A long time ago, in a World Of Darkness far, far away

[Master of Malfeasance]

Somewhere, I read an Exalted FAQ that asked the following question:


Is Exalted the secret history of the World Of Darkness?


Everyone knows the old WoD ended, but has anyone ever tried running one into the other or the other into the one?


I was running a game of Mage: TA when I was explaining that Maeve (daughter of Mab, the winter queen of the fae) was more of an intelligent, sentient concept, I threw out the word "Raksha" for the hell of it.


All that night, I got to thinking that since I'm running both games concurrently and about to take a looooooooooooooooong sabbatical from running games (maybe play Mordheim or something that I can actually PLAY) why not unleash a cataclysm that would turn the WoD into the world of Exalted (Atlantis as the Blessed Isle, and creation as Northern Europe, western Europe, the Atlantic and North Africa?


That way, I could also have my Exalts, at the hands of a mad Malfean, activate a machine that would restrict the flows of essence to a mere trickle so that all of the spirits and elementals would be working at full capacity just keeping their little bits of reality from falling apart.  Perhaps lose all personality and intelligence so all they can do is what they were programmed to do.  The Wyld vanishes, leaving virgin wilderness for miles and miles in every direction.  The larger regions of creation slowly drift apart after millions of years (Pangaea).  Voila, WoD.


This idea was also partly inspired from the fact that in Vampire: Bloodlines, the Sheriff, whom it is said was found in Africa, has a weapon that could only be a Daiklaive.  There are lots of other hints dropped (probably on the justification that STs themselves would have to make the connection.


The comparative weakness of the supernatural denizens of WoD could be explained by saying that since there is no essence, there is no respiring, so most things have to steal it from other creatures, or the few remaining demesnes in the world, and the powers aren't as awe-inspiring or bombastic for the same reason.  Essence just isn't as pliable as it used to be.  Every big WW game notes that its characters at one point walked openly in creation (High Mythic age, Enoch, before written history, etc.)


That way I could also justify the fact that my Mage players have a hearthstone (though they have no idea what it does).


How powerful would a mage or a vampire or a werewolf be if this theoretical machine restricting essence were destroyed?  How powerful would a Solar whose essence pools shriveled so he could barely attune his daiklaive?


It is also interesting to note that some of the strongest characters in (any) WoD, the Kuei-Jin, bear a resemblance to the Dragon Blooded (the weakest of the Exalted)


And the Solars, the strongest Exalts, are most like the Hunters (by FAR the weakest characters you can play, barely a step above a mortal)


Thoughts?


P.S.  I wasn't sure where this post should fall, so I hope one of the vaunted Celestial Incarna (admin) will see it into its proper place in creation.

 

[Jakk Bey]

Actually, we're in the midst of just such a game right now.


Jakk and his Circle are investigating a device that has propelled us, or rather our perceptions into a loop, where we get to see how various events will unfold, on several possible world lines, several possible futures.  We have seen what has happened to our Shards as Hunters--and had our Shards reassembled so that our Hunters have essentially become full fledged Solars, in the service to the Lightbringer, to stave off the Apocolypse, and see humanity through Gehenna. In another worldline, we have seen one of many possibilites of Gehenna. In another, we have seen the Ascension Wars come to one possible conclusion, and another in another arc. All of this stems from the Artifact that keeps popping up in each story arc.


We've had our bodies remade by Lucifer to house the restored Solar Shards, we've had Demons reinhabit our vacated bodies and seen how the Fallen are going to wage war on each other, we've seen how our souls have been merged not with Solar Shards, but with the Changing Breeds, how those souls have been migrated on another world line to be paired with Magi Shards, and our Solar Shards have been waging war against the rising tide of both out of control Changing Breed, returned Demons, and the most ancient of the Kindred. In another world, we saw our souls mated with Changelings. And the arc isn't done yet, so I can't tell you how it's all going to mate back up with the Artifact that has us locked in a frozen tablaue as Demons race for the thing, and how this all relates to the final arc.


