Spoilers del Kickstarter

Holden escribió:Marley: Weapons-compatible and even weapons-exclusive martial arts are a thing in EX3, and can certainly be interwoven with Evocations by cunning practitioners to create unique and devastating combat styles.

Holden escribió:Tiresias: New Eclipse anima power: No more Charmshare between Exalts via the anima power. Eclipses -do- retain the ability to learn certain magics of other sorts of supernatural beings, such as spirits-- there's a Keyword denoting powers they can pick up (generally flavorful ones such as the ability to walk on clouds or interrogate the sea to give up its secrets, which would help them in their role as walkers-among-all-courts). These shared Charms don't have a special price hike, since the fact that they're Eclipse-available means we already judged they weren't going to break anything in an Eclipse's hand, and with that in place, there's no reason to tax your fun.

Holden escribió:Matthew: The Getimians do appear in the corebook, but they are elusive and tricky creatures. Perhaps on a forum somewhere a spoiler post about them is being formulated right now. Perhaps another developer will be along soon to talk about them here.

Holden escribió:Christian: Two reasons. First, the system does a better job of executing the kind of fast, flowing, cinematic action the game's been trying for since First Edition. Second, we're moving farther out into our explorations of the setting and looking at new places, and introducing new actors-- it's a big huge mysterious world like it was in the beginning, primed to be explored and discovered anew (rather than just rehashed and rehashed and rehashed-- though everyone's favorite classic stuff is still there).

Holden escribió:Kjetil: One of the main design goals of EX3 was to make NPCs way way way easier for Storytellers to manage.

Holden escribió:Greg: The new Merits system makes it really easy to make characters like Faka Kun and Ophilis Ses right out of the gate.

John escribió:Etienne: Third Edition starts at the same time as previous editions. RY768.

John escribió:Marley: I have even planned a special martial art that requires a specific artifact and its unique Evocations.

Holden escribió:Etienne: EX3 starts at the same "Day Zero" as EX1 and EX2. The fiction anthology may present some older Exalted characters as more seasoned and experienced than they were in older editions, but that's just fiction for your reading pleasure.

Holden escribió:Andrew: You mean like the 1e/2e Storyteller Companions? At the moment, there's no plan for that-- it takes a ton of our limited manpower and it's always been questionable how much use people got out of those books.

John escribió:Matthew York: Playtesting has yet to begin. When I am ready to select participants again I will do another "heads up" post.

Holden escribió:MRoark: It should be equally easy to port characters from either edition. Maybe a little bit easier from 1e because there isn't that weird power-shift of Infinite Mastery disappearing.

John escribió:Matthew Roark: You should be able to port any of your characters. Buying into the playtest is not an option at this time, due to uncertain dates for the playtest. There is a lot of work going in to getting the system ready to test, and it's not quite there yet.

Holden escribió:Marley: Eclipse has always been my favorite. All hail the Crowned Sun!

John escribió:Marley: Dawn is my favorite. I have always been the combat guy. My favorite to write and talk about is the Eclipse Caste, though, because it has the most interesting social position / role in a Circle.

John escribió:Matthew Roark's wife: Your Dawn (and Solars of all castes) will have far more mobility in choosing outside of their classic caste Abilities at chargen, without using up their favored choices. No keywords, no complicated mix and match. It's built right into the chargen rules.

John escribió:Jere Manninen: Zeniths have the same Ability spread as before, and we have returned to their 1e roots—Zeniths are attended by the Unconquered Sun upon Exaltation. We have a new "signature Circle" of Solars. Our new Zenith is Perfect Soul, and her Exaltation happens when she denounces the gods who have abandoned her and smashes a shrine to the Unconquered Sun in her fury. In that moment, he felt connected to her, for he knew what it was like to be betrayed and to turn his back.

John escribió:Jere: There will indeed be many new Charms in the Zenith Abilities. The Familiar taming/enhancing Charms in Survival are going to be awesome.

John escribió:Jordan: Twilight gets a new anima power.

Holden on the Solar/Lunar Bond escribió:Jeremy: It's a whole big complicated thing with huge bearing on what the Lunars are doing, rather than a very simple brain lasso.

John escribió:Anthony: Getimians and Liminals will be big unknowns. There will be a few other surprises as well.

Holden escribió:Roy: There are things like sword styles rooted in Melee in EX3.

John escribió:Jere: Yes, but the Cult of the Illuminated will be experiencing some shift in 3e. Stay tuned.

Holden escribió:Thrown characters get some nasty run-and-gun style options and have the advantage of being versatile and effective in many range situations.

John escribió:Re: Thrown: the new Night Caste is a mobile weapons platform. She carries a sling of javelins on her back, a throwing hatchet, a bracer of throwing knives on her hip, has a number of kunai taped to her thigh, and hides throwing needles up her sleeves.
Her awesomeness will be reflected in the Thrown set.

