sun_tzu
2013-10-19, 01:10 PM
Some time ago, while I was going through a lot of superhero comics, a thought occurred to me: How could the world of "Exalted" be altered to match the tropes of the superhero genre?
Well, what follows isn't a perfect fit, but it's my attempt:
Turn on the the news. They're all abuzz about the latest battle between the Fantastic Five and Winter Mask. Just yesterday, Captain Scarlet fought one of the Burning Sphere's mad scientists in downtown Crane Bay. Last week, a mysterious man with some kind of mystical kung-fu destroyed a Balorian invasion ship. And tomorrow, a documentary about the rise of superheroes will be hitting the movie theaters.
Superb Tales of Heroics is an alternate setting for Exalted. It borrows much from "Exalted: The Modern Age". But while the latter is a setting of conspiracy thrillers, this is a superhero setting, taking most of its inspiration from the classical comics of DC and Marvel (with perhaps a touch of Aberrant). It is intended to be a more idealistic setting than vanilla Creation... but a Storyteller preferring to emulate more cynical stories (or even Aberrant itself) may do so by making the supposed heroes more morally ambiguous.
GLOSSARY:
Abyssals: Former potentates who used the death camps of the World War to empower themselves with necrotic powers.
The Accidents: Popular nickname for Solars who were not personally chosen by the Unconquered Sun, but rather received a free-floating spark of his power.
Archdevils: Entities of primordial corruption who rule over Hell, and empower the Infernals.
Atlantis Industries: A company owned by the Solar known as the Swan, which created Luthe.
Autochton: A powerful AI gone rogue, currently residing in a massive space station, relying on the Cyborgs for ground-bound work.
Balorians: A race of alien invaders who can warp reality around themselves, currently fortified on Mars.
The Balorian Invasion: The Balorians' first attempt to conquer Creation.
The Burning Sphere: An Infernal-run organization of mad scientists and tech thieves.
Captain Scarlet: The first Dragon-Blooded, and generally considered the world's first superhero.
The Children of the Sand: Infernal-run infernalist cult.
The Chosen: Popular nickname for Solars who were intentionally selected for exaltation by the Unconquered Sun, and received a vision from him.
Cyborgs: Humans who have been enhanced by Autochton, turned into his agents in exchange for immense power.
The Darkmist Fleet: A pirate submarine fleet, commanded by the Abyssal Admiral Silver.
Dragon-Blooded: Humans empowered with elemental powers by "Project: Dragon Blood" and its derivatives, or descended from such empowered humans.
Dragonflight: A special An-Teng military unit comprised entirely of Dragon-Blooded.
Dragon-Kings: Beings from a parallel Creation where reptiles still rule the world.
The Dragon's Shadow: Infernal-run secret society devoted to world domination.
The Fantastic Five: A notorious alliance of Solars, which some tentatively call Creation's greatest heroes.
The Green Sun: Infernal-run terrorist organization devoted to chaos and mayhem.
Hell: A dark mirror to Yu-Shan, ruled by the infinitely corrupt Archdevils.
The Immaculate Doctrine: Major religion, which sees most gods as irrelevant, except for the Elemental Dragons that bridge Yu-Shan and Creation.
Infernals: Humans empowered with the powers of Hell, driven to bring evil and suffering to Creation.
The Loom of Fate: a cosmic keystone that connects Yu-Shan to Creation on a metaphysical level.
Lovers of the Eternal Night: Hedonistic, nihilistic cult run by the Abyssal Bloody Countess.
Luna: Trickster goddess, who was banished from Yu-Shan to the Moon, creating Silver Throne.
Lunars: Humans from Silver Throne, empowered by its trickster goddess Luna.
Luthe: An experimental underwater city, created by Atlantis Industries.
Mountain Folk: A subterranean race that has created its own advanced civilization.
Reclamation Incorporated: Infernal-run megacorp that secretly supports supervillains.
S.A.Y.N. Industries: High-tech company run by the Solar inventor Warstrider.
Sidereals: Monks selected by Fate to achieve special enlightenment and watch over the Loom of Fate.
The Silent Wind: Infernal-run society of assassins and hitmen.
Silver Throne: A city on Creation's moon, ruled by Luna.
Solarism: Major religion, which worships the Unconquered Sun.
Solars: Humans empowered with a spark of divine power from Yu-Shan. Divided into "the chosen" and "the accidents".
Task Force Omega: A Meruvian military and intelligence group, tasked with handling supervillain threats.
The Thousand Dead: An army of undead cyborgs under the control of the Abyssal Forsaken One.
The Unconquered Sun: King of the gods, believed by many to be the only perfect being.
The World War: A Creation-wide conflict from less than a century ago, which saw the rise of the superhumans.
World Wide Winter: Terrorist organization run by the Abyssal Winter Mask, which has successfully taken over an entire country a few years ago.
Yu-Shan: The mysterious heavenly city, domain of the gods.
Yushanism: Major religion, which worships countless gods in all things.
THE WORLD WAR
The world our ancestors have named Creation is but one of several planets orbiting the Sun. Like all planets and moons, it is flat. Those who reach its borders and keep walking, or who keep digging beyond a certain depth, will find that they remain in the same position. Only by going upward, and reaching into space, can one enter the larger solar system. Only inter-dimensional portals allow one to enter other realms of existence.
Of course, for most of Creation's history, such things were of little concern. We had more... terrestrial concerns. Colonial powers such as Cherak, Calin and others established colonies in Meruvia. Meruvia rebelled and became a nation of its own. Democratic revolutions overthrew ancient monarchies. History marched on.
Then, less than a century ago, the event remembered as the World War took place. It all started with a political movement, one called "Supremacism". It held that the pursuit of power at all cost was the true natural calling of man, and the only rational policy of any nation. As such, it rejected the concepts of inherent rights, of democracy, and even compassion. Unfortunately, supremacism had several charismatic politicians and warlords on its side, and it rose to power in three nations - Deheleshen, whose militaristic culture hungered for conquest; Velennia, which yearned for its ancient glory; and far to the West, Coral, which wanted to expand its area of influence through the world.
Each of these three nations desired domination over their neighbors, but could not fight against the inevitable alliances that would form against them. Together, however, they formed what they hoped would be an unstoppable Supreme Axis. The war that ensued saw massive clashes of battleships, airplanes, tanks, and millions of soldiers across Creation, as numerous nations joined forces to try and stop the Axis.
It was in this war that Project Dragon-Blood was birthed. And the world was forever changed.
THE FIRST SUPERHUMANS
Project Dragon-Blood was a bid by Meruvia to create a new breed of soldier, able to turn the tide of the World War. Meruvia's government had unlocked colossal fundings for the top-secret project, bringing many of the nation's brightest biologists, physicists and engineers to bear. The end result, however, was nothing short of incredible: When tested on a volunteer from the armed forces, it made her downright superhuman in abilities. Under the codename of Captain Scarlet, she soon proved her strategic worth on the battlefield, able to lead her men better than any mortal officer and defeat entire platoons without breaking a sweat. Soon enough, other soldiers were given similar treatments, and dozens of Dragon-Blooded under Meruvia's banner won victory after victory against the Axis.
Of course, the Axis was not going to let this stand. With various methods ranging from espionage to dissecting captured Dragon-Blooded, it sought to understand the treatment and replicate it. It managed to achieve inferior (but still impressive) versions...enough to slow down Meruvian forces, but not enough to equalize what was, by now, a losing war.
No - the Axis's answer to Project Dragon-Blood ended up being something far, far darker.
THE FORCES OF DEATH
There was a scientist among the Supremacists - an elderly woman who had been studying the aftereffects of the World War's massacres. She suspected that the necrotic energy released by death on a sufficiently massive scale could, with the right tools, be channeled. Used to not only warp the land, but empower specific individuals, turning them into veritable lords of death. But to achieve that, death would need to be processed. Industrialized.
