Reading Abyssals: Sworn to the Grave Manuscript

[Lord Raziere]

Hey so, I'm a bit late on reading this one. the Abyssal Manuscript came out like....late november to early december? and its january of 2024.

But then like, I got a fever in the middle of that, winter holidays in general are a bit hectic, and I had to do things like read Usagi Yojimbo vol 5 for christmas and finish Borderlands 3, so that the excuse I'm going for.

Anyways! I'm going to be reading them in my continuing efforts to discuss the game and setting I am passionate for, and to raise awareness of the differences of Exalted 3e lore from its previous edition, as often people have no idea how different the setting is, and in my personal opinion, how much better it is. Since its like a month out, these aren't my first reactive thoughts, but rereading something as good as Exalted is never a bad time for me. just so you know: I used to not like Abyssals much in 2e, and this manuscript has me bumping them like a lot in my personal like ratings. they're probably never going to be my favorite, that goes to the Infernal Exalted, but they're not dead last anymore.

So lets start with....

Spoiler: Abyssal Manuscript 1: Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2

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Introduction:
The book opens with this quote:
“There is only one liberty, to come to terms with death; thereafter anything is possible.”
— Albert Camus

.....I personally don't like the quote, but thne I personally don't like anything too morbid or existential but whatever, thematic I guess.

we then have a lexicon, of which a few will be relevant to learn as they are new concepts for this edition:

afterlife, primeval: A location in the Underworld that naturally resonates with a certain kind of death,
such as murder victims, the drowned, or those struck by lightning.

afterlife, ritual: A location in the Underworld that resonates with the prayer and rites of a particular
culture from Creation.

chivalry of death: A code of conduct emanating from the nature of the Neverborn, rewarding their
servants for inflicting torment, slaying worthy foes, and spreading death’s embrace until Creation and the
Underworld are one.

These are new things to learn for anyone getting back into Exalted and thus the underworld and this book, and if your new, welcome. We'll be explaining stuff soon.

the Suggest Resources section is of course all the inspirations this particular book has for its material. Exalted puts this at the beginning which is a good move in my opinion, because I've seen the DnD 5e corebook list its inspirations. They were at the back. like the last appendix possible, which is simply criminal and I doubt some people even know its there. In my opinion putting this kind of section at the front allows them to be more easily seen and understood what the authors are going for, and well side benefit: you get to have a list recommended media to check out next whenever you have the time.
Inspirations for this book people probably know about include: Berserk, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Castlevania TV series and Dark Souls. Sources people probably don't know anything about are The Locked Tomb, some book series about necromancer nobles, and The Saga of Hervor and Heidrek, a legendary icelandic saga which I didn't know about until I reread this section. Neat, hopefully I can find a semi-animated youtube video about it :P

Chapter 1: The Abyssal Exalted
First things first, this chapter is explaining what the Abyssal Exalted are themselves. And to know what something is, you must know where it came from, so the chapter starts off with the history that led to their creation. Don't worry, you don't need to know any previous edition lore- this history is new to 3e and in fact decanonizes previous lore, being a fresh start for a few reasons.

Basically long ago, the Exalted fought the Primordials, the enemies of the gods, and some of them died and fell into the Underworld. How many of them is not given as a number, like many things its left fuzzy and unclear. They however could not pass on and are now in endless agony, they do not scheme, speak or even think because the pain is beyond imagining and in what brief intervals of lucidity they have, all they can do is long for existence's end. I'd say they need their morphine shot but the First Age Exalt probably tried that and it probably didn't work.

what happens next is that ghosts dead from the First Age's collapse sought the Neverborn and made pacts with them and became the death Lords. How they did this when literally a few lines of text ago we were informed all the Neverborn can say is the eternal screaming of the damned, is anyone's guess. But they did it apparently. They are ghost-emperors, they conquered Stygia the capital of the Underworld and divided it up among themselves, one of did the Great Contagion, and they're growing bolder in their conquest of Creation.

The actual creation section says the Deathlords knew that the Solars were imprisoned since the early days, and tried to seek it out but didn't really find the prison at first, so they mostly abandoned that scheme went off and did their own thing for about 1500 or so years, but sooner or later one of them found it. (personally I'd guess they just stumbled across it by accident and were like "huh so thats where it was". or something) Hidden in the stars in the Mask constellation. none of them could get the Exaltations out alone, so they worked together while swearing a super-magical oath to each and the Yozis who they ask for their knowledge, an oath to do this right which would probably supercurse them if they went against it. then they did a cool ritual involving stars and the Calendar of setesh to get the Jade prison in the Underworld that I can't really do justice, they managed to take some of the Solar Exaltations, but others escaped, and others were promised to the Yozis. The ones they could keep, they put into Monstances of Celestial Portion and made the first Abyssals with, five years ago in setting.

then a short blurb about Death Lord's growing bolder like the ever-classic Mask of Winters taking Thorns, the Heron taking ever greater bounties and the Bishop's shining way religion getting more followers.

