Homosexuality in Exalted second edition

[AnubisXy]

Which is nothing compared to Exalted: The Dragon-Blooded talking about the House of Bells's "high mortality rate" saying students are "killed with some regularity".

Pasiap's Stair used to kill off 65% of its student body over its ten year curriculum. Two out of three found eggs who took the coin died in school.

Again, I agree with your wider point -- it sucks to live in the Realm -- but the presentation has distinctly changed between editions.

Yeah, that number always seemed way off to me. Like whoever wrote it just pulled it out of their butt with no real thought given to it.

As a comparison in the Forgotten Realms, in the schools of the drow of Menzoberranzan, the death rate was around 20%-25%. So about 1 in 4 or 5 students never make it to graduation, which seems pretty reasonable. But when the city full of chaotic evil demon worshipping kinslayers is kinder and more merciful to people in training than the Realm is, that certainly doesn't paint a terribly good picture of the Realm.

[JohnDoe244]

It can be read as you defending the erasure as a necessary evil to grow the fanbase and a product of its time.

For example, the part you chose to bold in your original post was emphasising how long ago this all was and in a different context could've gotten you kicked for thread crapping.

I will try and be more mindful, but I do think it's important to highlight the progress made.

No-one is perfect, and in ten years we might be looking back at the social failings of 3E, but the current edition is much better for representation than the game made literally a generation ago and I think we need to keep that in mind whilst having this conversation.

We should be mindful of the mistakes of the past -- that's how we grow. And this thread is perfectly valid, and I'm sorry if what I've said seemed thread-crappy -- I want to contribute to the discussion because this is interesting to me. Mea culpa.

Also, reading both 1e and 2e sections of Pasiap's Stair. I have to say, 1e had way better writing and imagery in general. 2e was very blunt and tended to go with what was more, I'm going to say edgy. It feels more like it's trying to shock you rather then just explain how the society works.

So... what you're saying is that the presentation changes between editions?

That's my point.

Each edition change is full of tonal things like this. That's why we're talking about Pasiap's Stair in a thread about how 2E treated homosexuality. It's important to be clear which edition you're talking about.

The house of bells weeds the people who are the best from those who aren't. The ones who either dropout or leave due to wounds are considered failures. They cannot hold a imperial legion post ever after that.

Which edition?

1E it was customary not to give officer posts in the legions to dropouts. Not "cannot" but "unwritten custom".
2E it's by "traditon" that dropouts aren't given officer posts, enforced by House graduates.

3E, the prohibition used to apply to the Imperial Legions, again by "tradition", but "The new house legions, desperate for loyal officers, are less picky". And there's a clear presentation of a number of alternative military schools (even if they are mostly pitched at mortals and Patricians).

As the Imperial Legions don't exist in 3E as of RY764, nothing stops dropouts being officers. In Third Edition.

[Eric Minton]

By the way, while thread drift is a thing, I think the discussion of mortality at Pasiap's Stair is completely off topic.

[CTPhipps]

I also have to imagine that poor kid. Imagine being a child at school, and everyone else had their mother grow them in their belly and give birth to them, and you were put together by a demon taking clumps of dead flesh, mashing them together, and then putting it into a hellfire oven. You would die from the harassment.

Given that whoever helped your parents is probably related to Mnemon or a Sorcerer themselves, that seems like an exercise in Natural Selection. Besides, if you're a Terrestial Exalted or the child of one, bullying each other is silly. You have an entire race of humans and slaves to abuse.

But yes, Sorcerers and their relatives are the bullies. They are not the bullied.

Re: The School

I've always felt that was dumb when it says less about the students than the poorness of the teachers. If you're losing 2/3rds of your students, you have failed in your job as a mentor. But I also note that if I were writing it, that wouldn't necessarily mean it wasn't true. The Dragonblooded are horrible that way. It'd just be a place you'd probably send disposable Dynasts or family members where they would either Exalt or die.

