Essence
Essence is the most basic building block of Creation, Essence is the energy that unites all things and from which all magic springs. To channel Essence is to work miracles, and the might of the Exalted comes from their ability to do so.
The world is a great field of energy known as Essence. This Essence pervades all things, composes all things and controls all things. It is often called "breath," but it forms not only the respired medium of life, but also the physical material of that life. Essence is the wall of structure that maintains Creation, and Essence is the swirling insanity that lies beyond it. Every creature is inseparably linked to Essence. When immortal, beings who can control and channel Essence are called gods. When mortal, they are named Exalted.
Mote is the smallest divisible unit of Essence in the parlance of savants and sorcerers.
Character's Essence
Essence measures your character's connection to the mystical energies that permeate the world of Exalted. All mortals have an Essence of 1, not upgradeable with bonus points. Solar Exalted begin with an Essence rating of 2. This value may be increased with bonus points, but characters may not start the game with an Essence above 5. Only characters who are more than a century old can have Essence scores of 6 or higher.
The Essence scale of Exalted goes from 1 to 10. As Essence 10 characters can be reasonably described as nearly omnipotent in comparison to lesser beings, there is no need for any higher Essence ratings to be present in the game. (Latest errata)
Essence is one of the most important traits in Exalted. As an energy, Essence is life, breath, power—the essential, all-pervading animating energy of Creation. As a trait, the Essence rating describes the size of a being's spirit and the magical power of its soul. The higher the trait goes, the more powerful the soul is. In addition, beings who can use their life-energy to perform miracles have more power with which to do so the higher their Essence goes. As it is used by magical beings, Essence is divided into "motes"—logically and magically indivisible units of power used to power effects. A character generally has many more motes of Essence than dots of the Essence trait.
Trait Effects: Beings with high Essence scores are hard to affect with magic. The higher the score, the harder it is to affect the being. In addition, while the formula varies slightly, a being’s Essence trait is normally central to figuring how many motes of available Essence that being has available to spend. The average person has an Essence of 1, as do normal animals. Magical beings generally have an Essence of 2 or more. Newly reborn Solar Exalted, for example, have an Essence of 2. An elder Dragon-Blooded might have an Essence of 6 or even 7, and a mature Celestial Exalted over 1,000 years in age probably has an Essence of 7 or 8.
Essence Pool
Scholars measure Essence in units called motes. A character's Essence pool represents how many motes of Essence she can channel toward magic. Essence is of two types: Personal and Peripheral. When an Exalted spends Essence from her Personal Essence pool, her anima banner remains subdued. When Peripheral Essence is spent, her anima banner flares, exposing her Exalted nature.
To calculate your Personal Essence, multiply your character's Essence trait by three and then add her Willpower. That is, ([Essence x 3] + Willpower).
To calculate Peripheral Essence, multiply your character’s Essence trait by seven and then add the sum of Willpower and Virtues. That is, ([Essence x 7] + Willpower + [the sum of Virtues]).
Anima Effects
All castes of Solar Exalted can channel Essence directly through their animas to generate magical effects. Every Solar Exalted can use her caste's anima power without special training. In addition, any Solar Exalt can spend a single mote of Essence to:
- Cause her caste mark to glow brightly for a scene (as if the character has spent 4–7 motes of Peripheral Essence).
- Cause her anima to glow brightly enough to read by for a scene (as if the character had spent 8–10 motes of Peripheral Essence).
- Know the precise time of day for the rest of the scene.
One of the most visible results of the Essence trait is an Exalt's anima banner. When gods perform miracles, the miracle may be obvious or subtle, but the god itself is unchanged by the power. The Exalted, however, are not entirely in tune with their own Essence, given that so much of it is harnessed through the immortal core of power within them.
As a result, the Exalted have two pools of motes from which they can spend Essence: Peripheral and Personal. Personal Essence is Essence over which the character has total mastery. Personal Essence expenditures leave no trace, as long as the character does not use Charms with the Obvious keyword. Peripheral Essence is another matter. Peripheral Essence is controlled imperfectly by the raw power of the character's Exaltation. Exalts who spend Essence from their Peripheral Essence pool quickly develop a temporary halo called their anima banner. The more Essence they spend, the brighter the halo glows. Except for the 1–3 and 16+ effects, the halo fades at the rate of one degree per scene, or one level roughly every 20 minutes if the scenes are very long. Solar Exalted have brilliant golden anima banners that reflect the Solar origins of their power. Other Exalted have different sorts of halos. For example, the Lunar Exalted have brilliant, icy silver auras, while the Dragon-Blooded are surrounded by halos of elemental power so intense they can cause injury or death on exposure.
These halo effects occur naturally only when the character uses Peripheral Essence. However, an Exalt using Personal Essence can deliberately allow it to escape into her anima and have the motes expended count toward the number used during that scene. An Exalt typically does so when she has spent all her Peripheral Essence but wishes to stage a showy display.