Next is describing the Exaltation itself. Basically how it works is that if Death Lord finds some near death, they can do this remotely since they're spirits, and they offer them a simple choice: join and ben Abyssal Exalted and become immortal at the cost of swearing away your name and swearing to destroy the world eventually or reject the offer, and die now. A very stark and terrifying choice. However the Deathlords cannot go against the Unconquered Sun entirely, and must choose people he would've found worthy-heroes, potential for greatness, people like that. in other words: an explanation for why your Abyssal potentially isn't a total jerk.

there is a sidebar for the Monstrances, but basically in this new edition the Monstrance doesn't grant control over the Abyssal but it is a permanent link for certain sorcery spells, so its something the Deathlord could use to like, screw your Abyssal if they don't follow orders or try to influence them, but doing so is probably going to be a pretty jerk move and if an Abyssal becomes aware of it they're not going to be real controllable. at the same time, its unknown what happens if a Monstrance is destroyed. its left open for what the ST thinks should happen, which leaves open a lot of possibilities, it could make the Abyssal Exaltation inversion as reversible or irreversible as you want, if the ST wants it to mean the Abyssal Exaltations all go back to the Unconquered Sun and get turned back to Solars that can happen, if the ST decides this means the Abyssal Exaltations all fly away and now just make Abyssals forever with UCS unable to do anything about it, that can happen to. If the Abyssal Exaltations all go back to UCS and he instead like acquires a domain of death to become this terrifying sun god with death aspects and just continues Exalting Abyssals alongside Solars, that could terrifyingly, happen to. I encourage the ST to make the possibilities as complex or terrifying as possible, don't settle for destruction actually solving the problem easily.

Next aspect of Abyssals is that Creation rejects them. the living world no longer holds the same beauty it once had, its uncomfortable and this can build as a feeling. as for the vow, well your not doomed to destroy the world, but the Great Curse will make sure that your punished for not following it. we'll get to the actual effects in a later chapter.

another aspect is that you given up your living name for some awesome or edgy title like "The Architect of Unending Despair" or "The Inconspicuous Knife of Unexpected Ends" or "The Knight Who Sleeps With Mothers" or something. These can get real flowery if you want them to, but people will probably just refer to you by a nickname like "Secret" or "Darth Vader".

Trappings are death are basically your clothes, you gotta wear cool death stuff as an Abyssal, live in crypts and such. its your excuse to dark extra in your STYLE as much as you want, have fun.

Essence Fever urges the Abyssal to dark passions and worst impulses. because thats the point of being an undead gothic demigod, if you don't have some weird passions about stuff?

their past live memories are of course given a more deathlike slant.

the Abyssal exalted longevity is immortal. no one actually knows this for sure but those who investigated this claim, have little reason to doubt the Deathlords saying this. this makes the Abyssal exalted like the only Exalted who can just naturally live forever if they can solve the whole "destroy the world" problem.

there is like three blurbs here, but to summarize: after being Exalted, an Abyssal will usually go to their Deathlord, get showered in gifts, gets taught things, get sent on missions for various purposes. the relationship between Deathlord and Abyssal is complex, being part mentor, part patron, part commander, and thus the Abyssals have one of the closest or most personal relationships with the people who chose them, unlike most other Exalted who are chosen by a distant deity or power. while a Lunar might have one special night with Luna, an Abyssal's relationship with the Death Lord who chose them will be an ongoing thing that if your loyalist will be strongly felt throughout the story, and if your renegade, you'll probably get reminded of the deal you have decided to break, more than once.

Next is the section on the Chivalry of Death's fluff:
basically, what the chivalry of death is, is something the Death Lord interpreted from the Neverborn's constant screeching, and came up based on the best they can find-these aren't clear commandments just.....the best the Death Lords can figure out, so don't think this is definitive or anything. the tenets are:

Better long torment than a quick death. It is not enough simply to kill the living — they must be made
to despair, to abandon their hopes and ideals, to become complicit in horrors themselves, before they are
slain. Deaths born out of the culmination of such degradations please the Neverborn far more than a
hundred lesser slaughters.

The mighty must fall before the weak. Death visited upon the vulnerable and defenseless is a paltry
offering to the Neverborn. Better to break the champions of the living — those who are looked to for
hope, protection, and guidance — before turning to those under their guardianship.

Let life be drowned in death. If the worlds of the living and the dead are as one, the Neverborn might
imagine themselves free of their eternal death. When shadowlands open the boundaries between Creation
and the Underworld, when necromancy taints the Essence of the world, when the living walk alongside
the dead — these things offer the slain ancients a transient solace.

but stripped of all the flowery language and mystique its basically the Sauron Fantasy Supervillain Code Of Honor:
-Don't be a murderhobo, your a villain with class, make people despair so that they die on their own, slowly.
-Don't be a coward, kill strong guys and heroes, not weak ones so that people know your a badass who can beat the strongest of them so that they don't have any hope of succeeding.
-corrupt all the world into dark mordor like places because cool gothic dark landscapes are pretty, halloween is awesome and generic rpg forests are a plague that need to be wiped out.

thus the Chivalry of Death's purpose is dualfold: on one hand, any good person probably doesn't want to follow this code because driving people to despair and such is a pretty big jerk move, on the other hand, if your going evil, it focuses you a bit as just being a mass-murdering jerk won't get you anywhere, slaughtering a lot of people is tepid, uncreative and just like makes people angry, no your going hardcore villain of destroying people emotionally, of snuffing out any hope of opposing or defeating you, you can apply any sort of reasoning you want to this, but if your loyal to the Neverborn's mission of destroying the world? your not ending world this immediately or quickly. Your going to be tormenting this world into oblivion, driving everyone to give up and give in to their dark emotions, slowly, painfully, with exacting and careful care to make it hurt as much as possible over the longest period of time, grinding them under your heel. If your a proper Abyssal villain, you are not a flash of immediate death, but a figure evoking dreadful, grim inevitability of Creation's end, a cold patient majesty that cuts down not everyone you see, but any who challenge you and leaving their corpse behind as a reminder of what happens when they do, that terrifying specter of death that comes for you not Today, but surely will Someday, no matter how long that will take. I could go on, but your basically given good reason to act like a fantasy villain like Sauron, Arthas and so on.

