Motivation
What were you looking for exactly?
Motivation
What If My Motivation Isn't Epic Enough?
Many new Exalted players are unfamiliar with the epic scale of this game and choose Motivations that are somewhat less grand. Killing the Dragon-Blooded satrap of a Threshold kingdom or protecting a single town from all harm are typical examples of such Motivations. As the player learns what her character can do, and as her character gains experience points, she is likely to realize that she thought too small. At this point, she has two options, she can either choose another Motivation or she can expand on this Motivation. Protecting a town from harm can easily grow to become a desire to become the protector of an entire nation or even an entire quarter of the Threshold, and slaying a single satrap can grow to become the desire to free all of the Northern coastal states from the Realm's control. A player may expand (but not change) her character's Motivation without spending experience points if the Motivation proves to be insufficiently epic. However, each expansion after the first costs two experience points, just like any other change in Motivation.Motivation is a short description of your character's primary goal. It's what drives your character to go out and be a hero, and it is part of the reason the Unconquered Sun chose her for Exaltation. Most mortals have relatively mundane and unexceptional Motivations such as "become wealthy," "marry someone nice and have a happy family," or "live a quiet life on a tropical island." Celestial Exalted are Chosen specifically because they have the seeds of greatness within them. The Chosen of the Sun (and all other Celestial Exalted) cannot have mundane or pedestrian Motivations—by their very nature, Celestial Exalted are epic heroes, and their goals must be similarly epic. Everyone who is Exalted deserves it. Your character might not have been wealthy, powerful or famous, but everyone who is Exalted already had a soul large enough to accept a fragment of divine power.
Possible epic Motivations for one of the Chosen of the Sun include: "restore the Solar Deliberative," "destroy the Realm and slay all of the Dynasts," "make a lasting peace between the Fair Folk and inhabitants of Creation," "become the leader of the Guild and transform it into a tool of the Solar Exalted," "redeem the soul of one of the Abyssal Exalted," "become widely acclaimed as the best thief, musician, assassin or diplomat in all of Creation," "kill a specific powerful deity," "end slavery in Creation," or "protect the inhabitants of my nation from harm." Many other Motivations are possible, and in most series, every character will have a different Motivation. However, every character's Motivation must be large and must be something that will take many sessions of roleplaying to accomplish. Not only is a goal like killing the mortal mayor of a small town insufficiently epic, it is also far too easy for one of the Chosen of the Sun to accomplish.
When deciding on a Motivation, consider what in your character's history or concept pushes her to redefine the world according to her hopes and dreams. A compelling, dramatic Motivation can give you a lot of mileage for roleplay in any series. Perhaps a squad of Dragon-Blooded soldiers killed your character's family when she Exalted, and every blow she strikes against the Realm's minions is a blow struck for her family. Your character's Motivation must answer the question, "Why does she do the things that become the stuff of legend?"
Completing a Motivation
In a game of epic heroes able to affect the entirety of Creation, characters can slay gods and Deathlords or eventually conquer and rule any nation (including the mighty Realm itself). Completing such a Herculean task should take many roleplaying sessions and will certainly require much assistance by the other members of the character's circle. Completing a Motivation is an incredibly important event in any character's life and should be as much of a defining moment as the events that caused the character to choose that particular Motivation in the first place.
Completing a long-held Motivation is a sufficiently powerful event that accomplishing it allows the character to increase her Permanent Essence simply by spending the necessary experience points, without having to meditate for several months. (See pp. 273-274 for information about increasing Essence during play.) However, the Storyteller can veto this gain if she feels that the Motivation was insuffi ciently epic or if completing it was too quick or too easy. At this point, you choose a new Motivation for your character, free of any experience point cost.
This new Motivation is often related to the old one, but characters do sometimes radically switch tracks. After killing a Deathlord, a character might want to slay all of the other Deathlords, or she might avoid anything connected with the Deathlords or the shadowlands again. Instead, she might attempt to bring the worship of the Unconquered Sun to everyone living in the West or to cause the Silver Pact of the Lunar Exalted to ally itself with the newly returned Solar Exalted. Only you can decide which sort of new Motivation makes the most sense for your character.
Changing Motivations
While some characters gain a new Motivation only after they complete their current one, others eventually learn that their current Motivation is either impractical or in some way fundamentally flawed. For example, a character might become close friends with an outcaste member of the Dragon-Blooded and learn that the Terrestrial Exalted are not all evil monsters who should be slain en masse. Alternatively, a character who wished to make peace between the inhabitants of Creation and the Fair Folk might come to believe that the Fair Folk are actually inherently predatory beings who cannot coexist peacefully with either Creation or those who dwell within it. At this point, the character needs a new Motivation. This Motivation might be an altered version of her previous one (end the rule of the Terrestrial Exalted instead of slaying them all) or antithetical to her previous Motivation (destroy all of the Fair Folk instead of attempting to make peace with them). Alternatively, the new Motivation might be completely unrelated, as most often happens when a character experiences some overwhelming event that completely shifts her priorities. A character who visits Malfeas and discovers the horrors there might decide that the threat demons represent to Creation is far greater than the threat posed by the Guild she had previously vowed to destroy.
Changing Motivation is a profound and important alteration in the character's life. It should never be done casually, and it should happen quite rarely. It is such a significant alteration in your character that you must spend 2 experience points every time you wish to change your character's Motivation. Storytellers are also free to veto frivolous or overly rapid Motivation changes.
Regaining Willpower Using Motivation
Taking a significant action that brings your character closer to completing her Motivation can allow her to regain Willpower. Anytime a character spends an entire scene performing some action that directly brings her closer to completing her Motivation, she regains one point of Willpower. For example, if a character's Motivation is to transform a large nation into a just and fairly run polity, and if she spent a scene judging crimes and administering justice in a city in that nation, she would recover one point of Willpower.