Though I'm left wondering what, specifically, it is about Exalted that makes me feel this way. Why does Across the Eight Directions delight me so, when the comparably dense Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting left me cold?
It's an especially pertinent question here, because Across the Eight Directions is probably the most system-agnostic supplement the game ever released, even to the point of downplaying the setting role of the Exalted themselves (for example, the Halta entry failed to mention even a single Lunar Exalted, despite the fact that Rain Deathflyer and Silver Python were an essential part of its story since Halta's 1st edition supplement). And don't get me wrong, I don't mind this "ground's eye" view of the setting. Quite the opposite, I find it a refreshing opportunity to think carefully about the ways PCs can change the world. However, there's no real reason that a location like the Dayfires couldn't exist on Toril (after some minor reskinning, like "The Realm = Red Wizards" or something) and so the difference of my reactions makes me feel a bit of a snob.
Not coincidentally, the Dayfires were one of my least favorite parts of the book. There's nothing wrong with it. Across the Eight Directions' style of presentation - centering food and clothes and stories and their accompanying economic and social implications - is a really attractive and interesting way to learn about a fantasy world. If it were in Forgotten Realms, I'd think it was the most well-drawn location that wasn't called a 'dale. But also, it's kind of just a place. The Grand Duchy of Karameikos was more fantastic.
The kind of Exalted world-building that most excites me is found in places that are very strongly shaped by the setting's magical nonsense. There was nothing wrong with the Dayfires, but the nation wasn't built on the seafloor, with the surrounding waters being held back by a giant circular First Age dam, nor was it ruled by wolves who, thanks to a chance mutation from a Wyld zone, had near-superhuman intelligence and decided to emulate and replace the nearby human aristocrats, nor was it a wind-swept heath where nomadic clans avoided the most fertile lands for fear of rousing the psychic screams of a buried titan. Its deal was more like . . . the clans . . . they don't always get along. . .
And I suppose you couldn't build an entire world where each individual location was some kind of high-concept weirdness. Like, I'm not sitting here thinking Ukss is peak game design (. . .or am I?) You gotta have some kind of baseline, or else the old staples of "it was built around a malfunctioning manse," "some jerk is abusing an Artifact," or even "the Exalted done fucked around and found out" would lose their sting. It's just that by the time we got to the Dayfires, we'd just finished reading about Nandao Danh Nhân, a place that was also not notably weird (unless you count having a canonical relationship to the Dragon-Blooded Realm as "weird," which you really shouldn't).
Which is to say Across the Eight Directions' curation is generally pretty good. Right after the Dayfires came the city of Decanthus, which 1000 years ago was sucked into hell only to suddenly come back horribly changed.
Although, if I'm committed to not being a snob, I do have to concede that the Forgotten Realms also has a place almost exactly like that - Elturel - though it's perhaps an important illustration of the differences between the two games that Elturel actually existed in Forgotten Realms canon for decades before it was sucked into hell and as recently as the 3rd edition book (i.e. 20 years ago) the most relevant piece of information about it was that the paladin who ran the place made it into "the safest, best policed, and most efficient trading and farming community in the Western Heartlands." Also, their elite mounted warriors were already called "Hellriders" before being sucked into hell (maybe that's what gave them the idea?).
Contrast that with Decanthus, where one of the prominent landmarks is a granary that has been transformed into a giant wasp hive by an unholy amalgam of the city's original residents and the Agata, breathtakingly beautiful crystal demon wasps. That's the Exalted flair - a willingness to go just that little bit farther and be a little . . . extra.
(Funny sidenote, you would not believe how far down the Elturel wiki page I had to scroll before they mentioned the "being sucked into hell" thing, which is maybe more of a comment on wiki editors than the Forgotten Realms, but it feels significant to me, like maybe the Realms are the bad kind of extra).
If I'm evaluating Across the Eight Directions in general, I'd say that it has a lot of the good Exalted extraness, distributed with reasonable equitability, but maybe not all 24 of the credited authors were on the same page about what makes for a great Exalted location. And maybe that's okay. I can't even say that my particular position ("always be sure to get some nonsense in there") is historically the best supported. One of the first locations, important enough to be the homeland of a signature character, was the Marukan Alliance, which was just like "what if the people of this fantasy land had a really close bond with horses." It's just that the more grounded areas feel, to me, a bit like . . . "backstory kingdoms." Everybody comes from a place, and while your Solar hero is tooling around Nexus (Creation's premiere Lankhmar) they're going to reminisce about where they came from in between trading blows with the snake-headed spider god, and they're going to be able to point to something in a book instead of making it up on the spot.
