Isekai Exigents

[Lian]

This reminds me of a light novel where one of the kids summoned was a prodigy in his local equivalent of the Order of Hermes, He was PROFOUNDLY unimpressed by the magical development of the standard D&Desque setting. I wonder how this might apply here.

[LordHeru]

This said if someone said to me 'so I am thinking of an alternate Creation where some force is pulling certain heroes from other worlds into it to maybe stimie the Great Curse' and then introduced me to the potential of the Getiam and Exigent and such, yeah I can totally see this. Especially if I was able to create the caste and the aspects and the nature of things my character might be able to access. So yeah, the idea in that sense is quite cool and very much developing worthy. So I look forward to reading more ideas about this.

Soo yeah I just had the idea that in this version of Creation the Jade Prison has yet to be broken, and in fact, is completely unbreakable by those whose presence is in fate - the whole 'no man can kill me' and 'I am no man'. Which is why some mysterious force managed to reach out into the depths of existence and pull some people into Creation. Maybe they get a message to sort of push them towards opening the Jade Prison but beyond that act the group has free will to do what they want. Or maybe the process of bring them into Creation is what broke the Jade Prison.

[21C Hermit]

Who’s the god empowering the Exigency, though? A god in Creation, or other powers-that-be from the Another Worlds, or a completely unknown hypothetical entity “between” the worlds?

That said, maybe something like...
Cainites: Exalted of Murder. Shares Charm themes with Abyssal Exalted.
Fera & Garou: Exalted of Gaia. Shares Charm themes with Dragon-Blooded and Lunar Exalted.
Enlightened: Exalted of Science (leaving out the Mystics here, because they might overlap too much with Sorcerers). Possibly the closest to ‘original’ Exigents, what with powers varying greatly depending on their Focus.
Kithain: Exalted of Dreams. Shares Charm themes with Dream-souled... to the point I think they might as well be Dream-souled.
Wraiths: Exalted of Lethe. Shares Charm themes with maybe Liminal Exalted and Abyssal Exalted, and ghost Charms.
Fallen: Exalted of... hmm I’m drawing a blank here. Maybe remove the Hsien from Changeling, merge them with the Fallen, and then make these guys the Exalted of Yu-Shan or something. Shares Charm themes with Hearteaters and 2E Infernal Exalted.
No idea how to do Mummies.

[Dataweaver]

Critian Caceorte: Fair enough. As well, vampires and werewolves in the Chronicles of Darkness were originally developed to be fairly close fits to their counterparts in the original World of Darkness; and at the level of resolution that you have for isekai Exigents, there's unlikely to be significant difference.

For original World Of Darkness mages and wraiths, I probably would not use castes at all — although the shades from Orpheus could probably be adapted for the purpose if need be. That said, Wraith-based Exigents are a bit weird: they might just translate directly over as ghosts, unless you want to do an incorporeal Exigent. Alternately, you could pattern them more after the Risen, and borrow some elements from the Liminal Exalted. Frankly, my inclination would be to use Orpheus as the basis for the Exigency, specifically the Skimmer(?) Lament (the one that has a physical body and projects itself with a bit of meditation) and the Spirit Lament. Let me think on this one some more. By contrast, the closest counterpart that ChroD has is the Sin-Eaters, which ought to transfer over with little to no trouble.

Chronicle-style Mages would end up with castes, though, even though their oWoD counterparts wouldn't. Changelings of the Lost have Seemings that evoke broad archetypes of Fae; so those can be used as their castes. For changelings of the dreaming, I would still go with seemings; though I'd play those up a bit more closely to the castes of the Mountain Folk (though without the stratified hierarchy). Childlings would be Artisan-like; Wilders would be Warrior-like; and Grumps would be Worker-like. The lack of hierarchy follows from two things: first, they're almost certainly aren't enough of them to form any sort of society; unless you get a whole Freehold summoned all at once, there are only likely to be one or two of them, if that. Second, changelings of the dreaming don't have the same biases that the Mountain Folk have, and wouldn't interact with each other the same way even if they're worried enough of them.

…and I need to get back to work. More thoughts later.

[LordHeru]

This was exactly the first thing that came to me when I read about Getimen in Essentials. That said I am not really sure I like it in a focused Creation game but its an interesting concept all the same.

