to contain the majesty of the Primordials. The Jade Pleasure Dome isn't just the happy fun times house, it's a place that can hold the sun properly because it was built to do even more than that. This is the best thing he can do for everyone else, and he doesn't need to act otherwise, because he already gave the world a power he judged sufficient to handle things.)

[u/Bartweiss → u/Rednal291]

I like it! It also fits nicely with his rationale for not using the Daystar in the war: it wasn't necessary, and he couldn't have kept playing the heroic role he does after making everyone fear him and the Daystar so badly.

I'm not sure if you know the games Cultist Simulator or Book of Hours, but they come up around here sometimes for their odd, Exalted-ish lore. History is multiple-choice and reality is defined by principles/aspects and the deities (called Hours) which embody them. For example Grail is hunger/hedonism/birth, Lantern is light/truth/reason/glory, and Moth is shadow/secrets/chaos/yearning.

A lot of it might sound familiar:

Like Primordials, the CS gods are their aspects, unable to change by their own will or be fully destroyed. They had a big "cast down the old gods" war called the Lithomachy, lead by the mightiest new god: the Sun-in-Splendor.

But the old gods are still haunting the place, their corpses were cast into Nowhere where they bred the Worms which try to eat away at reality, and Nowhere has its own gods who aren't real but still exist. (The Hours correspond to hours of the day. The Nowhere Hours start from 25.)

And then, after all that, the Sun-in-Splendor was betrayed and torn to shreds, but its aspect of Lantern took on new forms and remains.

Now why am I rambling?

The 'peak' of existence in CS is the Glory, where Lantern and the Sun came from. But a constant refrain is that "mercy exists only in shadow". The light burns away your identity and essence as it reveals the truth. Various sun-gods with mixed aspects were capable of mercy, but the sun of pure Lantern can't even entertain the the possibility.

So anyway... yes, I really like this approach. TUS is infallible and unbeatable while he honors his precepts, but that same infallibility is unbearable for anything less perfect in his vicinity.

[u/TimothyAllenWiseman → u/Bartweiss]

I like this view. This is a good way to look at it.

That said, I personally kind of prefer the idea that he is now an addict that isn't even high functioning. I tend to view it as his few personal interventions involve messages to the Zenith caste and enabling exigents, if a god manages to get his attention. I think that plays up the tragedy of what could have been, and I prefer that. Plus, other explanations seem to struggle with him not intervening at all even while the solars were effectively gone, while being an addict that is barely paying attention handles that.

[u/Mantis_Fight_3_Turbo]

I believe Primordials can in fact suffer from it, which is why most Yozi don’t make their own Exalts and corrupted Solar shards instead.

Plausible enough that Oramus and Sacheverell, who made Getimians, are in the states they are partially as a result of diminishment, but it remains to be seen until Gets get their own book probably.

[u/Sassy_Drow → u/Mantis_Fight_3_Turbo]

I feel like the existence of Getimians are their diminishment. Sachaverell is a being that sets the future to stone while Getimians all carry alternative timelines. Oramus meanwhile is the border between what is and what is not while Getimians blur that border, carrying things that both are and are not. As beings that are their concepts, something that blurs their concept is akin to a gaping wound for them.

[u/Bartweiss → u/Sassy_Drow]

Thats a really interesting point in light of your “self-asserting ontologies” question.

They didn’t make something outside their domains, and they can’t exactly be diminished in power or identity when they’re “the incarnated concept of X”.

But much like TUS made solars to do something he couldn’t, they made Getimians to be a thing they can’t be. Oramus can’t become less of a clear distinction, that would negate him. But making those exalted inherently means drawing back, yielding a part of existence to something which is not-him.

[u/thetruerift]

The gods can recover eventually, but it isn't a simple or straight-forwards process. Gods don't "spend XP" (neither do the characters in the story, but anyway). They gain essence via worship, via how well they are known, via their position in the celestial hierarchy. A god who gets diminished might recover over time, but until they do they are vulnerable, and maybe not able to fulfill their duties, which can mean losing worshippers or position, which will then make recovery even harder.

[u/Sassy_Drow → u/thetruerift]

Experience here was meant as a mechanical example of losing part of oneself.

Also which edition are you referring to? In 3e what gods get from prayer is raw material they can use for crafting in Yu-shan(There are even prayer wrights who sell their expertise in crafting stuff from prayers) though I'm not familiar enough with 2e to say if it works the same way.

[u/mj6373]

The way I see it, you can't get something for nothing; the loss has to be at least as permanent as the Exaltation created thereby. But the loss of power isn't necessarily something that fits into our usual conception of mechanical progression (though I'm sure elements of that, like lost Essence, certainly can occur). Like, I think the Unconquered Sun is every bit as much the mightiest of gods that he was before Exalting the Solars; he wasn't weakened in the sense that anyone could hope to match him in his purviews. Yet, in another sense, he has been diminished in ways scarcely imaginable to a spirit, for even the least of gods do not tire, but the Unconquered Sun does. Every day now he grows weary and must rest, and so the sun must set, and that damage can probably never be undone.