Tiresias escribió:Re: Whether or not having an arsenal of thrown Artifacts would be as viable as using mundane thrown weapons.

Holden escribió:Tiresias: Sure, why not?

Holden escribió:Joe: In combat, Essence just comes back at a steady 5 motes per round. It's not tied to stunts any more-- stunts give different rewards.

Holden escribió:Anthony: Pretty much all the classic spells are going to come back at some point during the edition. As to what makes it into the core-- we'll have to see how much we can fit in
Crescens: The entire combat engine is pretty different.

Holden escribió:Anthony: That's an easy one. Rakan Thulio, rogue Sidereal Exalted, architect of the war against Heaven. Of him, more will be spoken in the future. I think he might be my favorite of all John's many additions to EX3.

Tiresias escribió:Re: If it's possible to kill many people in one blow:

Holden escribió:Timothy: We wouldn't be a very good wuxia game if it didnt! But we don't have a separate 'mass combat' system in the way EX2 did.....

Holden escribió:CMudd: I think Infinite Mastery was the thing was most glad to be rid of.

Holden escribió:Jere: My experience was that most people managed a steady 4m/action off of stunts in previous editions, so it's not thaaaat big a shift.

Holden escribió:Quinn: Hmm let me just say this-- see that Updates tab over near the comments tab? Keep an eye on that because it's going to get very active during the long haul of the Kickstarter, and not everything it reveals will be about Solars. >

Holden escribió:Lydia: To be totally honest, I've never dug the "Solar becomes an Abyssal" concept myself-- but we know a lot of people like it, so we're still up in the air as to what we're going to do with it. In all likelihood, the character will remain fully viable and canonical. If not, please ignore the bit that gets in your way and keep playing the character anyway! But 90% chance the character is fine.
Dodge is still there, as are War and Integrity. The streamlining of Dodge into Athletics in the other Storyteller systems makes a lot of sense, but we wanted to keep it because it was a very fertile ground for Charm design separate from Athletics (and frankly Athletics is already one of the most prestigious Charm resources-- we don't want to turn it into "the Dexterity of the Ability spread," so to speak).

Holden escribió:CS Williams: Weapon traits (as in, bonuses to attack, defense, damage, etc) are greatly simplified. On the other hand, weapon tags have been greatly expanded, allowing different weapons to provide different tactical opportunities. As light weapons, a whip and a dagger perform pretty much the same when you're just trying to hurt someone with them-- but the dagger could be used in a special action to thrust into vulnerable points in an opponent's armor, while the whip can entangle or give you a better shot at disarming, for example.

Arcanus Dicere escribió:On the Great Curse and Virtues:

John Mørke escribió:Ben Sullivan: For the Solars, the Great Curse is basically the same. Virtues will be entirely different, folded into the social system.

Holden escribió:Ben: The role of Virtues is massively reduced because we realized the expanded Intimacy system obsoletes their old functions and performs them with much greater customizability and nuance. The Great Curse is much more flexible, situationally nuanced,, and Storyteller-adjustable than before---- rather than "you will periodically flip out and kill your friends because they were out of Rocky Road at Ben & Jerry's"

Holden escribió:The styles are calculated to ride at a power level that's suitable for a wide array of practitioners. Dragon-Blooded and Solars mostly just use the same Martial Arts Charms, though some Charms work a bit differently for DBs-- they get less out of them than others do. Dragon-Blooded who have undergone specific, rigorous training regimens (such as Immaculate monks) get to ignore those distinctions.
This does mean that you can play a Dragon-Blooded and use Snake style, or a Solar and use Jade Mountain, and that will be a good decision for you either way.

Holden escribió:Tyler: Yes, and grappling is actually-- I can't believe this either-- actually very easy and straightforward to resolve, and doesn't have the godly/useless binary dilemma, either.

Holden escribió:David: The Wyld is bigger and much more diverse than in previous editions, where "the infinite myth-cauldron beyond the borders of Creation" kinda got flensed down to "lava lamp with raksha in it" by sheer lack of anything else getting shown.
As for the Fair Folk, they're getting radically simplified from a mechanical perspective, and probably structured in a way that doesn't look like the other things in Exalted. Not in that they're baroque and hard to grasp, but in that their power set probably looks more like a World of Darkness splat than an Exalted one, with easy power ladders rather than a labyrinthine Charm set. They need to be fun to play, but also very easy for STs to understand and run as NPCs.

Holden escribió: [Evocations] Yes-- Solars in particular have no difficulty with various different magical materials, or even with weapons blending multiple magical materials.

Holden escribió: Multi-attack flurries are out, for one thing-- or at least, they're out as regular combat options, and very rare among Charms (and very carefully balanced there). So the average combat round consists of everyone at the table declaring an attack or similar combat maneuver, rolling it, and then moving on to the next guy till everyone's had a turn. This is in comparison to 1e and 2e, where each character might have anywhere from 3-8 attacks to resolve. That alone speeds things along enormously.

