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Feb. 6th, 2010 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geebsAlmost through Scroll of Exalts, just have the Dragon-Blooded (I'm through a third of it, its the longest section, it seems) and Alchemical sections to finish. But reading through the NPCs has given me a better grasp on the different type of exalts.
As I've said, my favorites are still the Abyssals/Infernals/Solars (and prolly in that order). I like the Abyssals' motif and style, though the whole wanting to bring about oblivion kinda sucks. Because really, who wants to end the world? The Infernals have a better end goal. (Well, the majority of them do, a couple of the Yozi want the similar destruction of everything as well) Rather than oblivion, they want... I hate to use these words but chaos and sin. I don't like using chaos, because then that's easily confused with the Fair Folk's goal of having the Wyld take over creation. Although I guess you could call the Fair Folk's desire entropy. And I don't like using sin, because while the Yozis are "devils" labeling their behavior as sinful is trying to apply a theology that doesn't exist in that fictional world. In any case, its better than the destruction of everything. But, their style and motif is very alien, which just isn't cool as the "black death" imagery of the abyssals.
Solars I admire because the world is their oyster. They have the power to do whatever the hell they want, for good or evil. I mean, they're champions of the unconquered sun, which I suppose predisposes them to good, but while they're not slaves to the will of the Neverborn and Yozis like their evil brehtren, they're not necessarily goody goody paragons of light. Power corrupts, and saving the world doesn't mean they can't forge a kingdom and fulfill their own selfish desires along the way.
Alchemicals? They're practically non-entities to me. Its hard to get a grasp of where they fit into things because they spend a lot of time in some random new world that is not Creation, Heaven or the Underworld. Its like the Exalted world is enough to take in at is! Now I have to learn about yet another location? They just seem separate from the rest of the Exalted world so its hard to care about them.
My feelings on the rest of the exalts shows my solar bias, because to me, its a case of forgetting their places!
Reading more about the Lunars, yes, a lot of them are your typical feral bad-ass beastman-ish combat monsters. But the majority of them are also raving lunatics! Too much time near the wyld has frakked up their minds. They feel the current "civilized" creation is a failed experiment and seek to supplant it with their more barbaric ways. I think they're morons, but I can't blame them for their beliefs. They were hunted down just like the solars were, and like I said, being driven to where creation borders the wyld has kinda made them nuts.
The sidereals and dragon blooded though? Both usurpers! They've forgotten their place as merely advisers and the rank and file, respectively. The sidereals were rightly disturbed by the corruption the solars sank to in the First Age, but instead of doing their job and guiding the solars back on the right path, they took the "easy way" and decided to just get rid of them and supplant them altogether. And the dragonbloods were snowed by the sidereals into thinking they were the new shit.
But yeah, reading about Chejop Kejak, he's actually a pretty cool guy, its just he's the pesky leader of the Bronze Faction that thinks destroying the solars was better than trying to pull them from the brink of insanity. If it weren't for that, I'd like him.
And really, the Empire is pretty cool also and I like all the politicking going on between the houses. But in the end, the terrestrials are always gonna be second banana to the celestials. Heh, its interesting though, there's no cool "martial arts hero" type solar/abyssal/infernal NPCs. The bad-ass martial arts type NPCs are all sidereals and dragon-bloods. I mean, I guess martial arts is the sidereals thing, but for a world that's supposed to be very wuxia, the main hero race (the Solars) are more akin to traditional fantasy warriors in their styling, even though their charms do enable them to perform the feats seen in the kung fu-epic movies.
But yeah, the sidereals are more akin to those wuxia heroes. Chejop Kejak is the wise old kung fu master, while Lupo (who's totally cool and bad-ass), master sifu of the Gold Faction (i.e., the "good" sidereals) is younger looking and a master of dozens of styles. (I like how he's on the committee to study the abyssals because he's wanting to learn their fighting style) Then there's the two ninja guys, Crimson Banner Executioner and Black Ice Shadow.
The Dragon Bloods on the other hand have people like Ragara Myrrun and Peleps Deled. Myrrun is like THE dragon blooded martial arts master, knowing all of the immaculate dragon styles, plus a few celestial ones. And Anys Syn is trying to somehow teach him Sidereal martial arts, which will either destroy him, or evolve the entire Dragon Blooded race if he manages to gain the insight to learn SMAs. Peleps Deled on the other hand is like Chejop Kejak for me, who I would think is pretty cool if not for his motivation to kill all the solars. He too has mastered all 5 of the Immaculate Dragon styles, but he's also a overzealous religious whack job. He's one of those "true believer" types of whatever the hell religion the Empire practices who not only believes in the righteousness of going after the so-called Anathema, but he's also one of those guys who has an extremely narrow interpretation of the tenets of his religion and anyone who disagrees with him should be destroyed.
