#Solar Exalted

[benk625-blog]

Captain Picard is an Eclipse caste Solar Exalted. Supernal Ability - Embassy

[mountainashfae]

In a previous session, our group was lured into a trap by a man using hallucinatory incense. Vio was the only one to not be effected by the incense, and thus the only one not to drink a sleeping potion.

Alone in pitch darkness and faced with convincing the man to not kidnap our child charge, he simply stepped through the cinders of the dying fire and demanded that he release her. Despite his small stature, he is quite intimidating.

[woolymonster]

Happy Calibration! Here’s my contribution to this years exchange, for @butch-king-frankenstein

I had a lot of fun choices to pick from, but this guy and his giant hammer were calling to me, and I had to answer “Yes Sir”

[toxinfox]

2010, markers vs. 2023, Photoshop

I've always loved Kaveri's Anima banner, with the golden arrows, burning with purple fire, falling to earth around her. Shame you don't get to see it very often. ;)

[theuncrucified]

This year was my first year doing Art Fight, so of course I had to Attack some of my Exalted peeps! Here's a selection of just the Exalted characters I drew. You can watch timelapses of each one over on my YouTube channel.

Featuring the following characters:

@shiftingpath's Glittering Blade meeting my Eclipse gal, Kalara.

Kessinder's friendly Abyssal, Cultivar of Bloodied Sunsets.

@dailydungeondelves' Pretty Boy, a moon-blessed parrot Lunar.

ArtoftheNerd's vengeful Abyssal, Cyn.

[maxahlia]

Another Exalted character.

[anima-banner]

Long ago, during prehistoric times, the gods of Heaven created extraordinary beings known as the Exalted, who possessed immense power and glory. These champions were chosen to fight on behalf of the gods and were given authority over all aspects of Creation, including all living creatures and even the spirits. The Exalted were regarded as heroes and were honored for their service to the gods. As a reward for their loyalty, the gods granted them dominion over all the lands they could see and touch. With their task complete, the gods retreated to Yu-Shan, the Celestial City, leaving the Exalted to govern the world of humanity.

The Exalted were a varied group of individuals, each possessing distinct powers that the gods bestowed upon them. However, a particular subset of the Exalted, known as the Solar Exalted, emerged as the leaders of this group. These individuals were exceptional in their abilities, and as a result, they could easily conquer every part of Creation. With their unparalleled magic and sorcery, the Solars ushered in the First Age, which was marked by great prosperity and success.

The First Age was an era of magnificent marvels and accomplishments that are no longer present in the current age. These wonders were created by the Solar Exalted, who were the rulers of the world, including its gods and other exceptional individuals, for a period of five thousand years. However, at some point, a catastrophic event occurred that brought an end to this golden age.

For thousands of years, the Solar Exalted had been under a terrible curse placed upon them by the enemies of the gods. Over time, the Solars became corrupted and mentally unstable, causing their previously noble and generous nature to transform into cruelty and deceit. They turned on their own people and each other, using the powerful sorcery and strategies that they once employed to protect the world for their own selfish purposes. This led to the brink of civil war, prompting the other types of Exalted to act. The Dragon-Blooded revolted against the Solars and assassinated them during a seasonal celebration.

The majority of the Solar Exalted were killed, and their powerful life force was trapped in a jade prison, as their strength allowed them to be reborn after their death. Despite this, a few of them escaped from the initial attack, and they spent many years engaged in brutal warfare against those who had usurped their power. During this conflict, a significant amount of the magic that was present during the First Age was expended or destroyed in acts of retribution. Eventually, the last of the surviving Solars were hunted down and slain, bringing an end to the First Age.

After the fall of the Solar Exalted, their Realm was left in ruins. The same curse that had corrupted them had also corrupted the world they had built. The Sorcerous mechanisms that the Solars had used to maintain their civilization began to fail and disintegrate rapidly. Entire cities crumbled, and lands were destroyed by the devastating magic of the manses. Mountains were swallowed by the earth, taking entire nations with them. Islands were obliterated as the powerful sorcery that had created them was undone. The Sidereals, who had sided with the Dragon-Blooded, worked to stabilize the world and limit the destruction caused by the fall of the First Age. Though the world survived, it was left significantly diminished.

Following the collapse of the First Age and the destruction of the Solar Exalted, the Dragon-Blooded established a military regime in the aftermath. While their reign lacked the splendor of the Solars' once-glorious Realm, it was also free from the chaos and madness that had ultimately led to its downfall. The Dragon-Blooded maintained order and stability for centuries, working to rebuild and recover from the devastating aftermath of the First Age.

The Usurpation was orchestrated by the Sidereals, a powerful group of Celestial Exalted. After aiding the Dragon-Blooded in their rise to power, the Sidereals deliberately erased all records of their own existence and manipulated the stars to bring about a collective forgetting. To maintain their power and influence, the Sidereals created the Immaculate Philosophy, a religion that taught the spiritual superiority of the Dragon-Blooded. Disguised as monks and followers of this new religion, the Sidereals worked behind the scenes of Dragon-Blooded politics, maintaining control from the shadows.

