The LiquidLegends Lounge - Page 691

Before creation there were primordials, beings that were the living embodiments of elemental forces and concepts. Through their immense power they formed creation, and created the Gods to be their servants. The primordials then left creation to the Gods while they themselves played the Games of Divinity.

The Gods wanted in on the Games of Divinity, but were bound by oaths to never raise a hand against the primordials. However, they found a loophole and with the help of Autochthon, the primordial of invention, and Gaia, the primordial of life, created Exaltations.

Exaltation grants mortals a portion of godly power, and the mortals were not bound to the same oaths as the Gods. These mortals, the Exalted, overthrew the primordials for the Gods. They killed most of the primordials and imprisoned the rest both physically and with oaths so that they could never seek vengeance.

However, the dying primordials placed the Great Curse on the Exalted, dooming them to eventual madness. This curse is intricate, complicated, and subtle, effecting different Exalted and different types of Exalted in vastly different ways. Very few in creation are actually aware of the curse, and its effects were not seen for many centuries after the Gods gave creation to the Exalted to rule.

The curse fell heaviest on the Solar Exalted, the chosen of the Unconquered Sun. They became increasingly violent, despotic, cruel, and otherwise abusive of their godly and political powers. The Lunars, their mates and bodyguards, were not much better off. Eventually a tipping point was reached and, with the help of the Sidereal Exalted, the Dragon-Blooded Exalted deposed the Solars, slaughtered them, and trapped the Sparks of Solar Exaltation to prevent any new Solars from being born/reincarnated. Those Lunars that were not killed fled to the wilderness.

Meanwhile, the primordials that were killed found themselves unable to truly die, for they were anchored to Creation. These primordials, the Neverborn, began plotting to destroy all of Creation and thus allow themselves to sink truly into death. After millennia of planning they broke the prison that contained the Solars' Exaltations. Half of these they managed to recover for themselves, but the other half escaped. With the captured Exaltations the Neverborn created the Abyssal Exalted, dark reflections of the Solars.

The Dragon-Blooded aren't too happy about the return of the Solars and hunt them down. That and the machinations of the Neverborn are the primary sources of conflict in Exalted, though there are many, many others.

And that's the tip of the tip of the iceberg. I didn't even cover stuff like the Wyld, Yozis, Dragon-Blooded society, what the hell the Lunars have been up to all this time, magical materials, manses, the Celestial Bureaucracy, or a billion other things.