Dreams of a Light Reborn, Anti-War Storyteller - Changing the World with a Story with PlotDoc (Exalted 2e)

What if you could tell a story that changes the world? What truths have the stories you tell revealed about yourself? And have you ever kicked a god in the nuts with his own self loathing? Hello friends welcome to characters without stories a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm star. This episode I'm joined by a plot doc, a 34 year old stay at home dad and TTRPG Tiktoker writer and enthusiast they focus on narrative heavy, emotionally compelling stories. They are an ADHD gender fluid disaster bi with far too little filter plot doc I will give you a chance to plug your projects at the end. But right now do you want to tell listeners a little bit more about yourself? I'm the plot doctor on tick tock. I've been playing roleplay games for 20 odd years now started when I was 14 and just never stopped. I really enjoy really getting into characters and building really compelling stories about them. And I'm pretty much a forever GM these days. So I don't get to play all that often. Hence why I'm here. Right? This is an often occurrence on the podcast that I'm talking to forever GMs. So plot doc, who are you bringing to the table today. So today I have a exalted a solar exalted from the role play game of the same name exalted His name is dreams of a light reborn is a zenith caste for those that know exalted, and a storyteller priest and general busybody. That is a fascinating name. How did you come up with that? So exalted the world and just for, for anyone that's interested in exalted, I'm going to be talking a lot about second edition exalted because last one, I'm actually exalted as well has really interesting naming schemes. And you get quite a lot of people whose names are like short descriptive sentences or sort of, noun, adjective object kind of thing. So it's, it's really interesting and his because he's a solar exalted a zenith, his sort of dreaming of bringing the light of the unconquered sun which is the God that made the solar exalted back into the world and restoring his sort of like, just rule. So I'm going to use dream. Yeah, so you talked a little bit about exalted, that is not a game that I've ever had a chance to play. Do you mind going into that just a little bit? Yes. So exalted is a incredibly setting and lore rich roleplay game that is incredibly crunch heavy for those that aren't used to it. It's by White Wolf publishing originally, so it uses the storyteller system so if you play vampire or werewolf, you'll probably be roughly familiar with the principles involved. It's very much designed to be an anime like any over the top action anime you can think of. That's what exalted is designed to be there's mechs, there's magic. There's epic fights, you can literally like end up fighting a god and kicking him in the nuts with his own self loathing and then yeeting him into a mountain. It's, it's awesome. Did you say kicking a god in the nuts with his own self loathing? Yes, celestial monkey style allows you to attack the roots of people's virtues, which is like the chakra points on their bodies. And they're related to a virtue the groin is related to valor. So if you kick a god in the groin, you can do extra damage and extra stuff based on their valor virtue, which is a score. So essentially, you're you're kicking them in the nuts with their own courage and cowardice. That, to me, sounds very, almost silly. Obviously, I think the way that you're stating it is intentionally silly. But how serious is the game? The game can be as serious as you like, the setting is actually incredibly dark. So I can't explain the entire lore in a day let alone short answer. But basically, though, these beings called the primordials, they built the entire world and then they got addicted to these things called the games of divinity. And they created all these gods to run things for them. And then went and played the games and that was what they did. And the gods wanted to overthrow their creators, but they can't act against them directly. So they built the exalted which is what you play as, as a sort of living weapon to fight the primordial. So the most powerful beings in creation, you did that there was big war, creation, like got smaller, a lot was lost. And then the gods repeated the cycle, they got addicted to the games to divinity buggered off and let the exalted run the show. The problem is there was a curse placed upon the exalted by the primordials with this sort of like last act. And the end result is the the the exalted rule, the rule of exalted did not go well at all, they had like 2000 years of golden age, and then it all came crashing down. And ever since then the world has been going through a succession of more and more incompetent rulers and getting smaller and smaller and more damaged and more broken. And more bleak. It's an over top action game, you can play it incredibly funny, and you will have incredibly hilarious moments while playing it. If you start digging into the lore and really bringing that aspect into your game. It gets real dark real fast. And that's what I love about it. Interesting. Would you say you said it's action packed? Would you say that it has kind of a central focus, like what kind of situations you might find your characters in and what kind of actions they might be able to take upon the world, you can kind of do anything with it. But and there are options for playing different types of exalted. But a solar exalted is one of the most if they're left to ramp up to full power are the most powerful beings in creation, hands down. So there's nothing really that's beyond you. If you want to fight a living mountain, then you can fight a living mountain, if you want to battle gods, you can battle gods. If you want a game about court politics and intrigues, they're masters of that. It all depends. So they're, they're sort of broken down into castes. The solars are, so you've got Dawn, zenith, Twilight, night, and Eclipse based on the sort of phases of the sun. And they all have different roles and different jobs and different areas of focus. There's then it's caste, which Dreams is our priests and philosophers and teachers, and sort of spiritual leaders. And so they've got a lot of stuff about, about talking and communication, and that kind of thing. The game you can really roll a lot into, and if you're running it, you really should plan for a lot of different types of stories. Because different players will excel by the nature of the game, by the way, the mechanics are set up a different things. So they're all very competent fighters, but your Dawn is your best warrior in general. Your night cast will be like your study kind of rogue, and your eclipse is like a statesman and a bureaucrat. And your twilight is a crafter and a sorcerer. So planning for all of these different diverse characters are making stories that are engaging for all of them, you need to bring in lots of different elements into one story, rather than just like, oh, this is dungeon crawl. And this is a romantic comedy period drama kind of thing. You've got to really drag it all in. When we're talking about character creation in exalted, you mentioned that there were different kind of phases of the solar. Are there other types of exalted? Yes, so in second edge, you had the solar exalted who were created by the unconquered sun, you've got the sidereal exalted, that are created by the maidens of fate, and they are a weird mix between bureaucrat, demon hunter and James Bond. And each of these also they have their own five, caste splats as well. You've got the lunar exalted, who were originally like the companions and lovers and partners of the solar exalted, who were created by the moon goddess, and they're wily shape changers and people that sort of live on the edges and the fringes of things and exist in a very liminal space. You also have the exalted that are currently running the world, which are the dragon blooded which were sort of like foot soldiers. They were created by the elemental dragons. They're actually the weakest of the exalted and their fire, earth, water and wood. And they're currently running the whole shebang because the the First Age which is the age where the solar exalted ruled and did with what's called a great usurpation where the dragon blooded with some sidereal, jiggery pokery in the background, rose up and slaughtered all of the soldiers, and then imprisoned their essence, because there's only second hand lore. Anyway, the 300 solar exalted in existence. And when they die, their essence passes to another great hero. And that's how they continued, but the dragon blooded managed to capture their essences and lock them