[Critian Caceorte]

I think it's a fantastic idea personally, and something I was interested in doing myself. However, I do think that in the case of the Old World, you're going to have some issues with regards to Clans and Tribes. There's just too many to really quantify as "Castes" like normal Exalted. New World/Chronicles might be a better source to draw from for this because of the fact that there's only 5-6 Vampire Clans and 5-8 Werewolf Tribes. CtD can work if you use Seemings for the Castes, and allow Changeling Exalts to change between them, though I still think that CtL seemings work better, especially as you can have a Changeling escape from the Hedge into Creation. Overall, while Old World might be better thematically because of the connections between the setting and Creation, I think you'll have less stress converting supernaturals into Exigents from the New World.

[Dataweaver]

I was originally thinking of this as a possible interpretation of the Getimians; but I think I prefer it more as a “setting hack”. The idea here is that there are Exigents that come from… somewhere else. Not the Wyld; not the Underworld, nor Malfeus. Not Autochthonia. Not anywhere adjacent to Creation. They have been summoned to Creation from Another World.

The worlds that the Isekai Exigents come from are extremely varied; as a starting point, any of the Shards from the 2e supplement Shards of the Exalted Dream are possible “origin worlds” for the Isekai Exigents. So are possible futures of the setting (very likely distant futures, far enough in the future that it might as well be another world). If the notion that the World of Darkness is a possible distant future of Creation holds, then that's another source for Isekai Exigents. Or any other world that the Storyteller wants to allow: as an onyx path fan, my own preference would be to prioritize worlds described in other Onyx path gamelines, like The Chronicles of darkness, the Trinity continuum, or Scion. But even the likes of pugmire or Cavaliers of Mars are possibilities. And there's nothing restricting you from “Isekai”ing other properties of you so choose. Anything goes.

That said, the world the isekai exigent comes from only matters so much; it's the character's past, not her present or future (probably). And the details of the world she came from only matter to the extent that they affected her before she was summoned to Creation. And isekai exigent who came from the World of Darkness or the Trinity Continuum but never encountered any of the aspects of those worlds that differentiate them from the real world might as well have just come from the real world.

The act of summoning an Isekai Exigent also tends to have the effect of... changing it. It's basic nature remains more or less same; but this can be used to empower someone who was perfectly ordinary in the world that he or she came from, or it can be used to take someone who was already empowered and make some changes to the manifestations of those powers. This latter can be used, for instance, to “rewrite” a character from another gameline Creation.

System-wise, Isekai Exigents work just like regular Exigents; they differ only in terms of where they came from, and thus the kinds of stories you tell using them. They're strangers in a strange land, bringing an outsider perspective to the setting without necessarily having an inhuman mindset. In fact, the default assumption that the source genre goes with is “an ordinary person from a mundane world (usually ours) gets thrust into a world of fantasy”. I just don't see any reason to limit the concept to just that. That said, their Exigency should reflect their homeworld, even if they were perfectly ordinary before they were summoned: a person summoned from the Trinity Continuum might have an Exigency that resembles a psion, nova, or Talent, for instance, even if he or she was a baseline before being summoned. Someone who was summoned from the World of Darkness might acquire an Exigency that mimics a vampire, werewolf, mage, etc., even if the new arrival had nothing to do with the supernatural before being summoned.

By default, the connection to the character's homeworld is one way and one-off. If you're interested in a cross-world game, though, it might be possible for variants of the original summoning ritual to exist that can use the presence of an Isekai Exigent to open a dimensional gateway to her world. Obviously, if you want her to stick around and she wants to go home, such portals should be difficult to come by, surfing the role of a macguffin; or they should be one way, capable of bringing things over from her world but not sending things to it.

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With that in mind, I'd like to develop this thread by posting sample Exigencies that mimic character types from other games, but done in a way that they work within the framework of Creation. Top priority would be WoD-inspired Exigencies, given the never-formally-denied connection that exists between Creation and the World of Darkness. Possibly also develop some “Isekai Sorcery” that specializes in interacting with other worlds, for those gaming groups that want such a thing — again, with an eye toward keeping it more or less in line with the various Sorceries that already exist in Creation.

That's it for now. Thoughts?