In part, the relative weakness is explained, thus far, in canon, because the Shards that the Exalted had have been split, scattered, and are only portions of the Shards that powered the Exalts. Not that the world is neccessarily weaker, but different, and the Exalts nature has been changed with both the Sundering of the Realms of the Spirits, and the material world. Humanity has lots of portions of Shards, but not full ones, which is in part why none of the denizens of the WoD have the raw power of the Exalts running around.


The Creation has changed. Not just once, but a couple of times. The First Age passed, and the Age of Sorrows is the Second Age.  The WoD appears to be on the cusp on Fifth Age.  In part, you can look to the world of Ars Magica as a part of the huge ass meta-plot as well.


A lot has changed in the WoD. The Kuei-jin have been cursed, and are in hock to Hell for their power.  The Hunters are just shades of their former glory, because none of them carry more than a fraction of the Shard that powered a Solar. Even Magi, potentially the most powerful of the Awakened, only carry a tiny portion of the Sideral Shard. The Changing Breed are locked down to a portion of a Shard as well. The Mokole are paired up the Dragon Kings, but altered so much that they don't even remember the passing of their glory.


The Creation has been changed.  Drastically. Even the bits and pieces of the Yozi have been altered by the passing of the Ages.  The rules have been changed. Think of the passing of the Fourth Age into being for imbuing Mortals with enough tiny pieces of Shards, that they have collectively the power of the old Exalts, and the Sideral Shards have been scattered far and wide, along with Solar Shards, the God Bloods have bred and passed on inklings of their power, but it's spread thin. Over billions of people. Collectively, they have a great deal of power, power enough to shape the Creation according to their shared beliefs, and the beliefs restrict the world into their narrow vision, binding and shaping what can and cannot happen, but few have the wherewithall to claim even a tiny shred of their former power, so changed is the power of the collective belief.


The Long Second Age game that I'm gearing up for, will deal with Exalts who are tapped by the Unconquered Sun to kick the Wheel into motion, bring about the Third Age--which can occur as a cataclysm that will throw the Creation into such tumult that most of the First Age will be lost, and in part, the PC's can be party to the Sundering. Or they can usher in the Third Age in such a way, that the Sundering can happen gently, the Spirit Realms drift, and a new order can be created, with the Celestial Bureacracy renewed and invigored, the Gods may lose the Games of Divinity, but they may be reminded again of their duties. Another outcome may bring the Primordials back. Another, may usher in a dark Third Age, where the Malfeans take sway, and rush the Creation towards Oblivion. It's up the the players how they'll go about this, or if they do at all, and allow the Long Second Age to continue, with no Sundering, no new order, and the Creation will be static, expanding, and feeding on the Wyld, spreading out further, and the Gods will be spread thinner, possibly weakening the Creation to the point, where it may even be vulnerable to denizens of other Creations--a theme I touched on in some Mage games years ago.


While your idea sounds interesting, I think that you're thinking too small.  You need to think BIG.


The Sundering changes the whole kit and kaboodle.  It's not something that your PC's are going to be able to see the effects of, and the passing of the Third Age should be HUGE.


Not just the changing of the Creation into Europe, but possibly sending the Creation to Pangea, or even much earlier.


Think about restarting the whole thing again, with such cataclysm that all sentient life is extinguished, and the souls and Shards may be put on hold, while the Gods sort things out with their former Masters, the Primordials, possibly fight ANOTHER war.


Possibly the Primordials get loose, and have a long "discussion" about how things ought to run the next time around, which winds up imprisoning most of them all over again, with only a few Primordials left such as Gaia and Authocthon--whose home in the Void is rescued from its long death watch, by being sucked into the new Spirit Realms, but cut off, and without new souls to power Autocthon, the Primoridial slips into a coma, never to waken, this body looted by the creatures that find it, its Exalts destroyed, with only fragments of knowledge left in the few memory banks that occasionally fire randomly, as the Primordial falls into dreamless slumber.  Or maybe Autocthon does dream, and these dreams sometimes spawn a few shreds of manifestation, not his own Exalts, but more like the tiny selves like the Yozi portion off to amuse themselves.


