Creating a Character

The Storyteller's Role in Character Creation

THIS PAGE IS NOT FINISHED YET!

Common Languages

The civilized people of Creation all speak one of seven different languages, while the barbarian tribes speak many dozens of different languages. When players create their characters, you must make sure those characters will all be capable of understanding each other. The task is not as daunting as it seems. Representatives of the Realm and the Guild both travel widely, so three trade languages are common all over Creation: Old Realm, High Realm and Riverspeak. Many people in every major city speak all three languages, and at least one person in the smallest rural village will haltingly speak at least one. The players should decide ahead of time which trade language their characters all speak. While natives of Nexus and the Realm speak their native language perfectly, most people cannot speak the widely known trade tongues particularly well. One dot of Linguistics allows for perfect understanding, though. The characters can use these languages to ask locals for directions, to transact commerce and to discuss other relatively simple topics. However, talking complex philosophy or planning elaborate military strategies with most locals is difficult or impossible. That’s what taking additional dots in Linguistics is for.

Setting and Characters

Until they took their Second Breath, the characters were ordinary mortals who had to walk, ride or sail everywhere they wanted to go. As a result, most characters should come from the series' starting region. Characters from the immediate setting can better understand the people and places with which they interact. They needn’t be from the same city, however, or even the same nation. If the game starts in the Northern city of Gethamane, then characters from the Northern cities Icehome and Whitewall are perfectly reasonable. If the game is set in the Scavenger Lands' metropolis of Nexus, then characters from Great Forks, Lookshy and Sijan are all appropriate.

Some players might enjoy playing characters from elsewhere, though. Such characters should not normally make up the majority of the circle, but they can fit into the series. Remember, characters from distant lands need a good reason to live where they currently do. One obvious choice is for them to be traders in the Guild, as these merchants often take land or sea journeys covering thousands of miles. Alternately, the character could be from the Realm: perhaps an exile or someone who worked in the Realm's Foreign Office before her Exaltation. The character could also have been sold as a slave by the Guild, or she might simply be a wandering minstrel. The most important thing is for all characters to have reasons for being in their current location.

The circle should have some unity. A circle where each of the members comes from a different quarter of Creation is far less cohesive than one mostly drawn from a few small neighboring countries. Encouraging this also makes characters who are foreigners and outsiders far more interesting and unique.

From Concept to Numbers

Once you have discussed the series with your Storyteller, think about the sort of character you wish to play—where she lives, how she grew up, what she loves and hates... These experiences make each character truly alive and unique. When assigning traits, make sure the numbers reflect the kind of character you're describing. If your character is intelligent and a fast thinker, you should assign sufficient dots to Intelligence and Wits. If she's exceptionally beautiful, make sure her Appearance reflects that. You won't have enough points to make your character the best at everything, but that's okay. Every character in a circle should surpass the others at something. That makes the series fun for all of the players.

Traits have numerical values, rated from one to five dots. The only exceptions are Essence and Willpower, which can both have values up to 10. These ratings represent the character's capability in that trait. A character with no dots in an Ability is unskilled, and a character with no dots in an Attribute is crippled and incapable of actions requiring that Attribute. One dot represents something the character is poor at, while a character with five dots in a trait is among the world's best at whatever the trait defines. The other ratings are somewhere between. In general, a character with three dots in an Ability is a skilled professional, and a character with two dots in any Attribute has a completely average Attribute. These ratings add their number of dice to the character's dice pool when she attempts an action requiring that trait.

Getting Started

See Character Creation Summary for checklist.

THIS PAGE IS NOT FINISHED YET!

Creating a Character

The following sections detail the process of character creation. Although presented as step-by-step instructions for the player, this process is flexible. Before play starts, nothing's set in stone. If you realize at the very end that you want to alter the way you distributed your Ability dots, just go back and change it. Just make sure to re-compute your Essence pools if the traits that govern them change, and keep track of where you spent your bonus points so you don't accidentally spend them twice.

