Editing Exalted (section)

==Backstory==
Here's a history of the setting of Exalted, which may answer a bunch of questions and put things into perspective all at once.

Once upon a time, in the formless twisting chaos of the Wyld, there appeared the [[Primordials]]. The Primordials are impossibly vast alien beings with multiple souls. Imagine if Cthulhu was the size of Asia and you could meet and hold conversations with his major organs, which had separate identities (and then different parts of each of those organs have identities of their own on top of that), and you kinda get the idea.

“The formless chaos that spawned us sucks,” said the Primordials. “Let's build someplace cool to live, rather than hang out here!”

And so they did. They made Creation, and nailed it down with the Elemental Poles of Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and <s>Heart</s> Wood.

“This place isn't going to maintain itself,” said the Primordials. “Let's make a bunch of servants to run the place for us! We'll give them intelligence, free will, and hopes and dreams, and then keep them as slaves for eternity! It'll be great!” And so they made the gods. Some gods, such as the Unconquered Sun, Luna, and the Maidens, were built to be exceedingly cool and do lots; others were built to do stuff like make sure individual shrubs grew properly.

“Huzzah!” said the Primordials. “We have people to do the dirty work of running the place for us! Let's spend half our time playing the impossibly awesome Games of Divinity, and the other half screwing with the lives of our lessers!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the gods, after moving the Elemental Pole of Fire back into place for 700th time after one of the Primordials went on a drinking binge and knocked it loose, causing untold thousands of deaths and nearly causing Creation to fall back into the Wyld. “We should kill those assholes and take their stuff.”

“Ha ha!” said the Primordials. “You can't kill us! When we built you, we programmed you so you could never attack us! Suck it!”

===Making of the Exalted===
So the Unconquered Sun, who is the God of Awesome, came up with a plan. “Let's take those little mortal humans down there and give them incredible power. Then we can have them kill the Primordials, and then we can get at their Games of Divinity and play them ourselves!” So they developed Exaltations, which are sort of like an additional component to the human soul that lets you do magic and super kung fu. Then they picked out the coolest people in Creation and instilled these Essence Shards in them.

“Are you planning on using those Exalted mortals to kill my asshole brothers and sister and take their stuff?” asked Autochthon, who was just about the only Primordial on the side of the gods, because most of the time it was his stuff that the other Primordials were breaking when they ran amok. Plus they made fun of him all the time.

“Um... no,” said the gods.

“Gee, that's too bad. I was gonna hook them up with ultimate weapons of Primordial-slaying destruction, but since you're not rebelling and all...”

“Oh, in that case, yes. Yes, we are.”

Meanwhile, Luna, shape-shifting god/goddess of the moon, managed to sweet-talk his/her/their Primordial hippy sugar mama Gaia into not fighting during the rebellion. “I'll do that thing with my tongue,” Luna promised.

“We have granted you the power to be totally awesome!” said the gods to their Exalted. “Now, go kill those Primordial assholes!”

“Aww, isn't that cute,” said the Primordials. “Those little humans think they can OH SHIT THEY'RE STABBING ME OW OW OW!” Five of them died.

“Don't kill us!” said the rest.

“Now you have to be our slaves for forever, ha ha ha!” said the gods, and then sewed the surviving Primordials (now called Yozis) all up inside the butt of the head Yozi, Malfeas. (Malfeas got turned inside-out and sewn into his own butt.)

“You guys suck,” said the dead Primordials (now called Neverborn) to the Exalted. “We hereby curse you so that you'll all turn into assholes someday!”

“Whatever,” said the Exalted.

“Well, now that that's over,” said the Unconquered Sun, who had since declared himself King of All Cosmos, “Let's go play the Games of Divinity all day! You folks we Exalted, you guys can run the world. Make sure none of our lamer siblings start acting stupid. Make sure I get plenty of prayers coming my way. Other than that, have fun!”

“Hey, I feel kinda guilty for helping kill my brothers and sisters and enslaving the rest,” said Autochthon. “I'm going to leave Creation to go brood for a few thousand years.”

“Have fun!” said the gods (and their new Exalted buddies.)

So the Exalted – particularly the Solars – ran the world. Having been cool to begin with and then granted badassitude by the God of Awesome, they proceeded to do all sorts of cool stuff, like build magical cities out of glass, make mountains float, create currency that reinforces the fabric of reality and ''breed dinosaurs who pissed heroin.'' YES, SERIOUSLY. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS IN EXALTED.

===The Usurpation and the Immaculate Order===
Eventually, though, the Solars got bored and jaded and full of themselves. “We killed the Primordials and made all this cool stuff. Everything we do must therefore be right. Let's run amok!” And so they did.

“This sucks,” said the Sidereals, whose job it is to make sure that the Loom of Fate, which is sort of the engine that runs Creation, doesn't crash. “At the rate they're going, they're gonna wreck Creation. Let's kill them and take their stuff!”

