Bending the World

[Shadowstripe]

In nearly every incarnation of Creation, it is presented as a mythic time before the world became as we know it today... a world that is flat and floats upon a sea of chaos... rather than a sphere that drifts through the void of space. At some point in the future of the setting... 10... 100... 1000 years or more... something happens to change Creation from what it is... into the Earth we know.

My question to the imaginative minds that frequent this forum is simple... what happens to cause this?

I am not looking for an canon answer... simply because there isn't one. What I am interested in is turning the imagination of these forums towards the questions no one ever bothered to ask... Why was the world bend and How was it accomplished. I am sure that somewhere, someone has pondered this very enigma of the setting... the one that bridges the world we know with the Creation we have come to love.

Was it a disaster of Solar design... a spoilsport move to prevent another Usurpation?

Was it a failed plot by the Yozi to escape their prison?

Did the Sidereal manipulate the event to prevent the Solars from rebuilding the First Age?

Did Autochthon and his Champions have a hand in the new design for Creation?

Could Gaia have done it with the return of her true self (rather than just the humanoid form that remains within Yu-shan)?

Could it be caused by the Well at the heart of the Labyrinth in the Underworld... and if so... did the Deathlords or the Neverborn have something to do with it?

Is their another possibility?

Beyond the bending of the world, there is also the matter of the Chaos that exists beyond Creation's borders... Chaos that the Earth knows little of. What happened to it? And what of the Gods and Spirits that are so common to Creation, yet seem to hold little power on Earth... what happened to cause this?

I am not looking to link Creation with the World/Chronicle of Darkness... though it is possible to do so... but rather to imagine the last days of Creation before it is forever altered into something new... as told through the imaginations of all those who have come to love the Exalted setting. All good things must one day come to an end... and Creation is no different. One day it will be bent and all that came before will be forgotten... but for now we can take a peek at the many ways such a fate could arrive... even though the final fate is likely to be something else.

How would you Bend the World?

[Accelerator]

Easy.

Either soulsteel walls or a barrier of shadowlands surrounding creation.

[norraba]

i imaginied it being the result of a colaborative sorcerous working of the highest level in which a 6th elemental pole (of spirit) would be created with malfease and the wyld being rolled together into a "spirit world" (similar to the one depicted in the legend of korra or patrick rothfuss's novels) that would exist parallel to our own, with the underworld existing on the same plane as the living creation but only manifesting at night, or at least thats how i was thinking of trying to do it if i became inclined to in game.

[TheCountAlucard]

Yeah, a mix of high-end sorcerous workings, followed by Wyld-Shaping a ball of molten iron, thousands of miles in diameter to fill in the middle. The Wyld can be outer space.

[norraba]

Yeah, a mix of high-end sorcerous workings, followed by Wyld-Shaping a ball of molten iron, thousands of miles in diameter to fill in the middle. The Wyld can be outer space.

or make an n/a artifact wyld shaping space roomba that will eventually turn all of the wyld into space

[Jen]

In nearly every incarnation of Creation, it is presented as a mythic time before the world became as we know it today...

Uuuuh.....the only thing that supports this is the whole "Exalted is pre-historic WoD" in Ex1 that was quickly abandoned.

[The Wizard of Oz]

They also mentioned it on the back of the 2nd ed Core. But I don't think inside the book itself.

[Isator Levi]

How would you Bend the World?

The world becomes exhausted. Countless generations of grandiose conflict burn themselves out, wearying the gods, driving the Exalted into ultimate dormant banality, even curdling the Wyld. Creation sinks under the weight of stagnant souls until it buckles and starts over.

[Anathemouse]

Obviously, one of the chosen punches Mt Meru so hard the whole of creation becomes concave for an instant. Then as it rebounds back into shape, the force pulls all four corners in on themselves and the world fuses into a sphere.

[BjornTheFellhanded]

Easy.

Either soulsteel walls or a barrier of shadowlands surrounding creation.

That is actually the meta plot of our modern abyssals game.

I don't think it's really a way to liken creation to earth as we know it, though. Earth is surrounded by space, not metal screaming with the voices of the damned. You'd have to make that sphere really* big, and then fill it with mostly nothing.

*repeat 'really' until bored, then continue with sentence

Maybe a truly powerful mad solar cartographer creates the first globe and forces reality to match his new map?