And the Yozi, the re-imprisoned Primordials...they go irrevokably mad in their second shackling, their minds snap, and the Demons that are born from this, are so disjointed, so broken, they will never recover the truth of their birth.


In short: Bigger. Much bigger. If you want to replay the events that lead to the WoD, you need to think much larger, much more drastic, much longer, and with bigger effects than the Creation of the world as it appears today in the WoD.

 

[Griggori]

Wow, Jakk Bey... I love you, man. Impressive storytelling, now do you have the calibur of players necessary to realize your grand possibilities? If so, count yourself among the blessed.

 

[Spook]

Heck the Neverborn Malfeans and the majority of the Underworld and it's inhabitants migrated wholecloth over from Wraith.


In the art book Geoff says he wanted to create as much continuity between the Shadowlands of Wraith and the Underworld of Exalted.

 

[Obsidian Soul]

I kind of think of Exalted as a spiritual reality, seperate from the rest of the Universe, and has no effect on the rest of the Universe.

 

[Seiraryu]

I had written some thoughts on how to slide the Age of Sorrows into the World of Darkness in the old Compendium.  It's too long to write up again now, and I've changed my opinions since then, but I'll work something out again.


It's actually quite interesting, especially since the similarities are small, but exploitable, which means you can do whatever you want with it.

 

[Jarek]

I tried to runa connection game like that once and my players ripped into me stating that there was no real way it could connect and that was stupid to try such. I haven't done  it since

 

[Jakk Bey]

Without knowing the details, it would be hard to comment on it.


And just as a side note--what's with the All Bold type?  Seems like a lot of emphasis for a fairly small post.  Kind of like yelling back your order at a waitress...

 

[Forn Clakes]

 Kind of like yelling back your order at a waitress...

I've seen a funny thing that included some guy yelling his order at a waitress in a pub, and she yelled back at him, which in turn caused him to yell back, and so on and so forth.  Turns out he was deaf and his hearing aid wasn't working correctly.


Hysterical after several pints.


~FC.

 

[Jakk Bey]

That's fucking HILARIOUS!...


Ooops. Durn it.  I forgot my glasses and couldn't read right...

 

[Jarek]

Sorry about the Bold type. It's one way I use to distiguish my Writing from everyone else's. I'm near sighted. So all the none Bold type kind of runs togther

 

[malhimweaver]

I think the similarities have always been pretty interesting. Hell, the back of the Hunter book has that little fiction blurb that pretty much connects it to Exalted. You know the one, right before the advertisment for Exalted.  


Throw Demon into the midst of it all and it gets very intruiging.  The demons made the world for God, tried to take it over, and were then slain by a group of men raised up to a status higher than even the angels. They were called the malhim. That certainly smacks of the whole Primordial/ Exalted story. Also, the Demon book states that God struck the world in anger, which along with Caine slaying Abel, introduced the whole concept of entropy into the world, which shattered whole layers of reality. This could explain how each Age of the world gets progressivly worse, and lessened in scope.


Finally, Oblivion is the Abyss, or Hell, sitting there under the Veinous Stair and the Labyrinth, the center and lowest point of the Underworld.


The Keuijin - Dragonblooded connection is a good one too. The Keujing worship a Scarlet Empress, and are aspected to the five elements of asian  cosmology.... hrm... curiouser and curiouser.


However, you just really have to feel sorry for the Raksha.  From Fair Folk to Dark Ages ( where they are still badass alien monstrosities) to ............. fuzzy changelings???  How the mighty have fallen.

 

[Jakk Bey]

Except when you figure on the critters who never left the Wyld...


