Realm of Death

    It's impossible to enter the Labyrinth without feeling the tide of hate that emanates from the tomb Neverborn. Whether any will lies behind that hate is a mystery to wise men but those listening to it are too strong in their convictions to listen to reason.
   Simply entering the Labyrinth itself would be a sanity threatening experience. Many ghosts who enter it have already been infected with it's madness. The Labyrinth is a soliloquy, the last act of creation of the Neverborn. The Labyrinth may even be the inside of the Primordials' minds when they died, a psychic dimension flooded with hate. Spectral cults who worship the Neverborn, which is hardly a surprise since they were greater than the gods, have complex and often conflicting beliefs on the nature of the Neverborn. It's uncertain if sentience still lives in their tombs or if their minds spilled out into the Labyrinth. If so the Labyrinth is actually the minds of the Neverborn, which would be no surprise to those who've seen it's twisted, warping depths. Others contend that the constant ringing of hate, a scream you can feel with your body that almost invariably induces an overwhelming desire to kill, is only the voice of the Neverborn and their minds are far worse.
   However twisted these Spectres and Nephwracks are, the shadow of Oblivion gnaws at their minds and fills their hearts with terror. Only the recent advent of the Abyssals have given Oblivion champions. They wield the power of the blackest evil. A mindless horror that threatens to consume everything. They scare even the most fanatical and violent Nephwracks with displays of Oblivion's power. Some are content to use their morbid powers and live their unlives as death knights. Others feel there is something more to their existence and search for a deeper meaning to their lives now that they have escaped death. These are the ones who travel to the Labyrinth on a vision seeking quest.
   All the Deathlords would learn Labyrinth Circle Necromancy that's a given. Abyssals don't know Void Circle yet but have the potential to do so and that scares the living Fuck out of the Deathlords. A Spectre might learn Shadowlands Circle Necromancy. As bearers of shattered reflections of souls of the Neverborn the Deathlords, who are ghosts, can learn Labyrinth Circle Necromancy as the Celestial Exalted who created Necromancy and developed it learned from the Neverborn. But only the Abyssals, whose power comes from Oblivion itself can learn Void Circle Necromancy if they seek for it and gain Whispers of Oblivion.
   There may still be remnants of First Age Solars who created the first Void Circle spells. The nature of Chiaroscuro Nos Veresus' mysterious companion points to such a possibility, that at least he may have tried to do so.
   Simply being an Abyssal gives them access to the power to learn Shadowlands Circle Necromancy. Labyrinth Circle Necromancy requires the hatred of Whispers of the Neverborn. Void Circle Necromancy requires Whispers of Oblivion.

      How Much Does Black Exaltation Change Them?
   It depends on how much they allow it to. Oblivion inspires but it does not create. Some feel drawn to seek out the source of the dark power within them.

   Necromancy- power over death

   Do the Deathlords have unique powers from possessing the spectral remnants of the souls of the Neverborn. What allowed them to encorporate their ghostly souls in the first place? Was it because of a psychic resonance that they hated Creation as much as the Neverborn?

   I think it's important to distinguish between the power of the Neverborn and the power of Oblivion. That fact that Abyssals' powers and those of others beings like the Deathlords seemed to come from both without much distinction was a weakness of the rulebook. I like the way the Oblivion is portrayed more as an entity than as a force, like Mr. Shadow in The Fifth Element. The get the feeling that there's a malevolent intelligence lurking in there rather than it just being a black hole. The outright presence of sentience in the Neverborn annoys me though. It should have been made much more unclear whether they are dead or alive. Call of Cthulhu was an obvious potential source of inspiration for the Neverborn and possibly the Yozis but it's one the writers seemed to ignore. They could have created a realm of great msytery which would have been excellent to explore through but instead they chose to spell things out. The Neverborn are obviously not truly dead and I think it would have been far more interesting for the game if no one knew really if there were dead or not. All they have to go by are the Whispers that emanate from their tombs and the apparent miracles they cause.

Alternative History I

    The Crossroads Society a secret society created to perpetuate the practice of sorcery among Lunars when jealous and paranoid Solars were trying to surpress it among any but their own. Eventually they started to make war on eachother as each power-crazed Solar believed they had an excllusive right ot practice sorcery (based on nothing but their own ego.)
   Alternative history The Solars meet out of custom once a year at the feast at Meru in an atmosphere of barely restrained tension as factions had been battling with eachother (using their dragon-blooded minions and increasingly reluctant Lunar and Sidereal allies) only day before. Rather than try to defeat this convention of nigh-omnipotent god kings directly the Sidereals of the Bronze Faction make them believe they have betrayed eachother ordering eachother's assassinations and set them at eachother's necks. Meru is utterly devastated as 300 Solars and their few remaining Celestial Exalted allies and entourage of Terrestrials battle eachother to the death as Sidereal assassins stalk through the city. A few who escape the destruction (after fighting their way out and killing their fellow Solars and possibly Sidereal and Lunar allies they thought had betrayed them- the Bronze Faction may have created secret new Charms and spells for this purpose) realise too late that they have been deceived and that in one night all the power of the Deliberative has been destroyed. One of these may well become one of the Deathlords seeking an escape from existence or possibly a reaffirmation of faith and the need to believe in something greater than themselves and believing themselves unworthy of the Unconquered Sun and knowing he has turned his attention from Creation look to the only thing they know greater than themselves- the Neverborn.
   Are all the Deathlords Solars? Although the fall of the Solars was greater than any other Exalted, what happened to the Lunars from this time? Two of them were members of the Black Nadir Concordat and who knows what other groups they belonged to. They would have been almost as destroyed by the Usurpation as the Solars themselves.
And one of the Sidereals, refusing to abandon their Solar masters may have been driven so insane by the need for revenge that they would submit themselves to something as terrible as the Neverborn to punish their betrayers.