Building a Character: Exalted Essence (An Alchemical!)

Greetings, programs!

That seems kind of a fitting opening, given that we're talking about magical robots here. Not that they're strictly programmed, but whatever. Today I'm posting an Alchemical Exalt in honor of the upcoming crowdfunding campaign on Backerkit, which is to begin today (November 14th) at 2PM Eastern, AFAIK.

So, first, off, if you don't know what Alchemicals are, they are a type of Exalt -- the Chosen of Autochthon, the Machine God (not the God-Machine, that's something different). If you don't know Exalted, try this setting primer to get you caught up. Autochthon himself is one of the Ancients, a primordial titan who helped build Creation and the gods and the humans and all that. When the gods rose up against their cruel creators, Autochthon was one of two that turned against his own kin and sided with the gods.

Arguably, Autochthon made the Divine Revolution possible -- the gods were prevented from acting directly against the Titans, but Autochthon showed them how to create human champions who could fight for them -- the process of Exaltation itself. After the Revolution, for a handful of reasons, Autochthon left Creation entirely after scooping up his followers and a bunch of random mortals to populate his world-body. There's a whole society inside him, called Autochthonia.

Autochthonia has its own Exalted, the Alchemicals -- but unlike the Exalted in (and adjacent to) Creation, these aren't mortals gifted with power but techno-magical constructs with the souls of heroic mortals and the same sort of divine power with which other Exalted are gifted. In the past, Alchemicals usually get printed up towards the end of an edition because they're sealed off in their own little world and aside from some adventure hooks involving Autochthonia re-establishing contact with Creation (the most well-known being the Locust Crusade), there's not a lot that can be done with them in the larger game.

Third Edition tweaks this, somewhat. It's established now that before leaving Creation, Autochthon built some prototypes that for one reason or another got left behind. There are one or two other possibilities of how they can wind up in Creation, and I can't recall if the details of how that could happen have been expounded upon so I won't get into that here. So for that reason, I'm planning on doing two Alchemical characters -- one in Creation, one in Autochthonia.

This is the Creation-side one first, and we're building them up with the Essence rules. So let's get to it!

The Road Between Light and Dark: Freezing Below (Exalted)

Still getting caught up, yadda yadda. I actually started this right after finishing typing up the previous post, which is funny. Then I got held up. So anyhow, that gives me an excuse to properly plug the Trinity Continuum Player's Guide, which is out now on DriveThruRPG! Also, another book I worked on, Alchemicals: Forged by the Machine God for Exalted 3rd Edition, goes into crowdfunding on either November 12th or 14th, and I'll certainly have a link in the show noteson here when that begins. 

I'll try to get them in without interfering too much with getting caught up on the updates, but I've been planning on doing a couple of Alchemical character builds for the blog -- a couple of characters first written up in ExEss, and then once the relevant preview manuscripts are out for the core system, I'll do core versions for them.

Anyhow, with that out of the way...

The Road Between Light and Dark: On the Breeze (Exalted)

I know it's been another quiescent period around these parts. If anyone's been paying attention to this blog and/or following along with my group's adventures, I apologize and I'll get caught up as soon as possible. I've just been running on an extreme spoons deficit as of late, and fell out of the habit of getting them regularly done over the summer. I need to build back up to that rhythm. Please be patient with me while I do so.

In the meantime, I've got a couple of minor announcements to make. This Wednesday, at DriveThruRPG, the Trinity Continuum Player's Guide is officially released! I'll link it when that happens. Also, according to this week's Monday Meeting Notes over at the Onyx Path site, next month the Alchemicals book is being crowdfunded! Oh heck! I was planning on doing a little something for that, should probably get on it. I'll update you as I have more info.

The Road Between Light and Dark: Business Partners (Exalted)

Greetings, my good peeps. I'm aware I fell behind a bit and I'm still getting caught up. 

By the way, I didn't want to tack it onto the previous post, but a recent episode of the Onyx Pathcast has developer Chazz Kellner and writer Elliott Freeman talking about the Alchemicals book for Exalted Third Edition. They don't talk about anything I specifically wrote (with one possible tiny exception), but if you've been curious at all about Alchemicals and how they're being presented in this edition give it a listen! You can find it here!

An update on where I'm at, writing-wise

I have two updates about my writing in this post, one about current projects and other things that are vaguely project-shaped, and one about where I'm at on an emotional/mental level.

The Road Between Light and Dark: Medicine (Exalted)

Hey there again, I know it's been quiet here. I'm a little behind on these Exalted posts -- just as soon as I got caught up, I know -- and I don't have a good reason, just grappling with some stuff and couldn't line up my brain right to get into it.

I don't really have much in the way of personal announcements or anything. Closest thing to such is that the Trinity Continuum Player's Guide is now out as a backer PDF for folks who crowdfunded, and it's been interesting going back through and seeing how my writing got through editing, now formatted and with artwork and stuff. I was dealing with a few things when I wrote it, and it's weird to look back on almost two years later. But at the same time, it's always exciting to see my work presented in a final-ish form (and I legitimately hope it always will be).

Anyhow, this is about to take a needlessly-maudlin turn, when we're supposed to be focusing on my group's Exalted adventures.

The Road Between Light and Dark: The Root of the Problem (Exalted)

Hey there, folks, here we are with me trying (and failing) to get this write-up assembled and posted with plenty of time to work on/worry about other things before the next session.

And, um... yeah. Can't think of anything else to add. So let's do this thing.