What are the Dream-souled?

[NewK]

I've heard them mentioned, but does anyone have a place I can go and see what they are, exactly?

[marin]

They're one of the 'optional canon' Exalted, slated to appear in an appendix to Exigents alongside the Hearteaters and Umbral Exalted (history, themes, example Charms).

From what the writers have dropped, they're Chosen by a Wyld entity called Ketu, based on their potential to be a catalyst for recreating the world. Thing is, Ketu is a completely alien entity, all it knows of its candidates is their dreams, and all it knows of Creation is from the collective dreams of everyone in Creation. (Consider that in order to be capable of Exaltation by itself, Ketu must be a powerful and numinous being of Incarna level.)

They're roughly Terrestrial-level, neutral with moonsilver and dissonant to everything else. Their animas are filled with images from their dreams.

The two main themes of their Charmset are illusion and transformation, leaning towards messing with the perception/experience of reality. Charms include Rattling Toy Sabers, which lets them wield a broom like a goremaul, World-Mocking Evasion, which lets them reveal that what their enemy struck was only an illusion, and Right-Behind-You Terror, which makes their location ambiguous to people who can't see them.

[ElOhTeeBee]

Huh. Can you point me in the direction of a summary of the other two?

[marin]

Hearteaters: Celestial-level. Resonant with adamant, neutral with the rest (a legacy of their original versions). Celestial Circle sorcery. They hunger to break wills and claim Pawns, even if they don't want to, courtesy of their manifestation of the Great Curse.

By default, Pawns are human, though Hearteaters can expand their range. They don't have their minds eaten, they're imprisoned in themselves, aware of what's happening. Pawns can be freed externally or by the Hearteater themselves, although the latter's not necessarily a mercy.

Their Incarna patron was killed during the Divine Revolution, his corpse used in a ritual to corrupt his Exalted into the Hearteaters. Following the Divine Revolution, the other Exalted drove them into the Wyld, slew them, and built well-warded prisons around the bones. Things being what they are, however, there's been a trickle of Hearteaters getting loose, which accelerated with the Usurpation, and then again with the Fair Folk invasion. Many have a grudge against the other Exalted due to their past life memories.

While the Hearteaters are optional canon, their patron (and his death) is slated to be canonised in Exigents, his blood part of the Exaltation process of one of the example Exigents, the Sovereigns.

When a Hearteater dies, the Exaltation will pass to a nearby Pawn with heroic potential and mental compatability with that Hearteater. If there's no Pawn nearby, it passes to whoever makes contact with the Hearteater's bones first.

Hearteater combat: cruel, mind games, auroras that turn flesh to opal. Charmset concepts include direct control of Pawns, using their own Charms through them, and absorbing traits, abilities, and skills from them. Example Charm names include Pawn Becomes Queen, Empire-Self Expansion, Beautiful Monster Transformation, and Will-Crushing Victory Smirk.

They can try bodyhopping, but the outcome can range from 'dominant personality in the new body' to 'thin smear of past life memories in the back of the new Hearteater's mind, if that'.


Umbrals: Celestial-level, (tentatively) resonant with soulsteel, neutral with everything else. Celestial Circle sorcery. Anima is shades of black and grey, with edges sometimes indigo, violet or scarlet. Gain power by giving into their Shadow, the manifestation of their darker side. Have a track to measure its influence on them, which increases when things are going horribly for them. They take it to fuel their Charms.

Shadows aren't trying to get their Umbral killed, or necessarily trying to screw them over, but the Umbral may well not like how it goes about getting what it wants (think certain takes on the Hulk).

Chosen from those with heroic potential and sufficient inner turmoil/self-doubt/self-hatred/etc. to form a Shadow when combined with a fragment of their patron's will and Essence. Patron was an Incarna who betrayed the others during the Divine Revolution, now imprisoned/deceased; the Umbrals were created after the Revolution. (Ambiguous exactly what their patron's status was when he created them.)

Tend to amplify the dark sides of those around them, for better or worse. Charm concepts include manipulation of Shadows, shadows and darkness. Example Charm names include The Black Rose Blossoms, Elegant Monster Soliloquy, Fervid Nightmare Exploit, Preemptive Vengeance Declaration, and Your Worst Day.

[LostLight]

Thanks for the summaries! I've apparently missed quite a bit since the last time I've checked those. Too bad that we are not going to get anything about the Spoken in the nearby future (unless I've also missed something about that as well)

[marin]

Thanks for the summaries! I've apparently missed quite a bit since the last time I've checked those.