Step One: Character Concept

Before filling in a single dot on your character sheet, think of a concept. You don't need to know every detail of your character's life right now, you just need a general feel for who she is and her current place in the world. Decide on something you'll enjoy playing for the long haul. As you progress through character creation, you may alter this concept to suit your needs or wants, but it gives you a starting point. An example might be, "My character was kidnapped by bandits as a child and Exalted as a teenager, transforming the bandit gang into the nucleus of her conquering army." Your concept should be unique and interesting, to satisfy you and the Storyteller.

Caste

Other Exalted

Exalted focuses primarily on the Solar Exalted, and as such, this page is mostly about them. Guidelines for using Lunar, Sidereal, Terrestrial and Abyssal Exalted are in this wiki, at least partially.

Player Characters should be Commoners, Heroic Mortals, Solars, Lunars, maybe even Abyssals, and probably not other Exalted nor spirits, gods, ghosts or Fair Folk. (Houserule)

See Character Creation Summary for character creation checklist for all exalted and Commoners for mortals and heroic mortals.

A pivotal aspect of any Exalted character is his caste (mortals skip this step). Each of the Solar Exalted is chosen by the Unconquered Sun because they embody a caste's ideals. A character's caste affects the Abilities he shows an affinity toward, the powers he develops and his role in his circle. While members of each caste are often chosen for certain traits and qualities, your individual character may break from the caste's stereotypical image. Every Dawn Caste member is a warrior, but your Dawn Caste character could be a sorcerer who excels at spells relating to combat or a general so charismatic that the sound of her voice makes enemy troops turn traitor and join her forces.

Motivation

Next, establish your character's Motivation: a sentence describing her driving goal. Obviously, people have various goals, but this goal should be the primary one, defining how your character interacts with the world. See Motivation for more information.

Step Two: Attributes

Once you've defined your concept and selected your caste and Motivation, it's time to assign numbers to various traits. First, assign scores to each Attribute. The Attributes define your character's innate capabilities and aptitudes. How fast can your character move? Is she unusually attractive? How sharp are her senses? The Attributes objectively answer each of these questions.

First, prioritize your three Attribute categories—Physical, Social and Mental. Decide which category your character excels at (primary), which category is significantly above average (secondary) and which category is merely slightly above average (tertiary). Is she mentally adept, more physically inclined, or a gifted socialite?

• Physical Attributes define your character's physical potential—how fast she runs, how much she can lift and how healthy she is. If your character is primarily action-oriented, then you should make Physical your primary category.

• Social Attributes define your character's ability to interact with, relate to and manipulate others. Social Attributes affect first impressions, your character's ability to inspire or lead people and how attractive she is. If your character is a charmer, deceiver or diplomat, make Social Attributes your primary category.

• Mental Attributes define your character's intellectual capacity—how quickly she thinks, how keen her senses are and how smart she is. Mental Attributes should be primary if your character is a problem-solver, an investigator or a scholar.

Your character concept should guide how you prioritize your Attributes, but don't feel forced into type. Yes, you can play a warrior with Social Attributes as primary (like an exceptionally charismatic general) or a priest with Physical Attributes first (perhaps a monk who meditates through rigorous physical exercise). And you can still modify your basic concept; Attribute priorities might prompt you to alter your focus or intent.

Your character begins with one dot in each Attribute. The priorities you have chosen determine how many additional dots you may place in each category. You have eight dots to divide among the Attributes of your character's primary category, six dots to distribute in her secondary category and four dots to assign in her tertiary category. You are not limited in how many dots you may assign to any one Attribute, except that you may not raise any Attribute above five dots. For explanations of what different levels of the Attributes mean, see Attributes.

If you don't have enough points to raise your Attributes to the levels you desire, you can always spend bonus points to increase them later. Also, like every other trait, Attributes can be increased later with experience points.

Step Three: Abilities

THIS PAGE IS NOT FINISHED YET!