away in a prison, which they put on the bottom of the sea. And then a little while later, some people came along and broke it open and try to grab all the essences literally with a giant bone construct and a big net, literally a big net, try to catch it. But about 150 of the solar essences were too fast and went back into the cycle and started getting reborn. And the remaining 150 Some of them got corrupted by the dead primordial. The never born, to become the abyssal exalted, who are dark bearers of the sorrows. They're like these passionate anti heroes, and in final exalted, who are the exalted that were corrupted by the still living primordial who are imprisoned within the body of their king, including their king, he's imprisoned within himself exalted gets weirdly metaphysical at times. So yeah, so there's, there's lots of different options out there for what you can play, but to be a solar exalted is to be hunted. Because the dragon blooded have this thing called the Wild Hunt, which is actively trying to hunt down and kill the reborn solars. And they've been doing a very good job at it. But unfortunately, because the realm has fallen into decay in disrepair, it's not as good as it used to be. So they're slipping through the cracks now, which is where the sort of like opening of the setting starts. For the standard setting. Would you say that people who are playing this game and I don't know what they call it an exalted is it? I, you know, other systems might call it a class or a playbook. What would you say is the equivalent in exalted your caste would be your equivalent of a class, but it's a lot more open than a class or a book because it's like, it's the storyteller system. So you can put points anywhere, if it's outside of your, your caste abilities. It's not a problem. Like my guy's a zenith, he doesn't have any war. But if I wanted him to learn, or he can pick up that skill, learn supernatural powers called charms in it, and become very, very good at it. It's just it's slightly more expensive in terms of experience, which is how the White Wolf handled it it for most storyteller System games. How diverse are the character choices in a particular game? So for example, do you find that a lot of people are choosing to play solars or it is like a wide range? You mentioned kind of some abyssal and, and demonic and I'm just kind of curious if people are choosing to play that archetype or if more people are choosing to play this solar archetype, which sounds to me like more of a kind of do gooder, you know, good aligned, caste. The solars are the ones that are included in the base book. The other thing that came up when you're talking about the Exalted spans hundreds of books by this point, the solars are the ones that are included in the core book, and I think most people sort of default to playing solars a lot. Each different type of Exalted has its own book, abyssals are very popular people like to play abyssals. Lunars slightly less. So. I personally am a big fan of sidereals but it's a very different style of game to play a sidereal because they're sort of like the hidden masters of the world kind of thing. But they're also servants of heaven, like heaven and hell are places you can go to in exalted. And it's it's very, not particularly Christian, I don't think. I think a lot of people tend to shy away from playing Dragon blooded because, honestly, for me, Dragon blooded are probably my favorite, sort of exalted, because they have very, very interesting stories that are very baked into the world. But they are lower powered compared to the others. So your game won't quite reach the amazingly overpowered heights that a celestial exalted game might reach. But dragon blooded are still like way cool. solar as being being hunted? Why would you make a choice to play a character that is under that kind of constant threat? The Exalted world is huge, its massive, it's bigger than earth, it's a flat world, there's a big mountain in the center where all stability comes from. And then it's like floating in an infinite plane of chaos is the sort of base setting of exalted. And it's massive. It's, it's genuinely massive. So by playing someone that always has a reason to be on the move, you are encouraged to explore. And aside from that, solar exalted if they're left to fester, and if I say fester, but if they're left to grow powerful, can very easily within a few years, establish themselves to the point where very few things in the world can be a threat to them. Apart from maybe other solar exalted, yours, you start out hunted, and your early story is hunted. But then there's a turn at some point where you find somewhere where you want to make your stand, and you establish yourself. And then it's about building up to the point where the realm can throw its legions against you, and you'll just wash them all away in a tide of blood and essence. I thought it was interesting that you said fester was that you miss speaking or was that more of a kind of conscious It was an unconscious choice. It wasn't really a misspeak. So the choice? other problem with solar exalted is the great curse, which inevitably leads them to doing terrible things. They do great things, but they also do terrible things. So your character has what's called a limit track. And every time and this is based on your virtues, again, you pick a particular trigger, and every time a situation triggers that you can gain limit. And once you hit 10 points of limit, you have what's You know, when you were first talking about hitting your called Limit Break, where you just act completely out of character, and it's in a predefined way. So you might fly into a murderous rage, or you might just completely and utterly ignore anyone's request for help, you just got no compassion left in you, you might become a complete coward, and just hide away from all conflict. And over time, as as sort of exalted get more powerful, this curse gets more powerful. So for example, one of them is aesthetic drive, I think it's called or something like that. You basically you've sweat everything and go, I'm done with this, I am going to go and meditate on a mountain on a mountaintop or I'm gonna go engage in some act of spiritual furtherance, which isn't real spiritual furtherance, because you're actually running away from your problems by doing so. And for a young exalted, that maybe takes like a couple of weeks before they get through it, their Limit Break ends and they can come back. But one of the stories there's a road between white wall and somewhere else gets made, I think, it goes through the middle of like a shadow land, a place where the underworld has erupted into creation. And the road itself is safe to travel on because it was built by a solar exalted, who was limit breaking in the First Age. And he hand carved and blessed and imbued every single individual cobble on that road that runs for 1000s of miles, it took him the better part of a century to do it. And that was all because he had lost it basically. limit, the examples you used were murder and a lack of compassion. But to me building a blessed road doesn't sound like a bad thing. I mean, it doesn't sound like a terribly bad thing. And it's had a very good impact throughout the 1000s of years since he's done it. And it gives people a safe way to travel through the shadow land. But also he would have had responsibilities. He was responsible for administering an area of creation who would have had votes that he needed to be in as part of the solar deliberative that would have been threats coming into the wild that he would have needed to fight there would have been politicking coming from heaven, demons and the undead and all these various different things. And he would have just ignored all of it to the complete ruin of the society who was meant to be looking after and built a road. Yet to me, and you know, correct me if I'm wrong because you have ADHD and I am you know, neurotypical. That sounds almost like a hyper fixation. I thought about that link before but yes, I guess like is the sort of extreme focus on something to the exclusion of all else, including the things that you are meant to or need to do. Definitely, definitely reverberates ADHD wise for a little, for me a little bit. It's often been the case that I've just got this idea in my head, and I've been obsessed online for a week and like, I barely even fed myself or showered and just do the bare minimum about everything else, and then just get out and start working on that idea. So yeah, yeah. But like anything taken to an extreme, it's, it can be harmful and detrimental, even if you end up with like a really badass camper van at the end of the day. Yeah. To get into dream a little bit, I thought it