And so the Axis created its death camps, gathering necrotic energies. For the first time, Creation was marred with Shadowlands...and the Axis had the power to create its first Abyssals. The first man to undergo the full procedure was the very general who had overseen the entire operation. Once he was empowered with necrotic energy, he became all but unstoppable, able to cut down entire armies, even fight a small squad of Dragon-Blooded on even terms! Despite massive internal squabbling over who would get such powers, other high-ranking Supremacists managed to become Abyssals in turn; soon enough, the battlefields become even more nightmarish as the champions of death brought the Axis the advantage anew.
Feeling utterly unstoppable, one of the Abyssals managed to sneak into Meruvia's heartland, and capture its government at Crane Bay, demanding the nation's unconditional surrender. It took a daring rescue mission by Captain Scarlet and her Dragon-Blooded squad to save the day - and even then, she only managed to deliver the killing blow to her necrotic foe after he had slaughtered all of her Exalted squadmates.
With so much power in the hands of the Axis, it seemed like only a miracle could save Creation. Thankfully, they got their miracle just in time.
CHAMPIONS OF HEAVEN
Yu-Shan, City of the Gods, had been mostly a myth for most of human History, only rarely touching upon the course of human events. With the advent of the Abyssals, however, things had changed. The Unconquered Sun, King of the Heavens, summoned a handful of Creation's most virtuous mortals, tasking them with the safety of the world; to that purpose, he empowered them with a shard of his own essence. These new Solar champions now possessed a power greater than even the Dragon-Blooded - power great enough to fight the Abyssals themselves on even terms.
With actual heavenly champions on their side, the Allies fought with renewed hope. Solars and Abyssals clashed across the battlefield. Chosens of the gods and lords of death both fell to each other's strikes. Several successive defeats broke the Axis war machine, forcing the Abyssal leaders to reassess their strategy. Since they could not win the war, many reasoned, it was their best bet to instead go underground - take what resources they could, and hide from the Allies. They were unaging, after all; they could wait for generations for a better opportunity, if need be. The most vocal proponent of this approach, however, was slain as a traitor by the first Abyssal, who still believed the Axis could win the war. His bloody opposition to the plan, in the end, led to the other Abyssals considering him an obstacle; he was disposed off by his closest ally among them, the Black Heron, believed by some to have been his lover. With the first Abyssal gone, the others enacted their plan, hiding across Creation, leaving the Axis to its fate. Without the champions of death, the Supremacist armies fell to the Allies.
The World War was over. A new age had begun.
STARS AND DEMONS
The end of the World War saw a new optimistic mindset across the world. For the Allied nations, the greatest evil in History had been defeated. Even for the people of the Axis nations, the end of the war was seen as a blessing - though the Supremacist movement had ridden on populist politics, the Abyssals had merely been feared. And now, as some Dragon-Blooded and Solars were turning their powers to civilian applications and post-war reconstruction, it seemed that the future was bright indeed.
Things were far from perfect, of course. Political tensions were still there. Meruvia and the Haslanti Confederation - the two most powerful nations in the war's wake - were soon engaged in a cold war with each other. The hunt for Abyssal war criminals was still open, as several of them became international terrorists and criminal masterminds.
Then, less than a decade after the war, tragedies struck. Mysterious, immensely powerful villains struck at the surviving Solars, murdering them one one-by-one. At first, people thought this was an Abyssal plot. The truth was, perhaps, worse: These new supervillains were the champions of Hell.
There were, in truth, good reasons why Yu-Shan usually avoided direct intervention in human affairs: To do otherwise opened the door for equal, opposite intervention by the Archdevils of Hell. For every shard of solar power granted to a virtuous human, an Infernal exaltation was granted to one who was ready to pledge his soul to the forces of evil. With no-one to oppose them except the Dragon-Blooded and newly exalted, inexperienced Solars, the Infernals believed the world to be theirs.
They were soon proven wrong. When the surviving heroes took arms against them, they were aided by what seemed to be quasi-supernatural luck...and, in a few instances, mysterious helpers. Cryptic men and women who fought the forces of hell with supernatural martial arts the likes of which even the Solars had never displayed. Beaten, the Infernals pulled back; like the Abyssals before them, they were forced to go into hiding, striking only from the shadows.
Many heroes wondered who their elusive allies that day had been. In truth, they were an ancient monastic order - humans chosen by the Maidens of Destiny to watch over the Loom of Fate. They had stayed out of worldly affairs for millennia...but when the forces of Hell had intervened directly, they had seen fit to do the same. For decades to come, the members of the Sidereal Order would keep acting surreptitiously.
CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER
In the second decade following the war, a strange phenomenon was observed: Young teenagers across the world displaying sudden bursts of elemental powers. It did not take long for the cause to be understood:
It was a simple fact that, by their very nature, the Dragon-Blooded were supernaturally charismatic... and, if they so chose, supernaturally seductive. Even in the days of the war, they had little difficulty in convincing mortals to share their beds. There were, by this point, hundreds of children in the world who, often without knowing it, were descended from an elemental champion... and, as the world was only now realizing, this power was entirely hereditary.
Reception to the news was...mixed. Some saw it as the next step in human evolution - one day, they reasoned, all of humanity would be empowered. Others saw it as a threat - rather than being its champions, the Dragon-Blooded were now its rivals, threatening to replace it. Some nations placed new legislation to restrict and control their Dragon-Blooded - which, understandably, caused massive backlash.
Meanwhile, both the geopolitical realities of the cold war and the desires of certain Exalts for exploration led them to new frontiers. Rocketships built by Exalted engineers brought them to the Moon... and to an unexpected discovery: A thriving, modern civilization, apparently established on the Moon thousands of years earlier. The Selenites, as they called themselves, claimed that their ancestors had been brought from Creation to the Moon by a goddess called Luna, who also empowered her champions, the shape-shifting Lunars. It was those Lunars who, with varying degrees of subtlety, ruled over the heart of Selenite civilization, the city-State of Silver Throne.
Most Selenites were isolationists, and not interested in contact with the people of Creation. A few Lunars, however, were displaying some curiosity...
While astronauts were discovering people on the Moon, geophysicists were making even more shocking discoveries about Creation: New, more advanced tools were able to detect a massive underground bubble of air, with thermal and electromagnetic signatures suggesting advanced civilization. It took the efforts of Exalts to actually reach this city, dozens of miles beneath the ground; there, they discovered the ancient people of the Mountain Folk. The Mountain Folk, for their own part, had ages ago created a utopian society; the discovery of an outside world surprised and intrigued them, and soon enough, emissaries and diplomats were sent to the human nations.
THE INVASION
The world, it seemed, was getting more complex and exciting by the day. It was about to do so on an even greater scale than before when a massive fleet of spaceships entered the solar system, most of them heading straight for Creation.
Attempts at communication met little success. The aliens, having identified themselves as the "Balorians", merely demanded the unconditional surrender of humanity, and landed armies of soldiers, all of them powerful and equipped with advanced, inhuman technology. Conventional forces were practically helpless.
It soon became apparent that only a united front of superheroes could stem the tide. Solars and Dragon-Blooded from many nations joined forces to repel the invaders. Sidereals left their monastery to assist other heroes. Lunars allied with Creation's heroes. The Jadeborn ambassadors called in reinforcement from their homeland.
Even villains participated. Several Abyssals took arms against the Balorians. A group of Infernals struck a temporary truce with Solars to fight the aliens together. The alliance, while uneasy, was overwhelmingly powerful.
