Lunar scholars depend on intelligence not knowledge. Their capabilities are intuitive rather than deliberate. While their Abilities have little bearing on their potential (which is why they are not included in their Excellencies) what they learn from one situation they may not be able to apply to another, this is not of consequence to them since it's their underlying intelligence that's the font of their ideas, lacking Abilities is not a handicap to them. Only martial arts of all disciplines requires such refined training to learn.
   To put it simply Twilight skills are based on what they know. Moonshadow Caste skills are based on what they think. This did make them inferior to the Solars in terms of raw power but they focussed on a different area.
   Of course Twilights think too, their power comes from thinking about something and they're exceptional at it. The Moonshadows' power wasn't that they were the best in any field but that they can use their minds in any way they please. Luna didn't create her champions to compete with the Solars. She made them to do things the Solars couldn't.
   *Moonshadow is my name for the No Moon Caste.

    Does soulsteel contain the screams of the Neverborn or something from Oblivion or the Labyrinth rather than using the Labyrinth ore to trap ghosts?

Daiklave of Conquest

    The voice of the Unconquered Sun is captured in this blade. Everyone within a mile can hear a triumphal hymn of battle. Allies fight with greater vigour and are inspired by an almost unshakable belief in victory, enemies hear a terrifying anthem filling them with dread that sings of their imminent defeat.
    No one who follows the bearer of this sword will abandon them or flee from battle believing their foe cannot be defeated.

Spear to Dart Strength

    Lunars use bows to hit their enemies from afar not because they need them but because it's more convenient to do so. If foes cower beyond their easy reach, the Chosen of Luna can simply extend their reach to strike down the cowards who hide from them.
   Any object they can hold up can be used as a thrown weapon with a range of Strength x 5 yards and no inherent penalty to the attack roll for doing do. Any weapon that's designed specifically to be thrown (or any object light enough) has a range of Strength x 50 yards. Note, this Charm does not work with weapon's like slings since it's the rock that's used as a projectile, or other objects that are too light to be actually thrown like needles. It's a Charm for heroic warriors that allows them to hurl weapons far beyond the distances others are capable of like Leonidas' spear cast in 300. It's quite a good a example of Exalted combat that film, combining supernatural foes with comic book dramatics