was really interesting in your submission that you talked about the character being a process that took years to build. Yeah, so the character, it's himself, like, the stats on a page didn't take very long to build at all. Because I'm really used to exalted but the mental process and personal growth that led me to a point where I was like, hey, I want to play this character did take. Yes, that was years of learning about people, and storytelling, and leftism, and sort of the way in which you bind and shape communities and how communities are shaped by the stories that they tell themselves. Because dream is, is a storyteller, he, he's got a reason for it, he's actually beelining to a place called Great Forks. But as he goes, he's encountering people with problems. And rather than just walking into their town going and beating up the monster and solving the problem for them, or like blessing the crops, or whatever it happens to be, he tries to instead tell stories that empower them to find their own solutions. So he's sort of like a very deliberate rejection of like a kind of white savior narrative, I guess. I also remember this guy, he was, I can't remember his name now. But it was awhile ago, while I was working in the public sector, I went to this event, and there was this guy there who was talking about community cohesion and building communities. And he did it through the medium of storytelling, that was what he did. And so he would get community groups together. And he would tell stories that would inspire them to go and, you know, make changes in their communities, and the way they interacted with people in order to make everyone's lives better. And it was really inspiring guy. So yeah, so that's what I mean, when I say, takes years like there's a lot of political and moral philosophy behind the character that's taken years to develop, I think. It's almost as if you were developing the character at the same time as you are developing yourself. Yeah, absolutely. Like he's a crystallization of a lot of the things I've learned and aspire towards. And obviously, like, all of that is a process. It's not a destination. So like, the dreams that I create in 10 years time will be probably be an entirely different person with an entirely different way of going about things. But at that central to the character is empowerment and kindness and mercy and humility. And I think those are valuable ways to approach life. And it's certainly not always the way of approach life, like a lot of this personal growth has happened in the last decade or so. So before that, I was kind of a shit, if we're honest. Well, I'm glad you've undergone that character growth yourself. So what you're saying about storytelling, I think that that's interesting coming from somebody who is a forever GM, and somebody who, in a lot of cases, maybe isn't in charge of the story, but guides the story guides the players through a plot or something of your invention. Does that resonate with you in terms of this character? Kind of being part of that aspect of yourself? Yeah, absolutely. 100% So I try when I'm doing roleplay stories to have a point, my stories. I won't say They all the time, but I think it's interesting. You know, you're talking about d&d, sort of like a good 80% of the time have a message in them. Oh, the way that I shaped the world and the stories around the players and the way the world responds to the players. It'll be metaphorical or allegorical. Sometimes I try to keep it sort of fairly subtle. But sometimes I just found out that like, capitalism is always the enemy. So I very much tried to have a point. A long time ago, now I was running an Eberron game. And it was like the opening thing. It was a campaign that was pre written, I was running prewritten module, and one of the opening fights was underneath Sharn. Against some kobolds. One of the players was like oh, kobolds must be evil because he'd only ever played like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms where alignment actually matters as compared to so he'd just gone oh kobolds must be evil, and then gone on a big smitey rampage and killed a bunch of them. So I had a story arc after that was actually about trying to explain to the player and also like, introduce some growth to the character, morality in Eberron is different. Things aren't just evil, intrinsically, and that even people who are doing something that seems kind of shady might have their own personal reasons for doing it. Like, for example, these kobolds were like they were literally trying to put food in their starving families' mouths kind of thing. And so he'd ended up just basically killing a load of people that had like friends and brothers and relationships and lovers and an entire life, basically, the party actually really took their message and ran with it. And then they spent they had an artificer in their group and I let them bend the rules on magic item creation a bit. He spent the entire time equipping the party with versions of the weapons that do some real damage. This was back in 3.5, where it wasn't automatic. And you can just oh I'm just knocking them out kind of thing. He really took it, he ran with it. And by the end of it, they had, they were all capable of doing non lethal damages standard, they had a specialized Bag of Holding that was basically converted into a jail cell. So they can take people back to actually face justice, rather than just killing them in a temple in the wilderness kind of thing. And like they always tried to diplomatic solution before they got into fights. And where fights were unavoidable. They try not to kill, they will patch up the wounded afterwards after the fight was done, and just make sure they wouldn't bleed out. And yeah, they went the whole hog on like being literally probably the most pacifistic adventuring party in Eberron. So so that's what I mean, I try to I have a point. Usually when I'm watching a story. and obviously, this character is not built for d&d. I think d&d, as a game makes it very difficult to play a pacifist game. There's not really any robust rules around doing non lethal damage. There's, it kind of penalizes that approach, in some ways. At least it takes a certain core aspect of the game kind of off the table. And so I'm curious how that compares to exalted in terms of enabling, playing a character who is taking a more pacifist or nuanced approach. Yep. So an exalted is entirely possible to just play a straight up pacifist, because stories don't intrinsically resolve revolve around combat that you need to be involved in. Like, you can play someone that like, I will only ever fight in self defense. And that's, that's a very easy moral position to take in exalted. If you're gonna do that, it's really fun to couple it with like, the virtue floor where you go on a killing rampage when you hit your limit break, because then you've got a whole like, pathos kind of thing. When you come out of the fog, and you're like, Oh, my God, what have I done? And that's fun to me. But in terms of damage itself, it's a white is the white wall storyteller system. So you've got three different levels of damage, you've got bashing, lethal and aggravated. If you fill someone's damaged track entirely with bashing, they fall unconscious, and they're out of the fight. So you've got taken someone out of a fight just doing that, and it's very easy to create characters around that. Exalted has, I can't remember how many martial arts styles they have, but they have a couple of books. just relating around supernatural martial arts, like it's very heavily Wuju inspired. And yeah, pretty much all of them, you can just choose to do it with your fists, and then you're dealing bashing damage, you're not really hurting anyone, not to mention the plethora of social powers you have, like, one of the charms that Dreams has is allows him to just rewrite a societal belief, like, entered into a society. It's difficult for bigger groups of people. But like, up to a certain point, like suddenly like a city, or something like that, you can just say, Cool. I'm going to spend a bit of time working on this and you do like a stunt. Ask me about stunt mechanics in a bit. So you spend a couple of weeks wandering around sort of like talking to people about how how you think they should be, and you can just you can literally just make a roll and you're caught, right? That entire cities now you're firmly convinced that kale is evil, like it's very, very doable. And like, they've got the same for like, personal level interactions as well. It's got an entire social combat system. I gotta say, that is a power that I wish I had in real life. Yeah, yeah. Just to be able to turn around to a society and say, Hey, transphobia Yeah, we're