Call it a bias. Truthfully, there's nothing in this book that merits a true dislike, from me. Closest I'd get is "there's no way to turn this into an actual Exalted game, because they've neglected to include anything that might successfully oppose an Exalt" and you can always add those things. "This is going to go to shit as soon as the PCs get involved" is hardly something that will rise to the level of a fault.
I will say that the Appendix concerned me. It sort of presents this mortal-eye view of things like the seasons, travel, communications, warfare, etc that's clearly grounded in historical research, but the net effect is to suggest a world of "mundane reality" + "magic." You know, like D&D.
I know Exalted 2nd Edition went a little far for people with its "bricks harden because the least gods of flame sing songs of quiescence to the least gods of clay" and I would be the last to claim that 3rd edition didn't inherit a setting that was completely up its own ass, but I've got this grognardish urge to point out that "savants predict solar eclipses" is a purely new bit of canon. Solar eclipses had hitherto been an omen from the heavens that happened because the Unconquered Sun was in some kind of mood. From p 127 of the 1st edition core, "When the Solars returned, the world witnessed the first solar eclipse since the Terrestrial Exalted took power." Were the savants predicting that? An event unprecedented in 1000 years of history, which was probably only documented in texts suppressed by the Immaculate Order?
And yes, I can hear myself. I have a well-reasoned contempt for edition conservatism and my own values demand that I allow the new team to pursue its own vision. It's just, I think I like this version of Creation less than I liked previous versions. That is, of course, completely okay. They're allowed to change things and I'm allowed to have preferences. However, I would be remiss if I didn't question whether this was an intentional, coherent direction change (let alone something with as much conviction as a "vision.")
Towards the end of the appendix there's a sidebar titled "How Common are Supernatural Things?" and the answer it proposes to that rhetorical question is apparently that it "should vary with your playgroup's tastes and the chronicle's needs."
I think, even if I didn't have this nostalgia driving me, I wouldn't respect that answer one bit. It's timorous worldbuilding. Of course, a GM can adjust the prevalence of setting elements to achieve different moods, and you know where the place to discuss that is? That's right, a 2000-word essay in Crucible of Legend. In a setting chapter, it just makes you look weak.
The sidebar called "Can I do Science?" is just as bad. It not only recapitulates the "lol, fantasy is when no gunpowder" trope (literally "replacing firearms with firewands signposts a broader rejection of anachronistic modern technology" . . . made hilarious by a sidebar two pages later titled "Anachronisms are Okay."), but it just kind of fundamentally misunderstands the game. It dismisses "the Circle's Twilight or No Moon wielding modern science to fashion setting-transforming technologies."
And this is not an edition thing. It's out of sync with 3rd edition too. Focus on the words "setting-transforming." Remember what the celestial exalted are. Remember essence fever. Like, okay, you're wedded to a notion that there's no place for electric street lights in fantasy. I don't approve, but I do understand. However, the answer to "Can I do Science" is not "this falls outside the scope of normal Exalted play." The answer is, "of course you can, it's just called 'sorcerous workings' in this world."
Oh wow, I spent way more time complaining about the appendix than I did praising the main body of the text, which is weird because I really, really enjoyed the main body of the text. It's a great mix of old favorites and new ideas, with a few choice locations that are destined to become new setting staples. I'm left with this gluttonous wish to see all of the old canon locations redone in this book's style, but spread out over a decade's worth of annual follow-ups, each with this book's proportion of old-to-new material. It's enough to make me forgive the fact that a book titled Across the Eight Directions actually had nine different directional chapters.
Ukss Contribution: In a book filled with amazing things, any one of which (yes, even the one I called out as my least favorite) would be a worthy choice, I'm going to have to descend into self-satire and pick something conspicuously plausible - the Shellrider nomads are among the few to know the secrets to navigating a perilous "ancient cactus forest."
It never occurred to me before that cacti could grow in forests. Probably because "cactus conditions" and "forest conditions" seem incompatible. And while there are places in real life that are called "cactus forests," having seen them, it's clear that I'm imagining something much more perilous. Like, a broad expanse where cacti blot out the sun and are so densely packed that you need to bargain with the local nomads to find a safe path through them.
Incidentally, that's the bar you need to clear if you want me to call your setting "fantasy nonsense." Not necessarily something impossible, or even something you'd be compelled to call "magic." Just a little beyond what exists in the real world.
No comments:
Post a Comment