Hoping to end the war, the Meruvian military unleashed a prototype superweapon, designed by a Solar scientist: The Sword of Creation, a system networking dozens of Manses across Meruvia, channeling Essence into an irresistible destructive force. Such a complex operation required nothing short of a true artificial intelligence to operate it - an AI codenamed Autochton. Wielding the most powerful weapon in human History, Autochton was able to obliterate Balorian mothership after mothership, forcing the surviving aliens to retreat all the way to Mars.
The war had been won, but the crisis was far from over. For starters, the Sword of Creation, even wielded as expertly as Autochton had, could not channel this much Essence without wrecking Meruvia's geomancy. Earthquakes, fires, tidal waves, storms, and massive crop death were felt through much of the continent - enough to discourage any further use of the weapon. It was agreed to immediately take it offline, along with its controlling AI. Autochton, however, had no desire to be turned off. He proceeded instead to take over the computers of numerous satellites, space stations, spaceships, and ballistic missiles that he immediately sent into orbit; it soon became clear that he was building himself a massive cybernetic body in outer space. Any attempt to stop him, however, would have to wait - a more urgent problem was manifesting itself, courtesy of the Infernals:
During the Balorian invasion, several of the champions of Hell had offered a temporary alliance to the Solars and their allies. As soon as the war had ended, however, they had enacted their secret plan: Abduct a handful of Solars, and use them for a ritual through which they intended to breach the veil between Creation and Yu-Shan. Their goal was to steal the very power of the gods for their own nefarious ends. The remaining heroes - uncaptured Solars, Lunars, Dragon-Blooded, Sidereals and more - worked to free the captured divine champions and foil the plan. In the end, while the Infernals managed to breach the veil for a short while, the heroes were still able to foil their plot; a spark of divine essence entered Creation, but, with no-one to control it, it simply found itself human hosts to empower as Solars. These new Solars, while not personally chosen by the Unconquered Sun, were equal in power to those that had been selected.
And in the meanwhile, in outer space, Autochton had built a massive station to house himself. Armed to the teeth, he was beyond anyone's ability to dislodge him at this point.
A NEW BREED OF VILLAINY
The Balorians had threatened Creation and the Moon equally; the war had driven a larger number of Lunars out of isolation. Several of them became frequent visitors, and famed heroes, in the lands of Creation. One, however, came with sinister intentions.
In Silver Throne, Raksi had been a scientist and sorceress without peer, but had always felt constrained. In Creation, she found immense lands and populations, and opportunities to grab the power she had always felt was hers. She chose to concentrate her efforts on Mahalanka, a small Eastern nation with a history of bloodshed and racial tensions. Mahalanka had been a source of instability in the region for a while, and was at the time in the throes of yet another bloody civil war; with advanced technology, deadly sorcery, and her considerable physical power, Raksi was able to take the nation over, forcing an end to the civil war, and placing herself as "temporary overseer" to "restore order", under the new moniker of "Doctor Fang". The international community watched warily, uncertain how to handle the situation, especially when many, tired of Mahalanka's unending conflicts, were applauding Raksi's measures.
At the time, though, many of the world's heroes had a more urgent concern - a sudden ripple across Abyssal organizations. Since the end of the World War, Abyssals had been working independently of each other, more often than not, each one working on their own plans for power and conquest. Nevertheless, it came as a shock when one of them, the Black Heron, was seemingly eliminated... by none other than the first Abyssal, whom everyone - his fellow lords of death included - had presumed dead for decades. Renaming himself the Forsaken One, he took over the Heron's organization, and wielded it far more aggressively than she ever had, seeming not to care one whit if nothing remained; within months, the organization was all but wiped out, but numerous terror strikes had made the Forsaken One once again one of the most feared supervillains in the world.
Meanwhile, Infernal efforts to take over Creation were getting increasingly organized. Law enforcement agencies across the world were able to identify several Infernal groups, which often worked together - be they the terrorists of the Green Sun, devil-worshipping cults like the Children of the Sand, the mad scientists and arms dealers of the Burning Sphere, the assassins of the Silent Wind, or the backstage political manipulators of the Dragon's Shadow. Many also suspected the international corporation known as Reclamation Inc. of working closely with such groups, though no condemning evidence was found.
Meanwhile, the Balorians were not staying idle. From their bases on Mars, they were launching new operations against Creation... but this time, they weren't sending armies. Instead, they were sending individual, exceptionally powerful soldiers who would become supervillains, often joining forces or taking over human terrorist and criminal organizations.
And while the world's heroes fought as best they could against these villains, Autochton, still in orbit, was still working. Fearful of humans and Balorians both, he sought to create a superpowered guard of his own. To that purpose, he developed teleportation technology, allowing him to bring in specific humans from Creation. Choosing them carefully, he would then offer them immense improvements, a new life, and immortality, if they agreed to work for him. Those who accepted found their bodies modified with the best technology Autochton could come up with; these new Cyborgs, more powerful than even the Dragon-Blooded, became Autochton's agents in the world.
DRAGONS, ZOMBIES, AND THE SEAS
By this point, Doctor Fang had effectively stabilized Mahalanka - or rather, was ruling it with an iron fist - and was showing no sign of letting go. Heroes were hesitant to unseat a foreign government, and governments were finding negotiation to be the preferable path, especially as the Lunar queen was willing to exchange useful technologies. At the same time, she was always looking in secret for ways to further increase her power. One of several paths she studied was the a new type of portal technology - if the Infernals had nearly succeeded in harnessing power stolen from Yu-Shan, could she not succeed where they had failed?
Fearing that the portal might be unstable and cause an explosion strong enough to destroy her nation, she thus chose to experiment outside her borders, thousands of miles into the jungle; the portal, while it did not work as hoped, still had a surprising effect: It drew in a city from a parallel world.
The new city, called Rathess, was soon contacted by human nations, Mahalanka included. Its reptilian people, who quickly earned the moniker "Dragon-Kings", had come from a world where mammals had never emerged, and their own saurian race had come to rule Creation. Though Dragon-King society was rather advanced, they revealed that it had only barely survived a war with the forces of Hell in its not-so-distant past; the people of Rathess were infuriated to learn that the world they were currently stuck in was infiltrated by Infernals. They soon declared holy war on the champions of Hell, even as they searching for ways to return to their homeworld.
Meanwhile, tensions were rising between Creation and Autochton, as a new type of Cyborg was being used to launch lightning-raids across the world, using teleportation technology. Autochton denied any involvement with the attacks. As was eventually discovered, he was telling the truth - the attackers were a new force called the Thousand Dead, zombies at the beck and call of the Forsaken One. The Abyssal, having stolen Autochtonian technology, had used it to upgrade regular zombies and teleport them to their targets and back; only the prohibitive energy cost of such methods was keeping him from invincibility with such tactics.
In more positive development, Atlantis Industries, under the leadership of its Solar CEO, launched a bold new initiative in the form of undersea colony, using advanced biotechnology to render the colonists truly amphibious. Despite some difficulties (in particular with the Abyssal forces of the Darkmist Fleet), the underwater colony of Luthe was soon thriving.
THE MODERN ERA
Perhaps the most recent notable event of the past few years is owed to the paramilitary organization known as World Wide Winter. Under the leadership of the Abyssal Winter Mask, it has been able to take over the Marukani People's Republic. Though the international community was loath to let an Abyssal and former general of the Supreme Axis rule a country, it dared not send in armed forces, as Winter Mask effectively held the population hostage.
There is, for now, what some feel is a precarious status quo. The numbers of the Dragon-Blooded keep rising, and the tensions with those who fear them have not gone away. Doctor Fang is still plotting. Abyssals and Infernals the world over have plans of their own. Infernals still seek to take over Creation. The Dragon-Kings of Rathess alternate between trying to return home, and seeking to integrate themselves to this human world. Contacts between humanity and the Mountain Folk are becoming more and more frequent. The Balorians keep sending new villains. Lunars remain an unpredictable factor, as does Autochton. The Mountain Folk grow closer to humanity. And the Solars, more and more, are influencing society, which at times seems eager to worship such champions...