Combat, as you've deduced, is back to being based on rounds rather than ticks. However, the above description may be misleading, because it probably sounds a lot like the nWoD, where you bang down someone's Health track round after round, one attack at a time, until they drop. That's not EX3 at all...

Holden escribió:The tiers are mostly gone in EX3-- it's just "martial arts" and then Sidereal Martial Arts as a special thing.

Holden escribió: [on XP] suffice it to say that the old problem of MA being a huge opportunity cost monster is no more.

Holden escribió:It's gonna be uncommon to see more than 26 dice hitting the table at once, but my philosophy is that there's no such thing as too many d10s.

John escribió:Nathaniel: There's no Lunar nation, so to speak, but a number of powerful Lunar strongholds throughout Creation. So I guess the proper way to say it is nations. And they are by no means united, save for the loose dictates of Lunar to Lunar alliance mandated by the Silver Pact.

John escribió:Nathaniel: Often being thousands of miles apart and having nothing to do with each other is the first reason they aren't connected.

Holden escribió:Gregory: I will always miss the goofy over-the-top awesomeness of the Daystar. Farewell, brave Chirmirajen!

Holden escribió:Nathaniel: Yes. Malfeas is locked up in Hell and can't get out. His mighty souls might be able to, and an Infernal Exalt certainly can-- it seems wiser to deal with the things that can actually threaten you and the places you care about rather taking a stick and poking at the absurdly powerful thing you already vanquished thousands of years ago.

Holden escribió:Jeremy: Mutations are just handled as Merits in EX3.

Holden escribió:Ryan: A full-blown manse creation system is in the cards for a later supplement.

Tiresias escribió:Re: Whether it's possible to wield a goremaul without feeling guilty

Holden escribió:Ryan: Yes. Weapon balance is one of the things we've been most careful about.

Holden escribió:Andrew: We've improved the Resources system from 1e/2e, where I think it was simplified a bit too far.

Ryan escribió:Will 3E's system provide fun combat options for characters who aren't as focused on direct fighting? In 2E, even before Infinite Mastery was a factor, my Dawn often felt like he was either steamrolling the enemies his Circlemates could fight, or like he was the only hope against the enemies that the rest of the Circle couldn't handle.
Don't get me wrong, I like being strong, but I like seeing other PCs contributing even in my field of expertise.

Holden escribió:Ryan: Absolutely yes.

Fungimandias escribió:On mote regeneration:

Holden escribió:Ben: It's slower outside combat-- that adrenaline rush and upsurge of your fighting spirit helps keep your mojo running hot.

Holden escribió:Matthew: Merits can be acquired in a number of ways. Merits with the 'Story' notation on them can be purchased during character creation, if you want to start with the advantage, with the usual cost. If you pick up the Merit during the course of the game, a Story merit costs no experence-- it's something you acquired through roleplaying, such as wealth or contacts or a piece of magical armor. Other merits, with different notations, might require experience points to pick up during play-- I'm still on the fence as to whether Tempered By the Elements should be Story or Purchased.

Merits Preview 1

Note: This is a working draft and subject to change before publication.

Exalted Third Edition eliminates the Backgrounds system used in previous editions. In its place stand Merits—a more flexible system capable of assigning mechanical nuance and significant story advantages to characters, in much the same fashion as Backgrounds did. Unlike Backgrounds, Merits aren’t shackled to a 1-to-5-dot structure, removing the need for forced equivalency. Below are two Merits appearing in Exalted Third Edition. One is an updated version of a thorny Background from First and Second Editions; the other is entirely new, written for Third Edition.

Familiar (• to •••)—Story

This Merit may be re-purchased as many times as desired. Creation is filled with beasts both prosaic and exotic, and the character has formed a deep and profound bond with one of them. Although the familiar is (probably) no more able to speak the languages of men than any other beast, the character can roughly understand the chirps, pawings, barks, and gesticulations of his animal companion, and the familiar understands the character’s commands in turn. If the character is an Essence-user, he can even share his familiar’s senses by concentrating and taking no other actions, so long as the familiar is within (Essence x 100) yards (abstracted to long range in combat).

One dot in this Merit provides a relatively weak familiar, such as a squirrel, owl, cat or dog. Two dots provides a formidable or useful beast, such as a riding animal or vicious predator—horses, simhata, tigers, and omen dogs are all appropriate two-dot familiars. Three dots provides a familiar that is in some way overtly exceptional or magical, such as one of the talking monkeys of Halta, an armored and fire-breathing ox mutated by the Wyld, or a God-Blooded stallion fathered by the horse god Hiparkes. It is nigh-unknown for apex superpredators such as siaka to form connections to people that don’t involve digesting them, but rumors persist of a Lunar Exalt accompanied by a pack of loyal tyrant lizards.