“Hey, we need your help,” the bronze faction Sidereals (lead by Chejop Kejak) said to the Dragon-Blooded, who were the least awesome and powerful but most numerous of the Exalted (cause theirs is hereditary), who acted as lieutenants and aides and local governors and such. Secretaries, too. “Your asshole Solar bosses are gonna wreck the world. Can you help us kill them?”

“Figures they'd end up doing something like that. Sure, we'll help,” said the Dragon-Blooded.

“Come to our big dinner banquet!” said the Dragon-Blooded to the Solars. Then, when the Solars arrived, the bronze faction  Sidreals blew the place up, and trapped the Solar's Essence Shards in a magic cage so that no more Solars could be created.

“Yay it worked! Now we'll erase all evidence of our existence and run the world from behind the scenes, while the Dragon-Blooded can do the dirty work!” said the Sidereals, thus proving themselves to be the only people in the setting with basic pattern recognition.

Meanwhile, those Neverborn guys caught 13 of the dead Solar's ghosts on the way down into the Underworld. “Work for us,” they said, “and we'll give you incredible power, like what you had when you were alive!”

“What's the catch?” asked the ex-Solar ghosts.

“Well, you have to be our slaves and try to make everything, everywhere, die forever.”

“Deal! Let's get cracking!” And so the Deathlords were created, super-powerful ghosts who want the world to die.

Back in Creation, the Dragon-Blooded had a conundrum.

"Hey, what the hell, guys?" The people said. "Those Solar and Lunar guys were fucking awesome! Why the hell did you kill them?"

"Um, well, you see..." and the Sidereals jumped to there rescue and whispered in to there ears what to tell the people. The Dragon-Blooded said as the Sidereals came up with a solution. Eventually, one of them said, "...because they were DEMONS possessing mortals! Yeah, Yeah, that's the ticket!" And so the Immaculate Order was invented, a religion that almost everyone in the Realm follows, which paints all Celestial Exalted as evil "Anathema", demons that possess awesome people and turn them into cunning evil monsters. Which, to be fair, is technically true. Wyld Hunts (think modern special forces with magitech in a mostly standard fantasy setting) are sent out to kill Celestials and keep the status quo all status quo-y.

===The Great Contagion and the Balorian Crusade===
So while the Dragon-Blooded were doing a fairly good (although not nearly as impressive as the Solars) job of running Creation, the Deathlords were building a doomsday plague.

“Taste the bitter poison mixed from the ashes of our hopes and the tears of betrayal in the dark pit of our tortured souls!” said the Deathlords, presumably while wearing too much eyeliner, and unleashed their doomsday plague into Creation.

“This sucks,” said 90% of the living beings in the world, as they promptly died.  Including plants.

“Hey,” said the Deathlords to the Fair Folk, who were into that sort of thing, who lived in the Wyld outside of Creation and didn't like the idea of a place that didn't just change according to their thoughts. “Just about everyone in there's dead now. If you went in, ate the souls of the survivors, and tore the place down, no one could stop you!”

“Thanks for the heads up!” said the Fair Folk, and promptly invaded in force.

“This is bad,” said one of the surviving Dragon-Blooded to her friends. “Fortunately, I just remembered that there's a sealed-off control center for an ultimate magical doomsday weapon that the Solars made for defending Creation against exactly this sort of thing. Let's go on an epic world-saving quest to get in there!”

And so they went. On the way, they came across a shitton of Lunars fighting the Fair Folk.

"Oh shit, Anathema! Let's fight!" One said. The Lunars rolled their eyes and kept fighting.

Another one said to them, "Hey, if you cover us, we can stop this whole thing, and then we'll pretend we never met you and keep feeding Creation the cock-and-bull-story about you being demons!"

"Deal." The Lunars said. And they bought the Dragon-Blooded time to get to the Imperial Manse.

Most of them died trying to get past the defenses, but eventually, two Dragon-Blooded finally made it to the control panel.

“Please insert soul to activate this device,” said the control panel.

“What does that mean?” asked one, and then the other shoved her into the soul-extraction device.

And so this unnamed Dragon-Blooded, through an act of supreme badassness/[[Eldrad|dickery]], gained access to Creation's greatest magical weapons systems and used them to blow up the Fair Folk.

“I hereby declare myself the [[Scarlet Empress]] and ruler of the world,” she said.

“Nuh uh!” said some, until she blew them up. This brought lots more people over to her side, and thus was born the Realm, which is the major power in the world today.

Still, some said, “You were just a lieutenant who got lucky and stumbled across some doomsday weapons. We still have some doomsday weapons of our own, and we'll fight back!” The Scarlet Empress wanted to blow them up too, but a lot of her weapons didn't reach and she was kind of afraid of a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario, so, despite the occasional invasion attempt, they remained independent.