Those suckers would be more than a little "interesting" to fiddle around with in a WoD game...

 

[chiguayante]

hmmmm


From what I gathered from what has been said on the WW sites and forums when Exalted started getting big (and especially from the Siddy Fatsplat) was that the WoD is what would have happened if the Sidereals had never preformed the Usurption. It was that fate that they were avoiding when they took the decision to wipe out the Solars.

 

[Hanat-Osul]

Re: hmmmm

From what I gathered from what has been said on the WW sites and forums when Exalted started getting big (and especially from the Siddy Fatsplat) was that the WoD is what would have happened if the Sidereals had never preformed the Usurption. It was that fate that they were avoiding when they took the decision to wipe out the Solars.

There's an intriguing thought.

 

[Solfi]

... of course there was the third option as well; try to reform the Solars. But sucess was not guaranteed, and failure would lead to being overrun by the Fair Folk.

 

[ava]

hmwell. i thought i had thought of something original, but Jakk Bey did it all beforehand, and even more.


well, when i first started to read Exalted i was quite moved by the "not believing the wicked old men who would make the world a dull gray prison" and "time before our time being a time of myth and sorcery" talk and since then i always kind of believed the Age of Sorrows preceeded the World Of Darkness. My link between them is kinda lamer, though. It turns out that, not unlike what Master of Malfeasance said, Atlantis was Creation after all. When it "sunk" ( possibly due to an error in the fate-weawing or in the passage to 3rd age), it provoked a reaction in the sea of chaos and created the universe as we know it - or solely our own dear planet (the whole "first there was nothing but chaos, then out of chaos sprang gaia and uranus..." business is a very faded echo of this). it stayed literally buried under sea for aeons (though Creation is rather large, it's no larger than a continent and can fit into Pacific Ocean or sth.) the sorcerous phenomenon called Essence lingered on earth, consituting the very vague "collective memories" that caused similar myths of creation of the peoples of this new planet. It even went on to condense and single some people out from the others. the dragon-blooded, punished by their own decadence, became the kindred of the east, mages took their magic and susceptibility to the reality from sidereals, abyssals watered down to  vampires, lunars weakened into werewolves, infernals fell apart from their punished masters and got banished into the burning underbelly of this new reality as demons, ghosts of the underworld went along with them, solars, ever the protector of the dominion, devolved into hunters who fought against all of the above etc etc... basically this.


my intention is, to make a WoD/AoS cross. time is the present time. "Atlantis" surfaces back, and immediately after it people start to see "mass hallucinations" of other people glowing and displaying hologram-like figures around their bodies, while yet others start to attack everything in sight and destroy them with seemingly superhuman power (i.e. the authentic shards are coming back). Meanwhile, the new continent is unreachable cos it's surrounded by a field of power (i.e. a moat of Wyld sandwiched between two stabilised realities) which makes the trespassers go mad. and the story starts...


yep, i know, has a lot of holes. but can be made better. any suggestions for me too? because, though i very much loved Jakk Bey's ideas, i don't want to steal them all. so there.

 

[Persell]

this is what I DO NOT GET


wheres the resemblance between the dragon blooded and the kuei-jin come from.


I get where the resemblance between lunars shapechangers comes from.


and siderals and mages


and kind of get the connection between the imbued and the solars.


but wheres the connection a lot see between the dragon blooded and the kuei-jin come from?


just the asian themes in dragon blooded culture?

 

[Persell]

Actually that connection is very very constructed for most of the WoD. The whole celestial shard thing doesn't mix too well with werewolves and vampires at all and this 3rd age catastrophe thing is a far stretch, too. most of all it is a stretch which is very diffictul to put into a story players will enjoy.

 

[Silence In Daylight]

The DB/KJ link is predicated on the Empress coming back, and corrupting all her kin; descriptions of the KJ background refer to two of their ancient rulers...which can be made to resemble the Invested Scarlet Empress and the Ebon Dragon. Or so I've been told.