Goddessgood's Exalted Modern
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Goddessgood's Exalted Modern
Setting Continuity
The legend of Noah's flood is real.
If you look hard enough, cultures from every region of the world have a great flood myth. Only, it's not a myth. It's true. At the end of the Second Age, Gaia and the Incarnae had to drop the hammer. The fail-safes activated and, to protect what was left of her world-body, Gaia turned in on herself and swallowed up the Underworld and Labyrinth whole, locking it away.
The Incarna retreated, taking up stations to hold back the wyld, which was propelled out beyond Pluto. The asteroid belt is all that remains of Yu-Shan. Anything that happens "in outerspace" is actually happening in the Wyld. Voyager left for the Bordermarches long ago and we actually haven't heard back from it. It's actually been encroaching in recent years, swallowing up Pluto.
The Exaltations are still around, but without anyone to assign them, they have been largely decomissioned. The blood of the Dragons has gone dormant, and the Essence of Creation is sluggish. The old gods, bereft of worship, have fallen into a torpor of uselessness. Magic is faded and only a rare few ever get a glimpse of it anymore.
But in every great flood myth there are survivors. A lone Sidereal and a contingent of mortals and animals survived in a mountain-top Manse. When they emerged 40 days after the cataclysm, they named the place Ararat: an old realm word for new beginnings. Unbeknownst to the Sidereal, a Lunar stowed away among the mortals. He was called Prince of Doves, and he was the first to leave the Manse seeking for safe ground to begin anew. Later, that Lunar adopted the tribe of Israel as his Thousand Streams River project and occasionally took the form of a sage or prophet to guide them. The last such occasion was two thousand years ago. Unfortunately his message was misinterpreted and caused fracture and infighting.
It is said he will be reborn. His next coming will be known as the Beast.
Character Generation
These are alterations of the original 2e character generation rules in order to bring down the power levels and reflect the changes to the setting. If something isn’t listed, it is assumed that you should use the information from the Exalted: Second Edition core book. Thus far I’ve only come up with Solar and Lunar character creation rules.
- Attributes: 7/5/3
- Abilities: 22
- Virtues: 5, none higher than 3 without bp
- Backgrounds: 7, none higher than 3 without bp
- Willpower: starts at 5, cannot be higher than 8 at starting
- Charms: 10
- Essence: 2, may not be higher than 3 at starting.
- Bonus points: 15
- Merits and Flaws: max of 10 points each, must be approved.
Essence pools are now calculated:
- Personal pool: Essence + Willpower + Highest Virtue
- Solar Peripheral pool: Essence x 6 + Willpower x 2 + Highest Virtue
- Lunar Peripheral pool: Ess x 4 + Willpower x 2 + Highest Virtue x 2
All static values now round down, regardless.
General Rules
All Lunars are Casteless. Lunars now only roll to gain mutations if they shapeshift in the presence of starstuff, moonsilver, or other material or energies inherently in tune with the Wyld. The roll is made as normal and the mutation pool accumulates and fades as normal. The Taboo Background may affect this as normal.
Ability Rules
- Sorcery and Necromancy are not currently available. Thaumaturgy is still available.
- Solars may have three Favored Abilities, Lunars may have two (including Survival).
- Programming languages are covered under Linguistics
- Computer knowledge is covered under Lore
- Tracking information on someone via computer is covered under Investigation
- Creating computer programs is covered under the usual Craft skills, but the default is Craft: Air.
- The Sail Ability is now called Drive and is used for piloting craft that can transport more than two people.
- Ride is used to ride animals and to pilot smaller craft.
- Archery is used to fire projectiles that do not rely on the strength of the user to determine damage. This includes guns, bows, ballistae and crossbows.
- The Bureaucracy Ability covers knowledge of the law and politics.
Background Rules
- There are no known manses except the mountain manse humanity was rescued in. There are demesnes but none higher than level 3.
- You may not start with Artifacts that are not given to you without special permission.
