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Seconding this....

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A big thing is the previous devs, to my understnaidng, didn't like he was an addict. They were probably perfectly fine with him being depressed. And despite having written Glories, they were pretty clear it was not how they probably would have written the Sun in 3e, since his 2e take was a response to his depiction up to that point in that edition. 3e was treated by the previous and so far lke the current devs a bit as a soft reboot.

I think pretty simply, the Sun could simply ahve assessed the situation and thought Heaven wouldn't have changed the tide either way. An invasion on...

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Kind of wanted to highlight that i agree more or less with all of this. The last sentence esepcially. I get this feeling folks kind of assume the Sun singlehandedly could have pushed back the once-in-all-of-time invasion of the Fair Folk single-handedly, or that untold millions wouldn't have died form the Contagion of all the Solars were around.

I think in both cases, it kind of is kind of attributing to osme extent too much power to the Sun himself, and the Solar Exalted on their own when the rest of the Exalted Host struggled so much....

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Primordials aren't mentioned, but the war is. It's been called War of the Gods and the Divine Revolution in a few spots. It's name is just focused on well, the winners more.

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A way to look at it is that after fifteen centuries or more, he's decided to give this another shot. Whether or not he gets burned for it is another matter. But I have this "I'm giving you all another shot" vibe to this. It doens't really need much more than that since he's in the end a person and people decide to do that short of thing or not all the time.

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From the corebook, the Janest piece like a lot of folks. I think it is the one that most fits to me the "This is new and awesome and wonderous" that I think the original 1e intro fiction did. It also came with the illustration that I think just really sold the entire scene great.

I also liked the the one about the Seven Degreed Surgeon of Black Maladies. Because it was just such a bizarre piece of slice-of-life ficiton in such an exotic setting. I like the idea of mundane issues in absurd situations in comedy and fiction in general, so that might be why it stood out so much...

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Alternatively 3e just doesn't assume the gods can be ordered to do that and it kind of cutes out a lot of the logic trying ot justify why it wasn't. "Couldn't the Primordials have told them to stop?" can just be answered, "No, they couldn't."...

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It is. It's built on the assumption the Primordials had the abiltiy to give orders to the Incarna they couldn't refuse. 3e goes more to the 1e take: The Incarna just couldn't attack their creators. They didn't have to listen to them though. It's just that until they had the Exalted, they couldn't start shit or defend against. When they got their mistletoe, they could well have just told the enemies of the gods to piss off....

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Note that's my take too. That he even Exalted folks at all in the interrum with what Exaltations he had to me kind of even feeds into that kind of narrative. He hates his Chosen betrayed him in his view, but well, he still likes them and the people who can become them enough that he keeps coming back. To me that his reluctance to do more than that being a combination of stubbornness as well as limits is something I think is a good case.

And yeah, folks get a bit overly into the Abrahamic god take on him than I think is warranted....

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The general thing to me is that he doesn't need one. He could just have simply thought the Exalted could handle it (they in the end did). I think that often the "Why didn't he Sun do anything?" or "Why didn't the Contagion just make the Solars necessary afterall?" kind of have usntated assumptions that either the Sun or his Chosen were omnipotent enough that the Contagion and subsequent invasion were things they'd trivially stop.

Nothing like the Balorian Crusade ever happened before. Nothing like it will probably ever happen again. He might have even Exalted...

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Reminds me, some good non-fiction for Exalted:

Debt: the First 5,000 Years by David Graeber, as mentioned. A lot of Exalted 3e's stuff on economics and how the Resources Merit even like, work, take inspiration from this one. It has good examples of how different cultures did things, how different societies handled debt and usery, and so on. Lots of good dieas to yoink from for your own games.

1491: New Revelations of the World Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann is interesting for explorations of the pre-Columbian New World, the kinds of socieites there, notable societies,...

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Kind of a random thing with Lord of Light also to me is the prose. It has just good lines it. I also think Sidhartha is my go-to example of an Integrity Supernal character.

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So to my understanding with speaking with previous writers, there was little to no actual changes of second drafts to developed book. Additionally is just resources. Onyx Path is a smaller company than mid-to-late-00s White Wolf. Note for instance that Exalted use to have its own dedicated art director and layout (Brian Glass). Right now, OPP doesn't have the resources for that.

Like, straight-up, think about how the 2e book Scroll of Heroes in the god-blooded chapter 1) Assumed god-bloods channeled Essence (they didn't before), 2) Had an idea of "places of sin" for demon-blooded...

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I'm imagining something like "At least these nine, fewer than a score" or something poetic. Is that where you guys are thinking?...

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What exactly is the thing here though to do? THey are throwing hte man power they can at it. It simply is that they can only do so much with entirely freelance temas. Note that a lot of this isn't even very mechanical. At8D is mostly fluff, but it doesn't as you noitce, go any faster. There's only so much wordcount that can be written and editted in so much time. So yeah, it's slow, but there's nothing OPP to a point to make it faster unless you have a solution to be honest.



I use the hell out of a few and the Adversaries stuff especially is full of good plot hooks....

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Ones I have read that were suggested in books or otherwise I thought were pretty good for exalted:

Night's Master by Tanith Lee, as well as pretty much the rest of the Tales from the Flat Earth books. It's a suggested reading in all the Exalted coreoboksf or a reason.

The Black Company by Glenn Cook and all the rest of thsoe there. LIke Night's Master it's one of the books suggested in the 1e corebook.

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny for awesome pros, really cool setting, and exotic weird shit. I think i'ts my favorite Zelazny book, which helps it a lot there....

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The new hardcover books so far have had new spells, and initiations into sorcery. Right now there is a want by the devs to do a book on sorcery, but it is not in the current schedule and likely won't be started on until some of the books currently in the queue are done first.

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Kind of my view. I actually think 3e has the best implementation of the Great Curse even. I just am not as keen of it being a thing imposed on the Exalted over it being a side-effect of Exaltation and something that is not quite as "real" ICly. I think it could have been given the same treatment of Solar Charms in being a narrative representation of how Exalted power interacts with human limits.

I think it's worth noting though that since Exalted Essence is meant to distill a lot and I think give ag ood idea of things linked to the 3e setting, I would expect it to show...