not having that anymore. Right. Exactly. Like everyone's just like, Yeah, you're right. We're on board with that. Absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, it is not to be but Yeah, that's too bad, huh? So let's get into dreams. Details. You know, I talk about I asked people, you know, age, gender, sexuality. His gender is just a straight, he cis. Sexuality, he is incredibly fluid. Pansexual I would guess his age I specifically made him an older character. So at the point when he exalted he was probably in his 70s. I did that because for two reasons. Firstly, they're just nobody plays old adventurers, and it sucks. Yeah. I love the idea of playing old adventurers, like, some of the best characters I've ever created have been old. I had one guy who's got just he was the son of the God of death. And God, His God just wouldn't let him die. Because he was still youthful. And he was like, pushing 150 been around the block a stone age like he was a very old man. But like, he's got just won't let him die. Dreams. Exalted, which is when when they receive the solar essence, exalted at the age of in his 70s He'd had an entire life he had a family, kids, grandkids, great grandkids. He was originally from a nation called Halta, which is, they live in a really big forest. And when I say really big forest, I mean, like, if you gave redwoods steroids kind of forest it's. And they've been in eternal conflict with this other group called the Linowal nation who wants to cut down the forest basically. And they've been they've been fighting back and forth ever since. So he he lived a life he was mostly a trader, a merchant captain of an airship. And then, like he would go to war when when necessary. And he had had this long sort of like lovers to enemies to lovers to enemies, two lovers two enemies with an opposing captain from the Linowal nation, and they were in enemies phase. And they got into like a last battle, he basically got dragged out of retirement for one last job. So they fought and both airships got destroyed. He exalted as he fell, and survived because of the exploitation. The enemy captain didn't and died. And he just, he didn't feel satisfaction. He just felt hollow and empty afterwards, which kind of put him off the entire like Linowal Halta conflict. And now who was an exalted, like, getting away from the Wild Hunt and not bringing that down on his family became a very important thing to him. So I and his motivation at the start of the game is to go to a place called Great Forks, where there three gods have setup, rulership of a city. And they're all gods that are involved in stories and storytelling, and making things real through stories. That's a power you can have. Because exalted be like that. And so he's going to appeal to them for a story that will bring peace to Linowal and Halta. That's his primary motivation. The other thing is, there's this, there's this poem, and it's one of my favorite poems in the world. It's Ulysses by James Joyce, I think. And it's got this stanza in it that goes on. Death closes all but something ere the end, some work of noble note may yet be done, not unbecoming men who strove with gods. And I just I love that, because it's, it's Ulysses is his, in Ithaca. His comeback from the Odyssey is had this entire life in Ithaca, and now his old and all of his friends who survived the trip with him, are old as well, and he doesn't want to die in his bed. And so he's going out into the world for one last great adventure, and like departments before you even find out what it is. And I just I love that poem. And that idea of someone who's just older, but still worthy. Society really has a cut off point for people. In terms of age, particularly women, it's like over a certain age, you're not going to get anywhere in Hollywood. Men, it's a bit longer, but still not all that much unless you're particularly rich or connected. And so just the idea that, that even though he's old, he's still worthy. Of course, now he's a solar, like his lifespan is probably going to be about 2000 years. So the seventy years at the start is a bit like hmm. But like, like he had all that time to learn and grow. And I think, as a character, he probably needed that time, to become the kind of person that would go and do the things that dreams does. Because he approaches everything from a very mature moral point of view, where he doesn't act rashly. He sits back, well he can be rushed sometimes. His temperance is as low as one of his lower virtues. But he sits back and thinks about the problem before he rushes in to solve it. And ask himself the question, Am I actually the person to solve this problem? or would this have a better result if instead of fixing it for people, I just gave them a bit of a nudge to fix it and get themselves so he's subtle like that. That's interesting. So he starting off the story, he has family, he has roots. How would the exultation affect that does he still relate to his family is he's still a part of their lives. So I sort of had it written that he picked himself up, realized what he was, and then ran straight away. So his family just assumed he died in battle. So I'd set it up for a sort of like a comeback to Halta at some point after he'd either found the story that would solve it all worked out himself. And then he would come back, his family would see he's still alive. And he might have to reveal that he's an exalted. At that point, hopefully, he will be powerful enough, but the wild hunts not going to be too much of an issue. So they're still there, he doesn't have contact with them. But it grounds him knowing that they're there, and knowing that he's doing what he's doing to keep them safe, and to build a brighter future for all of his grandkids and great grandkids. And it will live long enough, hopefully to be around to see his great, great, great, great to the power of five grandkids kind of right. So it's sort of like a grounding thing for him that's always in the back of his mind. And it's a source of sadness, that he is away from them, but also a source of joy and that they they live and is making that possible by not being there. So you mentioned the Wild Hunt a couple of times. What is that? So the Wild Hunt is a group of used to be incredibly powerful terrestrial exalted, which dragon blooded with full legionary fighter support, they were their own military unit. They were very subtly steered by the sidereal exults to find soldiers just as they emerged, or even like before they emerge, so they were there at the very first moment. And then they would mercilessly hunt them down and kill them. In order to stop any of them gaining power at its peak, it was spread across all the four directions of creation, and was ruthlessly, brutally efficient at doing his job. If Dream were to stay where he became exalted, he would be close enough to his family that it would be putting them in danger? Yep the Wild Hunt doesn't discriminate in the slightest. So they operate on the religion of the realm is called the immaculate philosophy. And it holds that any exalted, that's not a dragon blooded, is anathema, and is a demon, a literal demon wearing a human skin. So if you give shelter to them, if you give a to them, even unknowingly, and that they know what soldiers can do. It's not just kill the anathema, compassionate leaders of the Wild Hunt will kill the anathema. The ruthless ones will kill the anathema and the entire village they found them. Hmm. See what I mean about dark? Yeah, well, that would not be great for Dream and his family. No, absolutely not. So do you think that if his family knew that he had become exalted? How do you think they would react? So the Halta Kingdom is in the threshold, which is an area of the realm where control is quite weak. Technically, all lands are ruled by the realm, but how much that actually works out in practice is another thing entirely. So the realm are very weak in that area, the immaculate philosophy has penetrated to an extent but not particularly far. They also do their own shady things like they keep wild mutated animals how to do so they're, that they're a bit shady in terms of the Immaculate philosophy, I think, I think his family will probably have. But even then, even without that, like the immaculate philosophy, most people in creation still believe that the solars are anathema. So I think his family probably would have disowned him at the very least, or driven him out. So I think maybe there's an element there that like he didn't want to find out which way they would go or put it on them to have to choose. Yeah, it's heartbreaking to be a solar you're you're the hated former tyrant of the world has been reborn into a body you don't really remember anything that