But of course, if want to be anti hero, not follow the mission plan, you can be this wandering knight errant who kills tyrants, slave traders, crime syndicates, and such. don't want to kill people? too bad, you chose the Exalted of Murder, people are gonna die no matter what you do. Furthermore the Death Lord is probably going to send people after you to get you back because they Exalted you for a reason, not their entire legions or whatever, their forces and resources are finite, but they will send trackers, specialist, small teams, even loyalist death knights, things like that. there is a sidebar about talking with your group about renegade death knights and how much you should expect a Death Lord to involve in your game, ranging from being an important part of the game to not being relevant at all in a campaign if the players want to focus on other antagonists, always good advice to set expectations.

Death's Lawgivers section is about Abyssals aren't just killers of the living, but champions of the dead and how they a connection to things call The Old Laws, Abyssals that help solve ghost problems basically and rule as their underworld kings. If you want, you just live among ghosts, helping ghosts and the living live together, because that technically follows the third tenet, no matter how good or bad you are, and some of the goodest Abyssal might be one who just becomes a ghost king and not interact with the living at all.

and of course it goes onto say there are various positions on the spectrum of loyalist to renegade in between, some death knights serving their death lord loyally while wishing they hadn't make their vow, some embracing their mission to destroy the world for one reason or another and I'd argue none of those reasons are good (the ones given in the book are "naivete" "rage and hatred" and "devout believers in apocalyptic theologies") but not all Death Lords wish to destroy the world- indeed, this entire set up consists of Neverborn (who can't issue commands) Death Lords (middle management who functionally are the bosses 99% of the time) and Abyssal Exalted (whose relationship with their Deathlords are fraught with issues) But this does give some DLs and Abyssals common ground- serving a Death Lord loyally does not necessary mean your serving the Neverborn.

But there is a chance for a Abyssal redemption into becoming Solars, a passage referencing this possibility. Its okay I guess? Good for those who want it? But I personally want to play Abyssals to be an Abyssal, even if I'm a good person about it. It does however say the journey to Solar shouldn't be an easy or short one- whatever you do to walk this path is going to involve suffering, and the ST should emphasize internal personal growth over external assistance, and that even if the Unconquered Sun itself denies her, redemption is not beyond the Abyssals reach. Its there if you really want it, but its not for me.

Chapter 2: Death Lords
So this is all about Death Lords. There is a lot of information here about them, their personalities, their domains and plans and such and so on, but for the sake of summarization, I shall focus on trying to just give a short summary of each. First generally: they have made a pact with the Neverborn, they're all seasoned necromancers but only some of them have mastered Void Circle, furthermore they technically have immortality and even the spirit-slaying charms of the Exalted can't kill them for real- they each have their own unique, secret weaknesses determined by the ST. If killed normally, the Death Lord will reform but the only time this has happened, the Dowager she didn't.....return as... all herself as the Neverborn don't care how they put you back together as long as it serves their purposes. Thus the Death Lords aren't exactly keen on testing their immortality. So you kill a death Lord without their weakness? they're going to come back more focused on destroying the world, and you don't want that.

Also the Death Lords are scheming, they don't work together, their interactions over millennia have poisoned the well for them, and their alliances are only politically motivated. they are supposedly unfamiliar with the political realities of the second age (I guess they spend all their time in the Underworld?) and their plans rarely if even involving destroying the whole world at once, but are smaller scale and have like all of eternity to plan many steps ahead. again, grim figures of inevitability. Finally, not all of them are out to destroy the world, some just want to rule it. Out of the thirteen Death Lords, nine of them are detailed, the other four being left open to the ST to detail

Bishop of the Chalcedony Thurible:
Basically, he is death pope. His religion to boil it down: Existence is sin, and nonexistence is absolution and a mercy. There's more but thats basically all you really need to know, he wants to convert everyone to his apocalypse cult. He is one of the Death Lords who knows Void Circle and also the inventor of his own Sidereal Martial Art, Albicant Sepulcher of Extinction Style, an embodiment of his theology (you may be wondering, wait: can't only Sidereals make SMA's? well, not exactly in this edition. they're shaking it up to make things more mysterious and thus giving rare spirits the ability to use and teach them. also the death lord exact exaltations in life are kept ambiguous so the Bishop might've been a Sidereal in life for all we know. also this makes sure loyalist Abyssals don't need to do some complicated thing involving the Sidereals to learn SMA's) While he works to destroy the world, deep down he fears oblivion. he is sincere in his devotion to the mission but this flaw in his conviction could potentially make loyalist Abyssals turn on him for not being dedicated ENOUGH.

The Black Heron:
Who is the Black Heron? Well technically she is Princess Magnificent With Lips Of Coral And Black Feathers, but thats just a lie for her to put on for Stygia's festivals and public entertainment. No, the Black Heron is super spy and assassin, one of the greatest of the First Age, and thus one of the greatest warriors of the Death Lords, she wields weapons like a parasol made of flesh and bones and like, seven flying knives of soulsteel. She's also a social creature, versed in the languages, customs and etiquettes of many civilizations. her weakness is that she only knows Ivory Circle Necromancy. Her goal is to take over Great Forks to get her revenge against the gods the foiled her. She espouses little reverence for the Neverborn but death's chivalry is second nature to her, though she enjoys some mass murder from time to time. your yandere assassin deathlord.

The Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils:
The Death Lord that came closest to killing all of Creation- and the Death Lord that has fallen the farthest from what she once was. One day she was killed by a foe using the Calendar of Setesh- she returned, but gone was her political ambitions, her rivalries, her mocking humor. What returned was a servant of the Neverborn, with no humanity left. She now is mostly in a solipsistic fugue state searching the Well of Udr for the next cataclysm she can unleash upon Creation, but its this fugue state that brought about the Great Contagion in the first place. She is truly devoted to destroying the world by unleashing horror after horror even if its only by inches- however some part of her is left enough to fear this end and believes she has found a way out to another world that she can escape to in the Well. Also, interestingly she has like three forms: witch, huntress and feline beast with snake-fingers, and all forms has like, horns and hooves. She has mastered Void Circle sorcery. she only speaks to her chosen in inscrutable prophecies and other cryptic sayings, they're never meaningless but everyone struggles to understand, at times she forgets Creation is something real and not something she controls, and her death knights have to take a lot of initiative in interpreting her orders as a result, and also they've decided to protect her followers when she unleashes a horror and they attack people that follow her, needing to decide things for themselves when she is in her less....lucid states in a microcosm of the whole Death Lord-Neverborn situation in general, but it does say she might reveal her plan to escape to anyone who might want to escape. a good death lord if you want to be your own boss.

The Eye and Seven Despairs:
The zany ADHD mad scientist of the group, The Eye is bored when doing business but lights up when talking about SCIENCE! He is mostly does science while being an arms dealer. His ultimate goal? Weaponize the Neverborn themselves. Yes this insane madlad wants to study, categorize and weaponize the Neverborn. Classic Twilight Caste Energy, soon to be Daybreak energy. My favorite Death Lord. Experimentation, invention, studying, research- thats what he's all about

The First and Forsaken Lion:
The most militaristic Deathlord, he was once a more charismatic, charming and headstrong warleader, an Alexander the Great type of person who conquered a lot, believed himself invincible, but then got punished by the Neverborn getting a moment of lucidity and now he's a grumpy figure trapped in his own armor. Very classic Darth Vader/Arthas type of dude. He isn't really all that devoted to the Neverborn even after the punishment though, he just wants to conquer the Underworld, and now seeks underworld secrets while trusting military operations to his death knights and generals, with many possibilities for what he is searching for, though some of the better possibilities I think are the Lion either trying to free himself from his armor curse or get rid of the Neverborn somehow.

The Mask of Winters:
The young risk taker of the Death Lords, he's jack of all trades and can't really match any of the others in their fields of specialty, but probably pretty good in all of them, probably has Shadow Circle Necromancy, some martial arts, some of this and that- a bit of everything. what he lacks in specialization he makes up for in ambition and daring. He is the Death Lord you want if you want things to be played fast and loose, such as the conquest of Thorns. Want a campaign to conquer the world in a reasonable amount of time full of risk and intrigue and fighting? Mask of Winters is the Death Lord for you. Honestly, I've seen people dismiss this guy as like, a hubristic fool when honestly he's probably more dangerous than the other Death Lords simply because he's more likely to actually do something will cause a lot of trouble for everyone and be willing to roll the dice for a success, don't underestimate someone willing to do that, because sometimes the hubris isn't punished, the dice rolls come up a natural 20 and your left in the dust for playing careful. and if he fails well.....that just makes the fallout all the bigger. Honestly if I was loyalist Abyssal, I'd want this guy, sometimes you just have to risk it for the biscuit.

The Lover Clad In Raiment of Tears:
This Death Lord, I never got. she's a dread witch queen of the north, she seeks to destroy love, snuff out hope, and like kill your dog and make you cry about it- like she'd unironically just murder your little dog and make you despair at its passing because you loved it. Thats her whole deal. She's a devout servant of the Neverborn and unlike the other two we've seen, she has no qualms or little deviations in that. She is meticulous perfectionist when it comes to corrupting and killing and making people despair. She's not a Death Lord for me except as pure antagonist. I honestly don't know why anyone would like her as a character, but thats just me. I guess she's there if you want to have an Abyssal who chooses love over her and she takes that personally?

The Silver Prince:
This guys the emperor of the Skullstone archipelago, he is basically a guy who plays a culture victory in Civilization 6- he wants to conquer the world by spreading Skullstone's ideas and customs and so on. He is this peacock fashion guy figure, he knows Thousand Blades style, he negotiates trade deals and knows necromancy but doesn't say void, so, probably a Shadow Circle Necromancer, he's a socialite, an administrator, an influencer, he's all about the fashion and the social dominance. and uh....I dunno I just don't see him as all that great? I know some parts of the Exalted fandom go crazy over Silver Prince, and its probably the culture dominance thing? But man he's just another Death Lord to me. sure his plan is technically more subtle than some conqueror or whatever, but hardly foolproof and I know some players will just find a way to cut the gordion knot of cultural values based oppression and social control that some might think is being woven here, but no matter the society it'll produce outcasts and exiles who don't agree with it, and cultural virtue of welcoming the outcast won't fix that if the outcast is because they're outcaste for defying the culture.