And so things went for over 750 years, until fairly recently, when the Scarlet Empress just up and disappeared. Having named no successor, the entire Realm is now leaderless and gearing up for civil war to see who's gonna be the next one of the Scarlet Throne. Right now, they've got this spineless bureaucrat warming the seat, but this guy is a total pussy who's basically being manipulated by whichever member of the shogunate is feeling power-hungry today. If you've seen Scrubs, imagine Ted with twenty-something Kelsos to suck up to. 

Meanwhile, the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon discovered where the Sidereals has stashed their cage full of Solar shards. They told the Neverborn, tantalizing them with the idea of the power of the tools that destroyed them.  “Hey, we can twist those and use them to create our own invincible deathknights!” The Deathlords pointed out. "We'll tell you where it is, just give us, uh, 50 of them!" the Yozi promised, planning to reap the benefits if the plan succeeded and covering their asses if it didn't. “Deal, let's go get that cage!” Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for everyone else), half the Essence Shards got loose. Now, once again, there are Solar Exalted.

And that's where the game begins.

===Return of Scarlet Empress===
And this is how the game can possibly end.

"Oh man! This sucks," said the Scarlet Empress. "When I die whoever takes over is going to screw up everything I worked for! What am I going to do?" She then found out that if she wrote ''The-Broken-Wing-Crane'' (which is pretty much the Necronomicon) she'd be immortal. "Aight I finished the Not-Necronomicon! Now I'm immortal!"

"Sucker!" Said the Yozi known as the Ebon Dragon, as he dragged the Scarlet Empress off to Hell. There he brainwashed her [[/d/|with tentacles]] as his slave. He then said to the other Yozi "I've got a plan to get us out of here, any of you in?"

"Damn skippy!" said Malfeas.

"Affirmative," said She Who Lives In Her Name.

"Whatever," said Cecelyne.

"It's not like I've got anything better to do," said Adorjan.

The Ebon Dragon told his plan to his conspirators which amounts to: 'take the Akuma and Green Sun Princes to the four corners of Creation and fuck shit up!' Meanwhile Realm has a civil war, at least until the Scarlet Empress came back "I'm back and here to stay, mwahahahahahahahahahaha!" said the Scarlet Empress. 

"Hmm, something's not right" said Ketchup Carjack. So he called all the Sidereals together to try and assassinate her. It doesn't work and Chejop dies. Then back in Heaven Akuma, Green Sun Princes, and their Abyssal allies kill the Unconquered Sun (also possibly Luna and the Five Maidens.) This turned out to be less than good as now all the Exalted are Maximum OverExalted and make their pre-Incarna-death forms look like children with very flimsy sticks. Also, the Sidereals can now make new ones. Back in Hell the Ebon Dragon marries the Scarlet Empress breaking him out of Hell. "So long suckers!" he said betraying the Yozi. 

"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" said the Yozis still in Hell and then proceeded to commit demon genocide.

Back on Creation the Apocalypse and Ragnarok are happening at the same time, the Exalted gather mighty armies to fight the forces of the Ebon Dragon in a mighty battle, and the Scarlet Empress likely dies of an incurable condition called a Daiklave to the chest. The Ebon Dragon is defeated, the day is saved, and everyone lives happily ever after, The End… 

Except for the part where the Ebon Dragon is now in hiding unless you killed him; in that case he's now a Neverborn. Speaking of the Underworld there are a lot more ghosts in there for the Deathlords and Neverborn to take advantage of. Also more of Creation possibly was taken by the Wyld via the Fair Folk, the remaining Yozis are still trapped in Hell and now know they can get out and the fact the world is a much bigger mess and in more disarray than it was before. So Huzzah?


Interestingly, there's an alternate plot listed, though doesn't get nearly the page count it deserves. If the Scarlet Empress dies early on, then she falls to the Underworld as a mere ghost, though one with a ''lot'' of essence and relics. The Neverborn then find her, and go "Hey, congrats on that whole 'ruling creation' thing you managed, it was pretty awesome. They guy who tortured and defiled you is about to finish conquering it though, so you wanna destroy it all instead?" The Scarlet Empress agrees, and so they then summon Black Heron, who gets her soul ripped out and invested into the Scarlet Empress, to create a new Deathlord. Said Deathlord then in a supreme act of badassholery worthy of the Ebon Dragon, goes "Fuck you all, Neverborn and Yozi alike. I established the Realm when I was just a Dragonblooded, and now I'm a fucking Deathlord. I'm going to conquer all of your asses and rule Creation and the Underworld alike under the banner of the Realm."  Alternatively, she can snags a blessing from Unconquered Sun, letting her turn ''all'' of her undead followers into discount Exalted. Those followers, of course, number in the millions. And include quite a few First Age Solars. Yeah.