That's a little heartbreaking. you've done previously. And you're fighting to just stay alive from people that have like you know, from the moment you become one that you are not the thing that they say you are because you're not a demon, you're still you, but the entire world believes that you are a fundamental threat to it. So when the exultation happens, this kind of solar soul or essence it kind of is drawn into the person? Yes. So mechanically speaking. Anyone who receives an exultation would have previously been what's called a heroic mortal which is like a higher state of mortal as opposed to just like a normal person. So they were already would have been big damn heroes in their own right. And mechanically that would have been represented by the trait on your character sheet which would have been Destiny five you would have had five points in the Destiny background and at the moment, your exultation all that gets cropped out, because you're now solo, you forge your own destiny. So yeah, so it's like they call it the second breath. So it happens in very desperate situations or when you are to the point of almost self destruction embodying a principle of your divinity so strongly, that they they just can't ignore it. So Solars it tends to be when you're when you're fighting for your life or surviving something you shouldn't, or doing some act of great worthiness lunars it's when you survive survival against the odds is the core tenant of lunars. They're just incredible survivors. And sidereals It's a bit weird, because technically, they always know when a sidereal is going to exalt and who was the sidereal is going to be because they're the masters of fate. So they tend to like very subtly steer people to their exultation. So it's, it's a gentler process. Dragon blooded it kind of varies a bit by your caste, but generally it's when your emotion runs high is when a dragon blood will exalt. But dragon blooded expectations are different thing. Terrestrial exalts are genetic it's a bloodline, not an essence that comes to you still feels pretty amazing. And you become super powerful as a result of it. But it's not actually a sort of divine soul that enters you. Yeah, so but the the person that becomes exalted doesn't have memories from that soul doesn't feel that soul inhabiting them. So you don't feel the soul inhabiting you, per se, it just becomes a part of you. But you can have fragmentary memories, which is represented by a background called past lives, I think. And it's how much you reserve remember, of your previous lives. So a lot of them, if you have past lives, zero, you don't remember anything at all. Past Lives, one you'll remember big standout events. So maybe you'll remember like a party you went to, or the moment where the dragon blooded ran you through with his spear during the usurpation, and then like, all the way up to five, which you remember a lot of stuff, still not everything, but a lot of things. But it doesn't change who you are, fundamentally, I don't think like your personality, still your personality, it's just you've got all this extra stuff that you can access at times. Right. So let's talk a little bit about the choices that you made when you built this character mechanically. You've mentioned a lot of different you know, backgrounds and charms and all kinds of things. So maybe if you want to just go into that a little bit. Yeah, so exalted you start with your physical, your traits. So you've got physical, mental, social, and you've got strength dex and stamina. Appearance, manipulation, presence, wits, intelligence, and something else I can't remember dammit, I always forget one. So you've got those, you've got a certain number of points to allocate amongst those categories, bearing and category. So you've got eight, six, and four. So you your primary one, the one that your character is most focused on, you put eight in which four dreams is social, he's a very sociable person, your secondary one is the one you put the six in, and so dreams that he has his physical. And then mental is is the last one. You also then under that have abilities you've got custom favorite abilities. So you've got five abilities that are related to what your job is, as a solar exalted what your caste is. And then you've got five that you took a special interest in, and they can be from anywhere. And then you've got a whole plethora of other abilities, I think 25 All in all, and you allocate points into them, you've got 28 points to spend 10 of them have to be from your favorite or caste abilities. Then you get on to charms you buy whichever your supernatural powers, you buy them. You've got 10 to start with, and they have to be five of them have to be related to your caste's favored abilities. So it's sort of It specializes you from the gate. And then you get seven points of backgrounds five points of virtues, which is your sort of like Courage, temperance, compassion, and conviction. And you've got five points to allocate amongst those backgrounds is things like magic items, places of power, cult. Dreams has two points of cult just to represent the people that have like a is interacting with on his journey so far, and have sort of like offer up prayers for him. So that gives him like a little trickle of essence, which is what you spend to fuel your supernatural powers. And then you get number of bonus points, which are you get 15 of those, and you can spend them to buy extra charms, more essence, backgrounds, stats are abilities, you basically spend them to just boost a couple of things here or there. So Dreams is very heavily focused on the skills of performance and presence, which is your your ability to charm people. And your ability to tell stories, obviously, I think his highest skill is performance. And linking to that he's got powers that enable him to create illusionary sort of montages of the stories that he's telling, which give him a bonus. He's got one that stops people from being able to interrupt him. Yeah, he's got one which allows him to make people feel emotions as a result of storytelling. So like, if he's telling a story, and people are meant to be angry at that point in the story, you can make them feel anger. He's also got martial arts celestial monkey style, because it's a good all around martial art that like gets weirdly conceptual. And I like that. And it's focused on the idea is that it's a very reactive martial art. So it's you're focused on clearing your mind and just acting perfectly in the moment without forethought, or planning. That's sort of the core tenant of the celestial monkey style. But it gets really esoteric when it starts bringing in stuff around the virtues. And you can kick gods in the nuts with their own, with their own cowardice. There's even an artifact called godkicking boots, which is fun. And in terms of other charms, he's got the one that allows him to create a belief within a society. He's got one which gives him some extra health levels, because like you only get seven to start with unless you take that charm. And one that allows him to resist damage better, basically, a little bit tanky little bit martial, artsy, a lot bit social, like a very socially oriented character. When I think of other systems, I think about how something like a performance or telling a story would be resolved with a single ability and a single roll of the die. And I think it's interesting to me that Exalted has basically built in ways for your performance to be much more detailed. You have all these different abilities related to your storytelling. So things like how the audience reacts emotionally, or how your story is able to change the world and more concrete ways are all different aspects. And I think that's really interesting. Yes, so the instill belief in society comes off the socialized tree, which is all about dealing with very large groups of people and like Kingdom city level stuff. The performance tree is about dealing with crowds. And the presence tree is about dealing with individuals. So when you take all those three things together and combine them into one character, you get someone that's very very good at manipulating people and changing people's minds from right from the guy in the street up to the kingdom as a whole. And that's what I really wanted with Him is no slouch in combat he's perfectly combat capable he can kick the ass out of pretty much anyone that's not