So its prolly a good thing he's head of the Wyld Hunt, since his insane methods have actually caused most of the houses withdraw their support for it, turning the hunt into something they assign people they want to die to, either by getting killed by Anathema, or by Pelleps Deled himself for unwittingly offending him for mistranslating some scripture passage or whatever. Though even though he's made the Wyld Hunt a shadow of what it was intended to be, if I were an anathema, he's not someone I'd want to run into and I'd rely on every dirty trick in the book to take him out.
The book also puts out an interesting new view of Mnemon. Truthfully, with the Scarlet Empress missing, the two real contenders for the throne are her and the Rose Black. And I think for most people Tepet Ejava is the "good" candidate, the one I think most people want to see get the throne. To them, Mnemon is a power hungry bitch who has her own interests at heart, and only wants the throne because she thinks its owed to her. Since traditional fantasy has such conflicts between a good qualified leader going against an evil incompetent, I think there's a view that Mnemon isn't suited to the job, when she really is. Just because she's the Empress' daughter does not mean she's only in contention because of her bloodline. It seems like people forget she's a pretty skilled and powerful exalt. Power hungry sure, but I think she has a more legitimate right to the throne then the typical heel in fantasy stories.
But yeah, while I do like the Roseblack better, I'm a little more neutral to Mnemon. I don't actually hate her like I do Chejop "thinks he's so damn smart and his way is right" Kejak or the whack job lunars like Ma Ha Suchi, or the scary-insane zealot Pelleps Deled. They actually give her a new motivation for wanting the imperial throne- she knows what happened to the Scarlet Empress, and wants to stop the infighting and become the new Empress because she feels she's the only one who can do what needs to be done to lead the Empire in the face of the coming threat. So really, I don't know who's in the right between those two. I mean, Ejava is rallying against the rampant corruption and nepotism of the Empire and would prolly make a good and fair leader. Well, somewhat. She's a warrior general at heart, so if she did get the throne, I would think she would need to find a cadre of loyal non-warrior followers to help her get up to speed on running the empire. Mnemon on the other hand, would fit onto the throne seamlessly, but like Deled, she's a "true believer" (just not as insanely as he is). So she has some pretty narrow minded views, and is prolly entrenched in a lot of what is wrong with the empire.
As I've said, my favorites are still the Abyssals/Infernals/Solars (and prolly in that order). I like the Abyssals' motif and style, though the whole wanting to bring about oblivion kinda sucks. Because really, who wants to end the world? The Infernals have a better end goal. (Well, the majority of them do, a couple of the Yozi want the similar destruction of everything as well) Rather than oblivion, they want... I hate to use these words but chaos and sin. I don't like using chaos, because then that's easily confused with the Fair Folk's goal of having the Wyld take over creation. Although I guess you could call the Fair Folk's desire entropy. And I don't like using sin, because while the Yozis are "devils" labeling their behavior as sinful is trying to apply a theology that doesn't exist in that fictional world. In any case, its better than the destruction of everything. But, their style and motif is very alien, which just isn't cool as the "black death" imagery of the abyssals.
Solars I admire because the world is their oyster. They have the power to do whatever the hell they want, for good or evil. I mean, they're champions of the unconquered sun, which I suppose predisposes them to good, but while they're not slaves to the will of the Neverborn and Yozis like their evil brehtren, they're not necessarily goody goody paragons of light. Power corrupts, and saving the world doesn't mean they can't forge a kingdom and fulfill their own selfish desires along the way.
Alchemicals? They're practically non-entities to me. Its hard to get a grasp of where they fit into things because they spend a lot of time in some random new world that is not Creation, Heaven or the Underworld. Its like the Exalted world is enough to take in at is! Now I have to learn about yet another location? They just seem separate from the rest of the Exalted world so its hard to care about them.
My feelings on the rest of the exalts shows my solar bias, because to me, its a case of forgetting their places!
Reading more about the Lunars, yes, a lot of them are your typical feral bad-ass beastman-ish combat monsters. But the majority of them are also raving lunatics! Too much time near the wyld has frakked up their minds. They feel the current "civilized" creation is a failed experiment and seek to supplant it with their more barbaric ways. I think they're morons, but I can't blame them for their beliefs. They were hunted down just like the solars were, and like I said, being driven to where creation borders the wyld has kinda made them nuts.
