Char-Gen Orgy '10 - Exalted

The Game: Exalted (Second Edition)
The Publisher: White Wolf Game Studios
Degree of Familiarity: Played in a couple short games, read extensively of the setting.
Books Used: Exalted 2nd Edition Core Rules

Ah yes, Exalted -- White Wolf's high-power, high-octane, grown-up fantasy game, drawing influence from everything from anime and manga to the epics of the ancient world to the Christian Bible. It's an eclectic mix, but somehow the madness of it all blends together into a cohesive world where powerful demigods wage epic war and epic love alike, with the fate of a vast world of immense size and scope hanging (quite tenuously, in fact) in the balance. It's epic stuff, and possibly my second-favorite game universe (after, of course, Deadlands and its three epochs).

For those not enlightened, Exalted is the story of the.. well, the Exalted, mortal men and women chosen by various Celestial powers (or their less savory opposing forces) to recieve the power of demigods in service to said celestial powers, originally to wage war on the Primordials, ancient entities that sired said celestial beings. Long story short, they won said war, but as they went down the Primoridals direly cursed all Exalted... which lead to their downfall, the Usurpation by their servants the Dragon-Blooded, and the imprisonment of most of the power of the chief amongst their number -- the Solars, chosen of the Unconquered Sun.

Too bad the Dragon-Blooded weren't up to the task they took for themselves, and Creation soon fell apart in no short order under force of various threats and enemies of its existence (of which there really are no shortage). The future looks bleak.

Until a dire plan goes (partially) awry, and those shards of glorious, Exalted power are released into Creation again to do what they were designed to do -- seek out heroic mortals and make them into heroes of epic power.

So it begins again, as brave men and women suddenly awaken to ancient, glorious might and find themselves the only ones who can save a world that largely despises their demonized names... they are the *Solar Exalted*, champions of the Unconquered Sun, and they have a Hell of a mess to clean up.

Good thing that if anyone can save Creation.. it's them.....

Hey ho.. let's go!

Mechanically, Exalted operates on something thats not utterly unalike the old Storyteller system the original World of Darkness games utilized, so the framewrok is quite familiar, even if we have a lot more chunky substance to work through.. and we need a niche... what is our Exalt good at? We need to know this because whatever an Exalt is good at, they're really damned good at. So far, I've dabbled in conniving types, gearheads, smooth-talkers.... I think this time we want something. .a bit more blunt. Sometimes.. you just want to kick some serious ass, and if there's a game for that.. that game is Exalted. So.. screw subtlety this time out... we're makin' a mean motherfuckin' blunt object to direct against the enemies of Creation and the Unconquered Sun!

In playing with the warped and amusing names that Creation's resident's tend to have.. we'll dub our Exalt -- who, for no real reason we'll say is from the forested Eastern area of Creation... we'll dub him....Towering Oak. Yes, for the unitiated.. thats the sort of names you end up with if you're born in Creation.. moving on... step one is Concept, and we have the first part of that alrady.. 'Boisterous Bruiser' is our concept, and as for our Caste (the equivalent, though far mroe loose, to D&D's classes), we're going with Dawn, the warrior elite of the warrior elite. We'll now need a Motivation.... something heroic for Towering Oak to strive for in his epic journey throughout Creation, something, per the book's instructions, big. Towering Oak.. well, I think its safe to cal lhim a simple soul... but since he's stil la heroic one... his Motivation shall be "Prove Myself the Strongest Man in Creation". Not the most altruistic of aims.. but since most strong things in Creation terrorize those weaker than them... we'll call it at enlightened self-interest.

Concept: Boisterous Bruiser
Caste: Dawn
Motivation: "Prove Myself the Strongest Man in Creation"

That's done.. moving on to stage two, we're now dealing with our Attributes, which are the standard three groups of three, priroritize and assign points setup we should by now be used to. Physical is obviously going to be our primary category, and we'll but Social in second place, leaving Mental in third place (as if this could go anywhere else with Oak...). Well, Oak is tough and, of course, phenomenally strong.... he's likable and handsome enough though not particularly guileful.. and though he's no genius and not the quickest on the uptake, he's got a good sense for hsi surroundings from living in the woods of the East... that said... we'll assign his Attributes as follows:

ATTRIBUTES

PHYSICAL
Strength 5
Dexterity 2
Stamina 4

SOCIAL
Charisma 4
Manipulation 2
Appearance 3

MENTAL
Perception 3
Intelligence 2
Wits 2

There we are.. now, for Abilities, our third stage.. first, we note the abilities that our caste favors, and for Dawn Caste warriors, those abilities are Archery, Martial Arts, Melee, Thrown, and War. Now we customize that lsit a bit by choosing our own favored Abilities, of which we get five, and none of these can belong to our Caste's favored list. These are the areas where Oak excels outside his Dawn Caste purviews, and scanning the list, we'll choose Athletics, Integrity, Presence, Resistance, and Survival -- Oak is a athletic, strong-willed, imposing, durable fsort who knows hsi way around the woodlands of the world. That decided, we'll now choose our Abilities; we have 28 points, 10 of which must go into Caste or Favored Abilities, and we must have at least 1 dot in each Favored Ability. I naddition, we cannot have any ratings above 3 in an Ability at this step. We'll go ahead and spend 15 of our 28 to max out our Favored attributes right up front at 3 dots, and we'll add a 3 in each of Martial Arts, Melee, and Thrown as well for nine more, leaving us with 24 of our 28 points spent. We'll add two dots to Craft (Wood) to represent a certain ahndy knack at woodworking and the like, and we'll wrap up with a dot each in Medicine and Linguistics -- live in a verdant woodland long enough and you'll learn how to use certain herbs to best effect, and it always pays to be able to communicate beyond your native tongue, so a dot of Linguistics to let us pick up Riverspeak (the tongue of the nearby Scavenger Lands) seems a fair investment.

ABILITIES

Athletics 3
Craft (Wood) 2
Integrity 3
Linguistics 1 (Foresttongue, Riverspeak)
Martial Arts 3
Medicine 1
Melee 5
Presence 3
Resistance 5
Survival 3
Thrown 3

Abilities done, so now we move to our next step, Advantages -- our Backgrounds, Charms, and Virtues. We have 7 Background points to spend, and right off the bat I'm going to sink 3 (the limit, at this point) into Artifact to purchase ourself a Orichalum Grand Goremaul.... a huge, heavenly hammer capable of dealing absolutely crushing blows. 4 left to spend. We'll say that Oak's legend is spreading, the "Hammer of the East", and so after a few early misadventures a small Cult has formed around him at 2 dots, and that the more dedicated of these followers (likely the pretty and capable women) have been elected to follow him, keeping up his legend and providing for his needs -- he's obviously not going to earn much upkeep himself, now is he? -- and earning a hardscrabble living for themselves and their idol, so a dot each in Followers and Resources

Next are our Charms, our impressive, flashy, superhuman abilities, the benefit of being an Exalt; we get 10 of them, and at least 5 must come from our Caste or Favored Abilities -- which shouldn't be a problem. As others may note elsewhere, Charms are a rather intricate thing, even if they seem simple up-front, and finding the synergy is what we're aiming for -- and keeping outselves alive too, preferably through at least one Perfect Defense, or to those unfamiliar, tap two Blue and kiss that attack goodbye -- this is the sort of thing that Exalted combat is based around, and you're suicidally foolish to not have one. Our main focus here is going to be on being tough and hitting hard, so we're starting with Resistance and Melee Charms. From Resistance, we'll take Durability of Oak Meditation (allowing us to shrug off lesser blows), Spirit Strengthens the Skin (to reduce damage that does get through), and Iron Skin Concentration (Either ignoring attacks from foes outright, or failing that, granting hefty resistances), all leading up to Adamanat Skin Technique, which we must choose a Virtue to attach to; we'll choose Valor, meaning that when he uses this fourth Charm, Oak must move toward the enemy he considers most dangerous and seek to engage them, the tradeoff being that we can use this Charm to flat-out defeat any attack aimed at us -- we're that epically tough! That handles defenses, and leaves us six Charms left; it also will mandate raising our Essence to 3 and our Resistance to 5 with Bonus Points later on, so we'll make a note of that. Now.. let's get to the best defense.. and look into our Offense. First off, we'll need to start our ass-kicking with any Melee Excellency Charm.. we'll take the First, allowing us to spend motes (our mojo, basically) to improve Melee attacks, forming the foundation for other Melee Charms; we'll round out our offensive melee abilities with the Hungry Tiger Technique (to allow us to double our extra successes on attacks) and Fire and Stones Strike (adding extra power to attacks after the enemy's shrugged off -- "soaked" -- some of the damage) Charms, which couple with that Grand Goremaul to inflict some seriously traumatizing strikes. We don't need to adjust our Melee dots for any of those (though wwe probably will anyway), and we have three Charm selections left.and rather than be fancy, we'll go back to Resistance Charms and buy 3 doses of Ox-Body Technique, purchasing ourselves three extra -1 Health levels and six more -2 levels -- Oak is a tough, tough sone of a gun to bring down!