| Motes of Peripheral Essence |
Effect |
|---|---|
| 1–3 | The character's caste mark glitters and is visible from certain angles. The player of anyone seeing the Exalt may make a (Perception + Awareness) roll at standard difficulty for his character to notice the caste mark. The Solar can use the Stealth Ability normally and may still hide behind Stealth Charms and other concealing magic without fear of detection. This effect can persist for as long as an hour after the character has ceased to burn Essence. |
| 4–7 | The character's caste mark burns and will shine through anything placed over it. It is impossible to mistake the character for anything but what she is. Stealth Charms and other such magic, including the Night Caste's ability to mute sensory impressions, fail. A character may use the Stealth Ability to hide in natural cover, but all such attempts incur a +2 difficulty. |
| 8–10 | The character is surrounded by a coruscant aura bright enough to read by, and her caste mark is a burning golden brand on her forehead. Stealth is impossible. |
| 11–15 | The character is engulfed in a brilliant bonfire of Essence that burns from her feet to at least a foot above her head. Objects that come in contact with the aura may be left bleached or faded, as if they had been exposed to the sun for many days. The character is visible for miles. The light produced is bright and steady enough to read by, out to a spearcast's distance. |
| 16+ | The character is surmounted or surrounded by a burning image totemic to her person. A warrior might be surrounded by a great golden bull, a Twilight Caste magician by an incredibly elaborate mandala, and so on. This effect fades during any action the character does not spend Essence, but it leaps back into existence from the solar bonfire of the character's anima if the character again burns Peripheral Essence. |
Iconic Animas
This erratum applies equally to Solars, Dragon-Blooded, Lunars, Abyssals and Infernals. Where it contradicts their respective anima sidebars, this takes precedence.
The iconic anima display recedes when the Exalt's DV next refreshes. It occurs automatically the first time in a scene that the Exalt spends Essence at this level, but for the remainder of the scene, such displays only occur when the Exalt's player deems it dramatically appropriate.
Regaining Essence
Once spent, an Exalt's motes return to him only gradually. Therefore, an Exalt has to shepherd his mystical energies carefully, lest he find himself powerless when he's beset by enemies. An Exalt cannot recover any motes if he engages in strenuous activity (combat, most forms of manual labor, hikes or forced marches and so on). If he's at ease, but not completely relaxed (such as when watching an artistic performance, taking a leisurely stroll or debating with a Realm courtier), he recovers spent motes at the rate of four per hour. When he's completely relaxed (for example, sleeping or receiving a massage), he recovers motes at the rate of eight per hour. Characters first regenerate their Personal Essence, regaining motes of their Peripheral Essence only when their Personal Essence pool is full.
In addition, characters who are attuned to manses recover their Essence more quickly, as do those carrying hearthstones or with active cults. See the Manse and Cult Backgrounds for these bonus values.
Players' characters are presumed to begin the game with a full pool of motes.
Demesnes
In some areas of Creation, natural Essence is channeled into standing vortices of power. Such places, demesnes, are natural holy places, dedicated to the character, the "flavor," of the Essence that comprises the vortex. The character of the power may vary across a wide spectrum from elementally aspected Essence to that drawing on the tainted power of the Underworld. Each demesne is aspected toward a particular form of Essence. This Essence may be Solar, Lunar, Sidereal, Terrestrial (in one of five elements) or Abyssal.
As Essence vortices, demesnes are rivets in the structure of Creation, nodes in the pattern that maintains the world as it is. To the average inhabitant of Creation, they are wild sources of power, seething with untapped energy and full of danger. Those who are not masters of their own Essence are twisted by the ambient power of such places after prolonged exposure, and common folk usually avoid demesnes, out of fear of mutation. Beings who can wield Essence can attune themselves to the vortex and suckle on its vast power. Yet only death can break attunement to a demesne, and there can be only one attunement at a time. Once aligned with a demesne, an Essence-user will forever be a target of those who covet its supernatural power.
Sidereal Anima Manifestation
| Motes of Peripheral Essence |
Effect |
|---|---|
| 1–3 | The character's caste mark glitters upon the forehead from certain angles; a (Perception + Awareness) roll, difficulty 3, is necessary to spot it. |
| 4–7 | The character's caste mark becomes more obvious and may be spotted with a (Perception + Awareness) roll, difficulty 1, if left uncovered. |
| 8–10 | The character's caste mark burns clearly, though it can still be hidden by covering it. Additionally, the character glows slightly, giving a +2 difficulty to Stealth rolls, though Stealth effects work normally. |
| 11–15 | The character's caste mark shines even through coverings, and he is surrounded by a soft halo the color of his Maiden. Stealth is impossible, and Stealth effects fail. |
| 16+ | The character’s anima brightens to a burning halo, bright enough to read by out to a stone's throw. It has no detail, and there is no iconic image—it is simply a brilliance in the color of the Sidereal's Maiden. This remains for a scene. Stealth is impossible, and Stealth effects fail. |
(Mercury, the Maiden of Journeys (☿): Yellow; Venus, the Maiden of Serenity (♀): Blue; Mars, the Maiden of Battles (♂): Red; Jupiter(♃), the Maiden of Secrets: Green; Saturn (♄), the Maiden of Endings: Purple)
Latest Errata: Essence Ratings over 10
The Essence scale of Exalted goes from 1 to 10. As Essence 10 characters can be reasonably described as nearly omnipotent in comparison to lesser beings, there is no need for any higher Essence ratings to be present in the game.
Charm Concept: Essence
Most Charms, whether they say so or not, work by manipulating Essence. To use their powers, the Solar Exalted pour great fountains of Essence into their body, mind and heart—a wealth of raw magic that later Ages will find unimaginable. A mere 10 motes of Solar Essence is power comparable to a philosopher's stone or the blade Excalibur. Combos and Charms with the Obvious keyword often involve contrails of magic following the character's every move and random flares of Solar light. If you're not sure how a given Charm could possibly accomplish its effect, that's the answer— every Solar is carrying around more power in his personal Essence pool than the atomic bomb that struck Hiroshima, spending and shedding it with the reckless abandon of the heroes of the dawn.