Vance got talkative on the unofficial Exalted Discord a while back, and had a session for each of the Optionals.

[LostLight]

Vance got talkative on the unofficial Exalted Discord a while back, and had a session for each of the Optionals.

Thanks for referring me to the Discord. I've just discovered that the patrons of the Getimians were spoiled and they are freaking Oramus and Sacheverell. Like, nope- didn't see THAT coming.

[Mizu]

Dream-souled

Hearteaters

Umbrals

So, why are these 3 optional again? Did they have some sort of large enough setting impact the writers didn't want to have to write around their presence?

[LostLight]

Well, I am not sure, but iirc there was somewhat of a controversy when they were introduced- some fans felt that there were too many new Exalts, and we didn't knew a lot about them during that time, and there was a worry about how heavily would the setting will be rewritten and how long people would have to wait for all Exalts to get their rulebooks and the bloated work overload and such and there was also the whole change in the dev team which took place, so due to either of those reasons, certain combination of those or some other reason entirely it was decided to turn them into "optional". I assume that if they will be incredibly successful the devs may consider to fully "canonize" them to some degree, but that's the current situation.

[reaperfrost8]

Thanks for the summaries! I've apparently missed quite a bit since the last time I've checked those. Too bad that we are not going to get anything about the Spoken in the nearby future (unless I've also missed something about that as well)

For essence kickstarter there was a mention that they might be added in as a stretch goal in a a discord chat as many do have a desire to see them.

Though as of posting this right now there is no such stretch goal.

[BrilliantRain]

So, why are these 3 optional again? Did they have some sort of large enough setting impact the writers didn't want to have to write around their presence?

My understanding was that, conceptually, they were liked, but, when it came time to try to build them out into full splats, they tended to just ...not have a lot to them and couldn't really be developed into something that felt like a full splat type.

I think they could probably work fine as a single antagonist type or two, but they'd fit better under the Exigent Umbrella in that case too.

[Blaque]

This post by Neall over at RPG.net kind of explains a bit of the logic for the Getimian patrons and in the process, at least one of the reasons for optionality.

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/exalted-exalted-essence-merged.856038/post-23901519

The big thing mostly is that there were already issues wiht making Exalts like Lunars fit in the setting as-was with how the setting was built and that was an issue for them for two editions prior, they just had a solution for...and were about to intrdouce at least two and as many as five new Exalts (not counting Exigents) that reintroduce teh whole effing problem in again. And that making them "Just recently showe dup" gets old when you have half the Exalts (Soalrs, Abyssals, infernals, Getimians, and more Exigents) being that already.

And to introduce new beings fitting for new Exalts capable of Exalting whole new Hosts is hard to fit in a pretty full cosmology. ANd that it is also something htat isn't quite needed per se when you are alreay having in setting an "All the rest' splat like Exigents. So with a lot of these issues, they kind of just fit being made Optional so that there were less expectaitons to make the setting account for them, and that it also let folks apply the aformentioend custom splat splat ot some stuff like that I think.

[glamourweaver]

How I think I’m going to use the optional Exalted are as forces that arose and fell to help spice up certain stretches of the timeline, and possibly in historic campaigns. Like Heart-Eaters as a major Anathemae threat that the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate had to deal with in the mid reach of its reign.

[reseru]

Apparently Dream-souled are filling the niche of playable Fair Folk since that won't otherwise be a thing in this edition.

While the Hearteaters are optional canon, their patron (and his death) is slated to be canonised in Exigents, his blood part of the Exaltation process of one of the example Exigents, the Sovereigns.

I didn't realize that. Is there anything we know about the Sovereigns?

[marin]

Apparently Dream-souled are filling the niche of playable Fair Folk since that won't otherwise be a thing in this edition.

Not by design - i.e., that wasn't why they were created - but that's how it's shaken out.

I didn't realize that. Is there anything we know about the Sovereigns?

Full name the Sovereigns of Uluiru, Terrestrial-level, resonant with adamant. To quote Vance's Discord posts:

They’re members of a royal family in a Northwestern kingdom, who descend into a subterranean cavern filled with a dead god’s blood in hope of surviving and Exalting

The Sovereign's deal is a bit weird. Cantata-of-the-Depths. the god who catalyzed the Exigence into the Sovereign's Exaltations, isn't the god whose blood fills that pool; he tapped into it to lend further power to his Exigents. The Sovereigns are one of those Exigents that blend the Essences of multiple deities, and have some backlash as a result.

The key clue is from the Hearteaters' end; they have a particular interest in something in the city of Uluiru, suggesting that said dead god was their patron.