Celestial Power and Martial Arts
For a while I've been wondering what are appropriate prerequisites for learning Sorcery. As I've said before the minimum Traits needed are unusually low making it possible for players who haven't been at the game long to access Solar Circle Sorcery. The need for players to be able to access sorcery with starting characters is important, so Terrestrial circle sorcery must havve low prerequisites. 3 for Essence is certainly appropriate, 3 for Occult may seem a bit low but it fits if other circles of sorcery have high Essence levels.
On that note, I've decided to increase the minimum levels of Essence and occult to 6 for Celestial circle sorcery and 9 for Solar circle. This also raises the question of where the Terrestrial Exalted fit in. And the threshold for increasing Essence above the metaphysical boundary where it becomes a major challenge which currently stands between three and four as well as the limit of Essence for Terrestrial Exalted.
In their current state, the Terrestrial Exalted and their associated martial arts, are both underpowered and very boring. Repeating my previous post, the key to the Celestials' power does not need to reside in the fact that their powers are vis-a-vis to the Terrestrials greater, but that they have access to higher Essence Charms and for a very long period if they live out their whole natural life span.
One important point to address is the apparently arbitrary cut off point of the Terrestrials' natural age, about 350 years, limiting them to a maximum Essence of 8, and then only for a short time. Normally mortals do not live beyond 99 years and so, even if they can wield Essence, are unable to increase it or their other traits above 5. This may prove to be an appropriate lifespan for the Terrestrials too, as it would mean that their powers are not weaker or any less interesting than the Celestials, but mean they cannot rise to the same heights, which is what marks the Celestial Exalted out.
Taking martial arts as a case in point, since it involves all Exalted in a comparative structure, current Celestial martial arts, many of which are animal styles suited to the new theme of Terrestrials, would prove to be good Terrestrial martial arts. The Form Charms universally have an Essence rating of 2, which would be within the grasp of a starting level Terrestrial character, and the high level Charms never exceed Essence 5, making the whole style available to Terrestrials. This may make players of Celestials baulk but remember that at such levels they are only beginning to develop their powers.
Sidereal martial arts mark the opposite end of the spectrum and have one major limitation. Despite supposedly being the epitome of martial arts and the Sidereals' area of greatest prowess, only one of them reaches Essence 8 in the post Form Charms and does not go beyond that. Since Celestial Exalted Essence can go all the way to 10, this should be the limit of the Sidereal martial arts styles, not 7 as is typical for many of them. In their current form many of the Sidereal styles look like templates for Celestial styles, giving access to transcendent powers that their unnaturally high Essence allows them. Sidereal martial arts however should go all the way to the top, the highly unusual nature of Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic Style, which often exceeds even the constraints of being a fighting style, is a good indicator of what Sidereal martial arts should be.