Latest errata: Solar Exalted characters may raise any of their character's Abilities to five without spending bonus points.

Specialties

You receive four specialties to distribute amongst your character's Abilities (latest errata).

Players might wish for their characters to have an area of specialty within a broader Ability. This specialty may be purchased with either bonus or experience points. Your character cannot have more than three specialties for a single Ability. Keep your concept in mind when choosing specialties. (A smooth courtier could choose "Seduction" as a Socialize specialty, whereas a diplomat might choose "Telling Lies.") You don't need to purchase specialties, but they can help to flesh out your character. They're also useful for making a character good at one particular part of an Ability but not all of it or one with superhuman mastery of an Ability.

Step Four: Advantages

Advantages aren't prioritized or ranked, just given specific values. They can also be increased with bonus points.

Backgrounds

THIS PAGE IS NOT FINISHED YET!

Charms

Latest errata: When selecting Charms, players no longer need to choose at least five Charms from Caste or Favored abilities. The (Solar Exalted) character may start with any ten Charms she meets the prerequisites for.

THIS PAGE IS NOT FINISHED YET!

Virtues

Passion and emotion are powerful forces in the world of Exalted. Virtues measure how passionately committed a character is to certain types of behavior. There are four Virtue traits, each representing the extremes the soul can reach. The Virtues are:

• Compassion, which measures the character's empathyand forgiveness. Characters with high Compassion have difficulty ignoring the plights of others.
• Conviction, which represents the character's resistance to mental and physical hardship. Characters with high Conviction can endure (and inflict) immense pain and suffering and ignore the suffering of others.
• Temperance, which measures self-control and clearheadedness. Characters with high Temperance sometimes withdraw from human contact or hold themselves above those less "pure," partly because they can easily ignore temptations to which others yield.
• Valor, which represents courage and bravery. Characters with high Valor have difficulty backing down from any challenge, however dangerous or foolhardy, but they can also face daunting foes fearlessly.

Virtues, like Attributes, automatically begin with one dot. You have five additional dots to divide among your character's four Virtue traits. You cannot raise a character's starting Virtue above 4 without spending bonus points.

Choose one Virtue as the root of your character's Virtue Flaw—the expression of the Great Curse. A character who is forced to act contrary to her Virtues too often will suffer a Limit Break and temporarily succumb to her Virtue Flaw. This flaw must be chosen for a Virtue rated 3 or higher. See The Great Curse rules on Limit Breaks and a list of sample Virtue Flaws.

This Virtue, often linked to the character's Motivation, is a central feature of the Exalt's character. A Solar Exalted whose Motivation is "destroying the Realm" could have Conviction as her highest Virtue, while one who wishes to restore the Solar Deliberative to protect mortals from the dangers of the Age of Sorrows probably has Compassion primary.

Step Five: Finishing Touches

Here, you determine your character's final traits and finish rounding her out.

Willpower

Willpower describes your character's self-control and her determination in adverse circumstances. A character's Willpower can partially override an instinctive response (such as those dictated by Virtues), create automatic successes on important dice rolls, resist mental attacks or activate a Virtue.

Latest errata & (Houserule): Exalted characters begin with Willpower rated at 5 (mortals at 4). Willpower may be increased at a cost of 1 bonus point per dot, up to 8 at the character creation.

Keeping Your Character Alive

It's hard to withstand the lure of making a narrowly focused character with an array of powerful Charms. This extreme focus can lead to very short-lived characters, however. If a character possesses only impressive Archery Charms, she'll die a terrible death when she runs out of ammunition. Similarly, unless you want your Eclipse Caste diplomat always hiding behind the Dawn Caste warrior in your circle, your character should be able to handle himself in combat. The following are some tips for first-time players on designing characters.

Make Sure Your Character Can Survive: Don't get lost in all the cool Abilities and forget the meat-andpotatoes Charms that get a character through combat alive.