Tempered by the Elements (•)—Story

Due to her upbringing, the character is at home navigating a certain harsh environment, selected when this Merit is taken. The character is able to treat one type of difficult terrain (such as deep snow, thick jungle, or broken ruins) as though it were normal terrain. While this Merit can be taken more than once, very few characters ever do so, as it takes years of intimate familiarity to cultivate.

Exalted Third Edition working table of contents

Note: This is a working model and subject to change before publication.


Introduction

An introduction and overview of the world and history of the Exalted setting, along with a lexicon of important terms and concepts.

Chapter One: The Exalted
A chapter spotlighting the diverse Chosen whose conflicts and passions drive the history of Creation.

Chapter Two: Setting
An overview of the world of Exalted, including major elements of the setting such as spirits and religion, the Realm, noteworthy regions in the Threshold that surrounds the heart of the world, and otherworldly menaces such as the dead and the Fair Folk.

Chapter Three: Character Creation
This chapter contains all the instructions necessary for players to create Solar Exalted characters. Mortal heroes are also playable using this chapter. Other heroes (and scourges) of Creation will be available to play in future supplements.

Chapter Four: Traits
A full explanation of the game’s various traits, and an illustration of their practical uses. Also includes an explanation of the Castes of the Solar Exalted, new rules for the Great Curse, and a new system of Merits with which to flesh out and customize characters.

Chapter Five: Systems and Drama
The new rules on which Exalted Third Edition run, encompassing flexible, basic resolution rules for all situations, plus special rules for social conflict, an all-new cinematic combat engine, battle groups, and more.

Chapter Six: Charms
This chapter contains the wondrous Charms of the Solar Exalted—magic by which a hero’s own skills and prowess are suffused with divine might and Apollonian glory.

Chapter Seven: Martial Arts and Sorcery
This chapter presents rules for a number of formal combat styles, and the magnificent supernatural techniques they become when practiced by the Exalted. Additionally, it presents rules (and a number of spells) for the art of sorcery—an art so potent and uncanny that it stands out even among the ranks of the divine champions of the gods.

Chapter Eight: Storytelling
This chapter is a practical guide to running Exalted, addressing the specific concerns of divinely powerful heroes in a large, sophisticated setting. It has been crafted to be of use to both a Storyteller running Exalted for the first time, and a veteran getting ready to run his fifteenth game.

Chapter Nine: Antagonists
This chapter presents a simple method by which Storytellers can quickly and easily generate non-player characters on the fly, and then presents a wide array of ready-to-use characters and character templates which should be of frequent use in many games. It also exposes the diversity of Creation, covering a wide array of mortals, beasts, Exalted, spirits, and even stranger things.

Chapter Ten: Equipment and Wonders

This chapter presents easy rules for outfitting characters for the trials and tribulations of a savage age, whether they are starting out with only the crudest armor and a simple spear, or have recovered ancient magical weapons forged at the height of the First Age. This chapter also details Evocations, a new system of magic arising from the rapport between a character and his mystic panoply.

John Mørke escribió:Philip Groom: The Dragon-Blooded are awesome, as ever. I am putting a lot of thought into the Dynasty, the houses (major and minor) and Realm genealogies.

Holden escribió:There are plans to eventually give you help building your own Charmsets

Re: The number of Exalts

Holden escribió:Mike: We're cranking it back toward 1e, where we do know how many Exalts there are, but we didn't explicitly reference exact numbers of Exalts all the time. Except Sidereals-- there are still exactly 100 Sidereals for sure and that'll be mentioned repeatedly lol

Holden escribió:Christina: To the Realm, Lunars are shattered chains clanking in the night beyond the city walls. They're the hoary and terrible claw clenched around the Realm's throat. They've suffered betrayal, undergone metamorphosis, and become something very different from the spouses and guardians the reborn Solars may remember in their dreams. The Lunars are gods, monsters, and heroes, Luna's children, artful dancers in a thousand skins, killing to be free.

Holden escribió:The anima banners have been spiffed up a bit for EX3

Holden escribió:Ryan: At this point it doesn't look like the Mandate of Heaven will be making a comeback. I was fond of the system too, but I think the two of us are the only people who liked it lol

The good news is that if you like it, you can pretty much just drop it right into EX3 unchanged with no trouble.

Re: Which Direction is most under Realm control.

Holden escribió:Frank: Toss-up between the North and South.

Holden escribió:We're not doing Abyssal-fied everythings, no.

Akuma are not around as a unified thing, though there are still Exalts who make questionable bargains with questionable beings for various reasons, power among them.

Hatewheel escribió:Prince Diamond was born a woman, but he is a Dereth, which means he is socially and legally considered a man. It may be worthy of noting that Diamond’s mother was not a Delzahn woman.The Delzahn have a custom called far-riding, a quasi-spiritual journey Delzahn riders make in order to absolve someone of a crime. Far rides are usually made to restore something that was lost. In most cases, they happen due to a loss of honor, pride, or life.

