Blog, Jvstin Style

Exalted: Scroll of Fallen Races

So, when I braved the snow and ice (and it was treacherous, I did one donut on the way there) and got to the Olsons, the latest Exalted supplement waited for me.

Scroll of Fallen Races

The Scroll of Fallen Races divides into two parts. Weirdly, they decided to print this book as they did the Sorcery/Necromancy book and have half of the book printed straight up, and the other one upside, backwards and at the back of the book.

Sometimes White Wolf can be too clever.

The two Fallen Races are the Mountain Folk, who live underneath Creation, and the Dragon Kings, the previous "lords of the Earth", who were the big wheels when the Primordials ruled the Earth.

I laughed out loud, and got the sensibility of the DK section, when the opening chapter quote was from Enik, from Land of the Lost. For those not geeky enough to get it, Enik was a time-travelling intelligent Sleestak in the story, who discovered to his horror that the high civilization of the Sleestaks was going to turn into the barbarian savages who continually threaten Marshall, Will and Holly.

The Dragon Kings, in the Exalted setting, are exactly analogous to those Sleestaks. PC DK's can awaken in a manner analogous to exaltation, OR, they can be "Sleepers awakened" in the same way Enik was, but in any case, they are the exception to the rule. There is a strong undercurrent of "lost glory", much as it is for the Solars, except that they have the handicap of being truly alien. It's not a DK world anymore, its a human world.

At some point, the DKs are going to have to put an appearance in my game.

The Mountain Folk are an expansion over the first edition "slap in at the back of the Fair Folk book" and get their own space here. The Mountain folk are dwarven analogues, with the pathos that they can't come to the surface, and their creator (Autochthon) has abandoned them.

The Mountain Folk are in a box, and politics and conflicts between city states and individual MFs have sapped the body politic of the MFs.

I could make use of the MFs, too, certainly, since the defacto leader of the Exalted circle as I mentioned sometime earlier happens to be the sorcerer-smith. While the MF are isolated, the Exalts might make their way down into their realm in search of raw material or lost skills.

Posted by Jvstin at December 21, 2008 8:19 AM