The Sidereals, through their mystical powers and instruments, carefully monitored the world for any signs of new Solar Exalted who might be reborn. They used this information to guide the Dragon-Blooded in organized groups called the Wyld Hunt to eliminate the Solars before they could become a threat. The Wyld Hunt became known for their brutal inquisitions, which were intertwined with the Immaculate religion. For many years, the Wyld Hunt hunted down and killed any new Solar Exalted without fear of reprisal.

[cosmicstarshineart]

WIP: my Solar Exalt, Esme Fallowdawn, aka The Midnight Rider

[irregularcircle]

Name                                          Kaveri Shendo

Exaltation                                   Solar

Caste                                           Night Caste

Weapon(s)                                   Stinging Conscience, an Orichalcum short                                                             power bow

Language(s)                                 Rivertongue, Low Realm, a bit of Old Realm

Goal(s)                                          Protect Lookshy from falling to its enemies, maybe start some grand project with Rook

Fear(s)                                          Losing her sisters again, Lookshy falling, doing something she regrets for the rest of her life, getting her friends killed

Likes                                            Spicy food (no, spicier than that), workouts, wide open plains, the cover of darkness, causing a good jump-scare, trick shots, drinking games

Dislikes                                        Formality, bland food, getting up early, being the center of attention, very confined spaces, paperwork

Defining feature(s)                      Deep red hair in a hip-length braid, tall and slim with minimal curves. 

Interesting Extras                          Kaveri is attracted to authority figures. Unfortunately, as a Solar, the list of people she considers an authority figure is a short one. About the only thing that scratches that particular itch is another Solar asserting dominance over someone else. 

Quick Biography

Born to Kirandir and Nakanadi Skalishaya, Kaveri is the middle sister, nine years younger than her elder sister Anjali, and five years older than her younger sister, Malati. Kaveri was only ten when her parents and older sister disappeared into the deep East, searching for a lost Lunar manse. Far too young to accompany them, Kaveri and Malati stayed behind with Nakanadi’s sister, Jindei (the girls’ aunt), and Jindei’s husband, Ursho Shendo. 

Kaveri was, however, old enough to know what it meant when her parents and sister never came home. Eventually, with Kirandir, Nakanadi, and Anjali all presumed dead to the many perils of the East, Ursho and Jindei took Kaveri and Malati and headed back for Ursho’s home city– Lookshy. Tragedy didn’t stop with the loss of Kaveri’s older sister and parents, however; on the trip home, the small family misplaced Malati in a crowd of people. In spite of a week of searching, she was never found, and, distraught but out of time and with no leads, Ursho, Jindei, and Kaveri moved on. 

Once in Lookshy, Kaveri settled into her new life as a Lookshyan citizen. When she turned twelve, she started junior drill training, preparing to fulfill her military service, as all Lookshyan citizens did for at least a time. She very quickly proved to be an adept archer, and her superiors groomed her for eventual service in a field archer’s division later. 

When she was not training, Kaveri aided her aunt and uncle with their day jobs as scribes and message couriers. Kaveri had spent her early childhood being raised by scavenger scholars, so she could read and write, and had respectable calligraphy, so she took to scribe work quickly, but she really enjoyed the freedom that delivering messages gave her – she had a pass to almost anywhere in the city, and very quickly noticed that no one ever gave the messenger a second look. 

Kaveri was twenty when her cozy, stable new life came crashing down again. One day, her aunt accidentally intercepted a message she wasn’t supposed to read, and discovered that something fishy was going on. Someone, it seemed, was feeding the chumyo (the military ruler of Lookshy) some dubious advice about the Mourning Field– the small but particularly nasty shadowland right on Lookshy’s doorstep. Kaveri was determined to figure out who was feeding such terrible advice to the chumyo, and tracked the source of the shady correspondence to an Anathema who made Kaveri’s skin crawl. (Whom she later learned was an Abyssal.)

But before they could figure out what to do, or how to warn the chumyo (assuming he didn’t already know), the family was caught reading the chumyo’s correspondence, and immediately placed under arrest for treason. Only Kaveri evaded capture. Her aunt and uncle were thrown into the Nightwatch Citadel. She feared they might be slated for something worse than a simple prison sentence…

Desperate not to lose ANOTHER set of parental figures, Kaveri did something desperate and foolish, and forged a letter of pardon in the chumyo’s handwriting, wrote him a separate note to explain what was going on, broke into his villa while he was sleeping, and used his seal – that was still on his finger!!-- to make the forged letter look official. And then…

And then she broke into the Nightwatch Citadel, by clinging to the bottom of a supply cart. Once she was in… she relied on the functional invisibility of a messenger, and walked to the warden’s office, trying not to panic too obviously. Her hand was almost on the doorknob when she Exalted. Due to a combination of a reasonably authentic-looking (if suspicious) letter of pardon being delivered by a (very definitely real) Anathema, the warden okayed the release of Jindei and Ursho, who fled out the eastern gate with their immediate effects, unaware of who the blazing golden figure watching them leave was. 