- Allies – As in Exalted 2e
- Backing – Borrowed from Vampire: the Masquerade (revised edition)
- ● Your character is a lower officer or minor functionary
- ●● Your character is a mid-level officer, the head of a small department or some similarly intermediate position.
- ●●● Your character is moderately powerful and has many people working under her
- ●●●● Your character is extremely powerful and typically is only one or two rungs down from the people in charge of her organization.
- ●●●●● Your character is one of the leaders of her organization, a general or admiral, a CEO, a cardinal or bishop, etc.
- Contacts – As in Exalted 2e
- Cult – As in Exalted 2e
- Familiar – As in Exalted 2e
- Followers – As in Exalted 2e
- Heart's Blood – As in Exalted: the Lunars 2e
- Mentor – As in Exalted 2e
- Reputation – As in Exalted: the Dragon Blooded 2e
- Resources – Borrowed from Vampire: the Masquerade (revised edition)
- ● Small savings: a small apartment and maybe a motorcycle. If liquidated, you would have about $1,000 in cash. Allowance of $500 a month
- ●● Middle class: an apartment or condominium. If liquidated, you would have at least $8,000 in cash. Allowance of $1200 a month
- ●●● Large savings: a homeowner or someone with some equity. If liquidated, you would have at least $50,000 in cash. Allowance of $3000 a month
- ●●●● Well-off: a member of the upper class. You own a very large house, or perhaps a dilapidated mansion. If liquidated, you would have at least $500,000 in cash. Allowance of $9000 a month
- ●●●●● Ridiculously affluent: a multimillionaire. Your home is limited by little save your imagination. If liquidated, your would have at least $5 million in cash. Allowance of $30,000 a month.
- Retainers – As in Exalted 2e
- +Solar Bond – As in Exalted: the Lunars 2e
- Taboo – As in Exalted: the Lunars 2e
- Organization - House ruled Background is available.
+Solar Bond will only be available if you and another player decide to have that connection between your characters. If the group should figure out how to bring back more solars, you have about a 1 in 200 to 300 shot of it being your Solar mate.
All unlisted Backgrounds are unavailable
Bonus Point Costs
- Attribute – 4 bp per dot
- Ability – 2 bp or 1 bp per dot for favored
- Charm – 6 bp or 5 bp per dot for favored
- Background – 1 bp or 2 bp per dot above 3
- Virtue – 1 bp
- Willpower – 1 bp
- Specialty – 1 bp per dot
- Essence – 9 bp
For Lunars:
- Charm – 7 bp or 6 bp for favored
- Knack – 6 bp
- Essence – 10
Experience Point Costs
- New Ability – 3 xp
- Charm – 12 xp or 10 xp for favored
- Attribute – current rating x 4
- Ability – current rating x 2 (-1 if favored)
- Virtue – current rating x 3
- Willpower – current rating x 2
- Essence – current rating x 9
- Specialty – 3 xp
For Lunars:
- Charm – 14 xp or 12 xp for favored
- Knack – 13 xp
- Attribute – current rating x 4 or x 3 if favored
- Essence – current rating x 10
Artifacts
Orichalcum and Jade are still somewhat naturally occuring, but Orichalcum is extraordinarily rare and Jade is next to useless unless an ancient pocket of it can be found. Most ancient jade deposits are in areas now considered to be sacred ground and thus are harder to find.
Moonsilver does not occur naturally, as it forms only in the Wyld.
There is no Starmetal that was not around before the Flood. Asteroids, meteorites and the like are now called starstuff and are all touched by the Wyld. It is possible that they may have small moonsilver deposits.
Characters may not start with Artifacts without special permission.
Firearms
I've been wanting to write guns up like Archery weapons in Exalted. I'm not in any fashion a gun enthusiast and don't intend to become one. I'd like a high level of abstraction, which is why I want to model them off of the existing structure of Archery weapons.
Bows and Guns
In the back of the core, we're given three kinds of bows: composite bows, long bows and self bows. Additionally we're given the crossbow and two gun-type weapons: the firewand and the flame piece.
