No Such Thing As Generic Exalted Competency

The idea that every Exalt needs to be able to do X thing or they're not "true" Exalted is completely false.

Your character is Exalted based on a heroic predilection that attracts a god (Neverborn, Yozi, whatever) to your character.

The entity that grants your character Exaltation is inherently different from other Exaltation-granting entities.

Exaltation-granting entities have different predilections and therefore different powers from one another. You may have even noticed that these beings tend to pick characters who line up with their interests.

These entities tend to pass powers onto characters who share their predilections.

In sum: Some Exaltation-granting entities have narrow powers that spring from their narrow interests. Ergo, their Exalts have a narrow focus and are bent toward specific purposes. For this reason, they don't tend to choose Exalts who will suck at doing what they want them to do.

Each Exaltation interprets this principle over and over again:

The Dragon-Blooded: They are broad in scope, but limited in reach. Their main purpose is to be soldiers for the Celestial Host. They are expendable because they can breed and produce more Exalts. They function best as groups and tend naturally toward military governments. Individually, they range far afield of "just soldiers" but aren't naturally able to recreate the wonders of the First Age, break the Second Circle of Sorcery, and many other things. Their best and most natural function is as a military.

Sidereals are another example. They have a closed set of Charms, many of which do not line up to the broad scope of Dragon-Blooded or Solars. On top of this, they are able to develop unlimited Sidereal Martial Arts, literally move the cosmos with Sidereal Astrology, and they are quite capable sorcerers. They are built this way because the SMA-Astrology-Sorcery + a limited amount of Charms, first of all, only makes them good at doing what the Maidens designed them for, and second, because those powers are expressed by the Maidens and match the themes of the Maidens, from whom the Sidereal Exaltations originate.

The Lunars? Visceral, magnetic, sexual, physical, mercurial, changing themselves rather than changing the world. They don't question themselves. They don't sit around thinking deep thoughts. They are instinctive and impulsive and devilishly clever, and forever strong. Sounds like Luna!

The Abyssals? Threw away their names, which actually means they gave up everything to be this one thing. If you were to take away a Dawn Caste's reason for living, and made him hate the world, he would become Sephiroth. A world-destroying act of daiklave. If you filled up Sephiroth with the necromantic cells of an undead Jenova and turned his very nature into a black profanity, you would have an Abyssal. Of course he can't even make a sandwich! That's why we have Lunars.

The only Exalts you could really say inherently do everything people attribute to the sacred rights of all Exalted are the Solars. Human beings given to live 4000 years could master every topic available, but that alone isn't enough. It's that the Unconquered Sun can manifest unlimited talent for every topic under the sun (hic) that Solar Charms and Solar themes also allow them to explore every avenue available to its greatest extent. This is something not even the Infernals have, though they are quite good at jumping the imaginary bar the forums have set for the Exalted. Because as an Infernal, if you deviate off into some theater of interest apart from the Yozi you originate with, his power and themes aren't going to adjust to support you.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License