Manual of Exalted Power: The Abyssals

    Looking at some of the reviews on Amazon.com I need to make the following points. Firstly I didn't find the colour of the book a problem when making out the words. Secondly this is not poorly organised. I don't know why one of the buyers said this, they exaggerated the number of Mirror Charms.
   This was one of the few books I originally intended to buy to let me develop some characters I'd thought of after buying the main rule book. The short section in the core rulebook was promising. Unfortunately with a lot of Exalted publications they show more potential and realisation. From what I've read so far the Manual of Exalted Power series is the ultimate example of this.
   For one thing I was expecting the characters to be death knights. In this book they are unquestionably Abyssal Exalted. In the rulebook it said some Abyssals are taken to the Mouth of Oblivion, but in The Abyssals it's a part of each Exalted's education and a part of becoming a death knight. I was expecting a more deathly, morbid edge to their powers and an association to Oblivion and even a direct association to the Deathlords to be more optional. The character's relationship with the Deathlords is one of the most troubling things about their conceptualisation of Abyssals. I can't even remember if I thought one of the Deathlords was responsible for Exalting the Ghostwalker when I first thought of her (probably) but they spell everything out in chapter and verse that gives you little room for your own ideas. Much worse if the grip the Deathlords and the Neverborn have over the characters. Each Abyssal Exaltation, when not inhabiting a body is contained in a object called a Monstrance of Celestial Portion (once amusing misunderstood by a god as a Monstrous Centennial Partition) and whoever has control over this artefact has control over the Abyssal whose Exaltation it belongs to, giving the Deathlords control over the character allowing them to punish them at will. On a more understandable note the characters build up Resonance (a trait they possess since they are relieved of the Great Curse) which build up by performing benevolent actions. This was a good idea when I read about it in a book review but I think it was mishandled, suggesting they would gain resonance for even the smallest good act. In the review that was part of it but it was more along the lines of doing things that were unfitting for the living dead.
   The thing I disliked most about it was their dictatorial approach to character creation. Games exist to serve the players not force them to do things. The character's motivation has to be to do with destroying something. Also the player has to chose between being a 'slave or fugitive' the character is either a slave to their Deathlord and the Neverborn or is running away from them. Frankly it's frustrating and bad story writing and just turns me off the book and their perception of the Abyssals completely. Another annoying fact that also comes up in the Underworld is a failure to explain where the lines of power are between being in the service of the Neverborn and being in the service of Oblivion. The book has a very intolerant, and sometimes intolerable, overbearing and fatalistic tone. It also is printed in black and white. The main rulebook was in technicolour to great effect and that wasn't too expensive. Considering the importance of the supplement series about the Exalted at least these should be as well. This book in particular is screaming to be printed in colour with dripping blood emblems in the background. Also the writers didn't channel one obvious influence for the Neverborn and that is the work of H. P. Lovecraft. There are major parallels between Call of Cthuhu especially and the Neverborn but they totally fail to use them. Also some ideas that have inspired me greatly are the Path of Shadowcrafting, a Thaumaturgical Path from Clanbook Tremere (p. 53-56.) It is brilliantly described and would inspire anyone with a penchant for Oblivion. The original film version of Ring is also another big one. With it's sinister Lovecraftian angle where the sea almost takes on the status of a character, it's otherworldliness of Shizuko and the sheer, deep, ubiquitous blackness (watch it at night on a cathode ray TV to see what I really mean) and this should get you thinking.
   Another disappointment was the technology associated with the Abyssals. I was looking forward a great deal to a description of how they made soulsteel instead all there is is one rather limp Craft Charm. There's a chapter on 'Necrotech' unfortunately all is amounts to is stitching pieces of bodies back together, adding some metal components if you want and casting a Necromancy spell to animate your creation. It does have a full set of rules, but completely lacks vision. There was no juicy mixing of life and death in obscene and blasphemous ways. Herbert West- Reanimator is a far more imaginative alternative for what they could have used in Necrotech. Chapter five if especially good with a gory description of a 'necrotech' laboratory. Another obvious source of inspiration was Dr. Logan's lab in Day of the Dead. For my creation of Black Magitech I was initially inspired by the mentioning of 'soul capacitors' in The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross.
   This book does do some things right. The Charm section in general is good (that God they got that bit right) taking the chance to use juicy phrases like 'Abyssal surgeons can quickly determine whether a particular patient will recover from her ailment or belongs in the flesh vats with the rest of the raw materials.' The Martial Arts section at the end of the chapter was the most interesting for me covering Dark Messiah Style and the extraordinary Hungry Ghost Style. However I don't think they really hit Dark Messiah Style on the head, making it about inflicting malice and cruelty (good) but I didn't like the wording and it made it sound more like a martial art for bullies rather than something that could be developed into something altogether more sinister. In my mind Abyssal Charm should be more associated with death, but Dark Messiah Style is truly what the Abyssals are all about, not just killing but destroying. If you want to get the idea just listen to Come to Daddy.
   Altogether this book didn't live up to my expectations. They try to dictate what the Abyssals are to the players saying 'you have to do this' and don't leave enough to choice. It feels a bit too much in some ways like Vampire which Exalted is really the polar opposite of.
   As a final note it does contain an number of new Solar Charms which players might want to check out.