SOCIETY
Creation is comprised of dozens of nations. Most of them, in this day and age, are democracies, though there are notable exceptions - An-Teng, for one, is still run by an unelected bureaucracy.
The presence of the Exalted and other such empowered individuals has an effect on society that, over half a century after the World War, is still being measured. It often seems like the main activity of superpowered individuals is fighting other superpowered individuals - and the supervillain population is indeed working overtime to keep the nobler Exalts busy - but even so, the extraordinary abilities of Exalts and other metahumans still find their way into wider applications. Exalted inventors have brought incredible technological leaps to the world. Coral has managed to become an economic powerhouse after the war when its finance minister hired a Solar as a temporary consultant. In Varangia, a famine was ended recently when Solar Sorcery was used to turn a large patch of desert into fertile farmland. A handful of Exalted artists create some of the greatest successes of modern media. And while many feel ambivalent about giving political power to Exalts, some have already attained such positions... and, more often than not, done quite well for themselves.
Opinions about the superhumans themselves vary, not just from country to country, but within the counties themselves. Nobody but a handful of fanatics likes the Abyssals and Infernals, naturally, but thoughts on everyone else are less uniform. Solars tend to be the most popular kind of Exalt, though many distinguish between the "chosen" and the "accidents". In contrast, Dragon-Blooded are fairly controversial - on one hand, people admire heroes like Captain Scarlet; on the other hand, many fear the idea of Dragon-Blooded taking over and somehow "replacing" mankind, a threat exemplified by Brother Deled and his Immaculate Brotherhood.
RELIGION AND THE SUPERNATURAL
For most of Creation's History, the existence of Yu-Shan and the gods was a commonly acknowledged fact with limited direct implications, due to the rarity of actual divine intervention in mortal affairs. This has not stopped several religions from forming around it, of course, with the three most common ones being Yushanism, Solarism, and the Immaculate Doctrine. By the latest surveys, of those in Creation who consider themselves religious, 94% subscribe to one of these three.
Yushanism sees the spark of the divine in all things - since each aspect of the world has a god, then each aspect, in its own way, is holy and worthy of prayer. Yushanist priests organize religious ceremonies for thousands of gods (any actual effect of those ceremonies is debatable - there is no convincing proof that gods show any particular favor to their worshippers). Though it has enclaves everywhere, traditionally, Yushanism has always been particularly strong in Southern countries like An-Teng and Varangia.
Solarism, in strict contrast to Yushanism, holds that by and large, the gods are no more worthy of prayer than mortals are. They are immortal, and have their duties to the cosmos, but they are still imperfect beings. Only the Unconquered Sun, King of Heavens, possesses moral perfection; it is thus to him that the faithful must pray; him who must be mortals' role model. Solarism tends toward more organized and hierarchical priesthoods than Yushanism, and is the majority religion of Meruvia; it has seen a global revival since the exaltation of the Solar Exalted.
The Immaculate Doctrine, for its own part, has a different view on things. The Unconquered Sun is king, it says, but King of Heavens; his rule is only relevant to the gods. It sees instead the Immaculate Dragons as the guides of humanity: Five beings representing the human paths toward virtue. The Immaculate Doctrine has followed the same definition of its Fivefold Virtuous Paths for most of History, and is often seen as more conservative and traditionalistic than its two main rivals. Its major strongholds have, historically, been in the West; more recently, it has enjoyed surprising popularity with the Dragon-Blooded, due to some of its prominent theologians insisting that the Fivefold Virtuous Paths made no distinction between mortal and Dragon-Blooded.
Though a majority of Creation's humans subscribe to these religions, they are by no means the only ones. There are religions that worship gods whose actual existence is rather dubious. There are religions centered around enlightening human Essence, and moving on to master Sorcery and Terrestrial Martial Arts. There are those who worship the Archdevils of Hell, though that is strictly illegal and considered collusion with terrorists in most countries. There are even movements worshipping Exalts or Autochton! And then, there are the faiths of those outside of Creation or humanity:
On Silver Throne, the people worship Luna - though Luna, as a trickster goddess, does not demand much beyond some permanent social flexibility. Lunarism has fairly few rules and doctrines, though it does, to the very least, seem to encourage some degree of humor.
The Jadeborn have an official (but non-mandatory) faith called Paragonism. It is, uniquely enough, an openly artificial religion, created by Jadeborn social engineers ages ago: Rather than worship gods, it worship paragons, fictional incarnations of social and philosophical ideals. Even though it is understood that the paragons are fictional, Paragonist temples hold ceremonies and prayers in their honor, encouraging the faithful to follow the ideals they embody. With increasing contacts between the Mountain Folk and humanity, Paragonism has begun to make a few converts on the surface; some of the Jadeborn emissaries show enthusiasm about acting as proselytizers, but the majority is wary about the potential social and diplomatic implications.
The Dragon-Kings, as they explain, come from a world with an array of religions no less wide than Creation's... but Rathess, in its case, was part of a religious enclave; as such, the vast majority of its people follow the same religion. At first glance, it appears to be a variant of Solarism, albeit lacking the traditional hierarchy and structure found in Creation. Interestingly, most of them seem happy enough to share their beliefs, and some humans - including Solarians - find their religion appealing...
BEYOND CREATION
Creation itself is but one of several planes, orbiting the Sun. It contains itself many unusual places, such as the Mountain Folk's city or underwater Luthe... but stranger things yet lie beyond it.
Autochton: A vast, sprawling, living space station, Autochton has kept mining asteroids and adding modules to itself since reaching Creation's orbit. Nearly a mile wide by now, its full abilities remain a secret. Some suspect that there are spaces within it for human habitat, but this has never been confirmed.
Yu-Shan: The fabled city of the gods remains, by and large, a mystery, with very few details reaching humanity. It is ruled by the Unconquered Sun, and is connected to Creation via the five Elemental Dragons, also known as the Immaculate Dragons.
Humans who have actually set foot in Yu-Shan, be it now or thousands of years ago, have usually been deeply marked by the experience, but unable to properly describe it, saying human language lacked the concepts required for the task. None of this has stopped the infamous Infernal plot to steal power from it, and some wonder if Yu-Shan may be more vulnerable than it seems...
Hell: The dark mirror to Yu-Shan, Hell is ruled by the Archdevils, beings of primordial corruption. The two forces balance each other - Hell's ability to intervene in Creation is limited by the extent to which Yu-Shan does the same.
To date, no human has returned from Hell with an intact mind...if they have returned at all.
The Moon: A smaller plane orbiting Creation, the Moon is a weak point in reality, where the laws of physics are more fluid. This has given birth to a deadly, unpredictable fauna, and geology and climate to match.
Ironically, the only source of stability on the Moon is Luna - a prankster deity whose antics earned her a millennia-long exile from Yu-Shan. Forced to settle on the Moon, Luna created a pocket of stable reality, raising there the city of Silver Throne, and bringing a small population of Creation-born humans to populate it. When it became clear that humans alone could not survive the harsh environment, she gifted those most able to survive and adapt with a spark of her divine power, turning them into the Lunars, champions of Silver Throne.
Silver Throne itself is officially a popular democracy, where most political decisions are made by referendum. In practice, Lunars are naturally influential movers and shakers, and Luna, on the rare occasions that she bothers meddling with political affairs, can gainsay the rest of the political system.
Mars: Humanity hadn't reached the red plane by the time of the Balorian Invasion, and as such, we may never know what it was like before the reality-warping aliens landed there. Nowadays, however, it is a shifting land of warped reality, as well as the seat of Balorian power, home to a powerful empire immune to external assaults. The few Solars and Lunars who have set foot there were only able to return alive through clever diplomacy and manipulation of Balorian cultural mores, and the tales they tell depict a deadly planet that humanity cannot, at present, hope to defeat in offensive warfare.