[JohnDoe244]

Given that whoever helped your parents is probably related to Mnemon or a Sorcerer themselves, that seems like an exercise in Natural Selection. Besides, if you're a Terrestial Exalted or the child of one, bullying each other is silly. You have an entire race of humans and slaves to abuse.

But yes, Sorcerers and their relatives are the bullies. They are not the bullied.

I'm not sure the presentation of sorcerers in the books (vis The Quiet Art) meshes with this interpretation.

And Dynasts seem "clicky" to me, what with the treatment of Leftover Children and the specifics of forming social hierarchies.

That said... with the Precedent of Rawar specifically there because of Ragara and Mnemon, I also don't think that there would be any social stigma attached to being born from sorcery.

"Haha! You're just like the richest man in the Dynasty!"

Edit-I've been rereading the passage about the stair for 1e and there's much less death then house of bells. Only a handful of students die every year.

It's 6% each year in Exalted: The Outcaste. (10 out of 150 students.)

Each year. Of a ten year circulum.

That's 50:50 survival odds. A 50% death rate. I mean, that's pretty grim.

[Jutlander]

Likewise, Ledaal Kes is right there in MoEP: DB playing Gateway with Mnemon... but he doesn't get two words describing who he is outside of that comic.

He gets a handful of words in Wonders of the Lost Age, referring to him and Ragara Szaya as a married couple. This, of course, is a true statement of fact and not introducing anything new. They are not denotated as heterosexual, but for someone not familiar with the characters as presented in 1e, the connotations of a married couple of opposing genders probably include heterosexuality.

I am not making a new point, by the way. But Kes does exist in 2e beyond that one comic.

[JohnDoe244]

He gets a handful of words in Wonders of the Lost Age, referring to him and Ragara Szaya as a married couple. This, of course, is a true statement of fact and not introducing anything new. They are not denotated as heterosexual, but for someone not familiar with the characters as presented in 1e, the connotations of a married couple of opposing genders probably include heterosexuality.

I am not making a new point, by the way. But Kes does exist in 2e beyond that one comic.

Yes, he's also in RotSE. You mentioned Wonders in your first post. I meant specifically within the context of the book I was talking about, but I see how my lack of specificity was unclear.

[Epimetheus]

It's 6% each year in Exalted: The Outcaste. (10 out of 150 students.)

Each year. Of a ten year circulum.

That's 50:50 survival odds. A 50% death rate. I mean, that's pretty grim.

Eh. It says usually. The odds are quite at odds with the text. I think the problem with taking these numbers at face value is that most writers aren't statisticians and don't realize what that means at the end.

[Isator Levi]

Given that whoever helped your parents is probably related to Mnemon or a Sorcerer themselves, that seems like an exercise in Natural Selection. Besides, if you're a Terrestial Exalted or the child of one, bullying each other is silly. You have an entire race of humans and slaves to abuse.

They're aristocrats. They're touchy and status obsessed and engage with one another on a personal and professional level far more than they do with mortals.

Ledaal Kes needling at Mnemon's insecurity about her relationship with the impress has to be far more cathartic than lowering himself to the servant's quarters and mocking them for being poor or whatever.

But yes, Sorcerers and their relatives are the bullies. They are not the bullied.

Every Edition has portrayed the dedicated pursuit of sorcery as the kind of thing that entails a lifestyle that disturbs one's peers and largely keeps one out of the social scene. One could surmise that most of them never even attain the vocabulary to be effective bullies; your attempt at a verbal riposte liable to lead only to everybody at the party laughing at you (which is a thing that our social animal brains tends to be repelled by).

Time spent learning spells and making workings is time not used to get good at Integrity and Socialize.

Mnemon commanding the respect she does is a mark of her exceptional character (and even then I get an impression that she downplays some of the more obviously weird stuff in open company).

It'd just be a place you'd probably send disposable Dynasts or family members where they would either Exalt or die.