The Walker In Darkness:
This guy is warrior-priest of the Neverborn, a general and he has like, a shadowland that follows him around due to magical shenanigans. He makes deals with people but they're deals with the devil so they get screwed over. He's a void circle necromancer which makes like, third or fourth one so far, he is "devoted" to the Neverborn but also a hypocrite, seeing his current life as pleasurable and thus while he follows the chivalry of death he....doesn't want to destroy the world??? Yeah, I don't think you can really call yourself that if your like, not really doing it? like sure your doing it for fun, but I don't think the Neverborn would appreciate him, that and he keeps encouraging his death knights to find reasons to cling to Creation, he's kinda weird. I mean I guess he's the Death Lord for you if you want to like travel and like, do abyssal stuff without really going in any particular direction? I guess what he wants is just the status quo of Death Lords kinda ruling parts of the world forever while the Neverborn just seethe? I dunno, maybe his plan is just "vibe, drink underworld wine, be Deathlord Doctor Who guy who travels around beholding the wonder of the world while he ruins stuff" his writeup just doesn't make me confident that he actually wants to do any plan for the Neverborn at all, his "devotion" sounds very lip-servicey, very keep up appearances, and no indication that he's going to follow through, y'know? he's a bit of a puzzle, not gonna lie.

then some stuff about making your own deathlord, opportunities, how their archetypes and legends influence Abyssal charms, things like that, but this is long enough already and this took longer than I thought to write, so.....end it here, and write my thoughts on like, Manuscript 2 later.

[Rater202]

"The Knight Who Sleeps With Mothers"

Imagine dying of something, a sword wound or a plague or some ****, and being aproched by a foul spirit of nigh godlike power who offers to give you knew life in exchange for becoming a champion of death, a blight on the living, and sacrificing your name, you got through with it, get all fo this power and you're own deathly regalia and stuff...

Only to be told that from now on, you will be known as "Mother****er."

[Lord Raziere]

Imagine dying of something, a sword wound or a plague or some ****, and being aproched by a foul spirit of nigh godlike power who offers to give you knew life in exchange for becoming a champion of death, a blight on the living, and sacrificing your name, you got through with it, get all fo this power and you're own deathly regalia and stuff...

Only to be told that from now on, you will be known as "Mother****er."

I mean there has to be at least one Death Knight who goes renegade not for any moral reason but because they didn't like the title their death Lord given them, and is otherwise all about that ghost king ruling from dark citadels life y'know? and I feel someone like The Walker In Darkness would actually give a title like that because he doesn't seem to have a goal other than screwing people using pacts and enjoying his existence, he feels like he'd troll someone like that at least once even though the book says he treats his Death Knights better than he does the people he screws over.

Also: joking about stuff like this is like half of what the Exalted fandom does, the other half is nerding out about historical socio-political stuff to the point where listening to them counts as education, which we will see a bit in this next chapter, as this manuscript all about the Underworld.

Spoiler: Manuscript 2: chapter 3

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Chapter 3: The Underworld
There is a very descriptive summary of what the Underworld is here, very beautiful and so on, I appreciate it, really establishes the darkly wonderous, sword and sorcery tone they're going for, it is paragraphs as art. too bad if your reading this, you probably can't see it yourself. your going to have to settle for my summary of the Underworld.

Long ago, there was the River of Lethe and the Sea of shadows, then the Neverborn died and formed the Underworld. This is not the 2e Underworld that is a mirror of Creation, but rather a series of island afterlifes surrounded by these dark waters whose geographies have little in common with Creation. I find this to be a good change, because an ST can now come up with creative afterlifes and really emphasize how different the Underworld is from the living world, and thus make the Underworld its own place with its own rules, wonders and horrors. It also says there was an underworld existence before the Neverborn, really making the world fascinatingly mysterious- we don't really know the specifics of how it worked before this, just that the Underworld should not be. It has these things called the Old Laws which are not a Deathlord or neverborn thing- they are an underworld thing separate from them that determine their own rules about the afterlives and the ghosts in it. We don't know where the Old Laws come from, just that they affect things and Abyssals somehow have a connection to them. Also Underworld is given like this halloween like dark wonderland makeover full of weird yet fascinating descriptions full of beauty and terror.

All that said, the Underworld is an inherently melancholic place, overall. To explain why, we must talk about the ghosts themselves.

As the book itself says, to understand the Underworld you must understand the ghost that afterlive in it. Becoming a ghost is unreliable- it doesn't happen to everyone. Sometimes people just go to lethe and reincarnate. But those who linger, there is often a reason, the usual ghost reasons: unfinished business, sudden violent death, clinging to their existence because they want to, things like that. Problem is: a ghost is not the person they were, but a remnant, a relic, a reflection, an echo. they are not a person's soul but the tattered remains of its higher half, the lower half is not relevant at this time.

physical appearance wise, ghosts are made of something corprus which is basically just ectoplasm. its intangible in Creation and is destroyed in sunlight, so ghosts can only come out at night. their appearance furthermore is affected by how they died, a ghost will resemble who they were in life, but a beheaded man might find their head forever floating and separate from the rest of their ghostly form, a person struck by lightning may crackle with electricity, a woman burnt alive may forever trail smoke like a cinder, a person poisoned may forever show the poisons symptoms in death and be able to pass on the poison in retribution, a soldier may forever have the blade that killed them forever stabbed through their chest as a ghost, and a person who died of alcohol poisoning may forever drip with wine and smell of beer. things like that. as a ghost grows in power, these features tend to exaggerate and become more prominent. some ghosts put on masks to replace faces eroded by time or claim new identities in death.