[Isator Levi]

I'm thinking of what happened in the Akallabeth...

Creation emphatically has no God, and yet the quirky nature of its non-God might be such that there is still a weird capacity to blaspheme against it. I have a notion in which a great venture of Exalted journey out into the Wyld in pursuit of Nirguna for some grandiose, egomaniacal purpose, and in encroaching upon the ineffable and non-existent they cause something to break, and it re-orders the shape of the world.

In keeping with the fact that there is no God, and that being punished by a supreme authority for blasphemy isn't quite in theme for Exalted, it would be more a case of going through motions that approximate or appropriate the imagery of a fall of man. There is no God, just a blind idiot machine floating out within a shell of unreality*, and the processes engaged in for a mad attempt to approach the machine and do something to it creates a chain reaction of universe shaking divine wrath.

There's a lot that I'm wary of in drawing comparisons to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, but in this case I find it apt to reference the show's enigmatic first scene.

* This is a metaphorical image, not a suggestion of something that literally exists within the Wyld.

[Robert Vance]

The Iron-Leg Devils and the Day of Too Much Jumping

[Silent Witness]

I'm going to have to use that the next time I run an April Fools game.

[Shadowstripe]

Uuuuh.....the only thing that supports this is the whole "Exalted is pre-historic WoD" in Ex1 that was quickly abandoned.

Before there was a World of Darkness,
there was an age of savage adventure.

The Realm of the Dragon-Blooded
stands astride the ruins of the First Age
- an invincible colossus.

For millennia, its Scarlet Empress
kept her fist clenched around
the windpipe of the world.

Now the Empress is no more,
and the Realm spirals closer to chaos
and civil war with each passing day.

Into this time of strife
come the SOlar Exalted,
heroes of legend reborn
into a time of woe.

Will these living legends
herald the return of the Golden Age
or the end of Creation?

What legends will they tell of your deeds?

- back of Exalted 1st Ed Corebook.



Do not believe what the
scientists tell you. The natural
history we know is a lie, a
falsehood sold to us by wicked
old men who would make the
world a dull grey prison and
protect us from the dangers
inherent to freedom. They would
have you believe our planet to
be a lonely starship, hurtling
through the void of space,
barren of magic and in need of
a stern hand upon the rudder.

Close your mind to their
deception. The time before our
time was not a time of senseless
natural struggle and reptilian
rage, but a time of myth and
sorcery. It was a time of legend,
when heroes walked Creation
and wielded the very power of
the gods. It was a time before
the world was bent, a time
before the magic of Creation
lessened, a time before the souls
of men became the stunted,
withered things they are today.

This is the story of that time.

THIS IS THE STORY
OF THE EXALTED.

- back of Exalted 2nd Ed Corebook.



Once, in the time before the gods forgot
their names, when the world was flat
and floated on a sea of chaos, there
was an age of gleaming cities, untamed
wilderness, enlightened devils, greedy
spirits, and mighty heroes. The mighty
Realm spreads out from the center of
Creation, oppressing all other nations
into the service of its rulers, the Dragon-
Blooded, a family of ten thousand nobles
commanding the power of the elements.

But the Dragon-Blooded are not alone
in their power. They are but the most
numerous of the Exalted - heroes
granted the divine power of the gods
- and those they overthrew long ago
to claim rulership of Creation have
now returned. You are one of the
Solar Exalted, carrying the power of
the mightiest of gods into a world
that has been taught to hate you and
to hunt you. But yours is the power to
smash armies, bind demons, devour
ghosts, and make mountains weep
with a song, and you are not alone. Will
you and your reincarnated companions
reclaim the world and lead it to a new
golden age, or will your wars and your
passions extinguish the last fading
splendors of an age of glories? What
legends will they tell of your deeds?

- back of Exalted 3rd Ed Corebook.



While only the 1st Edition tried to link Exalted to the World of Darkness... all three incarnations of the game has presented the setting as a lost mythic past of the world we know... or think we know. At some point in the past (the future of the setting) something happens that changes Creation from a flat world floating in the chaos of the Wyld to a lonely sphere hurtling through the void of space.

How do you see this happening? What could have caused this change?

[Kyman201]

How do you see this happening?

Honestly, I don't. I just ignore any implication that Creation ever becomes our world. These stories take place Once Upon A Time, in a land Far Far Away in my mind.