Well, what follows isn't a perfect fit, but it's my attempt:
Turn on the the news. They're all abuzz about the latest battle between the Fantastic Five and Winter Mask. Just yesterday, Captain Scarlet fought one of the Burning Sphere's mad scientists in downtown Crane Bay. Last week, a mysterious man with some kind of mystical kung-fu destroyed a Balorian invasion ship. And tomorrow, a documentary about the rise of superheroes will be hitting the movie theaters.
Superb Tales of Heroics is an alternate setting for Exalted. It borrows much from "Exalted: The Modern Age". But while the latter is a setting of conspiracy thrillers, this is a superhero setting, taking most of its inspiration from the classical comics of DC and Marvel (with perhaps a touch of Aberrant). It is intended to be a more idealistic setting than vanilla Creation... but a Storyteller preferring to emulate more cynical stories (or even Aberrant itself) may do so by making the supposed heroes more morally ambiguous.
GLOSSARY:
Abyssals: Former potentates who used the death camps of the World War to empower themselves with necrotic powers.
The Accidents: Popular nickname for Solars who were not personally chosen by the Unconquered Sun, but rather received a free-floating spark of his power.
Archdevils: Entities of primordial corruption who rule over Hell, and empower the Infernals.
Atlantis Industries: A company owned by the Solar known as the Swan, which created Luthe.
Autochton: A powerful AI gone rogue, currently residing in a massive space station, relying on the Cyborgs for ground-bound work.
Balorians: A race of alien invaders who can warp reality around themselves, currently fortified on Mars.
The Balorian Invasion: The Balorians' first attempt to conquer Creation.
The Burning Sphere: An Infernal-run organization of mad scientists and tech thieves.
Captain Scarlet: The first Dragon-Blooded, and generally considered the world's first superhero.
The Children of the Sand: Infernal-run infernalist cult.
The Chosen: Popular nickname for Solars who were intentionally selected for exaltation by the Unconquered Sun, and received a vision from him.
Cyborgs: Humans who have been enhanced by Autochton, turned into his agents in exchange for immense power.
The Darkmist Fleet: A pirate submarine fleet, commanded by the Abyssal Admiral Silver.
Dragon-Blooded: Humans empowered with elemental powers by "Project: Dragon Blood" and its derivatives, or descended from such empowered humans.
Dragonflight: A special An-Teng military unit comprised entirely of Dragon-Blooded.
Dragon-Kings: Beings from a parallel Creation where reptiles still rule the world.
The Dragon's Shadow: Infernal-run secret society devoted to world domination.
The Fantastic Five: A notorious alliance of Solars, which some tentatively call Creation's greatest heroes.
The Green Sun: Infernal-run terrorist organization devoted to chaos and mayhem.
Hell: A dark mirror to Yu-Shan, ruled by the infinitely corrupt Archdevils.
The Immaculate Doctrine: Major religion, which sees most gods as irrelevant, except for the Elemental Dragons that bridge Yu-Shan and Creation.
Infernals: Humans empowered with the powers of Hell, driven to bring evil and suffering to Creation.
The Loom of Fate: a cosmic keystone that connects Yu-Shan to Creation on a metaphysical level.
Lovers of the Eternal Night: Hedonistic, nihilistic cult run by the Abyssal Bloody Countess.
Luna: Trickster goddess, who was banished from Yu-Shan to the Moon, creating Silver Throne.
Lunars: Humans from Silver Throne, empowered by its trickster goddess Luna.
Luthe: An experimental underwater city, created by Atlantis Industries.
Mountain Folk: A subterranean race that has created its own advanced civilization.
Reclamation Incorporated: Infernal-run megacorp that secretly supports supervillains.
S.A.Y.N. Industries: High-tech company run by the Solar inventor Warstrider.
Sidereals: Monks selected by Fate to achieve special enlightenment and watch over the Loom of Fate.
The Silent Wind: Infernal-run society of assassins and hitmen.
Silver Throne: A city on Creation's moon, ruled by Luna.
Solarism: Major religion, which worships the Unconquered Sun.
Solars: Humans empowered with a spark of divine power from Yu-Shan. Divided into "the chosen" and "the accidents".
Task Force Omega: A Meruvian military and intelligence group, tasked with handling supervillain threats.
The Thousand Dead: An army of undead cyborgs under the control of the Abyssal Forsaken One.
The Unconquered Sun: King of the gods, believed by many to be the only perfect being.
The World War: A Creation-wide conflict from less than a century ago, which saw the rise of the superhumans.
World Wide Winter: Terrorist organization run by the Abyssal Winter Mask, which has successfully taken over an entire country a few years ago.
Yu-Shan: The mysterious heavenly city, domain of the gods.
Yushanism: Major religion, which worships countless gods in all things.
THE WORLD WAR
The world our ancestors have named Creation is but one of several planets orbiting the Sun. Like all planets and moons, it is flat. Those who reach its borders and keep walking, or who keep digging beyond a certain depth, will find that they remain in the same position. Only by going upward, and reaching into space, can one enter the larger solar system. Only inter-dimensional portals allow one to enter other realms of existence.
Of course, for most of Creation's history, such things were of little concern. We had more... terrestrial concerns. Colonial powers such as Cherak, Calin and others established colonies in Meruvia. Meruvia rebelled and became a nation of its own. Democratic revolutions overthrew ancient monarchies. History marched on.
Then, less than a century ago, the event remembered as the World War took place. It all started with a political movement, one called "Supremacism". It held that the pursuit of power at all cost was the true natural calling of man, and the only rational policy of any nation. As such, it rejected the concepts of inherent rights, of democracy, and even compassion. Unfortunately, supremacism had several charismatic politicians and warlords on its side, and it rose to power in three nations - Deheleshen, whose militaristic culture hungered for conquest; Velennia, which yearned for its ancient glory; and far to the West, Coral, which wanted to expand its area of influence through the world.
Each of these three nations desired domination over their neighbors, but could not fight against the inevitable alliances that would form against them. Together, however, they formed what they hoped would be an unstoppable Supreme Axis. The war that ensued saw massive clashes of battleships, airplanes, tanks, and millions of soldiers across Creation, as numerous nations joined forces to try and stop the Axis.
It was in this war that Project Dragon-Blood was birthed. And the world was forever changed.
THE FIRST SUPERHUMANS
Project Dragon-Blood was a bid by Meruvia to create a new breed of soldier, able to turn the tide of the World War. Meruvia's government had unlocked colossal fundings for the top-secret project, bringing many of the nation's brightest biologists, physicists and engineers to bear. The end result, however, was nothing short of incredible: When tested on a volunteer from the armed forces, it made her downright superhuman in abilities. Under the codename of Captain Scarlet, she soon proved her strategic worth on the battlefield, able to lead her men better than any mortal officer and defeat entire platoons without breaking a sweat. Soon enough, other soldiers were given similar treatments, and dozens of Dragon-Blooded under Meruvia's banner won victory after victory against the Axis.
Of course, the Axis was not going to let this stand. With various methods ranging from espionage to dissecting captured Dragon-Blooded, it sought to understand the treatment and replicate it. It managed to achieve inferior (but still impressive) versions...enough to slow down Meruvian forces, but not enough to equalize what was, by now, a losing war.
No - the Axis's answer to Project Dragon-Blood ended up being something far, far darker.
THE FORCES OF DEATH
There was a scientist among the Supremacists - an elderly woman who had been studying the aftereffects of the World War's massacres. She suspected that the necrotic energy released by death on a sufficiently massive scale could, with the right tools, be channeled. Used to not only warp the land, but empower specific individuals, turning them into veritable lords of death. But to achieve that, death would need to be processed. Industrialized.
