General Exalted Discussion II: No Longer Mortal

[Mr.Bookworm]

Guess who finally remembered the multiquote button!

I'm sorry, but everything I've read seems to have been pretty consistent. The elemental dragons are embodiments of the elements, part of gaia, and were used as part of the funky thing the primordials did to create and stabilize creation. The Lesser elemental dragons are high essence elementals, and the greater elemental dragons are phenomenon involving a lesser elemental hitting maximum essence and turning ****ing insane.

That doesn't make creation Gaia's Jouten, it's its own thing, but her souls are a part of that.

Okay, looking back at it, I seem to have suffered from jumping around a bit too much.

I think I've got it now.

The Five Elemental Dragons are gods, specifically gods that Gaia created to help stabilize Creation along with the Poles and the dragon lines.

The Incarnae studied the Dragons with Gaia's permission, and created the five great Elementals to regulate the elements inside of Creation. At the onset of the Primordial War, the Primordials hit the elementals as an opening blow, shattering them and wreaking havoc with the geomancy of Creation. Their power spread out over the dragon lines, resulting in uneven distribution of power. Those pockets of power are what create elementals.

Fast forward later, and the elementals are growing in power. Many of them reach Essence 6, and fashion themselves into dragon forms in honor of their divine "parents".

The Dragons are flattered by this, and while he's holding court, the Dragon of the Pole of Wood declares that they should honor the elementals that take their shape, and issues a decree that all elemental dragons should be allowed to develop as they wish, and that the gods should treat them as the Five Dragon's favored children.

Fast forward again, and the Kukla hits Essence 10, becoming the first Greater Elemental Dragon. The Five Dragons are very, very pleased at this reflection of their forms, but the gods notice that the GEDs are kind of HOLY****ING**** powerful, and they bind them away into remote locations where they can't do any harm.

That seems fairly clear-cut, reading the RoGD.

Um, the Roll of Glorious Divinity places the creators of the first elementals as being the Celestial Incarnae.

This is correct, I was wrong.

Plus, aren't the Dragon-blooded some combination of mortals and Gaia's lesser souls? Unless you're saying that Gaia gave gods(instead of her own souls) permission to muck around with her soul to create the exalted, then the Elemental Dragons make much more sense as her third circle souls.

Well, under the story I lay out up there, the Dragon-Blooded are Exalted with a godly patron, just like the other Exalted.

This does contradict some other things, so let me go reread up on the DBs and I'll get back to you on that one.

Is there a way to weaponize raw essence without using an essence cannon?

In Exalted, this is kind of like asking if there's a way to weaponize raw atoms without using a weapon.

So, uh, no.