Unless you have a very good reason to do otherwise, be sure to take the Resistance Charm Ox-Body Technique at least once. It's very inexpensive for what it does, and it can extend your character's life span a great deal. Taking one or more Charms that allow your character to soak or avoid damage is also recommended: at the very least, a reflexive defense such as Dipping Swallow Defense or Shadow Over Water. If you expect your character to fight without armor, be sure to take Durability of Oak Meditation and Iron Skin Concentration, and strongly consider taking Adamant Skin Technique.

If your character's primary combat Ability doesn't have defensive Charms, consider buying Resistance Charms that allow the character to soak more damage from an attack. Alternatively, you can choose Dodge Charms, particularly Shadow Over Water and Reflex Sidestep Technique, that improve your character's evasion. Taking a persistent defense such as Fivefold Bulwark Stance or Flow Like Blood allows for avoiding harm without continually spending Essence. Without a persistent defense, all an opponent needs to do is wait for you character to run out of Essence.

Finally, when your character suffers harm, waiting several weeks on recovery can be boring—and deadly, especially if the Wyld Hunt is after her. Unless you have an excellent reason not to, you should take the Resistance Charm Body-Mending Meditation, which allows characters to heal from even the most serious injuries in a day or two. The way the Charm cascades work, plowing later experience into Charms for a given Ability also brings greater and greater payoffs. If you build a solid foundation with your "free" Charms during character creation and stack higher during play, the character will seem to grow and advance more than if you focus narrowly and have to pump experience points into the least rewarding Charms at the base of the cascades. However, don't waste Charms attempting to make your character good at everything. You probably don't need to take both Parry and Dodge Charms, nor should you normally take Charms connected to more than two of the four combat Abilities (Archery, Martial Arts, Melee and Thrown). Your character is not expert at everything. That's why she needs the rest of her circle to accomplish her goals.

Combat Isn't Everything: Although combat is a focus, characters should have something to do when they aren't fighting. No game of Exalted is entirely combat. There is also intrigue, romance, adventure and exploration. If your character is only useful slaying opponents by the dozen, you'll spend a lot of time bored, waiting for something to attack. Also, you'll miss a lot of the game. More than two-thirds of the Charms in Exalted aren't combat-related, and they compare well with the combat Charms. Excellencies in Presence or Performance can transform a simple warrior into a commanding general, and powerful Socialize and Performance Charms allow your character to sway others by words as well as strength of arms.

Intimacies

"Intimacies" is a term for things your character cares about enough that it changes how the character acts—though not enough to be a Motivation. Characters may start with a number of Intimacies up to their (Willpower + Compassion) (latest errata).

Intimacies can be anything your character cares about on a meaningful level—a cause, an ideal, a place, a person, a nation. Don't worry if you don't have a good idea for all the Intimacies. Your character can start with less Intimacies than her Compassion if you're not sure what the character cares about. You could just pick some things and try to roleplay them. Intimacies are easy to gain and lose in play, so you'll be able to switch them around easily if you don't like the ones you pick. Sometimes, Intimacies can be very important, such as when they are the targets of magical effects. If this is the case, characters will generally gain an appropriate Intimacy on the spot if they don’t already have one.

Intimacies are governed by Conviction. The higher your character's Conviction, the longer it takes her to gain and lose new Intimacies and the more secure they are against being undermined by social manipulation.

See also Sample Intimacies.

Charm Concept: Intimacies

Some ideas are transient. They drift through the waters of the mind and disappear. Other ideas are stable, providing anchors for self, goals and desires. These ideas are called Intimacies, and they represent the ideas that people cling to over time and use to define themselves on a smaller scale than their Motivation. Characters form Intimacies to beliefs, causes, emotions, intentions, people, tribes, ideas—whatever. Mostly, these Intimacies aren't especially meaningful from a mechanical sense, though they are obviously very important to the character. A character can have as many Intimacies as her (Compassion + Willpower) comfortably and can experience more in a pinch. Yet the Storyteller should start telling the character to remove the older, less important ones at the rate of one per story if the character goes above the maximum. The human heart can only encompass so much.