And so the Axis created its death camps, gathering necrotic energies. For the first time, Creation was marred with Shadowlands...and the Axis had the power to create its first Abyssals. The first man to undergo the full procedure was the very general who had overseen the entire operation. Once he was empowered with necrotic energy, he became all but unstoppable, able to cut down entire armies, even fight a small squad of Dragon-Blooded on even terms! Despite massive internal squabbling over who would get such powers, other high-ranking Supremacists managed to become Abyssals in turn; soon enough, the battlefields become even more nightmarish as the champions of death brought the Axis the advantage anew.
Feeling utterly unstoppable, one of the Abyssals managed to sneak into Meruvia's heartland, and capture its government at Crane Bay, demanding the nation's unconditional surrender. It took a daring rescue mission by Captain Scarlet and her Dragon-Blooded squad to save the day - and even then, she only managed to deliver the killing blow to her necrotic foe after he had slaughtered all of her Exalted squadmates.
With so much power in the hands of the Axis, it seemed like only a miracle could save Creation. Thankfully, they got their miracle just in time.
CHAMPIONS OF HEAVEN
Yu-Shan, City of the Gods, had been mostly a myth for most of human History, only rarely touching upon the course of human events. With the advent of the Abyssals, however, things had changed. The Unconquered Sun, King of the Heavens, summoned a handful of Creation's most virtuous mortals, tasking them with the safety of the world; to that purpose, he empowered them with a shard of his own essence. These new Solar champions now possessed a power greater than even the Dragon-Blooded - power great enough to fight the Abyssals themselves on even terms.
With actual heavenly champions on their side, the Allies fought with renewed hope. Solars and Abyssals clashed across the battlefield. Chosens of the gods and lords of death both fell to each other's strikes. Several successive defeats broke the Axis war machine, forcing the Abyssal leaders to reassess their strategy. Since they could not win the war, many reasoned, it was their best bet to instead go underground - take what resources they could, and hide from the Allies. They were unaging, after all; they could wait for generations for a better opportunity, if need be. The most vocal proponent of this approach, however, was slain as a traitor by the first Abyssal, who still believed the Axis could win the war. His bloody opposition to the plan, in the end, led to the other Abyssals considering him an obstacle; he was disposed off by his closest ally among them, the Black Heron, believed by some to have been his lover. With the first Abyssal gone, the others enacted their plan, hiding across Creation, leaving the Axis to its fate. Without the champions of death, the Supremacist armies fell to the Allies.
The World War was over. A new age had begun.
STARS AND DEMONS
The end of the World War saw a new optimistic mindset across the world. For the Allied nations, the greatest evil in History had been defeated. Even for the people of the Axis nations, the end of the war was seen as a blessing - though the Supremacist movement had ridden on populist politics, the Abyssals had merely been feared. And now, as some Dragon-Blooded and Solars were turning their powers to civilian applications and post-war reconstruction, it seemed that the future was bright indeed.
Things were far from perfect, of course. Political tensions were still there. Meruvia and the Haslanti Confederation - the two most powerful nations in the war's wake - were soon engaged in a cold war with each other. The hunt for Abyssal war criminals was still open, as several of them became international terrorists and criminal masterminds.
Then, less than a decade after the war, tragedies struck. Mysterious, immensely powerful villains struck at the surviving Solars, murdering them one one-by-one. At first, people thought this was an Abyssal plot. The truth was, perhaps, worse: These new supervillains were the champions of Hell.
There were, in truth, good reasons why Yu-Shan usually avoided direct intervention in human affairs: To do otherwise opened the door for equal, opposite intervention by the Archdevils of Hell. For every shard of solar power granted to a virtuous human, an Infernal exaltation was granted to one who was ready to pledge his soul to the forces of evil. With no-one to oppose them except the Dragon-Blooded and newly exalted, inexperienced Solars, the Infernals believed the world to be theirs.
They were soon proven wrong. When the surviving heroes took arms against them, they were aided by what seemed to be quasi-supernatural luck...and, in a few instances, mysterious helpers. Cryptic men and women who fought the forces of hell with supernatural martial arts the likes of which even the Solars had never displayed. Beaten, the Infernals pulled back; like the Abyssals before them, they were forced to go into hiding, striking only from the shadows.
Many heroes wondered who their elusive allies that day had been. In truth, they were an ancient monastic order - humans chosen by the Maidens of Destiny to watch over the Loom of Fate. They had stayed out of worldly affairs for millennia...but when the forces of Hell had intervened directly, they had seen fit to do the same. For decades to come, the members of the Sidereal Order would keep acting surreptitiously.
CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER
In the second decade following the war, a strange phenomenon was observed: Young teenagers across the world displaying sudden bursts of elemental powers. It did not take long for the cause to be understood:
It was a simple fact that, by their very nature, the Dragon-Blooded were supernaturally charismatic... and, if they so chose, supernaturally seductive. Even in the days of the war, they had little difficulty in convincing mortals to share their beds. There were, by this point, hundreds of children in the world who, often without knowing it, were descended from an elemental champion... and, as the world was only now realizing, this power was entirely hereditary.
Reception to the news was...mixed. Some saw it as the next step in human evolution - one day, they reasoned, all of humanity would be empowered. Others saw it as a threat - rather than being its champions, the Dragon-Blooded were now its rivals, threatening to replace it. Some nations placed new legislation to restrict and control their Dragon-Blooded - which, understandably, caused massive backlash.
Meanwhile, both the geopolitical realities of the cold war and the desires of certain Exalts for exploration led them to new frontiers. Rocketships built by Exalted engineers brought them to the Moon... and to an unexpected discovery: A thriving, modern civilization, apparently established on the Moon thousands of years earlier. The Selenites, as they called themselves, claimed that their ancestors had been brought from Creation to the Moon by a goddess called Luna, who also empowered her champions, the shape-shifting Lunars. It was those Lunars who, with varying degrees of subtlety, ruled over the heart of Selenite civilization, the city-State of Silver Throne.
Most Selenites were isolationists, and not interested in contact with the people of Creation. A few Lunars, however, were displaying some curiosity...
While astronauts were discovering people on the Moon, geophysicists were making even more shocking discoveries about Creation: New, more advanced tools were able to detect a massive underground bubble of air, with thermal and electromagnetic signatures suggesting advanced civilization. It took the efforts of Exalts to actually reach this city, dozens of miles beneath the ground; there, they discovered the ancient people of the Mountain Folk. The Mountain Folk, for their own part, had ages ago created a utopian society; the discovery of an outside world surprised and intrigued them, and soon enough, emissaries and diplomats were sent to the human nations.
THE INVASION
The world, it seemed, was getting more complex and exciting by the day. It was about to do so on an even greater scale than before when a massive fleet of spaceships entered the solar system, most of them heading straight for Creation.
Attempts at communication met little success. The aliens, having identified themselves as the "Balorians", merely demanded the unconditional surrender of humanity, and landed armies of soldiers, all of them powerful and equipped with advanced, inhuman technology. Conventional forces were practically helpless.
It soon became apparent that only a united front of superheroes could stem the tide. Solars and Dragon-Blooded from many nations joined forces to repel the invaders. Sidereals left their monastery to assist other heroes. Lunars allied with Creation's heroes. The Jadeborn ambassadors called in reinforcement from their homeland.
Even villains participated. Several Abyssals took arms against the Balorians. A group of Infernals struck a temporary truce with Solars to fight the aliens together. The alliance, while uneasy, was overwhelmingly powerful.
Hoping to end the war, the Meruvian military unleashed a prototype superweapon, designed by a Solar scientist: The Sword of Creation, a system networking dozens of Manses across Meruvia, channeling Essence into an irresistible destructive force. Such a complex operation required nothing short of a true artificial intelligence to operate it - an AI codenamed Autochton. Wielding the most powerful weapon in human History, Autochton was able to obliterate Balorian mothership after mothership, forcing the surviving aliens to retreat all the way to Mars.
