Main Information & News Disperser
Below is a summary of the history for exalted. I do not make any money from this, please don't sue me.
In the beginning there was only chaos. From within the chaos was born the Primordials. The Primordials, seeking a place to rest and play their games, shaped a portion of the endless chaos into the sun, the skies, the world and all of its creatures. This place was called Creation.
Creation was too complex to be left unattended for long periods so the Primordials created gods to run and maintain their world while they played 'The games of divinity' in heaven. For a time all was good but soon the gods grew discontent with their slavery and inconsiderate masters. The gods were unable to challenge the Primordials themselves and so they empowered mortals to fight on their behalf.
The strongest of the gods took a spark of their immortal being and fused it to a mortal soul. From the Unconquered Sun came the Solars, chosen to lead the armies and creation after the war. From Luna came the Lunars, chosen to be the lieutenants and guardians creation after the war. From the Maidens of the star were born the Sidereals, advisors of the army and operators of the 'Loom of Fate'.
These three variants were commonly called the celestial exalted. When the enchanted mortal died his or her immortal spark would leave and find a new host to replenish their ranks. This also limited how many exalted there could be at once. To solve this Gaia, the spirit of the earth, enchant mortals in a similar but different way. These Dragon-blooded (aka Terrestrial) exalted were weaker than their celestial counter parts, any progeny of them also stood a chance of exalting as well. They would become the troops for the army.
When all was ready the Exalted declared war on the Primordials. It was horrible. Entire regions were annihilated and dissolved back into chaos. Whole races were driven to extinction. Years of war went by but then impossible happened and the Primordials were defeated.
The Primordials that surrendered or were captured were forced to swear oaths, banished outside of creation, and imprisoned within the body of their general Malfeas. These became the Yozi and it wasn't long before they had created a variety of races to serve them in their own personal hell.
Normally when a soul dies it fades into a cleansing state known as lethe and then rejoins the cycle of reincarnation. No one had ever thought the Primordials could die and the cycle of reincarnation couldn't handle their massive souls. The essence of their dead bodies polluted and congealed into another plane of existence called the Underworld. Their very deaths had damaged the cycle of souls. The damaged cycle of reincarnation now allowed for souls to linger on in the underworld as ghosts. Below the underworld lies the abyss, a black pit where all things are obliterated. The Primordials who were killed in the war fell into the abyss and became the Neverborn, hanging at the edge of oblivion, not able to reincarnate or fall completely into the abyss.
Unknown to all, at the moment of their defeat all of the Primordials had cursed the exalted. A powerful and terrible curse the likes of which have not been seen since was cast upon the exalted. No one seemed to notice, however, and so it grew unchecked.
With the war over and the exalted victorious, the gods turned their efforts to rebuilding creation. The gods set up The Celestial Bureaucracy to manage creation and the Exalted set up the Solar Deliberative to govern over mortals and themselves. The Yozi and their offspring were bound into servitude to be summoned at will. Ghosts were largely ignored by the populace. A great era of peace and prosperity was enjoyed by all.
The curse of the Primordials changed the basic nature of the Exalted. The Solars got nailed the hardest but all of them were affected. For the Solars their compassion and wisdom turned to dictatorship and megalomania. The Sidereals saw this most keenly as they dealt with the Loom of Fate. Efforts to reason with the Solars more often made them worse. And so the Sidereals gathered together and made a great reading of the stars known as the great prophecy and from this they received three options.
1) Do nothing and creation will spiral into darkness. 2) Talk things out with the Solars which had a 50/50 shot of working or setting everything on fire. 3) Convince the dragon blooded to rise up and kill the Solars so that creation will shrink but continue to exist. Long debates were held but the third option won out in the end. With Sidereal guidance the dragon blooded launched a surprise attack on the Solars nearly wiping them out in one fell swoop. The rest were harried and hunted until they too fell beneath their blades.
The Lunars for their part knew they were outmaneuvered and retreated to the Wyld, the edge of the world where creation overlaps with endless chaos, to regroup when the Solar's spark chose its new hosts. Only it never did. To prevent a never ending war when the Solar's immortal spark sought a new vessel the Sidereals in a machine called the Jade Prison. With the Solars captured and the Lunars in the wyld the Sidereals set up the Dragon blooded to rule over creation. Then they wrote themselves out of history itself. The Solars and Lunars were painted as evil power mad demons bent on world destruction.
Ruling in place of the Solars, the dragon blooded created feudal Japan. Families of dragon blooded fought against each other; artifacts and wonders broke and couldn't be fixed; fair folk, shaped creatures from the endless chaos, raided into creation. All in all, the next few centuries were crappy compared to the Solar Deliberative but it was better than destruction. And then the plague hit.
When the Solars had been killed en-mass some lingered in the underworld as ghosts. Bitter and hungry for revenge, 13 of these ghosts were approached by the Neverborn. In exchange for great powers these 13 ghosts agreed to unwavering loyalty and to the destruction of creation and everything in it. These 13 are called the Deathlords and after a few centuries to expand their power, one of them unleashed a disease of unprecedented power.
It was called the Great Contagion and it killed 9 out of 10 people in creation. So many people dying at once rip holes in the fabric between the underworld and creation. Everything seemed at an end. And then it got worse. The Great Contagion slew mortal and exalted alike leaving few if any to guard the borders and defenses of creation. The fair folk armies came pouring in tremendous numbers. The Lunars tried delay their advance but they were hopelessly outnumbered. The fair folk swarmed in eroding creation and returning it to the endless chaos.
In a time when all hope seemed lost, one woman stood up and saved a world from certain annihilation. A lone dragon blood was able to activate the grid defenses and wipe out the advancing fair folk hordes … and anyone else who questioned her authority. With the help of a cult called the Immaculate Order and the devastating power at her fingertips she consolidated all of the remaining dragon blooded around her. Whether through marriage, blackmail, or theft she united all of them in scarlet dynasty with herself as the scarlet empress and founding the 11 great houses. That dynasty that has endured for the last 800 years…
…until five years ago when the Empress disappeared. No one knows where she went or if she is even still alive. Regardless her absence has signal a new age of change for the realm (the island in the center of creation that was the seat of her power) and in the threshold (anything in creation not on that island). The 11 great houses have started consolidating their forces to the realm and bickering over succession. Without those forces, the threshold has been left with minimal protection. The Deathlord called Mask of Winters marched an army of undead into creation and conquered the city of thorns. At the head of this army was a new kind of exalted called Abyssals or death knights.
This is where you come in. The Jade prison has been broken, releasing the Solars from their imprisonment. The Deathlords grow bolder, the fair folk raid more frequently, the Lunars gather their barbarian tribes.
The time for action is now.