In other words, the Delzahn rides eternally, in search of something he can never find. Yet they are bound by their oath, and so they search ever onward, pushing their horses to greater and greatest distances and undertaking more desperate and impossible causes in order to gain something that might equal what was lost. In most cases, the far rider dies in his pursuit of the impossible, and only then is the crime absolved. Because of the greatness of the deeds of several far riders throughout history, they have become a subject of legend and myth with the Delzahn people.

Far riders are revered as the greatest heroes of the Delzahn, but they are also the most reviled. All Delzahn must follow two rules if they encounter a far rider:
1) They must attack him or show him hospitality. If they show him hospitality they can never acknowledge his identity or his past. He is a stranger.
2) They must choose to attack or assist him. They can never ignore him.

Far rides produce tremendous heroes whose stories are told again and again by the Delzahn. They are celebrated as easily as they are spat upon. Often only a far rider’s death restores his family’s dignity and releases his subject from punishment. Many legendary far rides end with the hero riding into a heroic death, often after going on an impossible quest that could only end in his demise.

Prince Diamond’s far ride brings him to Jiara. He sees the war Perfect Soul is waging against House Mnemon and feels compelled. He believes that Jiara is possibly the last stop on his long and endless journey.

Hatewheel escribió:Prince Diamond is a prophet and swordsman-duelist and his horse is his greatest ally and companion, like a brother.

Chapter Fiction

Note: This is a working draft and subject to change before publication.

Exalted Third Edition will feature a number of pieces of short fiction, the better to illustrate various elements of its setting and the heroes that inhabit it. Previewed below is a fiction excerpt of the sort that will appear at the front of each chapter of the book.

Seven Devil Clever had come across a whole world to see this vista, and it pleased her greatly to have made the trip. She had twined herself around the upper branches of a vast and mighty oak, growing on a hillside far above the city of Faxai.

The city was clearly defined below her, a brightly lit figure inside its formal walls. Outside the walls there were the occasional light crystals and flaring torches of outriders, but otherwise, darkness. She exulted at the sight, knowing the vast expenditures of resources that must be required for the Realm to keep that little chunk of light burning so terribly far from home, with no ability to raise its own food or supply its own merchandise. When Faxai fell, the Caul would belong utterly to the Lunar Exalted.

She dropped down into the darkness where the others waited. There was another Lunar, an older Full Moon who had brought her here, no doubt at great risk. She had wanted to urge him to stay behind—it was not as if two of them could overmatch a Wyld Hunt together, any more than she could alone.

But if there were words that could demonstrate to a Lunar warrior without insult that he should abstain from a fight he clearly desired to court, Seven Devil Clever’s tongue was not preternaturally swift enough to utter them. He was here of his own accord; the law of the Lunar tribe was that he could have let her scamper to her death unaided. She was no sworn kin of his, this was not a mission requested by the Silver Pact. Yet here he was, with his personal guard as well. Seven Devil Clever thought he might want to bang her like a fine drum, but she didn’t want to raise her tail to such a gruesome old buck, and had made that clear long before the journey started.

They walked for a while, Seven Devil Clever a grey ghost amidst the rangy, leaping gait of the ape-men that accompanied her. When they were well past the crest and downslope, he signaled for her to stop. Did he think the occupiers in their city could hear them whispering all the way out here, leagues away in the forest? A fact worth noting.

“Did you like what you saw?”

“Fantastic, Mangler. They’re bottled up tight in there. Do they get out at all?”

“Oh yes. The night makes it look especially dramatic, that’s why I chose to show you this vista during the hours of darkness, but don’t be fooled. They’ve been fighting us for years and they’re not dead yet. They have excellent light discipline and they are very aggressive about controlling the space outside their walls. They can’t use it, but you had better think twice before you try to. There’s a reason we’re looking at it from so far away. Their operations can range out even as far as this, but not much farther. Wyld Hunts will ride much farther, of course.”

Seven Devil Clever nodded. “This is an awesome fight you’re in.” She meant it sincerely. She was watching the snake of the Realm held down by its head and strangled, and deftly at that.

“Thank you, I take great pride in it. I helped do that.”

Ah ha. Now she knew why he was showing it to her. Bragging rights.

“How long until they’re gone?”

“No more than five years, we think.”

“Mouse in your pocket?”

“You could say I speak for the council of senior Full Moons, among whom I am the least. I am told our plans have the favor of His Divine Lunar Presence.”

Everything gained so much clarity.

“It’s true, then? The black lion is active again?” Neither of them quite dared to breathe the name Sha’a Oka into the night.

A smile revealed ivory fangs. “We want you to see what we can accomplish, Seven Devil Clever. We want you to think about what you could accomplish if you ran with us. This is the time for the strong to assert themselves.”

John escribió:"Defend other" action will show up in EX3.

John on Livestream escribió:
Beasts (animals, dinosaurs, monsters) are different from what they were in previous editions. More than just statblocks acting as minor obstacles, many creatures a Lunar can shapeshift into use special abilities that a Lunar can borrow when taking that animal's form.