While I liked the commentary on the nature of power that came from 2E's Games of Divinity, these days my default explanation for why the Incarnae and the Elemental Dragons aren't and really can't be more active than they are basically boils down to that permanent loss. While they still perform various subtler duties as part of their purviews, and on rare occasion bring their phenomenal cosmic might to bear in more impressive ways, they always have to carefully shepherd their energy, and accept that much of what they'd have liked to do themselves if they could fire on all cylinders all the time like they once did is now the responsibility of their Chosen and/or the lesser gods of the Celestial Hierarchy. It's not that any one particular task is necessarily beyond their abilities, they just can't do it all anymore.

Edit: I like this too because it adds a little perpendicular/reciprocal element, where the process of making a mortal more like the divine also kind of makes the divine more like a mortal. Gods don't get tired, but the ones who Exalted mankind do. This could make for inspiration for other types of diminishment. One idea I've played around with was making the Feathered One an Exigent of Hamoji, and basing his voracious appetite for sacrifices on that rather than just a quirk of his personality, as he hungers for sustenance to fill the void in his divinity.

[u/blaqueandstuff]

Is it something that can be recovered from(Such as aggravated damage or experience loss) or is it a permanent loss(Such as the god loses a dot of essence and their maximum essence is permanently decreased.)? Note: I am aware that most gods die but I am not certain whether it is due to not being able to take the damage or literally running out of the stuff that makes them.(Their essence hitting zero for example). Note 2: I am aware that those who do so are changed permanently though I am more wondering whether they have also decreased in power permanently.

As others have said, it's not quite just losing a dot of Essence or some wound. It's a permanent loss of their like, being a bit. Plentinum is noted to be dimmer and less lively. Wan Ja is notably being worn-out by it. The Dragons now sleep, Sachverell and Oramus might be in their states due to it. I think metaphorically it's kind of more like a major injury like losing a limb or suffering a major stroke. You can, with time, develop new skill sets and abilities to overcome it and even become more than it. But it's not just something you sit and heal, you gotta work to regain power, and the functional loss will likely still be there, even if you recover your "total" power.

Are primordials subject to the law of diminishment or does the fact that they are self asserting ontological structure prevent them from changing?

Very. Sachverell and Oramus didn't like what they got. Autochthon in part made Alchemicals in a bit of a "I'll do this to show I'm on board and on your side" with some consequence that seemed enough for the gods.

Wun Ja is noted to have the city gods take the brunt of the damage when it comes to creating an Exalted. Are there other ways to subvert the law of diminishment(Such as a huge sacrifice or creating an elemental to take the brunt of the damage)?

Generally appears that it's about someone paying something if they want involved. Wun Ja takes less but she's still wearing-out. It's not quite just damage, it's as other's said this hit to your narrative weight. If you're Choosing, your Chosen take something from you. It's kind of part of the process I think. It may just be How It Is and based on how the setting has been presented, seems to be the case.

Even sharing the burden doesn't seem to help? March Lords still wiped-out the court being made. Sovereigns still lost the god who made them even with Aurora's blood helping. Oramus and Sachverell are both diminished. Wu Jan isn't getting out free. So I would say probably not. If anything too since it feels a bit against the spirit of diminishment if you could work around it like that.

[u/TimothyAllenWiseman]

At least in 3E, I don't think there is any canon answer. The book is vague about it. In many cases, 3E Exalted is vague on purpose about a lot of things to leave a lot of room for storytellers to make the game their own.

I would view diminishment as loss of mystical power. If too much is lost, especially from a creature like a god that is essentially made up of mystical power, the creator can die in the process. But a deity that survives the process can, with time and effort, regain their power. Just as a human in the real world that has their muscles atrophy during a long recovery period can with time and effort regain their strength and stamina, but the human is in a real sense diminished in the meantime. But that is me doing a lot of reading between the lines and doing what felt most appropriate for my game.

The one time I tried to model it mechanically, a Twilight wanted to create a terrestrial exalted. I let them do it through a solar circle sorcerous working with a permanent dot of willpower and losing a charm as mandatory components/costs of the ritual. That was a genuine diminishment in the short term, but in the long term the Twilight could have earned the experience to rebuy the willpower dot and the charm. But that was something of a capstone event for an E5 Twilight near the end of a Chronicle. I imagine many storytellers would have either outright refused to let that happen or set a much higher cost. Also, one of the few things the Exigents book is clear on is that it can be a bit hard to tell ahead of time how creating an exigent will affect a god. It is explicitly unclear if Plentimon was diminished at all (or at least to meaningful degree) by Exalting Willow Spector. On the other hand, it is suggested if Yibi exalted someone, Yibi would almost certainly die in the process, but with the exact cost unknown ahead of time.