When Intimacies really matter is when a Charm uses them as the focus of its effects. When Essence is involved, these Intimacies often have magical effects. Magic often allows characters to form an Intimacy on the spot when they need one, so players shouldn't spend too much time exploring the comings and goings of the character's fancies unless it is a deliberate act worthy of roleplaying.

Positive and Negative Intimacies: Positive Intimacies are those rooted in loyalty, love, camaraderie or any other emotional context in which a character feels positively toward the Intimacy's subject. Negative Intimacies involve hate, fear, resentment or any other emotions where the character feels negatively toward the Intimacy's subject. The Storyteller is the judge of whether an Intimacy is positive or negative, but generally the distinction is plainly obvious.

Creating an Intimacy: It takes time to commit one's heart to something. A character can swear to an intention in an instant, but it takes contemplation, consideration and service to work that loyalty down into his bones. Characters can take an action once per scene per idea to help develop their Intimacy to it. Maybe someone persuades them, or maybe they just sit and think. When a character has taken a number of commitment actions equal to his Conviction, he’s built an Intimacy to that idea.

Breaking an Intimacy: Characters can take an action once per scene per idea to reject the idea. When a character has taken a number of rejection actions equal to his Conviction, he breaks any commitment he has to that idea. If he isn't committed to that idea, he becomes committed to an appropriate opposite—bitterness instead of love, patriotism instead of anarchy, or whatnot.

Charm Concept: Reasserting Intimacies

If a Charm grants an Intimacy a character already has or specifically states that it reasserts an Intimacy, this process undoes the effect of scenes spent weakening it or any similar "damage" to the belief.

Strategy

Don't spend too much time and effort tracking Intimacies. Instead, focus on the commitments that count—the ones backed up by magic. To defend your character against influence, take a high Willpower and Integrity and use Righteous Lion Defense to bolster the Exalt's most important loyalties. To become a leader of men, your character should use Presence and Performance to convince others to commit themselves to him—to loving him, to taking up his service as a cause or simply to believing in him. Then, use Charms such as Sun King Radiance or Memory-Reweaving Discipline to seal the deal.

Essence

Essence measures your character's connection to the mystical energies that permeate the world of Exalted. Most mortals have an Essence rating of only 1. 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.

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.

Number of motes in Essence pool varies by Exalted type. See Character Creation Summary.

Health Levels

Health levels track your character's physical condition—like how much damage she's just taken from a deathknight's foul necromantic spell—and the penalty imposed on your character's dice pool for each level of injury sustained. Most humans, including Solar Exalted without the Resistance Charm Ox-Body Technique, have seven health levels, ranging from Bruised to Incapacitated. Unless your character has extras, she has one -0 health level, two -1 health levels, two -2 health levels, one -4 health level and one Incapacitated health level. See Attacking for more information.

Bonus Points

As stated previously, you have 15 bonus points (or 21 points, if you're playing a mortal) available to increase your character's traits. Spend them all now, because you can’t keep them past character creation.

Spark of Life

Some qualities have nothing to do with game mechanics. You're advised to write these down anyway. Think about each one after character creation and during games thereafter. Some will change over time, while others will be reinforced. These things make your character more than a collection of dots on a character sheet.

Appearance

What does your character look like? How do her traits affect that? Aside from her Appearance score, four dots in Strength means obvious muscles. A high Charisma will translate into how she moves and talks. See how you can use her concept and traits as descriptive hooks. Your choices reflect not only your character's Appearance score, but also how she dresses, acts and speaks. Does she move with confidence and have a steady gaze, or is she hunched over, refusing to look anyone in the eye? Does she prefer casual, rugged clothing, or is she swathed in silks and jewels? "My character has a massive scar across the left side of her face, gained battling Wyld barbarians in the Far North," is far more evocative than, "My character has one dot of Appearance."