an exalted without even breaking a sweat. I wouldn't even if I were running him I wouldn't. I don't generally make people roll for fighting mortals because it's pointless because you're starting exalted is so beyond that level of power, though. It's like It's like asking a hurricane to roll to tear down a house. So he's, uh, but I focus very heavily on the social aspect because that was the story I wanted to tell with him more than anything. Exalted also has stunt dice, which is when you describe your action in a way that is cool. You get extra dice, for your roll. So if you just say, Oh, I I rolled a hit that's like zero stunt dice you don't get anything for that. If you say I hit him with my sword that's 1 point of stunt. Generally, if you say I sight my opponent, I assess him and come up with his weaknesses. And then I hit him in the perfect spot where it will do the most damage, that's generally a two points stunt. And then like a three point stunt is something that makes all the other players sit around the table like go, wow, that was awesome. And then you get three points for that. And you get extra dice, and you get some essence back as well. Yeah, so in the example of a performance or telling a story, that gives you an amazing opportunity to actually tell the story and be rewarded in the game for that. Yeah, it rewards you for roleplaying, essentially, for very good descriptions and for roleplay. So if I was sitting down as Dreams, and I was telling a story, and I did a good job of it, and boosted it with my charms, and I went through the story and told at least some of the story because no one's gonna sit there for like half an hour listening to a story you don't like like that, that'll screw up the game, but so long as you like, fairly concise about it. And like actually, even as you're describing it, like managed to throw in some lines here or there, that will probably earn you a decent stunt bonus as well. So your your resulting dice pool will be significantly bigger. So yeah, it's cool like that. Yeah, that's a, it's a very cool idea to me, you know, it's important that the game reward the kind of play that it you want to get out of it. I tend to also drag it into other games. So I've come up with various different ways of inserting a stunt system into various different games like in d&d, it's like a plus one plus two modifier or something like that, if you describe your action really well, or if you roleplay through it really well. And like, I tend to bring it into most games that run just because I really, I find it really encourages people to describe what they're doing. And that brings other people more into the story, because they can visualize it, they can imagine it, they can really get their teeth into the description of the scene. And not only that, but it allows players some kind of a little bit of narrative control of the same because like, you don't need to put everything in the environment for them to use, they can come up with their own. So like, oh, yeah, I kick up the chair, and I throw it at him. He was like, Cool i but apparently environment, but now you have awesome. It's that kind of it gives them a bit more control over the world around them. Write a little world building light. I know some players don't feel comfortable with that level of description. And that's, that's totally fine. But how comfortable are you with, you know, in this example that we were using, telling an actual story at the table. I've had mixed success. So I tend to be sort of a thinker. So if I've got enough time to sit down and think of the story I want to tell, then yeah, it's pretty I can do okay, if I'm just trying to come up with something really off the cuff, then it gets a bit. It can be a bit disjointed at times. Like I'm not perfect, so that's okay. I can live. So when dream became exalted, knowing he had to protect his family, knowing that he was going to be hunted. Why did he make the choice to combat that or to survive that with storytelling, rather than something like combat? Because he was never much of a fighter. In truth, like that was never really his focus. He could handle himself, okay. But it wasn't really his main thing. And sort of standing there over the broken body of his enemy and directorship. He just looked down in it and he saw the path that just the violence and bloodshed had led to I imagined, I've always imagined it was a very, very bloody battle with heavy losses on both sides. And he just, he got sick of it all. And what he found more important were the connections that he had made with that individual that was now before him, not as an enemy but as a friend and occasional lover. And so almost like telling their story became important to him. The story of the can be an end to bloodshed, because if they just got to the point where they had stayed in that mode then they never would have ended there. It's just the world and society kept bringing them back to being anonymous. And I imagine there were some personal issues as well. But it was kind of a defining moment for him when he just went, he was standing there amongst a wreck because all these airships and all these broken bodies, including someone that he found that he actually really did deeply care about. In both ways, like good and bad. And he just thought, what was this all for? There's a lot of stories that are told where something like that happens. And the character's response is not to seek out a way to end conflict, but in fact, to pursue conflict to seek vengeance. And I think it's very poignant, the way that you've set up Dream, and that I don't think that there's any way to end conflict or to find peace, without telling the stories of loss. Yeah, absolutely. And the people that know loss, most intimately, those best place to tell those stories in general, yeah. They have an authenticity to their voice and their knowledge, that allows them to tell stories that are about peace and hope, in a way that someone who has only ever experienced peace and hope doesn't. And that is a incredibly powerful thing when they use it for that. Right. I think, you know, for me, I'm personally, you know, haven't been in any situation like that. I haven't experienced that kind of great loss. But role playing has given me an opportunity to explore that through the lens of a character. How do you feel about that kind of opportunity? Is it is it something that you are consciously looking for? How best to phrase this? Roleplay is a fantastic tool for exploring stories, and exploring people and figuring stuff out for yourself. And to play a someone that has experienced like, take the the standard, edgy rogue backstory, 90% of people that play edgy rogues are not orphans, and have not lost their parents to the big bad evil guy. But then put themselves in those, those shoes, and they imagine it and they imagine the pain and the suffering and the heart ache, and they imagine what that does to a person. And I think that as tools to explore those kinds of stories. Roleplay can be a good vehicle for it. And it can be a fun way of doing it that doesn't. That doesn't expose your actual self to any particular risk. You know, like role play is exploration of self but one step removed. And I think that's all fine and dandy. I think, however, there will always be nuance and shades of understanding, and that people will miss that we won't find in those stories, because we just we simply haven't lived through it. So exploring something that like that, I think can be done with sensitivity and like respect for the people around the table, obviously. But it will never be a true reflection. And quite frankly, I'm okay with that. Reading a book about the horrors of war is not experiencing the horrors of war. And that is a good thing. Like the fact that 90% or however many percent of people in the world will not experience significant, violent conflict between armed forces in their life is genuinely a good thing. The remaining percentage is something we really need to work on and fix and stop from happening. But there will always be bits that are missed. Because it's like somebody writing about ethnic experience that's not their own. They will never really capture it fully. Right. I don't know how light hearted this character would end up being in the midst of a campaign, but it sounds like a pretty sad way to start. Do you enjoy telling sad stories? And if so, why?