Some beasts are actually very robust competent hunters and fighters, such as the Tyrant Lizard. A Lunar using that form can extend tracking (Survival) rolls across an entire continent using the Tyrant Lizard's incredible sense of smell. And in a fight, she can learn to use the Tyrant Lizard's signature attacks, including his finisher, Ferocious Bite, which is a pants-shittingly terrifying attack.

Each animal form has advantages and extends the Lunar a mechanical toolbox to play with.

Oh and as a sidenote, some beasts use Martial Arts, while others fight with Brawl

Preying mantis (Martial arts)

Tyrant lizard (Brawl)

Kickstarter Comments Section escribió:
Holden Lee Shearer less than a minute ago

@Nat: Yes!
As Attribute-based Exalts, Lunars trend more towards "I am" rather than "I can"


Nathaniel Colon 1 minute ago

Reposting,

Holden: Will Righteous Devil Style be making a comeback?
Also, if the theme of Solars is skill and mastery being taken to superhuman levels, what is the theme of lunars in 3e? I was never huge into Lunars back in 2e so they didn't come up a whole lot, but the new edition has me curious..

Average dice pool:

Holden escribió:@Timothy: It's been in the 8-13 range so far, mostly. You're not going to see anyone rocking a dice pool in the 20s on cruise control.

The corebook will feature Snake, Tiger, and Righteous Devil Style. We have plans for two more styles if we meet the stretch goal. The other four are up for grabs, provided you are fast enough to snag the limited rewards.

The two we want to add are all-new styles.

Argonot escribió:Martial Arts y Brawl!? Van a meter las dos habilidades por separado de nuevo?

Fiction Preview Note: This is a working draft and subject to change before publication.
The following fiction is scheduled to appear in the Exalted Third Edition corebook, one of a small number of larger fiction pieces designed to illustrate the setting.


The farming village was nestled at the end of a fertile valley, water-fed and cradled by two mighty mountains. It had been 768 years since the Scarlet Empress threw back the Wyld hosts, and now they had returned, marching their unreal armies through the mountains and scouring the valleys one by one. The Realm had withdrawn from the region the year before, first recalling its soldiers, and then the Immaculate missionaries; when the tax-man failed to appear to demand the dragon’s share of their harvest, the farmers knew for certain they had been abandoned. The village lay open and defenseless, ripe for the taking.

Janest paused for a moment at the top of the great high hill above the town, peering back down the way she’d come. The sun had set an hour ago, and she could see a vast and sprawling constellation of unearthly lights spread across the valley, rivaling the stars above in number and majesty—the camps of the Fair Folk. They would be upon the village with the dawn.

The field-maiden set her back on the sight, regarded the shrine ahead of her. It was a simple thing, built of deeply-polished wood, framed beneath a red-painted torii. One of the High Reavers had come and drawn her away from her preparations that afternoon, where she drilled with her field-sisters. Like the rest of the field-maidens, Janest had been taken as an infant in a raid on a settlement in a neighboring valley, and raised by the High Reavers—priests, augurs, and judges who watched the weather, proclaimed the first day of planting and the first day of reap, and spoke the will of the harvest god. She had grown up in the town, tilling the soil and working the fields, and training also to defend them. They were simple farm-folk, and so trained with the weapons of their trade: threshing-flails, pitchforks, winnowing-fans…Janest herself favored the scythe.

Ten Sheaves demanded her presence, she had been told.

“I can’t go,” Janest had said, glancing back to her sisters, “I have to make ready to defend the town.”

“The god says that your presence is necessary if we are to be saved,” the High Reaver had replied. And so the field-maiden had made the long climb up to the shrine.

Janest stepped forward, placing a hand upon the ancient wood of the torii. It tingled beneath her fingertips. The harvest god had lived up on the hill for as long as anyone could remember, and they had always honored him according to the calendar demanded by the Immaculates—and given him extra worship as well in the lean years, hiding their prayers and libations from traveling monks. But Janest had never seen the god with her own eyes, and couldn’t think of why he might want to see a simple field-maiden on the eve of the town’s annihilation.

She stepped through the torii with the sensation of crossing some subtle boundary, like passing through a shaft of sunlight or a stream of water. Golden wheat surrounded her now, stretching on and on in rambling rows. The sky overhead was a pure and perfect black, scattered with bright, unfamiliar stars that gleamed like winter ice. She looked back, and saw no torii, no hill: the rows wound away in every direction.

A voice spoke from her right, deep, crackling like breaking stalks: “Janest. Walk with me.”

Janest glanced toward the voice by reflex and caught a glimpse of a silhouette in another row, a figure with hair like straw and hemp-woven sleeves—she quickly pulled her gaze away. The High Reaver had instructed her to keep her eyes averted unless the god bid her otherwise, and so she did. Ten Sheaves began to walk, and Janest fell into step alongside—the god in his row, the field-maiden in hers.