mind wise, a ghost is not exactly the person that died. it is simple truth that when one dies, things are left behind: memories, feelings, ambitions fade and ebb. what endures in a ghost are often what the most major and prominent aspects of their personality, the things they were most passionate about, with lesser drives being lost and the drives that remain, magnified. a skilled blacksmith retains their mastery of the forge, but they might forget the joy of their family or what food they liked. few ghosts are without nuance though, they kind of cobble what they do have together into a new identity and like pick up new stuff in the Underworld, but they are always changed, they are never going to be the person they were in life, ever again. Its not an easy way to immortality, because....what remains isn't really you, its parts of you but...they will rearrange themselves into something that is at best a poor faded picture of the person you once were, and at worst a parody, either it will never be an accurate reflection, as without physical human drives, all they have to guide them are their echoes of physical drives which won't kill but affect their forms as the memory of hunger or thirst consumes them, and their passions, and a ghost will always choose their passions over anything physical as they don't need to eat, they just like the taste, the texture, and want to alleviate the memory of hunger. but an artist needs to make art, a warrior needs to fight, a courtier needs to gossip, a bureaucrat needs to file paperwork far more than they do eat, among ghosts. and over time those passions will shape a ghost into something more and more nonhuman, more distant from the living being they once were.

thus the Underworld is a melancholic place, for its forever a place of memories, of people trying to keep a flame going as long as possible, of repeating something that is transient. Ghosts are nothing if not beings of nostalgia trying to recapture something they can never truly have again. But forever growing a little more distant from it each time. the Underworld is a place of change and decay despite what the inhabitants try to do otherwise, for the act of clinging more and more tightly is itself a change. Even the farmer who focuses on the single moment of their death and become a ghostly assassin getting their vengeance on the one who killed him is still acting out that passion and clinging to that memory, yet changing most drastically because of it.

Ghosts of course like gods, get veneration and ancestor cults are common in Creation. prayer empowers them, symbolic sacrifices appear as valuable gifts to ghosts, while a meagre offering of homemade wine at a family shrine may at times be richer than the finest vintages if its imbued with difficulty, sincerity and meaning. the greatest gifts are grave goods, things interred alongside the dead at their funeral, these goods appear alongside the ghost when they awake and are bound to them by Old Laws, they cannot be stolen except by powerful magic but they can be traded, gifted or taken by force under threat of destruction. humble offerings may become beauteous things, perhaps even artifacts or other treasures that ensuring success and power that they never could have wielded in life, with undead hero or ruler's ascent aided by such things.

ancestor cults themselves can range from at their best offer meaning to ghosts and protection to the living, and at their worst outright abusive, dysfunctional extended families and extortion rackets. you think abusive parents are bad, just wait until your however many greats grandmother demands you make a bunch of sacrifices so she show up to an underworld gala in a new dress, comes from a different time and on top of that has forgotten what its like to be truly human or have things you need to do other than what your passionate for, and can shoot fire at you because she got burned herself.

oh and tomb robbing? yeah, the ghosts can sense when you do that. there are rites to mitigate that, but just taking stuff from a grave is a bad idea.

ghosts have their own magic, they called spirit arts, which can be....a lot of things honestly, curses, terrifying the living with various effects, possession for more enlightened and older ghosts, glimpse prophecies, and so on and so forth. it depends a lot on personality, nature, manner of death, things like that. they can actually develop their power through things like training, meditation, secret lore, or grow strong on prayer and sacrifice, steal power from other ghosts or by doing dark rituals to the Neverborn. some ghosts even just....arise as singular prodigies with unique powers with no explanation. ghosts of Exalted and other powerful beings tend to retain a vestige of their former power though, these are not charms but echoes of them distorted through the Underworld's funhouse mirror.

also sometimes ghosts craft soulsteel, sometimes this is from natural veins, most of the time its artificially made in mausoleum-foundries, and all the time its made from screaming souls being compressed together and combined with underworld ores, yes these are made from other ghosts. yes the souls in soulsteel are in eternal agony. yes the rich and powerful ghosts use them. yes all the other ghosts are scared and creeped out by ghosts who do this. its really screwed up. Your Abyssal's soulsteel drip is made of this. Have fun with that, or you can decide to not care, I'm not your mother.

But ah, even the dead may die, weak ones whether by sunlight or by violence and thus pass into reincarnation. ones with cults and strong passion may reform over a time, but often having lost something of themselves. but there are other ways: if a ghost's passions gutter, if their ties to existence break, they risk spiritual collapse. Lethe calls louder and louder and sooner or later all ghosts succumb and join the cycle of reincarnation. others, depressed go into the Labyrinth and in its deepest depths, vanish into nonexistence. only ghosts who tie themselves to truly eternal tasks can endure across the ages, but even those aims may not sustain them forever. ancient ghosts guard bloodlines, societies and such that give them purpose beyond the turning of millennia, and duel over objects that have no purpose other than to anchor their existence to a hated foe, duels that can last a century. Underworldly empires outlast their founding dynasties, the ones who overthrow them and the ones who overthrow the overthrowers and so on. places are maintained by rote long after their purpose is long forgotten, the Underworld being not a recording, but a place where things of creation's past go to decay, to change, to distort until only a shadow is what remains.

other things of course wander the Underworld: Phantom beasts: animals but dead, specters are ghosts that are corrupted by the Neverborn for necromantic power, behemoths which are unique big things that exist in the Underworld much like the ones in creation with various origins, Prehuman ghosts which are ghosts of others beings made by primordials.

finally there is of course the Neverborn themselves, who pray for relief that can never come because death is too small for them, who according to the manuscript: "They are neither alive nor dead nor undead; all that they are is suffering."

Finally other Exalts can be in the Underworld, Silver Pact got an enclave there, the Sidereals are keeping an eye on it, there is an Exigent that owns places there, and of course the Liminal Exalted are frequent visitors being frankenstein-exorcists searching for dangerous ghosts to hunt them and such.

and oh darn it, I've only gotten through 9 pages out of 69. and like a big chunk of this is......Stygia. hm.