The sidereals and dragon blooded though? Both usurpers! They've forgotten their place as merely advisers and the rank and file, respectively. The sidereals were rightly disturbed by the corruption the solars sank to in the First Age, but instead of doing their job and guiding the solars back on the right path, they took the "easy way" and decided to just get rid of them and supplant them altogether. And the dragonbloods were snowed by the sidereals into thinking they were the new shit.
But yeah, reading about Chejop Kejak, he's actually a pretty cool guy, its just he's the pesky leader of the Bronze Faction that thinks destroying the solars was better than trying to pull them from the brink of insanity. If it weren't for that, I'd like him.
And really, the Empire is pretty cool also and I like all the politicking going on between the houses. But in the end, the terrestrials are always gonna be second banana to the celestials. Heh, its interesting though, there's no cool "martial arts hero" type solar/abyssal/infernal NPCs. The bad-ass martial arts type NPCs are all sidereals and dragon-bloods. I mean, I guess martial arts is the sidereals thing, but for a world that's supposed to be very wuxia, the main hero race (the Solars) are more akin to traditional fantasy warriors in their styling, even though their charms do enable them to perform the feats seen in the kung fu-epic movies.
But yeah, the sidereals are more akin to those wuxia heroes. Chejop Kejak is the wise old kung fu master, while Lupo (who's totally cool and bad-ass), master sifu of the Gold Faction (i.e., the "good" sidereals) is younger looking and a master of dozens of styles. (I like how he's on the committee to study the abyssals because he's wanting to learn their fighting style) Then there's the two ninja guys, Crimson Banner Executioner and Black Ice Shadow.
The Dragon Bloods on the other hand have people like Ragara Myrrun and Peleps Deled. Myrrun is like THE dragon blooded martial arts master, knowing all of the immaculate dragon styles, plus a few celestial ones. And Anys Syn is trying to somehow teach him Sidereal martial arts, which will either destroy him, or evolve the entire Dragon Blooded race if he manages to gain the insight to learn SMAs. Peleps Deled on the other hand is like Chejop Kejak for me, who I would think is pretty cool if not for his motivation to kill all the solars. He too has mastered all 5 of the Immaculate Dragon styles, but he's also a overzealous religious whack job. He's one of those "true believer" types of whatever the hell religion the Empire practices who not only believes in the righteousness of going after the so-called Anathema, but he's also one of those guys who has an extremely narrow interpretation of the tenets of his religion and anyone who disagrees with him should be destroyed.
So its prolly a good thing he's head of the Wyld Hunt, since his insane methods have actually caused most of the houses withdraw their support for it, turning the hunt into something they assign people they want to die to, either by getting killed by Anathema, or by Pelleps Deled himself for unwittingly offending him for mistranslating some scripture passage or whatever. Though even though he's made the Wyld Hunt a shadow of what it was intended to be, if I were an anathema, he's not someone I'd want to run into and I'd rely on every dirty trick in the book to take him out.
The book also puts out an interesting new view of Mnemon. Truthfully, with the Scarlet Empress missing, the two real contenders for the throne are her and the Rose Black. And I think for most people Tepet Ejava is the "good" candidate, the one I think most people want to see get the throne. To them, Mnemon is a power hungry bitch who has her own interests at heart, and only wants the throne because she thinks its owed to her. Since traditional fantasy has such conflicts between a good qualified leader going against an evil incompetent, I think there's a view that Mnemon isn't suited to the job, when she really is. Just because she's the Empress' daughter does not mean she's only in contention because of her bloodline. It seems like people forget she's a pretty skilled and powerful exalt. Power hungry sure, but I think she has a more legitimate right to the throne then the typical heel in fantasy stories.
But yeah, while I do like the Roseblack better, I'm a little more neutral to Mnemon. I don't actually hate her like I do Chejop "thinks he's so damn smart and his way is right" Kejak or the whack job lunars like Ma Ha Suchi, or the scary-insane zealot Pelleps Deled. They actually give her a new motivation for wanting the imperial throne- she knows what happened to the Scarlet Empress, and wants to stop the infighting and become the new Empress because she feels she's the only one who can do what needs to be done to lead the Empire in the face of the coming threat. So really, I don't know who's in the right between those two. I mean, Ejava is rallying against the rampant corruption and nepotism of the Empire and would prolly make a good and fair leader. Well, somewhat. She's a warrior general at heart, so if she did get the throne, I would think she would need to find a cadre of loyal non-warrior followers to help her get up to speed on running the empire. Mnemon on the other hand, would fit onto the throne seamlessly, but like Deled, she's a "true believer" (just not as insanely as he is). So she has some pretty narrow minded views, and is prolly entrenched in a lot of what is wrong with the empire.