The rich smell of growing things surrounded them as they walked; from time to time a cold wind would blow through the rows, a reaping-wind, and Janest would shiver. Presently, Ten Sheaves began to speak: He spoke of a long life overlooking the fertile valley and the farms beneath, watching the Ages unfold in extravagance and poverty, describing times and people Janest could scarcely imagine; he spoke of the Games of Divinity and how the sky of Heaven turned by their listings, and though Janest knew not of these games, she could hear the wonder and longing in the god’s voice; he spoke of the Exigence, a divine fire, a miracle even to the gods, handed down from On High that the gods might raise champions and protectors; he spoke of what it meant to be a god and to believe in justice in an age of the unjust. “Long ago,” Ten Sheaves said, “there were great champions, men and women of profound might, who carried the fire through the pitch. But when they left they took the light of the world with them.”

Janest cleared her throat, spoke for the first time since she had arrived. “What happened to them, these champions?”

“They were struck down,” the god said, “butchered, bound away. The world was eroded in their absence—even the fires of the Exigence guttered. Now they have returned, they walk the world again, but they have come too late, too late for me. Look.” She felt more than saw a hand pointing to the horizon. Janest looked.

The field-maiden realized she could see something dreaming upon the limits of the horizon—a great gleaming edifice of lights. She had the impression of towers, and heart-breaking beauty. “That is the Celestial City of Yu-Shan, which men and gods alike know as Heaven,” the little god said. “I have never walked its streets, and now I never will; perhaps you might, one day. For now, we can stand here, and look upon its lights.”

Unschooled in how to properly address divinity, Janest hesitated, then asked: “God of the harvest, why have you called for me?”

Ten Sheaves gave back a question of his own: “Have you any relatives of blood in the valley?”

“No,” Janest said. She realized the god was farther away, had slipped back to a more distant row at some point, though he sounded as close as ever.

“Yet it is not yourself you fear for.”

Janest’s jaw worked. She wasn’t normally a woman of words, and seldom explained herself. “The people of the village… they’re still my family, it doesn’t take blood. I want to protect them.”

“A field-maiden’s duty?” the god asked.

It was, but… Janest shook her head. “The people and the land together are my kin; separate, they’re not themselves. They’re precious to me. Without them, I am lost.”

Ten Sheaves seemed satisfied. “Field-maiden Janest. I have prayed to the Most High, and he has approved my petition. You are to become Exalted—my champion, my Chosen—and the salvation of your people. If you live, perhaps the salvation of much more.”

Janest stared ahead, eyes wide and focused on the row ahead as she spoke into the wind the way a blind woman might. She felt blind. It was a new terror, the fear of not knowing the way. “Ten Sheaves—I’m—I’m not the best fighter among the field-maidens, Amalon with her threshing-flail—”

“You fight well enough. Strength of arm is common in this age,” Ten Sheaves said, “and not the strength I desire.” A pause. “I am a god, Janest, but I am small among the ranks of immortals. When I call upon the divine flame, its price will be my consumption.” The night-sounds of the spirit field faded away—the crickets, the sigh of the wind—and it became very quiet. “There’s no other way. Come the dawn, the Fair Folk will erase this place if not stopped. This is my final day either way.”

Janest got the sense that the god was looking again at the distant lights of Heaven—at the streets he would never walk and the towers he would never climb. “I’m sorry,” she said, and though she had only today met the god on the hill, she meant it.

“It’s a strange thing,” Ten Sheaves said, “to die. It’s a strange thing for immortality to end, and to go into the darkness.” Janest could no longer see the god when she looked into the rows, he was receding, receding. “I will not come again, but is the wheat truly gone when it spills its kernel upon the ground? This is a wicked age; as my final act, I would sow it with hope. Turn toward the lights of Heaven, Janest, and walk. The Unconquered Sun stands prominent in the Games of Divinity; let his fire guide you.”

The field-maiden lingered a moment, searching for any sign of Ten Sheaves, but the god was gone. She turned and advanced into the rows as he bid. There was darkness for a time, and she felt fear, but she could see the sun rising through the stalks. It was the sign of a god whose name she had never heard until now—but hadn’t she known him all along, toiling under his gaze and thanking him for the life that sprang from the fields? In the sense that the light was familiar, she felt neither blind nor alone. Then she remembered—the valley, the village. I must go back. They need me—and the fear of not knowing her course melted away like dew under sunlight. She pushed onward.

At last the rows parted and Janest stepped into a clearing where the stalks had been beaten flat. In its center stood a strange lady scarecrow, born up by a brace of beams and spreading her arms as if to bear up the sky on her back. Her hair was dark like Janest’s, and what she had taken for straw was actually skin. She looked past these features, partly out of fear, partly out of consumption. She reached out to it, and in turn its arms came together between them, bearing up an offering, a final gift. Ten Sheaves’s voice was in her head, impelling her to take it—and take hold of her destiny. She reached out and grasped the perfect obsidian hilt, and the lady of straw met her gaze, her hat falling away, and Janest saw that she was looking at herself.