Do you see my TikTok? So that's a lot of what I do. I don't enjoy telling specifically sad stories. I like telling stories that resonate emotionally. Whether that's good or bad. TikTok, however, only likes me for one thing. So under sadboy and d&d tiktok, and I accept it. Whenever I've tried in the past to do videos that are like, his plot make players happy, like it never goes down very well. So I like to think that my audience is mostly like, people who would be really into like My Chemical Romance. And it's just, I, I think a lot of my followers are emo. And that's fine. I love that. So I like telling stories that resonate emotionally like, one of my favorite moments was when I made a player cry while I was describing their wedding. And that was, that was beautiful. And it was great moment. And it was their wedding. It wasn't even a particular story thing. It was just like, as we were going through the game. And it was it was a beautiful moment. Their God was actually dead. But like, they'd left a memory, there was a whole thing. But like they cried, and that was nice. And it was good tears. It was happy tears. So I just I like telling stories that make people feel, because that's what I read stories for. I've read stories to feel things. And I listened to stories to feel things and I watch stories to feel things I don't. And that's, that's very much where I'm coming from. I'm very emotionally driven. haven't always been, but I spent, like the first 22 odd years of my life trying to pretend I didn't have emotions, and suppress them as much as possible. So being able to sort of cut loose with them now. 14 years on is a blessing. And I revel in it and I enjoy it. Do you have children or no? Yeah, I've got two kids. My youngest is six and my oldest is nine. Yeah, I have a five year old. And it's so strange to me that after he was born, it was almost as if the moment he was born. I became like, I became a different person. And not just because I became a parent, but because suddenly everything that I was feeling was so close to the surface. It was like all of like you were saying, just being kind of bottled up and not expressing those emotions. And it just became this point where I just couldn't do that anymore. Absolutely. The night we got my daughter home from hospital because my son is technically my stepson, I guess, but it's my son but I wasn't around when he was born basically. The night we got my daughter, my youngest home from hospital they were born on Bonfire Night, which over here is a night with like lots of fireworks and bonfires and stuff. And so I walked out of hospital, leaving my partner there for the night. And there were fireworks going off everywhere. And then we got my daughter home the next day. And it it had been a long nine months. It hadn't been the easiest pregnancy in the world have been some, some scares and some, you know truly terrifying moments and a lot of stress. I had lost so much weight. I was basically a skeleton. And it had just been a very, very stressful time and then like kid was born. We then got like sort of unceremoniously tossed out of hospital less than 24 hours later to free up a bed which was fine, everyone's fine healthy it wasn't a problem but like it was then got home. New Baby they're asleep in their little car seat sitting on the sofa in the house. First time just just us. No real support structures or anything. It's like people just expect parents to Just be good parents, it's like they taught your kid I can give you some generic advice and like you'll figure it out. And it was just, it was this moment where there was so many conflicting emotions running through me there was terror. And there was fear and there was anxiety but there was joy and there was love and and so much love. And just all these conflicting positive and negative emotions just running through me that I just burst into tears on the sofa. And my partner had just given birth late, like 22 hours ago something like giving me a hug and trying to console me and just like I always knew floodgates were open just absolute couldn't stop crying for like 10-15 minutes. It was just the most overwhelming experience of my life. And like you said, it's it's transformational. It it changes who you are as a person and you just you end up reassessing everything in a completely new light is now defined by your relationship to this tiny little thing that can't even burp without vomiting and and suddenly, just you the center of your world changes and you become a whole different person because of it. It's it's a process.