Shortly after, before she could catch up to them, Kaveri was run out of Lookshy by a handful of young dragonbloods who were sympathetic to the Immaculates, and she was forced to hide in the countryside until her anima calmed down again. In that time, she located an abandoned manse with an orichalcum bow inside, and encountered Rook… who ultimately helped her locate her aunt and uncle. 

Relationship to

Rook

The first Celestial Exalt Kaveri encountered after she herself had Exalted, Rook was Kaveri’s first ally, and remains her closest friend. She admires his intellect and his relentless inventiveness… and also thinks that his occasional moments of farm boy naivete are so endearing. The two of them have a semi-casual friends-with-benefits partnership, although every now and then, when she catches him asserting himself, Kaveri finds Rook very, very attractive. Neither is sure how deep the feelings of the other are, but for the time being, both Solars intend to work together for the foreseeable future. 

Anjali

Kaveri’s older sister Anjali was sort of a role model/babysitter/teacher figure for Kaveri when they were growing up. As a child, Kaveri had always tried to impress her older sister, and while she didn’t prove to be quite as effortlessly bright and clever as Anjali always was, Kaveri did have excellent calligraphy, and their father Kirandir had always believed that someday Kaveri would be a proper expert at circumventing locks and traps and things in tombs. When Anjali disappeared alongside their parents on the expedition into the Deep East, Kaveri was devastated– her sister, her mentor, was gone, and all of her dreams of adventure together had gone with her. 

Rediscovering Anjali– and learning that she, too, was an Exalt– had been the second most astonishing revelation of Kaveri’s life, just ahead of losing her in the first place, and only slightly behind her own Exaltation. The two sisters are still trying to figure out how their relationship works now – time and Exaltation and the presence of partners has complicated things– but they are ecstatic to have found each other and hope to work together for the long term.  

Malati

If Anjali was Kaveri’s role model and mentor figure, Kaveri strove to be something similar for Malati, her little sister. Five years apart in age, the girls were normal sisters for the most part– sometimes Kaveri was annoyed by Malati always tagging along, and other times, she fiercely defended Malati from any threat, whether it was other children teasing her, or a scary spider. She doubled down on her intention to protect Malati when Anjali and their parents disappeared, and when Malati herself was lost as the girls and their aunt and uncle passed through Nexus, Kaveri bore that feeling of failure for years. Kaveri has never admitted to it, but her Aunt Jindei strongly suspects that Kaveri refused to cut her hair after Malati was lost, because she had just learned to braid a few weeks before her disappearance in Nexus. 

Upon encountering Malati now, in adulthood, with all three sisters as Exalts, Kaveri isn’t sure how to relate to Malati. The childhood feeling of failing as a protector conflicts with delight at finding out her little sister is alive and well… but Kaveri is also aware that Malati has spent more than a decade being trained by Sidereals before becoming one herself. She knows, as much as she doesn’t want to admit it, that she doesn’t really know Malati anymore. She WANTS to… but there is a lot more hesitation there than she feels with Anjali. 

[angelasasserart]

Enjoy a new blog post featuring a compilation of Exalted character art + art timelapses from the past few Exalted Character of the Week challenges I've participated in.

I'm attaching the art to this post, but check the full blog post for the original artists renditions of their characters for maximum appreciation!

Featuring:

@hamsandlich's The Seraph of Promised Silence, Midnight Caste Abyssal

@maptheunknown's Shame, Eclipse Caste vagrant turned diplomat

@annacory-blog's Swan Feather Ledaal, Zenith Caste swordswoman

[tacticiankate]

finished ref sheet for another player in the exalted game I'm in, since she just got a makeover - a twilight-caste investigation supernal solar named Undu, plus a couple homebrew artifact gauntlets ✌🏻

[ihopethemoonislistening]

[mountainashfae]

He stood by the river underneath the willow, just as he had many times before. "Why this, why me?" He asked to the open air. "Why the Sun, why not you?" Tears spilled forth from the young Solar's eyes. For years he had prayed to the river spirit of his home. Now, he stands before his goddess as the Chosen of some other god.

Another look at Vio before the official start of the chronicle, back when he had just recently Exalted. Our characters are from the Hundred Kingdoms in the Scavenger Lands, so we knew our characters wouldn't be followers of the Immaculate Philosophy. Instead, Vio is a priest of the minor deity from his home. It's a fun twist to explore, since he's usually a worshiper of the sun from the beginning.

[siderealscribblings]

I realize now that most of the ships I've written for over the past decade or so have been incredibly Solar/Lunar coded

[toxinfox]

Exaltober Day 1:  Iconic Anima

Oh great, you pissed off the Twilight. I’d say ‘run’, but we both know how much good that’s going to do you. 

[theuncrucified]

[Post] How THE UNCRUCIFIED got started. What (or who) inspired it and the hopeful Shonen protagonist energy of playing a Solar.