Mythic Exalted: Lookshy

The city-state of Lookshy is pretty easy to get a handle on: it's Sparta-Shogun era Japan to the Realm's Imperial China-Imperial Rome. "Sparta-Shogun era Japan" is a pretty nice combo for a more Sword & Sorcery Exalted, so it's an easy one to work with.

The name I'm not to fond of though. I'd say it's a bad transliteration of Lukshi or Luk Shi, so that's easy enough to fix. Given it's origins as the holding of an old Realm legion, I think its Sparta character should really be pushed in a Republican Rome sort of direction (making the Realm more later Empire or even Byzantium) to take into account their conservative adherence to traditions likely abandoned in the Realm.

Visually, I think I would go with the Japanese influence, but use the look of armor from an earlier era than the more Tokugawa illustrations in things like The Scavenger Lands.

Add a few Roman Legion flourishes and maybe more Greek style helmets for parades and I think it works.

A difficult bit for a lower-powered, Sword & Sorcery take on things are the warstriders. I think they are easy enough to remove, but I don't really believe that's necessary. Mecha type things are not without precedent in four-color Sword and Sorcery, at least: 

I think they get easier to envision if they look like Daimajin above or maybe the Shogun Warriors. Maybe a bit less colorful that those guys.

One interesting tidbit from the initial setting description is the mention of Lookshy (Luk Shi!) Dragon-Blooded intermarrying with a "federation of outcaste bandits" called the Forest Witches. Maybe I missed it, but the Forest Witches don't seem to show up again in Scavenger Sons or 2nd edition material. It's not a major point, but it makes me think of both the "rivers and lakes" of the Jianghu and Fuqua's King Arthur, with the Forest Witches as the Picts. Jianghu Picts, perhaps?

Mythic Exalted: The Immaculate Order

The Immaculate Philosophy in Exalted is an engineered belief system, created by a faction of Sidereals looking to bolster the Dragon-Blooded and cement the coup against the Solars. Whether it was formed from whole cloth or based on existing beliefs we aren't told, at least not in the first book. We are told the Order is monastic (presumably solely), which is unusual for earthly religions, but could be. The description of the Immaculate Philosophy and practice suggest the writers were mostly thinking of Buddhism, perhaps with a bit of Hinduism, but I think some of the more interesting parallels and inspiration can be drawn from Confucianism. 

Immaculate Philosophy acknowledges the existence of the gods and spirits, but that's not it's focus. Proper ritual toward these spirits--which means these rites are respectful and discrete--is appropriate, but the focus is more on self-cultivation and living virtuously. I feel like, again not unlike Confucianism, Immaculate Philosophy would view "Heaven" (or Yushan) and being in harmony with it important, but they would largely disapprove of personalizing it as gods. Yu-Shan would be the sort hand for the proper process of the world.

In a sense, the Immaculate Philosophy is more secular than spiritual. In a world where essence is real and demonstrable, as are the hypostases of the belief, the Elemental Dragons, I feel like the focus on correct behavior, self-improvement, and social ritual, qualifies it as such.

It isn't discussed in the texts, but I feel it's more fun and more realistic if there are perhaps various schools of thought within the Immaculate tradition. We are told it's concerned with stamping out heresy, but that's an odd aspect of it and given the desires of the Sidereals who crafted it, I take that to mean mainly "too much god worship" or the "belief the Solars aren't Anathema." Within the confines of its view of the world, I suspect you have traditions that are more or less mystical or ascetic than others. The equivalents of Pure Land Buddhism or even Prosperity Gospel. Perhaps there's even "left hand path" Immaculate belief that seeks a dangerous shortcut to Dragon status?

Mythic Exalted: The Gods

 

I wanted to continue the thought process from this post by looking as the gods of the Exalted universe. It's interesting, because the theogony and cosmogony have echoes in Greek myth, but in it's "final form" as interacted with by the players, it has some features of Chinese traditional religion.

The earliest gods or god-like beings are the Primordials who arose in chaos and then created the world from it. Their group name and function recalls the Greek Primordial deities (Gaia even shows up in both groups), but few are well described and there are hints that they are monstrous (like the Mesopotamian primordial deity Tiamat) or aloof and alien (like Lovecraft's Outer Gods, particularly as referenced in the Dreamlands stories) or both. 

The Primordials create the lesser gods to run Creation for them. Chief among these are the Celestials or Celestial Incarnae who are based on the classical planets--the seven moving astronomical objects visible to the naked eye. They are largely just given the modern names for these celestial objects borrowed from Greek myth, which I think is sort of mistake, in that those names have connotations that may mislead as much as illuminate. They don't really have the roles or portfolios of the Olympians, at least.

While Apollo and Artemis are solar and lunar deities, respectively, the Unconquered Sun and Luna resemble more the gods that were the personifications of those Celestial objects, Helios/Sol and Selene/Luna or those sorts of deities in other cultures. Along those lines, I think it's better to think of the Five Maidens not as the goddesses of war, serenity, endings, etc., but as the deities of fortune and destiny related to those areas like the Greek Fates or the Norns of Germanic myth. It's a subtle distinction, but one worth making because it makes the Celestials less gods more personified cosmic forces--but more relatable and understandable ones than there Primordial creators.