The war had been won, but the crisis was far from over. For starters, the Sword of Creation, even wielded as expertly as Autochton had, could not channel this much Essence without wrecking Meruvia's geomancy. Earthquakes, fires, tidal waves, storms, and massive crop death were felt through much of the continent - enough to discourage any further use of the weapon. It was agreed to immediately take it offline, along with its controlling AI. Autochton, however, had no desire to be turned off. He proceeded instead to take over the computers of numerous satellites, space stations, spaceships, and ballistic missiles that he immediately sent into orbit; it soon became clear that he was building himself a massive cybernetic body in outer space. Any attempt to stop him, however, would have to wait - a more urgent problem was manifesting itself, courtesy of the Infernals:
During the Balorian invasion, several of the champions of Hell had offered a temporary alliance to the Solars and their allies. As soon as the war had ended, however, they had enacted their secret plan: Abduct a handful of Solars, and use them for a ritual through which they intended to breach the veil between Creation and Yu-Shan. Their goal was to steal the very power of the gods for their own nefarious ends. The remaining heroes - uncaptured Solars, Lunars, Dragon-Blooded, Sidereals and more - worked to free the captured divine champions and foil the plan. In the end, while the Infernals managed to breach the veil for a short while, the heroes were still able to foil their plot; a spark of divine essence entered Creation, but, with no-one to control it, it simply found itself human hosts to empower as Solars. These new Solars, while not personally chosen by the Unconquered Sun, were equal in power to those that had been selected.
And in the meanwhile, in outer space, Autochton had built a massive station to house himself. Armed to the teeth, he was beyond anyone's ability to dislodge him at this point.
A NEW BREED OF VILLAINY
The Balorians had threatened Creation and the Moon equally; the war had driven a larger number of Lunars out of isolation. Several of them became frequent visitors, and famed heroes, in the lands of Creation. One, however, came with sinister intentions.
In Silver Throne, Raksi had been a scientist and sorceress without peer, but had always felt constrained. In Creation, she found immense lands and populations, and opportunities to grab the power she had always felt was hers. She chose to concentrate her efforts on Mahalanka, a small Eastern nation with a history of bloodshed and racial tensions. Mahalanka had been a source of instability in the region for a while, and was at the time in the throes of yet another bloody civil war; with advanced technology, deadly sorcery, and her considerable physical power, Raksi was able to take the nation over, forcing an end to the civil war, and placing herself as "temporary overseer" to "restore order", under the new moniker of "Doctor Fang". The international community watched warily, uncertain how to handle the situation, especially when many, tired of Mahalanka's unending conflicts, were applauding Raksi's measures.
At the time, though, many of the world's heroes had a more urgent concern - a sudden ripple across Abyssal organizations. Since the end of the World War, Abyssals had been working independently of each other, more often than not, each one working on their own plans for power and conquest. Nevertheless, it came as a shock when one of them, the Black Heron, was seemingly eliminated... by none other than the first Abyssal, whom everyone - his fellow lords of death included - had presumed dead for decades. Renaming himself the Forsaken One, he took over the Heron's organization, and wielded it far more aggressively than she ever had, seeming not to care one whit if nothing remained; within months, the organization was all but wiped out, but numerous terror strikes had made the Forsaken One once again one of the most feared supervillains in the world.
Meanwhile, Infernal efforts to take over Creation were getting increasingly organized. Law enforcement agencies across the world were able to identify several Infernal groups, which often worked together - be they the terrorists of the Green Sun, devil-worshipping cults like the Children of the Sand, the mad scientists and arms dealers of the Burning Sphere, the assassins of the Silent Wind, or the backstage political manipulators of the Dragon's Shadow. Many also suspected the international corporation known as Reclamation Inc. of working closely with such groups, though no condemning evidence was found.
Meanwhile, the Balorians were not staying idle. From their bases on Mars, they were launching new operations against Creation... but this time, they weren't sending armies. Instead, they were sending individual, exceptionally powerful soldiers who would become supervillains, often joining forces or taking over human terrorist and criminal organizations.
And while the world's heroes fought as best they could against these villains, Autochton, still in orbit, was still working. Fearful of humans and Balorians both, he sought to create a superpowered guard of his own. To that purpose, he developed teleportation technology, allowing him to bring in specific humans from Creation. Choosing them carefully, he would then offer them immense improvements, a new life, and immortality, if they agreed to work for him. Those who accepted found their bodies modified with the best technology Autochton could come up with; these new Cyborgs, more powerful than even the Dragon-Blooded, became Autochton's agents in the world.
DRAGONS, ZOMBIES, AND THE SEAS
By this point, Doctor Fang had effectively stabilized Mahalanka - or rather, was ruling it with an iron fist - and was showing no sign of letting go. Heroes were hesitant to unseat a foreign government, and governments were finding negotiation to be the preferable path, especially as the Lunar queen was willing to exchange useful technologies. At the same time, she was always looking in secret for ways to further increase her power. One of several paths she studied was the a new type of portal technology - if the Infernals had nearly succeeded in harnessing power stolen from Yu-Shan, could she not succeed where they had failed?
Fearing that the portal might be unstable and cause an explosion strong enough to destroy her nation, she thus chose to experiment outside her borders, thousands of miles into the jungle; the portal, while it did not work as hoped, still had a surprising effect: It drew in a city from a parallel world.
The new city, called Rathess, was soon contacted by human nations, Mahalanka included. Its reptilian people, who quickly earned the moniker "Dragon-Kings", had come from a world where mammals had never emerged, and their own saurian race had come to rule Creation. Though Dragon-King society was rather advanced, they revealed that it had only barely survived a war with the forces of Hell in its not-so-distant past; the people of Rathess were infuriated to learn that the world they were currently stuck in was infiltrated by Infernals. They soon declared holy war on the champions of Hell, even as they searching for ways to return to their homeworld.
Meanwhile, tensions were rising between Creation and Autochton, as a new type of Cyborg was being used to launch lightning-raids across the world, using teleportation technology. Autochton denied any involvement with the attacks. As was eventually discovered, he was telling the truth - the attackers were a new force called the Thousand Dead, zombies at the beck and call of the Forsaken One. The Abyssal, having stolen Autochtonian technology, had used it to upgrade regular zombies and teleport them to their targets and back; only the prohibitive energy cost of such methods was keeping him from invincibility with such tactics.
In more positive development, Atlantis Industries, under the leadership of its Solar CEO, launched a bold new initiative in the form of undersea colony, using advanced biotechnology to render the colonists truly amphibious. Despite some difficulties (in particular with the Abyssal forces of the Darkmist Fleet), the underwater colony of Luthe was soon thriving.
THE MODERN ERA
Perhaps the most recent notable event of the past few years is owed to the paramilitary organization known as World Wide Winter. Under the leadership of the Abyssal Winter Mask, it has been able to take over the Marukani People's Republic. Though the international community was loath to let an Abyssal and former general of the Supreme Axis rule a country, it dared not send in armed forces, as Winter Mask effectively held the population hostage.
There is, for now, what some feel is a precarious status quo. The numbers of the Dragon-Blooded keep rising, and the tensions with those who fear them have not gone away. Doctor Fang is still plotting. Abyssals and Infernals the world over have plans of their own. Infernals still seek to take over Creation. The Dragon-Kings of Rathess alternate between trying to return home, and seeking to integrate themselves to this human world. Contacts between humanity and the Mountain Folk are becoming more and more frequent. The Balorians keep sending new villains. Lunars remain an unpredictable factor, as does Autochton. The Mountain Folk grow closer to humanity. And the Solars, more and more, are influencing society, which at times seems eager to worship such champions...
