The biggest problem my players had when I was running Exalted was (as is common) power creep. Not so much with opponents: the biggest problem was that my players, who spent about 1% of the time with the game that I did, couldn’t keep track of their Charms. This drove me nuts. I spent two months making Charm Cards – copying the text of every single Charm into Excel and running it through Publisher to make 3×5 cards with all information on them, and then they didn’t want to play anymore.
So I packed up all of my books, etc. But these things go in cycles for me, so I’ve been thinking of how I could have reduced the headache that they felt. And I suddenly had this great image, of a guy in the middle of a firefight, who has to shift gears to a different role. Let’s say, he’s normally artillery, but his buddy just got hit so he has to perform first aid. In a mortal capacity, that’s not a big problem. However, when you raise it to Exalted levels – Resplendent Scorpion and our hero fighting against millions of Zombies or something, and RS just lost his leg – things get more difficult. So when the hero “Shifts gears,” he actually pulls a pack (I picture it as a Nintendo cartridge or something) out of his Essence Processing Unit and shoves in a new one.
Wow, I thought, That’s a really cool image. I wonder if I could use this to “mod” Exalted. Then I realized that it already existed. What I wanted were lightly-modded Alchemical Exalts.
Picture this: after defeating the Primordials, the gods got scared. They had heard the Curse laid upon their chosen warriors, and decided that they wouldn’t just sit back and wait for the Curse to take hold. They appointed Lytek, God of Exaltation, to the Bureau of Secrets, reporting to Nara-O, Keeper of Secrets. Nara-O required that Lytek move all his Exaltations into the Bureau’s coffers, to be held tight.
As Exalts died off during wars and infighting, they were not replaced. The gods congratulated themselves on a well-conceived plan that would keep Creation intact.
One problem: eventually, there were only a half-dozen Celestial Exalts left alive. And they had figured out that Exaltations had stopped. These six – a Dawn, a Night, an Eclipse, a Half Moon Lunar, a Chosen of Journeys and a Chosen of Secrets – teamed up (not uncommon in those centuries after the Primordial War) and began to unite Creation under a single celestial banner. After all, if they were the only ones left, how could they lose?
The gods noticed. In a panic, they approached Lytek and Autochthon, who was still within Creation. They asked for a more easily controlled type of Exalt, something that could compete with Solars, but that did not suffer from the autonomy of humanity.
Autochthon agreed, and after years of research, produced a crystals that contained Solar exaltations. The Jadeborn, bound beneath the Imperial Mountain, produced bodies made of stone and metal: each Magical Material was represented. When the Exaltation crystal was mounted in the body, it came to life in a powerful yet weakened state. First, it could not learn how to manipulate Essence flows to improve its functions. It could only run Essence through specially-developed channels within the form, meaning that the body (at first) had to be re-tooled to add Charms. This re-tooling reduced the efficiency and effectiveness of the Charms, but it was a necessary trade-off.
One hundred years after the Celestial Empire began, the so-called “Golden Army” (possibly a corruption of the phrase “Golem Army” that refers to the hand-made bodies infused with Orichalcum) emerged from a cave beneath the capital city of Meru. Armed with magitech weaponry, these soldiers made short work of the six remaining Exalts, and marched back into their cave, sealing the doors behind them. Autochthon was disappointed by these actions, and took himself Elsewhere, to make his own civilization. Basically, he took his toys and went home.
This all took place instead of the Usurpation, basically. Dragon-Blooded Exalts still exist, as the ultimate illustration of power. Because of this, the Elemental Dragons hold a much greater standing in creation. However, with no Sidereals, there is no Immaculate Order. Thus, there is much more communication and communion with gods, etc.
However, the Great Contagion still happens. 90% of the population dies before the gods notice that anything weird is going on. So, they panic. They re-activate the Alchemicals that have been in storage for the last millennium. And the PCs enter.
Basically, the PCs are brand-new Alchemical Exalts. They are imbued with certain skills and stats based on their construction, and they have access to Charms as according to rules in Exalted: the Autochthonians.
The differences are primarily in the Vats background. In this setting, Charms can be mounted one of two ways: Field Mounting and Solid Mounting.
Solid Mounting: this is parallel to the information in the book. Charms are mounted by the character’s Jadeborn Retainers, and takes time according to the information in the book. It does not require a Vat, but the character is out of commission during this time.
Field Mounting: This calls back to the image from the beginning of this OMG LONG post. Any field mounted charm can be disconnected and discarded/stowed as a 6-tick miscellaneous action (one turn). New charms may be Field Mounted as a miscellaneous action taking a number of ticks equal to the number of hours (days?) required for a Solid Mounting (one turn in 1e). During this action, hits received (not damage taken; it’s like knockback) prompts a Dexterity+Lore roll to hold onto the charm without breaking it. Arrays are mounted in a similar number of ticks. Defensive actions may be taken (but no Charms used) at a -2DV (or an appropriate split-action penalty in 1e).
Sustained Augmentation of (Attribute) Charms and all other Permanent Charms may not be Field Mounted.
Field Mounts increase the Essence needed for mounting by 1m per charm. This means you basically have to Stunt to get enough Essence to mount the Charms. This is a feature.
The biggest thing this does is limit the Charms available at a time. Players only need to check 10 Charm cards, and with Arrays, they can have a “deck” with what they need for each circumstance. This also eliminates the “Solars as monsters” dreck that I couldn’t get past when I was running the game. These Alchemicals are coming into a different world: A world flattened by plague, diminished in size, and on the eve of the Balorian Crusade.
Clarity: As in the original Alchemicals book, these Exalts have to worry about Clarity. This acts as both a detriment (High Clarity inflicts penalties on social situations) and a bonus: Alchemicals’ Clarity acts as a stabilizing force in the Wyld in a 10x(Current Clarity) yard radius circle around them.
Vats and Panoply: As in the book, Charms are cheaper to purchase for Alchemicals, because they have to be mounted in order to be available. Charms are Hard Mounted in Vats, and Essence increases require months of downtime in the Vats as well.
Essence: Above Essence 5, Exalts become (currently) unplayable, pending high-Essence (Municipal) Charms. High Essence Exalts become mobile cities, requiring much more maintenance. These Exalts are primarily used as stabilizing forces (Slang term: “Paperweights”) to keep back the Wyld from the edges of reality.