I know this is a bit of a tangent, but yeah, that was just what it made me think of.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And like getting back I mean, same for Dreams like he would have gone through because he's older, he would have gone through multiple stages of that like the birth of his kids, the birth of his grandkids holding his grandkids in his arms for his first time. It's marriage falling apart, second, marriage, friends, enemies, lovers, all these big important life events and then and he'd learned how to deal with all of those and had moved through all of those so he was well placed when the exhortation came and completely rewrote his entire life once again to sort of like roll with that particular punch and it's not like exultation is subtle either like you can't not notice it. Nobody was like mechanics wise no one within 20 miles can fail to notice it because for so exalted, the night becomes day, glow that brightly you are a sun for for about 10 miles. You also get like a big iconic, what's called an anima banner. I know like you get a big image appear behind you. I've actually written out a description of a short description dreams if you want that.

I would love to hear it. Yeah.

A golden tree spreading its roots down to the depths of the earth and raising its crown towards the sky, raining golden petals inscribed with prayers that disappear before they hit the ground. As you look at it, the bark shifts and swells into words that without judgment, and with infinite mercy, tell the story of your life.

Oh, wow. That's beautiful. Thank you.

And that is dreams' Anima banner, that's what happens when he spends so much an essence that he can't hide that he is doing supernatural stuff, he gets that that's the highest level of it. Your anima has certain effects as well. So present if they can touch their bodies and render them into ash, like actually dead bodies. And they do extra damage against demons and undead and creatures of darkness. It's a legal term in exalted, you can legally be specified as a creature of darkness. It's not just like. And I always imagined that, like, the reason why he's doing that extra damage against them now and ignoring some of their defenses is because they're reading the story of their lives in his anima banner. And he's not judging them. And he's not angry at them. And if anything, he pities them, and it forces them to see themselves as the broken things.

Hmm, that's interesting that he's revealing kind of his true nature and that reveal actually helps other people kind of reveal or understand better their own selves.

Well, that's what a good story does, isn't it? It's like you read you read a good story and like, you get really into it, but then you start asking questions like what if that were me? What does the fact that I like this bit say about me? What does the fact that that bit really put me awful really terrified me, say about me? Like how how do I relate to this narrative? And in doing so, we we learn about ourselves?

Dreams of a light reborn Do you believe in destiny?

The story is true. The ones was a farmer, his crop was destroyed by the winds. And his family barely survived the year. And in springtime, he went home planted again. And again come harvest, his crop was destroyed by the winds. And his family had an even harder time. In the third year, he planted his crop once more, and the winds came and destroyed everything and his family were in despair. And he cried out to the gods saying, Why have you ordained this for me? Why is this my fate to be eternally hungry, and watch my family stop? And the gods replied, It is not your fate to be hungry. It is your fate to strive, plant again. And in the fourth year, he planted his crops, and the most abundant meals came from that and he fed people not just in his family, but for miles around. Wow. I felt that one. Definitely weaving a story there. That's yeah, that's beautiful. It felt very dreams. And it's like dreams. Technically, in exalted destiny is a thing that exists, like there is a great weave of fate. But dreams is very much of the opinion that striving to overcome it. And striving against the pattern that set for you, is kind of how you should live your life. He won't get on with sidereals when he encounters them.

All right, Plot doc, thank you so much for talking to us about dreams.

Thank you for having me.

Of course. I'm so excited that we got to have this conversation. I feel like we had some really interesting profound things to talk about.

Yeah, thank you very much and absolutely the same.

How can people find you?

My primary social media is tiktok. I'm Plot Doctor, you can find me on pretty much any other social media platform. Twitter is plot doctor. YouTube is the plot doctor, I think. And I'm setting up an Instagram at the moment. So yeah, so that's how to find me on social media in terms of projects I've got going on, hopefully come February I'm going to be kickstarting for a zine of micro RPGs, which would be quite interesting. And I've got some books that I want to write. And yeah, that's that's what I got going on at the moment. So all off for the future, but watch this.

Well, I will put the links to all of those social media on the description for the episode. Thank you. And I'm really excited to see the zine I'm a big fan of zines and also micro RPGs. You can find me on Tik Tok at Starmamac, that's S T A R M A M A C. You can also listen on YouTube, just search for characters without stories or follow the link in the description. Please like subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends. I'm just starting out and I can't adequately express how much it means to me that you've given me some of your valuable and limited time. Thank you. If you'd like me to send you a free button, email me at characterswithoutstories@gmail.com With your address and something you like about the podcast. I I want to give a special shout out this week to Greg, who goes by teatime RPG on Tiktok for leaving a review of the podcast thanks for the review, Greg. If you want to be like Greg and get a shout out on the show, you can leave a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. I'm currently accepting submissions, particularly for non d&d characters. So if you'd like to share your character, you can go to the submission form at characters without stories.com. Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories