sol invictus.indd

EXALTED • SOL INVICTUSyou follow and what decisions you make in yourgame, remember that you and your players are allthere to enjoy creating a story together with friends.Try to keep this fact in mind whenever a conflictarises and you’ll find it much easier to approachconstructively.THE SOLARSHIGH-ESSENCE SOLAR EXALTEDAs Solars become more powerful, there are severalqualities that come to the fore.Epic Heroism. Solars don’t always start out quiteso heroic. A look at Havesh the Vanisher fromCastebook: Night provides a perfect example of this:even with the immense power that comes withSolar Exaltation, some characters will fail to liveup to their potential. The Unconquered Sun doesnot Exalt people lightly, however; he simply takesa long-term view. As a Solar’s long life continues,he’ll find himself inexorably drawn into larger-thanlifeevents, whether he wants to be or not; any Solarwho has reached higher Essence levels is certain tobe wrapped up in important happenings. As a Solarincreases in power, he will inevitably find himselfbecoming an epic hero — a champion of his virtues,a warrior for those he loves or respects, a scholar ofthings beyond the ken of mankind. His every actionbecomes something of legend — the character’sability to do anything mundane or uninterestingbegins to vanish. As time passes, the character canonly become yet larger than life — either throughhis deeds, or his death.Distance from humanity. The more powerful a Solarbecomes, the further she distances herself frommere mortals. Already the very nature of the SolarExaltation puts a vast gulf between the recipientand her fellow humans — her drastically increasedcapability puts her on a different level. With time,that gulf will only widen, as the Solar begins torecognize the impact of her longer lifespan andsuperhuman ability. A character can work to fightthis, but it will be a difficult fight — it is almostinevitable that the concerns of mere mortals willbegin to seem insignificant to one who can jugglemountains.The Great Curse. The Great Curse does not actuallybecome stronger as Solars increase in power — itfunctions the same way as it does for the newlyExalted. However, the impact it has can increasedrastically. As a Solar becomes stronger, theopportunities to gain Limit will almost certainlyincrease, for two reasons. Firstly, he will encountermore difficult situations. But more importantly,greater power will allow more ambiguous andconflicted moral situations to appear. The flipside isthat the more powerful a Solar is, the more terriblethe results when he limit breaks. A character whocould previously only threaten those in his nearbyenvirons with Deliberate Cruelty might nowrule over an entire nation. The distancing effectof power has a big effect on this as well — as theSolar becomes more detached from the concernsof mortals, the ease with which he can justify hisoutbursts to himself increases. A high-poweredgame should generally play up the impact of theGreat Curse beyond even normal levels — it’s likelyto become an increasingly heavy weight around thecharacter’s neck, or else an increasingly strong pulltowards corruption.STORIESListed below are a number of common plotlines thata group of powerful Solars can explore, along witha brief discussion of each. There are thousands ofstories that can be told with Solar Exalted charactersof any power level; the ones described below arein no way the totality of available ideas. However,these are plots that are likely to crop up.Founding a nation. With time, many if not most SolarExalts will begin looking to rule over a land of theirown. This is quite understandable — Solars are bornto be leaders. There are as many ways to accomplish182