History:
We get a bunch of names thrown about from the First Age that aren't really elaborated on, but also the Rotting Lotus Empire which had necromancer-queens and battled the living empires of the Exalted, and well...lost.
The Shogunate then contracted everything as it was the most successful religion in making sure ghosts pass on. The Contagion destroyed ancient polities and those that survived in the Underworld like that now dominate, for example like the Empire of Aki and the Archeron League whose borders get closer and thus get closer to war, only kept from doing so by delicate political maneuvering. The Deathlord's influence is growing but they haven't taken over everything.

The Black Nadir Concordat is still canon history

Nature:
the Underworld is not a reflection of creation and its lands don't match up to each other. It is a bunch of lands surrounded by a black ocean that extends into the horizon- this black ocean are the waters of Lethe.

Navigating such a place relies on different methods than usual, such as following phantom leviathans, oracular trances or comparing local geomancy to the movements of the Calendar of Setesh, as they don't have the usual methods here.

There are elements here, but they're not....natural. Winds are the screams of the dead, and fires come in unnatural colors

Afterlives of course come in ritual and primeval. Primeval ones are deaths of a particular charged kind or without any particular rites performed for them, such as starvation, violence and so on. Ritual ones are formed from getting proper funerals, but these aren't hard and fast rules, sometimes a ghost pops up in a primeval afterlife despite being buried with full honors, and not even first age scholars could tell you why so your family's funeral rites aren't certain to put you in the same afterlife.

The Labyrinth is the horror-infested doom labyrinth underneath the normal ghosts full of things worshipping the Neverborn as it ever was, just without the maw to a black hole in it now. There are some examples of people getting powerful stuff from it, with the only successful one someone who made their skin as hard as armor and killed a tyrant to their people but their family never looked them in the eye again for some reason. So uh....benefits?? if you don't mind the downside of Neverborn/underworld horrors I guess???

Stygia:
Okay so, this is the biggest section in this probably? Its the capital city of the underworld and there is NO way I'm covering all of this. So I'm going to give you my impression:
its where you want to go in the Underworld for big city and political stories, most of the underworld factions are represented here, its the cneter of things like the Old laws and the Dual Monarchs who operate the Calendar of Setesh, its got numerous activities that ghosts just lose themselves in because they have nothing holding them back from doing so, its something that is built upon and built over what other things have built on, it has sixteen districts of musicians, teahouses, sanguinary cults, all pleasures, yes even reproductive ones, ghosts still do that even though it doesn't have any results.

It is a jumble in more ways than one: a mishmash of architectural styles, a place of found families where ghosts adopt each other to fill in places of their relationships they had in life, elite artists let in poor sophisticates who appreciate them over rich boors for their performances, masks are sold by many in the city as well as many wear them out of tradition and guards advise visitors to give a pseudonym rather their real name while merchants sell plain terracotta masks at the entrance. It is a place of reinvention and remixing, a place where the ghosts not just relive their passions, but escape their mortal lives to form a new existence. Imagine a crowded city of nothing but ghosts, all wearing masks just as lively as any city but tinged with horror here and there, with eerie Hollow Knight-like colors and atmosphere, that is what this city and what the Underworld evokes to me now, and trust this probably isn't just a videogame reference, as in my experience is that Exalted writers draw upon the folktale and other deep cultural inspirations that these things come from and incorporate them in rather than just taking from pop-culture or whatever. It a jumble in that its a multicultural place, known as a rich heaven or a decadent hell depending on who you ask.

But of course, while the pleasures of mortal existence follow into the Underworld, so does the injustices, as Stygia is home to such things as debt-slavery, but escaped slaves can join the priesthood that operates the gondoliers to escape with no repercussions. The Stygian pact means that new rulers have made laws to concentrate power in privileged few and now use its politics and resources for their ends.

There is of course things like the Collegia who are academic-like artisan organizations that teach arts lost to the living, and the Mansions that used to be the powerful elite of the Stygia, but since the Pact, are no longer. Special mention goes to the Resplendent Mansion, use to be inhabited by the many ghosts of the Exalted fought the primordial war, but now only a few timeworn ghosts live there, and automata guards.

The Dual Monarchs themselves have a religion called the Transcendent Course which says that Lethe is the goal/ideal of ghosts, but the underworld is an acceptable place to come to terms with them by disentangling their passions and whatnot, and thus should be a place of calm, shelter and safety. That clinging to ghostly existence is not evil, but sooner or later everyone has to pass on. This religion has come under persecution lately, particularly by the deathlords.

There is stuff about the pact and certain signatories, governance and aspects of the Dual Monarchs themselves, but I think you get the picture: the the pact has conquered the place and is now doing bad things, and the political situation is changing.

Now onto other cities....
Dari of the Mists:
a city of fog and vapor, home to people in debt and wealth. Basically, people come to this afterlife by dying due to unpaid debt or unpayable debt. The wealth of the debtor doesn't matter, all are considered equal when pulled from the waters. They are bound to their rescuers, newly indebted to serve them instead-Dari's contracts however are bound by the old laws and while they protect the companies of Dari, they also prevent endless servitude or chattel slavery, the debt has to be truly repaid at some point. However the companies do try to keep your services in some way after it expires, as there is only so many people that die due to debt, and training a new employee is always miserable. There is various companies here of varying agendas and moralities, while sometimes rains come and those wash away the debts of the longest toiling and no one speaks out against the newly freed, for if one tries to circumvent the laws, a terrible fate awaits the company who does- just ask the Bone Notch Register, which was reduced dust when it tried to sell servants to other afterlives.