Almost immediately she saw and felt it—the pulse of eternity, a spark leaping, lightning unfurling in jagged tongues between heaven and earth, connecting them. The essence of Ten Sheaves exploded from her like fire: amber-gold changing into a ghostfire of blue-white. For a moment, Ten Sheaves was in her senses, crackling through her cells, changing everything he touched. Blood rushed in her veins, and it was not just blood but the mountain streams that tumbled down into the valley and fed the fields. She flexed her fingers and they were full, ripe stalks of wheat nodding beneath a passing breeze, the crops she had tended all her life. She felt also the seeds sleeping in the earth, felt the pregnant promise of the soil beneath her feet, and the call of rains drawn up from the oceans—and that too faded away as the last of Ten Sheaves fled down into the recesses of her soul, sending up a bonfire to mark his passing. The amber-gold light was all around her now, spilling out from her. As she stood under the rising light of the Unconquered Sun, she sensed the kinship between the small god that had Exalted her and the source of the fire that had empowered her and ended him. She knew that to be even the least among gods was still a wondrous thing, now ended, now passed to her, now kindling anew.

She took the gift to hand, and the world faded into the purity of the dawn.

* * *

Shortly after midnight, the spring that flowed from the top of the harvest god’s hill dried up, first slowing to a trickle, and then ceasing altogether. The creak-and-thump of the waterwheel slowed and finally groaned to a halt, its uncharacteristic silence awakening those few in the village who had managed to sleep. The wind that spun the prayer wheels outside the High Reavers’ hall hesitated and then died; the wheels ticked to a stop. The village was silent and still for hours after these grim omens, waiting without hope for the coming dawn.

An hour before the sun came up, the doors of Ten Sheaves’s shrine opened, and a young woman stepped out, walking with purpose.

* * *

The armies of the Fair Folk came on with the rising of the sun. They sang as they marched, knowing that the day promised a banquet of pain and fear—such was the meat and drink of the hobgoblins and silverwights and lesser panjandrums that made up the majority of the horde. The nobles leading the expedition hoped for more refined sport—the souls of mothers, torn raw and agonized by the deaths of their babes, perhaps; or the vengeful flailing of young boys burning to avenge atrocities. Either would make for appropriate amusement.

They marched under war-banners woven of flame and dreams of glory, and set up a great strange riot of drums and flutes played by wizened, hideous musicians dredged from the Lands Beyond Creation, capable of creating beauty only in their music; all else they did was crude and cynical and base. As the army reached the edge of the fields before the town, the jeweled and beautiful noble that led the war-band raised one elegant hand, signaling a halt. Slavering, fanged skirmishers beat the ground around him with their bone clubs and barbed blades, eager for slaughter.

A lone girl stood at the edge of the glebe, body toned and hardened by a life in the fields. Her amber-gold eyes flashed in the light of the rising sun, and her chestnut hair waved in the rising breeze. She carried a great and terrible scythe, a god-weapon, its haft shot through with veins of green jade, its long and wicked blade gleaming with a ruddy inner light. Its grips displayed the unmistakable hollows of empty hearthstone sockets. The weapon was taller than a man, yet she hefted it as though it weighed nothing at all. The lords of chaos signaled the advance.

Strawmaiden Janest crossed the field to meet them.

Stephenls escribió:I don't like dropping spoilers without authorization, but just so people don't go spreading around on the Internet that we killed Shalrina and are therefore killing peoples' favorite gods willy-nilly in order to open up a new type of player character, no, the divine flames of Exigence don't automatically consume the god using it. It depends on the strength of the god. The God of Masks has a lot more metaphysical substance than J. Random Field God.

Holden escribió:The precise construction "Exigent Exalted" is not a term you'll see used in the books or in Creation. Strawmaiden Janest is the Harvest Exalt-- as such, she is an Exigent.

John escribió:Indeed, all those times I said that Sidereals have their fingers on the pulse of Exaltation? I was talking about the Exigents. One of the offices of the Bureau of Destiny is dedicated to tracking down and identifying the Exigents. Also, being Sidereals, they have done their best to try to manipulate which champions become Exigents, as well as which gods are given the opportunity.

As some people have begun to speculate, the Black Market Exaltations refer to Exigents made illicitly, somehow bypassing the Unconquered Sun's erm firewall, so to speak.

In the most literal terms, there were raw Exaltations granted by the Unconquered Sun which were then not used by the petitioner, but instead passed into the world of spirits, where it cycled the realms of gods and men until a bidder was finally able to trigger it.

A "dirty bomb" (not actual game term) Exaltation is a similar concept, only the Exaltation has passed through the hands of multiple spirits who have modified the power inside. This only happens for nefarious, terrible reasons, as the resulting Exigent is always an aberration of enormous power.