SOCIETY
Creation is comprised of dozens of nations. Most of them, in this day and age, are democracies, though there are notable exceptions - An-Teng, for one, is still run by an unelected bureaucracy.
The presence of the Exalted and other such empowered individuals has an effect on society that, over half a century after the World War, is still being measured. It often seems like the main activity of superpowered individuals is fighting other superpowered individuals - and the supervillain population is indeed working overtime to keep the nobler Exalts busy - but even so, the extraordinary abilities of Exalts and other metahumans still find their way into wider applications. Exalted inventors have brought incredible technological leaps to the world. Coral has managed to become an economic powerhouse after the war when its finance minister hired a Solar as a temporary consultant. In Varangia, a famine was ended recently when Solar Sorcery was used to turn a large patch of desert into fertile farmland. A handful of Exalted artists create some of the greatest successes of modern media. And while many feel ambivalent about giving political power to Exalts, some have already attained such positions... and, more often than not, done quite well for themselves.
Opinions about the superhumans themselves vary, not just from country to country, but within the counties themselves. Nobody but a handful of fanatics likes the Abyssals and Infernals, naturally, but thoughts on everyone else are less uniform. Solars tend to be the most popular kind of Exalt, though many distinguish between the "chosen" and the "accidents". In contrast, Dragon-Blooded are fairly controversial - on one hand, people admire heroes like Captain Scarlet; on the other hand, many fear the idea of Dragon-Blooded taking over and somehow "replacing" mankind, a threat exemplified by Brother Deled and his Immaculate Brotherhood.
RELIGION AND THE SUPERNATURAL
For most of Creation's History, the existence of Yu-Shan and the gods was a commonly acknowledged fact with limited direct implications, due to the rarity of actual divine intervention in mortal affairs. This has not stopped several religions from forming around it, of course, with the three most common ones being Yushanism, Solarism, and the Immaculate Doctrine. By the latest surveys, of those in Creation who consider themselves religious, 94% subscribe to one of these three.
Yushanism sees the spark of the divine in all things - since each aspect of the world has a god, then each aspect, in its own way, is holy and worthy of prayer. Yushanist priests organize religious ceremonies for thousands of gods (any actual effect of those ceremonies is debatable - there is no convincing proof that gods show any particular favor to their worshippers). Though it has enclaves everywhere, traditionally, Yushanism has always been particularly strong in Southern countries like An-Teng and Varangia.
Solarism, in strict contrast to Yushanism, holds that by and large, the gods are no more worthy of prayer than mortals are. They are immortal, and have their duties to the cosmos, but they are still imperfect beings. Only the Unconquered Sun, King of Heavens, possesses moral perfection; it is thus to him that the faithful must pray; him who must be mortals' role model. Solarism tends toward more organized and hierarchical priesthoods than Yushanism, and is the majority religion of Meruvia; it has seen a global revival since the exaltation of the Solar Exalted.
The Immaculate Doctrine, for its own part, has a different view on things. The Unconquered Sun is king, it says, but King of Heavens; his rule is only relevant to the gods. It sees instead the Immaculate Dragons as the guides of humanity: Five beings representing the human paths toward virtue. The Immaculate Doctrine has followed the same definition of its Fivefold Virtuous Paths for most of History, and is often seen as more conservative and traditionalistic than its two main rivals. Its major strongholds have, historically, been in the West; more recently, it has enjoyed surprising popularity with the Dragon-Blooded, due to some of its prominent theologians insisting that the Fivefold Virtuous Paths made no distinction between mortal and Dragon-Blooded.
Though a majority of Creation's humans subscribe to these religions, they are by no means the only ones. There are religions that worship gods whose actual existence is rather dubious. There are religions centered around enlightening human Essence, and moving on to master Sorcery and Terrestrial Martial Arts. There are those who worship the Archdevils of Hell, though that is strictly illegal and considered collusion with terrorists in most countries. There are even movements worshipping Exalts or Autochton! And then, there are the faiths of those outside of Creation or humanity:
On Silver Throne, the people worship Luna - though Luna, as a trickster goddess, does not demand much beyond some permanent social flexibility. Lunarism has fairly few rules and doctrines, though it does, to the very least, seem to encourage some degree of humor.
The Jadeborn have an official (but non-mandatory) faith called Paragonism. It is, uniquely enough, an openly artificial religion, created by Jadeborn social engineers ages ago: Rather than worship gods, it worship paragons, fictional incarnations of social and philosophical ideals. Even though it is understood that the paragons are fictional, Paragonist temples hold ceremonies and prayers in their honor, encouraging the faithful to follow the ideals they embody. With increasing contacts between the Mountain Folk and humanity, Paragonism has begun to make a few converts on the surface; some of the Jadeborn emissaries show enthusiasm about acting as proselytizers, but the majority is wary about the potential social and diplomatic implications.
The Dragon-Kings, as they explain, come from a world with an array of religions no less wide than Creation's... but Rathess, in its case, was part of a religious enclave; as such, the vast majority of its people follow the same religion. At first glance, it appears to be a variant of Solarism, albeit lacking the traditional hierarchy and structure found in Creation. Interestingly, most of them seem happy enough to share their beliefs, and some humans - including Solarians - find their religion appealing...
BEYOND CREATION
Creation itself is but one of several planes, orbiting the Sun. It contains itself many unusual places, such as the Mountain Folk's city or underwater Luthe... but stranger things yet lie beyond it.
Autochton: A vast, sprawling, living space station, Autochton has kept mining asteroids and adding modules to itself since reaching Creation's orbit. Nearly a mile wide by now, its full abilities remain a secret. Some suspect that there are spaces within it for human habitat, but this has never been confirmed.
Yu-Shan: The fabled city of the gods remains, by and large, a mystery, with very few details reaching humanity. It is ruled by the Unconquered Sun, and is connected to Creation via the five Elemental Dragons, also known as the Immaculate Dragons.
Humans who have actually set foot in Yu-Shan, be it now or thousands of years ago, have usually been deeply marked by the experience, but unable to properly describe it, saying human language lacked the concepts required for the task. None of this has stopped the infamous Infernal plot to steal power from it, and some wonder if Yu-Shan may be more vulnerable than it seems...
Hell: The dark mirror to Yu-Shan, Hell is ruled by the Archdevils, beings of primordial corruption. The two forces balance each other - Hell's ability to intervene in Creation is limited by the extent to which Yu-Shan does the same.
To date, no human has returned from Hell with an intact mind...if they have returned at all.
The Moon: A smaller plane orbiting Creation, the Moon is a weak point in reality, where the laws of physics are more fluid. This has given birth to a deadly, unpredictable fauna, and geology and climate to match.
Ironically, the only source of stability on the Moon is Luna - a prankster deity whose antics earned her a millennia-long exile from Yu-Shan. Forced to settle on the Moon, Luna created a pocket of stable reality, raising there the city of Silver Throne, and bringing a small population of Creation-born humans to populate it. When it became clear that humans alone could not survive the harsh environment, she gifted those most able to survive and adapt with a spark of her divine power, turning them into the Lunars, champions of Silver Throne.
Silver Throne itself is officially a popular democracy, where most political decisions are made by referendum. In practice, Lunars are naturally influential movers and shakers, and Luna, on the rare occasions that she bothers meddling with political affairs, can gainsay the rest of the political system.
Mars: Humanity hadn't reached the red plane by the time of the Balorian Invasion, and as such, we may never know what it was like before the reality-warping aliens landed there. Nowadays, however, it is a shifting land of warped reality, as well as the seat of Balorian power, home to a powerful empire immune to external assaults. The few Solars and Lunars who have set foot there were only able to return alive through clever diplomacy and manipulation of Balorian cultural mores, and the tales they tell depict a deadly planet that humanity cannot, at present, hope to defeat in offensive warfare.