Scroll of Kings

    World at War

   This book provides an unusual combination of an in depth and comprehensive guide to all major civilisations in Creation. Each chapter is a description of one of the directions of Creation finishing with the Realm with details on all aspects of how the cultures in that direction fight, what problems they face and examples of their military units. They also include to predominant directional military gods and detailed rules for the complications of fighting in each direction. Unfortunately they don't really go to town on naval warfare, I was expecting something different since it's such an unusual arena of conflict and rules for fighting with vehicles are included in Wonders of the Lost Age rather than in this book. This is an important point since there's a long list of conventional vehicles in the back of Scroll of Kings as well as an armoury of new equipment including artillery.
   Covering the entirety of Creation (including the supernatural creatures that live within it such as the Lintha and Black Fleet Spectre Commandos ("Deeeaaathhhhh") who are catapulted into battle) keep this book interesting and you can base the army of any ally of foe you're likely to meet on what is in here. Smaller, more esoteric cultures are covered in the Compass of Terrestrial Directions series.

Scroll of the Monk

    Guide to Exalted Martial Arts

   This is one of my favourite books from the Exalted series. It starts off with a description of the 'Martial Arts World,' the subculture of martial arts practitioners and how it differs from other fighting arts. There's also a treatise on the three different levels of martial arts styles, how the Exalted and other supernaturals relate to them, and how mortals can learn supernatural martial arts through Essence enlightenment from esoteric practices, dangerous artefacts, or most intriguing for my character the supernatural drug Celestial Cocaine.
   The main part of the book is a description of a plethora of styles, one chapter on Terrestrial martial arts, one of Celestial and one on Sidereal. The Terrestrial styles although unusual have an air of insubstantiability about them. I personally think they should be the opposite, very direct and solid. The Celestial Martial arts are great, especially Silver Voiced Nightingale Style, created by a Lunar with a very unmartial Spirit Shape who learned to use her voice as a weapon; the deadly Mantis Style, esoteric Righteous Devil Style that solely uses flame weapons and the Abyssal Laughing Wounds Style (which partly inspired my Denied And Forsaken Widow Style.)
   The Sidereal Styles go beyond conventional notions of Martial Arts. The first, Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic Style that starts the chapter isn't representative of all Sidereal Styles, the write ups are very long and it starts at Essence 6 Charms going all the way up to Martial Arts and Essence 8. The Charms of this style are quite disturbing to read, it attacks people's perception of identity rather than attacking them physically. The other styles are somewhat more ordinary but are still exotic. This chapter is doubly important since not only are Sidereals unable (according to Dreams of the First Age) to develop Sidereal Charms with an Essence above five, it provides a valuable guide to people who want to develop high Essence Charms.
   At the end is an appendix of new martial arts weapons and artefacts versions, including ones for weapons in the main rule book. I'd definitely recommend this as a book for storytellers as it can open you eyes to an important an exciting aspect of Exalted that you may not have considered before. It also gives storytellers and players plenty of reference for developing their own martial arts styles.

Call of Exalted

    I thought a while ago that Exalted would work best when given an angle, combined with another idea to make it into what the storyteller wants it to be. This resulted in my background for the character the Ghostwalker, and many of my ideas about the Neverborn and the Underworld.
   This game style is a combination of Exalted and not surprisingly the Cthulhu Mythos, including the video and roleplaying games based on it.

   Each player starts with a number of Sanity Points. Having high Permanent Willpower reduces the chance of losing Sanity. As a character's Sanity approaches zero they become increasingly disturbed. When their Sanity reaches zero they become completely mad and lose all Permanent Willpower and gain a derangement. The higher their Willpower was at the time of losing their Sanity the more severe the derangement is.
   There are two possible ways of resolving Sanity loss. Either use the Exalted system of using the character's Willpower as difficulty or a penalty. This is more flexible, for instance you can use Vitues to add temporarily to the character's Willpower but also carries possibility of greater Sanity from especially large threats. It's a more predictable system since low level threats could be ignored by someone with reasonable Willpower. Another system is based on Vampire where the character's Willpower is the minimum number required for a success. This makes a character more resistant to greater Sanity loss but still means they could be affected by minor threats. Another system is where like in Call of Cthulhu each threat has a dice eg. D3, D6, D8 etc. where you could add a fixed modifier eg. +1, and if they score higher than the character's Willpower the difference is the Sanity loss. You may have pre or post roll modifiers where a post roll modifier only applies if the initial roll succeeds. A similar system could be used as an alternative method of damage resolution. Eg. damage 2D6 + 4
   If they suffer further Sanity loss they continue to experience the effect of mental dying health levels. Use the difficulty of the character's highest (their primary) Virtue for difficulty of Sanity loss rolls. Each loss of Sanity in this state inflicts loss of a 'phantom' health level and a -1 internal penalty on all of the character's dice rolls. The madness is now eating away at their psyche. When they lose a number of health levels equal to their highest Virtue their mind is irrevocably destroyed causing pathological suicidal behaviour (killing themselves with the nearest thing possible) or homicidal mania that will inevitably result in death. Only potent mind altering Charms can retore (or more disturbingly reduce) a character's mind when they are losing mental health levels or their mind has been lost forever.
   Abyssals can inflict a similar direct effect on someone's psyche with the Charm Chakra Violating Blow. The difficulty to lose their last mental health level is their Virtue Rating plus all the levels lost so far. This is the difficulty of undoing the last core element of someone's psyche.

You're off the Fucking Chain

    Wonders of the Lost Age

   This book is for people who want Exalted gone mad. It's a category by category description of all the greatest things from the First Age. Some of the other Exalted supplements (ironically the ones about the actual Exalted) I found disappointing but not this. In it are finally a comprehensive description of the cryptically mentioned Warstriders and a short but brilliant chapter (starting with my favourite Exalted comic strip ever) about First Age Essence weapon such as the fabulously named Implosion Bows. Add a bucket full of megalomania for an 'All Form The Head' type game and you have the ammunition to go completely bezerk. Although that's just my ego running away with me, it does have a huge amount of the quirky exotica that makes Exalted so interesting. Including descriptions of the Eight Gifts of Celestial Grace including a full write up of the Five Metal Shrike (on the cover of the Compass of Terrestrial Directions: The South.) A great book that an Exalted fan could read purely for entertainment.

Exalted Second Edition

    A major difference between Exalted and other fantasy works is it's created completely apart from any Tolkienian influence. Many other fantasy writers try to create a setting using mainly their own imagination and they all seem the same. Exalted is a rare creation of a fantasy universe that has genuine scope as well as bringing a new set of influences that make it unique. It's a rare example of truly innovative fantasy.

    What greater Knack could there be than the potential to change into any shape at will? The Exalted is marked with the secret Primordial Word for Luna. By activating this Knack they can transform their whole being into sentience and moonsilver.
   This Knack allows the Lunar to maintain a physical form, which is basically made out of Wyld Essence, while in the Wyld. In this shape they can hunt through the Wyld and engage in physical combat while within it. Pure moonsilver Warstriders can also accomplish this.
   Those who are individual and mindful enough to accept them are given Lunar Exaltation. They are given apparently limitless power to make themselves anything they desire. Their natural realm is the Wyld and it's their task to endlessly hunt it for Fair Folk who threaten Creation as Luna did before them.
   A full carapace of moonsilver can allow a warrior to maintain a physical form of sorts in the Wyld rather than having to transmute themselves into an abstract notion as the Lunars are capable of doing (turning their own identity into an abstract notion) to exist within the Wyld without their physical form being ruined. Maybe this is the true significance of their Spirit Shape. Ghosts, gods and demons can exist as Essence and naturally belong in other dimensions. Lunars can do the same thing. Their Spirit Shape is a Wyld Essence pattern formed expressing their own identity by the transmuting power of the Lunar Essence within them. They can exist in Creation in this form but naturally belong in the Wyld in it. It can exist as a coherent identity within the Wyld. The only thing other than a moonsilver form that can do so.

    Did the Fair Folk somehow overcome or deactivate the Elemental Poles and then pass into the Circle of Earth, the main fortress at the heart of Creation and then were driven back before they could overcome that as well? Were the Poles diminished or did the Scarlet Empress find some way to restore them when she asserted her rule over Creation. Does an elemental dragon have to be at one of the Poles to assure it's stability?
   Where a element is strong it attracts Essence.
    Essence effects each element differently. It follows water to flow in rivers. It spreads from the Pole of Wood and where it spreads forests grow.