Pasiap's Stair is the military academy for those who have already Exalted that come from peasant stock and have chosen to serve in the legions. The occasional Dynast might opt to attend to test their mettle, but I'm pretty sure it's never a punishment for them and almost certainly no place to teach mortals.

[CTPhipps]

Sorry, that was badly phrased. I meant, "if it did have those kind of casualties then that would be the place you'd send disposable Dynasts in hopes they'd Exalt. Not the incredibly valuable already Exalted Dragonblooded."

[Epimetheus]

Sorry, that was badly phrased. I meant, "if it did have those kind of casualties then that would be the place you'd send disposable Dynasts in hopes they'd Exalt. Not the incredibly valuable already Exalted Dragonblooded."

When you consider how brutal the realm versus threshold situation is and how war is a consistent affair as well as how brutal the world is in general. The reason the training is so harsh is because you want dragon-blooded generals to understand how to fight a war before they get into one. A dragon blooded who hasn't had the training won't have the same skills, understand when their tactic needs to change, or how dynamic a battle field can be. In both, paisap's stair and the house of bells. These mortalities mostly come from the fact that they're actually fighting as if they were in an actual war. Up until the point they have a very grand mock battle. They have to get used to the fact that sometimes, the people they fight with die. The fact that war is going to be dangerous and exhausting. I think there's a reason that dragon blooded in the realm despite being a society that's held the center of creation for over 900 years old still only has 10k dragon blooded. The mortality rates are pretty high even for the exalted.

[Epimetheus]

By the way, while thread drift is a thing, I think the discussion of mortality at Pasiap's Stair is completely off topic.

I don't know how we even got to this point, I was just talking about how dragon blooded are beings who have it rough and don't really have much say in their marriage and it's rarely out of love and this has been consistent over the three editions.

[CTPhipps]

When you consider how brutal the realm versus threshold situation is and how war is a consistent affair as well as how brutal the world is in general. The reason the training is so harsh is because you want dragon-blooded generals to understand how to fight a war before they get into one. A dragon blooded who hasn't had the training won't have the same skills, understand when their tactic needs to change, or how dynamic a battle field can be. In both, paisap's stair and the house of bells. These mortalities mostly come from the fact that they're actually fighting as if they were in an actual war. Up until the point they have a very grand mock battle. They have to get used to the fact that sometimes, the people they fight with die. The fact that war is going to be dangerous and exhausting. I think there's a reason that dragon blooded in the realm despite being a society that's held the center of creation for over 900 years old still only has 10k dragon blooded. The mortality rates are pretty high even for the exalted.

If you killed 2/3rds of your Terrestial Exalted with training then if you revealed said teacher was a Solar, Infernal, or Akuma working to destroy the Realm then that would be a sign they had succeeded admirably because they had done a far better job of killing than a wandering one slaughtering Wild Hunts could ever do.

[Epimetheus]

If you killed 2/3rds of your Terrestial Exalted with training then if you revealed said teacher was a Solar, Infernal, or Akuma working to destroy the Realm then that would be a sign they had succeeded admirably because they had done a far better job of killing than a wandering one slaughtering Wild Hunts could ever do.

How so, the ones who survived are the best of the dragon blooded or in a few cases really lucky. In either case, half the point of dragon blooded training is to cultivate dragon blooded. In the roughest sense it's just weeding out the ones who are great over the ones who are okay.

[CTPhipps]

How so, the ones who survived are the best of the dragon blooded or in a few cases really lucky. In either case, half the point of dragon blooded training is to cultivate dragon blooded. In the roughest sense it's just weeding out the ones who are great over the ones who are okay.

I said it earlier. If you cull 2/3rds then you are not a good teacher but a spectacularly shitty one. Any survivors are that way because of their own because you clearly cannot impart any actual skill if you can't keep your students alive.

But that's just my interpretation.

Again, I don't think its unrealistic. Just a sign of how incomeptent and tyrannical the Realm is.