Social Ties

Characters don't live in a vacuum. Think about the people in your character's life. Are her parents still alive? Does she have a spouse? A lover? Children? What about friends and neighbors? Does she own slaves? Or was she a slave before her Exaltation? How have these relationships changed since she's become one of the Chosen? Do her husband and children now shun and fear her as something no longer human? Do her neighbors now expect protection from child-eating hobgoblins and the Realm's tax collectors? In what sort of social milieu does your character live?

You Look Like Some Sort of Foreigner

When depicting your character's appearance, behavior and personality, keep her homeland in mind. Both the Realm and the Threshold contain vastly diverse peoples and cultures. A character's homeland has an impact on her appearance, her attitudes and her beliefs. The range of diversity is huge in Creation. In addition to the many colors of skin, eyes and hair found in our world, blue hair is common in the West, green is found in the West and the Haltan Republic, and the diminutive, hairless, panda-spotted Djala people live in the South. Creation's cultures are equally diverse. People from different regions have vastly dissimilar opinions about the Dragon-Blooded's proper role, women's place in society and the appropriate uses of slaves and intoxicants. Take a moment to reread the descriptions of each region’s inhabitants and customs.

The Prelude

The moment of Exaltation, the character's transformation into one of the Unconquered Sun's personal champions, is the defining instant in her life. However, it's difficult to understand what that transformation means without experiencing her previous mortal life.

The prelude depicts the character's mortal life, her Exaltation and her reaction to this momentous event. The player and Storyteller establish important moments of the character's history during this one-on-one storytelling session, compressing many years of life into a sequence of short vignettes highlighting pivotal events in the character's life.

Storytelling the Prelude

Keep the player focused during the prelude. Players might want a shared prelude if their characters are siblings or longtime friends, but otherwise, run preludes one person at a time. Try to run the prelude between the character-creation session and the first session of play. If it must take place during a session, make sure to focus solely on the player whose prelude you are running.

You can run one or two detailed vignettes, spending as much as an hour on each one, or you can run half a dozen short scenes lasting 15-20 minutes. You and the player should work out which option sounds better before the prelude begins. You needn't run each prelude the same way. Some players prefer a few in-depth scenes, while others want a broad overview.

In either case, your goal is to make the player respond to a variety of situations typical of the character's existence, giving the player a concentrated sense of what the character's life was like and a feel for roleplaying her. The prelude also allows the player to explore the rules and setting. Give her room to do so, but try to avoid combat. If combat does occur, simply describe the outcome. Don't accidentally kill the character before the game starts!

The player might wish for different traits due to decisions made and actions taken during the prelude. If so, let her change some things to better fit her concept, but don't allow players to simply shift traits around to make invincible characters. Explore the character's traits in the prelude. (How did she acquire her artifact or manse?) If she has allies or followers, run a vignette showing how they met.

Allow the player to interrupt and offer input. This is her character, and she should not have to deal with elements she finds intolerable. Finally, give the character's Exaltation all the detail it needs. Evoke the intensity of the moment as the character's newfound power wells up within her and she harnesses it for the first time. Give the character a chance in the prelude to use her fantastic new powers. Make it clear that the character has irrevocably crossed a line and that her life will never be the same.

Questions and Answers

Keep in mind the following questions before and during the prelude. If you answer any before the prelude, tell your Storyteller the answers so she can work with you. Answering questions about the character's mortal life and about her life after Exaltation are both important in order to fully understanding her.