   The raging heat of the Pole of Fire is enough to bake Creation dry for a thousand miles in every direction.
   The heat of the Pole of the South and the cold of the Pole of the North are impossible for anyone to survive but are invigorating to the elemental dragons that lived there.
   The contrived nature of the Immaculate Order reflects the approach to writing the game as a whole. Instead of being a mystic order devoted to worshipping the elemental dragons who are the forefathers of the Terrestrial Exalted whose disappearance in a forgotten age has been surrounded by myth, they are deliberately manipulated tools living by the contrived ideology of a third party as is so often the case in Exalted for example the Angry Ghosts. There just aren't any real conspiracies. Perhaps they believe, understandably if incorrectly, unknowing of the Primordials, that it was the Elemental Dragons who created Creation and after their work was complete and they made the Terrestrial Exalted to follow in their footsteps, ascended to Heaven. They pieced together from scattered bits of lore that the Elemental dragons look down on them and select members of their bloodline worthy to be Exalted. After correct conduct during their lives their soul becomes one of the Dragon Blooded and then they finally go to Heaven to join the Elemental Dragons. The world has long since forgotten the Celestial Exalted. The Solar Exaltations imprisoned, the Sidereal Exalted self occulted and the Lunar Exalted driven out of Creation entirely and forced to spend one and half thousand years of exile in the Wyld battling against the Fair Folk as the Primordials once did.
   All that remains are monuments whose purpose has long been lost and tales of the end of the First Age about the hideous cruelty of demons the Elemental Dragons fought against.
   Now everything has been turned upside down. The Sidereals' desperate gambit of removing the Celestial Exalted from Creation forever lest they destroy it and the dragon blooded rule in their stead has failed. The Scarlet Empress has disappeared and the one ruling force across Creation removed the rule of the Terrestrial Exalted seems ready to collapse. The Sidereals themselves having watched Creation from Heaven and only carefully under false identities to direct Wyld Hunts to remove wayward Celestial Exalted are forced to take a more active hand and return to Creation once more. Now that the empire of the dragon blooded is no longer fit to contain them the Lunars can now return to Creation and end their imprisonment outside reality. The Solar Exaltations spill out across Creation remaking heroes the world has not seen for millenia.
   The Sidereals created the Immaculate Order as an ideological bastion to prevent anyone from supporting the Celestial Exalted again. The only remnants of memory of the Celestial Exalted are the Anathema, demonic beings who the Elemental Dragons battled against as they tried to destroy everything the dragons created.

Essence Above 10

    10 is the limit for Exaltation because that's the highest anyone can have while containing their Essence in a single soul. As powerful as they were there's no known record of the Exalted ever creating new ones. Only the Primordials have greater Essence, fighting these titanic beings was an act of heroism eve for fully developed Solars and their allies. maybe some truly mad Solars, driven mad by megalomania and the ability to do anything they desired attempted to raise themselves to the level of the world's creators, elevating them above even the Unconquered Sun by experimenting on themselves. If such things took place there's no known evidence of them succeeding. But that might not mean they didn't try. Their abilities were exceeded only by their own ego.
   Perhaps this was the purpose Amarec had when creating R'yuk, to create another soul for himself and thus be able to increase his Essence even further. Of course according to existing logic on the nature of the Primordials he would have to create ten more, which maybe he planned to do. His notes on his experiment were extremely vague about his actual purpose so any thought on the subject is a matter of speculation. A similarity with Horcruxes enters here about keeping parts of yourself in objects. Maybe on his journey to Malfeas he really did learn the secret of the Primordial's existence, or at least the relationship of demon princes to their master and then discovered a way of reproducing it. If this was the case, since he'd already begun he was on the path to becoming a being of such transcendent power. If so then the Sidereals were justified in assassinating him before his plan could be completed.