Virtues will wrap us up for Advantages, and we have 5 points to spread amonmgst them -- they all start at 1, and none of them can be raised above 4 at this stage. Compassion... well, its not our style, and so that stays at 1 -- Oak will do well for people, but he's not altruistic enough to go for more than that, and Temperance is, likewise, not a strong suit, so that will stay at 1 as well. That leaves 5 dots to spend between Conviction (emotional endurance) and Valor (courage and bravery), and we'll put 2 in the former and 3 in the latter, meaning our Virtue Flaw -- the manifestation of the Primordial's Great Curse -- should come from Valor; scanning the options, we'll go with Foolhardy Contempt -- no one is stronger than Towering Oak!

BACKGROUNDS
Artifact 3 (Orichalum Grand Goremaul) [Speed 5 / Accuracy +3 / Damage +16L/ 5 / Defense +0 / Rate 2 / Minimum Str. 5 / Attune 8 / 2, O, P, R]
Cult 2
Followers 1
Resources 1

CHARMS
Durability of Oak Meditation
Spirit Strengthens the Skin
Iron Skin Concentration
Adamant Skin Technique (Valor)
Ox Body Technique [3] (three -1 & six -2 Health Boxes)
First Melee Excellency
Hungry Toger Technique
Fire and Stones Strike

VIRTUES
Compassion 1
Conviction 3
Temperance 1
Valor 4

LIMIT BREAK
Foolhardy Contempt

Whew, that was the long slog!

And now we're in the home stretch! Finishing Touches has us slowly wrapping up our design process and getting a few derived values jotted down; Our Essence is currently 2 (the Default), our WIllpower is the sum of our two highest Virtues and therefore set to 7 at current, our Personal Essence is [(Essence x3) + Willpower] or 13, our Peripheral Essence [(Essence x7) + Willpower + the sum of all Virtues] for a total of 30, and we have the base 7 Health Levels of all characters plus nine more gained from Ox-Body Technique, for a final total of 16. All that's left now is to spend Bonus Points, 7 (of our total of 15) to raise Essence to 3 (raising our Personal Essence by 3 motes and our Peripheral Essence by 7 motes in the process) and 2 more to raise Resistance to 5; we've got 6 BP left, so we'll go ahead and add a dot to our Stamina for 4 of them, and max our Melee to 5 dots with the final 2.

ESSENCE
3

PERSONAL ESSENCE
16

PERIPHERAL ESSENCE
37

WILLPOWER
7

HEALTH
16

And... there we go! We'd normally establish Intimacies, maybe buy some equipment, but at this point I'm not too worried about Social Combat as we're in a vacuum at current, and all Oak really needs to get by is that big old Hammer of his.

* * * * * * *

Name: Towering Oak
Concept: Boisterous Bruiser
Caste: Dawn
Motivation: "Prove Myself the Strongest Man in Creation"

ATTRIBUTES

PHYSICAL
Strength 5
Dexterity 2
Stamina 5

SOCIAL
Charisma 4
Manipulation 2
Appearance 3

MENTAL
Perception 3
Intelligence 2
Wits 2

ABILITIES

Athletics 3
Craft (Wood) 2
Integrity 3
Linguistics 1 (Foresttongue, Riverspeak)
Martial Arts 3
Medicine 1
Melee 5
Presence 3
Resistance 5
Survival 3
Thrown 3

ADVANTAGES

BACKGROUNDS
Artifact 3 (Orichalum Grand Goremaul) [Speed 5 / Accuracy +3 / Damage +16L/ 5 / Defense +0 / Rate 2 / Minimum Str. 5 / Attune 8 / 2, O, P, R]
Cult 2
Followers 1
Resources 1

CHARMS
Durability of Oak Meditation
Spirit Strengthens the Skin
Iron Skin Concentration
Adamant Skin Technique (Valor)
Ox Body Technique [3] (three -1 & six -2 Health Boxes)
First Melee Excellency
Hungry Toger Technique
Fire and Stones Strike

VIRTUES
Compassion 1
Conviction 3
Temperance 1
Valor 4

LIMIT BREAK
Foolhardy Contempt

ESSENCE
3

PERSONAL ESSENCE
16

PERIPHERAL ESSENCE
37

WILLPOWER
7

HEALTH
16

* * * * * * *

...and there we go, a warrior of *Sol Invictus*, prepared to take Creation by storm and prove that he's the strongest, hardest-hitting badass in existence.

...and probably get his head busted a few tiems for the trouble, but such is the way of Exalted -- it's larger than life, and so are it's heroes!

See you folks next week!