• How old are you? Almost no Chosen go through their Exaltations before puberty, and most change in their mid-20s. Exaltation rarely happens after 35, but it has been recorded as late as 60. Also, the majority of those who are Exalted are in good health and do not have any crippling injuries or deformities. There are exceptions, but almost all Exalts are suited to serve of the Unconquered Sun both on and off the battlefield.
• What was your family life like? Were you raised by both parents? Did one or both of them die? Do you have brothers or sisters? Are you married? To more than one person? Do you have any children? Is anyone else in your family one of the Chosen?
• Where are you from? Where your character comes from will have an impact on his appearance, his native language, and many customs and attitudes.
• How were you Exalted? Where did it happen? Did others see it? Did you injure—or kill—anyone? Did you find the experience terrifying? Exhilarating? Both? Did the Unconquered Sun appear to you? If so, what did he say?
• When did you meet your companions? Do you get along with your companions? How long have you known them? How did you meet? Did you know any of them before Exaltation? Do you share any goals? Do you all work for the same city or organization? Are there rivalries among you?
• How has power changed you? Your character, born mortal, now commands vast power. How has she reacted? Do you believe your power gives you the right to rule those around you?
• What do you think of mortals? Now that you command great power and might live for over a millennium, what do you think of ordinary mortals? Are they less powerful beings under your protection, are they pawns for you to use to further your epic goals, or are you still adjusting to no longer being one?
• What motivates you to be a hero? Do you seek riches or undying glory? Do you simply enjoy exercising your impressive powers? Is your agenda based on revenge, social justice or ethnic and religious loyalties?
• Who or what do you worship? Has your Exaltation caused you to revere the Unconquered Sun? Do you still hold some previous set of beliefs, or do you believe mortals should worship your godlike power?
• What would drive you to commit murder? Do you casually slay anyone who denies your divinity, or is life precious and yours to protect? Is killing an Exalt or a god any more or less acceptable than killing a mortal?

The Circle

Numbers are an advantage, and no young Solar Exalt excels at everything. To fulfill their destiny and reestablish a just and glorious Solar Deliberative, the Chosen must work together. Ancient manuscripts refer to groups of Solars bound by oaths of loyalty, friendship and blood, their vows sanctified by a witness of the Eclipse Caste. These bands of glorious heroes were once known as circles. A circle's oaths were tested and tried by battles and quests, until peril and struggle forged the companions' bond into an unbreakable brotherhood.

The returning Solars find themselves compelled to seek their kind. In addition to other obvious benefits, only other Solar Exalted can truly understand the wonder and challenges of being suddenly made champions of the Unconquered Sun and charged with rebuilding the world.

During the First Age, a circle including one member of each caste was known as a perfect circle. This type of circle was considered the most auspicious, believed to be blessed by the Unconquered Sun. Today, the Dragon-Blooded consider a perfect circle the most dangerous possible grouping of Anathema.

Unfortunately, the modern Solars are scattered across the world, and it's far from easy to find one member of each caste. Many modern circles lack the numbers or the diversity for a perfect circle. Most don't care, however, as any gathering of Solar Exalted has the potential to completely change Creation.

Creating the Circle

The circle is the series' center, around which everything else revolves. Characters can join, and they can die, but the circle remains. The players must agree on the sort of circle they want to play, as that directly impacts the direction of the game. If a player decides she doesn't like her character two stories into a series, she can easily switch to a new one. If the players decide they don’t like the circle's nature, however, it may be necessary to completely overhaul the series.

The exact nature of the circle is crucial to the series' direction. Some circles are simply bands of Exalts who work well together, while others have specific long-term plans—from truly vast goals such as ridding Creation of shadowlands to more modest ones like conquering and ruling the Southeast. The players and the Storyteller should discuss the sort of circle they want before the series begins.

The players should also discuss their circle's beginnings and perhaps play out their characters' initial meetings and decision to form a circle. The circle prelude should be done after all the individual preludes are finished, perhaps as part of the first session of play. When playing this scene, it is important that the characters all actually end up as members of the circle. If a character or two simply isn’t compatible, renegotiate the type of circle, or have their players create characters who are more compatible.

Leadership and decision-making is important within the circle. Some circles work by consensus, but most have a distinct leader. Players can either decide on a leader ahead of time or allow one to emerge naturally once they see how their characters interact. These options can work equally well, as long as the leader's player is fair and avoids having his character take actions that cause the other players to have less fun.

Character Creation Example

(See Exalted Core Rulebook, p. 80.)