Insanity

    If the back of a person's hand is one twenty fifth of their height, which is four parts in a hundred and a Royal Warstrider was four hundred yards high then they could have three of four Very Large Concussive Essence Cannon on the back of their gauntlet. Or a self reloading Heavy Implosion Bow. Their main handheld weapons would be unique pieces of vast magitech. That's the scale of fighting units that have True Might, that are so powerful there's no point in resolving attacks normally. Perhaps you could simply use the unit's Might as its Magnitude. The reason I'm saying this is because of the vast size of Juggernaught (which I read somewhere) and Warstriders were designed to fight things like Behemoths, and probably Primordials. Maybe the Solars thought they were so powerful they would need devices like Royal Warstriders just to be able to fight them and survive. I have no idea exactly what their weapons should be like except that my previous First Age Wonder had a batter of 74 Medium Concussive Essence Cannon, basically a Napoleonic era warship transposed into Exalted. That's the kind of scale I'm thinking on. So imagine a weapon that would give a Warstrider the same power as a warship with about 100 Essence Cannon and more exotic weapons like a Storm Hammer. Each weapon would be individually crafted and be the only one in existence unless the idea caught on and someone copied it.
   The thing is Might covers mystical prowess that is already present in the character's traits. This sort of Might would be a streamlining trait so you could simply resolve very powerful attacks in a battle quickly, taking the place of normal damage resolution.

    For supersize weapons in a very crude sense you could simply resolve an attack with an appropriate Essence weapon like a Medium Concussive Essence Cannon or an Implosion Bow, just using the Warstrider's Might as Magnitude. Use a relative scale of weapon size between Warstrider weapons and normal ones. This could really speed up combat and represent larger attack area for artillery units and large weapons.
   Do warfare with a completely different set of rules like a game within a game.
   I wondered for a while how to resolve area attacks for units of small size namely artillery since working out area of effect in mass combat and war is a bit nit picky. Instead attacks that are more effective than their damage alone would suggest have Might which adds to the unit's Magnitude.

    The area outside the dragon lines are Wyld zones. During the First Age the Solars expanded Creation into these areas. They used jade obelisks to extend the reality making energies of the Elemental Poles, even creating new networks of dragon lines to stabilise the new land. The Primordials, although greater beings were never so concerned with Creation, they created it as a shield against the Wyld and never lived in it for a long time.
   Exalted is a very explicit game where it fits that things are explained. Warhammer is far more implicit where things are hinted at and mentioned but rarely explained. And yet there's so much they don't explain like what dragon lines are.

   Dragon lines mark the border of an Elemental Pole's zone of influence. The Earth Circle runs through all four of the other Elemental Poles. The Principle Dragon Lines of each other Elemental Pole runs through the Pole of Earth. They also create overlapping zones between eachother and with the Pole of Earth at the centre. Each Pole has an Inner Sanctum outside the areas overlapped by other Elemental Poles. In this areas the energy of the Pole is predominant. The overlapping fields of Essence form an impenetrable barrier against the Fair Folk.

    Phosphorescent creatures trapped in glass globes to create light. The creatures never die but need to be let out once in a while.
    Conical sea shells people use as ear pieces to hear eachother.

   They live in cave and make light when confined in dark spaces.

   Elementals bring life to their own element. They are remnants of the offspring of Gaia.
   The Elemental Poles themselves are the source of Essence for each element. They are the most material places in Creation and are bastions against the Wyld. Each one pushes the Wyld back from it in a vast swathe that defines Creation's borders. The further Creation spreads from them the easier it is for the Fair Folk to regain this new territory but they always come up against these fortresses that bar their progress. The Lunars loved living in this hinterland, beyond the heartland of Creation. When the power of the Elemental Poles dims the Wyld grows closer. Fortunately they've never managed to overthrow one of the Elemental Poles. To the Fair Folk they are unassailable obstacles; essential for their conquest of Creation yet unapproachable as the sources of natural Essence that upholds it. Even in their physical form as dreams there's only so far they can go. They can still make their way through with difficulty at the places between the Poles where their Elemental energy is weakest. So the Solars erected four vast fortresses at these places to guard them. When the Solars had vanished and Creation was decimated by the Contagion the Fair Folk stormed them and began to enter the heartland of Creation itself. Only the intervention of the Scarlet Empress activating the Realm Defence Grid drove them back.
   The area outside the influence of the Elemental Poles was once opened up by the Solar Exalted as a new land. This was the site of many of the greatest wonders of the First Age.