They would be at the top of the Celestial Bureaucracy like the gods of Heaven China traditional belief. Beneath them were the various gods that might get more direct worship and serve as the analogs for traditional fantasy rpg deities. 

All of this works pretty much as is, I think. The Celestial Bureaucracy might be viewed as working against a Sword & Sorcery or ancient (European/Near East) feel, but I don't view it as a problem. Incorporating some ancient Chinsese elements is fine with me. The names of the Five Maidens bug me, so I might change those, but do know to what right off hand. Maybe substitute the names of the Olympian Spirits?

Shadows Fell

This post is a follow to a couple of previous posts during Exalted's Creation into a D&D setting.

The cosmos had not been constructed to parse the deaths of one of its creator Titans nor were the spiritual algorithms of reincarnation equipped to handle such complex beings. When the Titanomachy led to the exactly this outcome, Oblivion, a plane of negative energy, was manifest.

Theories differ as to the nature of this negative energy plane. Some believe it was formed by the collapse of the abliving yet undying souls of the slain Titans under their own gravity. Others hold that this collapse merely created a whole in the fabric of the cosmos allowing access to pre-existing Oblivion. Either way, the Underworld, a dark shadow of Creation, was generated on this puncture's event horizon.

The pull of Oblivion drew dead souls to it and kept them from the stream of Lethe, cosmic reincarnation function, creating ghosts and other undead for the first time. These creatures of Oblivion began to plague the mortal world. Most fearful of all of these are the Deathlords, powerful souls granted power by the Neverborn, the undead Titans, to serve as their agents in Creation, to prosecute their war against the living world.

The Deathlords often rule Shadowfells, places where the Underworld bleeds over into Creation, with their puissant soldiers, Deathknights. Thirteen Deathlords are believed to exist. Known Deathlords include Mask of Winters, Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils, the Whispered One of the Rotted Tower, and The Count of Ravenloft. The last has the distinction of being the only lord to have a Deathknight rebel against him, the Knight of the Black Rose.

Brother to Dragons

This post is a follow to a couple of previous posts during Exalted's Creation into a D&D setting.

The Dragonborn, Princes of the Earth, rulers of Creation for over a millennia, are the descendants of the elders of dragonkind. Gaea, the Titan of Earth, was mother to The Dragon Ao [1], whose nature warred against itself until he split into Tiamat and Bahamut. The two represented the forces of chaos and order. The first progeny of Tiamat were the elders of the chromatic dragons, while Bahamut's children were the metallic dragons.

The elder dragons, both metallic and chromatic, bore human children, who carried a portion of draconic power. Those who carried the most draconic power were transformed by it and were able to take on the form of a humanoid dragon [2]. Those with a weaker, but still potent connection, became sorcerers. The Dragonborn and their sorcerer kin were the soldiers of the gods in the Titanomachy. This estranged the chromatic Dragonborn from their grandmother, Tiamat, who sided with the Titans and was imprisoned in Hell with them following their defeat [3].

Today, the Dragonborn rule a vast Empire (though less vast than it was in the past). They are organized into Great Houses, one for each of the types of metallic and chromatic dragons.


¹ D&D sources report this name as "Io." This seems better to me.
² I figure these Dragonborn would have a human/mostly human form as well as the draconid form.
³ D&D tradition places her on the first layer of Hell.

The Planes of Exalted [Exalted/D&D Mashup]

Some thoughts on social media by Jack Shear reminded me of this old post, with Jack suggesting replacing elements of the Exalted setting with rough analogs from D&Ds implied setting. As most things D&Dish do, this inevitably got my thinking about the planes and how one could break the Great Wheel in Exaltedish pieces. 5e's cosmology even starts doing some of the work.

Yu-Shan: Exalted's Heaven, a continent-sized city. Much of it would resemble part's of D&D's Mount Celestia, but some of it's nation-sized parks would be like The Beastlands. The Celestial Bureaucracy would have elements of Mechanus (including Modrons and Inevitables).

The Wyld: The Chaos outside and encrouching on Creation. Pure Chaos is probably not something worth getting into (maybe it's like the D&D Far Realm?), but the middlemarches are like D&D's Limbo and home to Slaadi. Maybe there is an area of Pandemonium, too. We might as well call the bordermarches the Feywild, but they also include elements of Arborea the "deeper" you get.

The Underworld: This occupies the position in relation to the Prime Material Plane/Creation as the Shadowfell, but they term should be applied to the areas Exalted calls Shadowlands, where the Underworld and the Prime overlap. The Underworld proper should get a lot of Hades/Grey Wastes stuff, and beneath it is Oblivion, the Negative Energy Plane.

Malfeas: The prison of the Yozi's (the Primordials betrayed by the gods) would by the repository of much of the Lower Planes stuff: the Abyss, Carceri, and the Nine Hells. The Law and Chaos division of these worlds in D&D terms would be a hindrance to making them more like Exalted, so maybe that's dropped, or maybe demons and devils are different factions of Yozi.

Autochthonia: The world within the body of the Primordial Autochthon. Mechanus is a better name for this god and this place anyway, so whatever Mechanus stuff wasn't shunted to Yu-Shan should be here. Also, some of the old quasi- and para-elemental planes would be the elemental "reserviors" of this world (Smoke, Radiance, Lightning, Mineral, etc.)