Composite bow: Of the three bows, this has the best range and is the most durable of the bows. Its Rate is one of the highest, but it's not as accurate as the long bow. I would liken it to a marksman's rifle.
Long bow: The long bow has the highest Accuracy of any bow and is a middle to long range weapon. It maintains its Accuracy out to 20 times further than the firewand. It has a high Rate. This would be a mid-range or battle rifle.
Self bow: The bow with the shortest Range and lowest Rate, this seems to be your basic starter-type weapon. This to me suggests a handgun analogue.
Crossbow: A specialist weapon, the crossbow has a shorter Range than any bow, but still an order of magnitude better than the flamepiece and firewand. It has a low Rate and, due to its mechanical nature, has its own Damage rating which is a characteristic no other bow has. It's a bit of a squint-and-turn-your-head-sideways, but I'd compare this to a shotgun. The note about ammunition leads me to believe that the mechanization of the crossbow is what gives it the full 5 dice of damage, not the ammo used.
Flame piece and Firewand: These are extremely short Range weapons with a high Accuracy (for an Archery weapon) and a large Damage rating. These sort of step away from where I'd like to go with guns in a modern game. I feel like they are of more use as a ranged Martial Arts weapon.
Ammunition
As with bows, the amount and type of damage you do with a gun depends on the ammunition you use. Not every gun can use every type and size of ammo, obviously, but I'm going for abstraction here. The corebook gives us four types of ammunition for Archery weapons: broadhead, fowling, frog crotch and target arrows.
Broadhead arrows: This is your standard arrow. I adds +2L to Strength for calculating base damage and inflicts Lethal damage. This would be just your standard rounds.
Fowling arrows: Like broadhead arrows, but dealing Bashing damage instead. These are like rubber bullets or bean-bag rounds.
Frog crotch arrows: These inflict more damage to the target, but they're less likely to penetrate armor. I'd compare these to hollow point rounds.
Target arrows: Lastly, target arrows are great at penetrating armor but aren't particularly damaging in and of themselves. These are armor piercing rounds.
Putting it all together
Your basic guns, therefore, have the following stats:
| Name | Speed | Accuracy | Damage | Rate | Range | Tags |
| Shotgun (slug) | 5 | +1 | 6 | 2 | 20 | 2, B |
| Shotgun (shot) | 5 | +2 | 6* | 2 | 20 | 2, B, F |
| Handgun | 4 | +1 | 4 | 3 | 30 | B |
| Handgun (burst) | 6 | +2 | 5/2 | 1 | 30 | B, O |
| Battle Rifle | 5 | +1 | 6 | 3 | 300 | 2, B |
| Battle Rifle (burst) | 6 | +2 | 7/2 | 1 | 300 | 2, B, O |
| Marksman Rifle | 6 | +3 | 6 | 1 | 800 | 2, B |
Ammo either adds +2 Bashing or Lethal damage, reduces or increases armored soak, the same as normal arrows.
Other stuff
But what about shot? What about bullet caliber? What about rock salt rounds for hunting ghosts? What about semi- and full-automatic? How many rounds to a clip? High level of abstraction, folks.
It's all about custom modifications past this point. Think fine, exceptional and perfect equipment to buff up the Damage of the ammo or to add to the Accuracy of the gun to account for things like scopes. Using shot adds the F tag. Sawing off the barrel on a shotgun may cut the Range to 3 yds. For burst fire, the idea is to negate the ability of an automatic weapon to force an Exalt into a place where they must spam perfect defenses 15 times a tick. Each burst is treated as one attack using multiple bullets. Accuracy is increased and so is Damage, but Speed goes up and Rate goes down.
So why not just use flame pieces and firewands? These stats allow gun-type weapons to have the same range-extending capabilities as bows with the same aesthetic as flame pieces. They are less damaging to account for that extended Range and for their increased Rate.
Body Armor
To be added...
Vehicles
To be added...
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