    Orichalcum- Light of Creation. Moonsilver Essence of the Wyld. What if soulsteel is the Essence of the Neverborn. It isn't just an ore found in the Labyrinth but part of the being of the Neverborn themselves. They have to travel to the very lowest level of the Labyrinth to find the material. They use part of the tombs of the Primordials that their dead consciousness is kept in and use it to imprison ghosts. Or they use jet black matter from the Labyrinth that part of the (unintelligible) sub division that at once imprisons the Primordials and shapes according to their dreams. Unlike Malfeas the Uderworld and the Labyrinth were created without design and by accident. In a way the Labyrinth appears to resemble the Wyld presumably changing form according to the Neverborns' thoughts. Their thoughts more than words or images echo through the Labyrinth, twisting it and bringing insanity. Maybe these black, semi tangible nightmares coalesce temporarily into eddies of insanity and malice. This is the Essence that soulsteelsmiths use.
   Perhaps the magical materials are actually made from Essence in some way. They are made from a specific type of Essence that relates to the Exalted who use it. In a way magical materials are similar to hearthstones. For instance jade is material brought about by the life giving effect of Elementals.

    Orcs are just one permutation of Wyld mutants. Wyld mutants don't have to be directly influenced by an Elemental Pole. Play around with things more.
   I'm not saying actually make Orcs. The thing I love about Exalted the most is that it's completely different to other fantasy games and other fantasy settings. Apart from a few examples such as unicorns they stick to this rule.

Life of Creation

    Gaia created the Elemental Dragons who made life in their corner of Creation. All Terrestrial Exalted share a blood line from one of the Elemental Dragons and represent an aspect of them.

High Essence Charms

    I thought that Dreams of the First Age would have a comprehensive collection of genuine high Essence Charms for all Exalted, including maybe Abyssals. The scale of Charms with Essence 9 and 10 allow the Exalted to strive against the Primordials. These are the Charms they used in their defeat, the powers that led to their defeat and enforced the oaths they took that banished them Elsewhere and imprisoned them in Malfeas (Eclipse Caste.) This is the potential for greatness an Exaltation holds.
   Guide to the Camarilla has an encyclopaedic section on all of the major Disciplines and the Camarilla ones at levels 6 to 10. This is what they should do with Exalted when making a book about the First Age. Also they should have given it more history so you could set a game during any period of the First Age. From it's herioc beginnings around the War of the Primordials when the Solars are fighting to free humanity; to the true High First Age when they made Creation the awesome wonder that it was and everyone remembers the Age for; to the twilight of the First Age when the Exalted's long developed powers are at their greatest but their corruption throws a dark shadow over the world and although their magic and technology have reached a height never seen before they have become evil, scheming despots about to tear apart the world they once created. This is why the Sidereals took the drastic step of assassinating every one of the Solars and imprisoning their Essences for all time. I like the booklet that gives you a guide to Meru, it gives you a feel of the contemporary setting, but the First Age has such distinct parts it really should have covered all of them.
   I've been thinking too about the scale of history of Exalted. Although it shouldn't be overdone because the scale it's at gives it a level of immediacy and more gravity to individual actions, earth history and the Primordials give me other ideas. There's a major opportunity to use the stories of H. P. Lovecraft, especially Call of Cthulhu as an inspiration in Exalted. Earth history goes back aeons. I don't think that the history of Exalted should go back thousands of millions of years, but there's such a strong link between the elder races from Call of Cthulhu and other stories, and the Primordials that the writers really should have looked into. The Primordial Age sounds so much like an age of earth when being of vast power ruled or fought with eachother. I think it's something that should have been gone into in greater depth creating a truly primordial and arcane past.