Kesundang, the Sword Mountain:
Okay so imagine a big sword that goes into the underworld's sky that was once owned by an ancient being tried to fight the Underworld to get their friends back and lost, now imagine its on an island, and there are three segments to it:
The Sheath, The Blade, The Hilt. The Hilt is a joyous city that steals the joy that evaporates and rises from the trials over the Blade and Sheathe below that prevent most from getting to the city and thus powers the cities prosperity with the fallen hopes and happiness of those seeking to un-life in it, with various monks and monasteries maintaining these trials. Above even the Hilt, is the Pommel where one called Ema records every death in history upon something called the Tree of Law and Life, without fanfare or differentiation between their importance, no grand proclamations for even the greatest deaths. Ema knows that Kesundang and she will be destroyed one day as well, and marks her and its lifespan upon the Tree of Life.

No, no one knows what wielded the sword mountain before this, its deliberately vague. It does imply that there are things in Exalted's world big enough to wield such a thing and that the Exalted Host didn't kill it themselves. This city does have a neighbor called Rive in the canyon formed from one of its swings, a polluted place where many souls are mined to make Soulsteel in its industrial foundries.

Other afterlives include the Moment of Flame and Darkness, an explosion frozen in time where scavengers and merchants take things along the edge for occult constructions.

Or Ixcoatli's Shadow is an afterlife of a far eastern empire known as Ixcoatl (you can find it on any 3e map) where beastfolk humans grapple with the having an afterlife when they weren't prepared for one as their religion teaches them that with heroic deeds come reincarnation.

Or Sky Pavilion, where the dead of the Varang constructed a vast dome to replicate the caste-based astronomy of the varang city-states, but now it and its afterlife is crumbling as more dead come in, as more treasures are traded away to repair the dome and more ghosts begin to see no value in tradition in their death.

Shall I also tell you of the Drowned Island's Fleet of the Wu-Jian dead? The maelstrom known as The Gyre where shipwrecks inhabited by great treasure and their crews, scavengers treasure hunters who have formed a Salvage council? The Flint Teeth archipelago where those who died on the hunt or pursuing the impossible are in an afterlife of endless pursuit? There is also the Arid Scape, home to those who died of thirst or heatstroke, a hot desert place of dust-filled storms and withered ghosts who reject icier climes.

There is of course many other smaller afterlives, of which I will only speak of Tournament here, a place where ghosts come to duel while many fight, its three greatest martial masters are still thinking over their next move while in their stances in a duel that started who knows long ago, that may never really end and those spectating constantly watching any shift in movement to pen their analyses.


Next are the Shadowlands include things like the Skullstone Archipelago, but honestly, if your an Exalted fan you know how this nation works, its a classic, its just modified to be better, more nuanced and such, no more Island Five or any of that nonsense, just cultural domination, I could go into detail, but honestly I think you find Exalted fans who could give you a more enthusiastic summary of this than me.

Thorns is given a writeup of course, examining how its an occupied city and whatnot, but the Mask of Winters has given direct control to one of the signature Abyssals this edition: Red Iron Rebuked, once usurped by his younger brother Istban for Thorn's throne now rules. He speaks of trying to change Thorns for the better but privately is angry at his imprisonment and no one helped him, while Thorns itself has ye to fully accept its new rulers

those are the big ones, but the minor shadowland I find interesting is the Academy Eternal, an academy from the Shogunate era that has attempted to use a sorcerous working to make the place timeless in response to the Contagion but it got pulled into the Underworld and now its grounds are full of sights of time reversing, freezing and accelerating unpredictably and they are supposedly still there, with a few who escaped the area offering great rewards to anyone willing to brave the affected area and reverse the working, as its offers an opportunity to get some insight into the Shogunate.

[Lord Raziere]

Okay! back on this, things have been a little hectic but I can now get to this

Spoiler: Manuscript 3: Char Creation and Traits

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This is going to be a short one, basically....

Char Creation:
Abyssals are much like Solars in terms of mechanics and character creation. But they have a few differences to take into account:

First of all the word for the Abyssals Supernal Ability is "Apocalyptic" as in "Apocalyptic Ability" so an Abyssal swordmaster is a Melee Apocalyptic probably.

second their caste ability spreads are different from their Solar counterparts:
Dusk has Ride and Athletics rather than Awareness and Dodge
Midnight has Larceny and Linguistics rather than War and Athletics
Daybreak has Sail and Awareness instead of Integrity and Linguistics
Day has Survival instead of Ride
and Moonshadow has Integrity instead of Larceny

these caste skill switcharounds give Abyssals a different feel and focus in some areas, and they make sense: the Dusk Caste doesn't have dodge or awareness because they're supposed to be dead so of course their only defensive ability is Resistance- they weren't aware or evasive enough to not become an Abyssal in the first place, furthermore its pairing with Ride make sure the Dusk Caste is ready right out of the gate to be a heavily armored, undead horse riding death knight straight outta Mordor or whatever, living up to the splats most iconic imagery of a death knight riding forth for the sake of the chivalry of death. 10/10, simple spooky chivalric vibes.

Midnight exchanges the more bombastic leader and athlete vibes of the Zenith Caste for something more secretive and subtle, giving me the image of a sinister cult leader slowly spreading their ideals in secrets through coded manifestos and underground networks, disguising their messages and themselves while teaching people in secret.

Daybreak losing Integrity makes sense given their mad scientist vibes, but Sail and Awareness is some of the most bizarre choices I've ever seen for a caste like this. I understand Awareness because of its association with Eye and Seven Despairs using awareness to be inspired by the world around him, but Sail is the oddest duck of all. I guess Sail makes sense if you remember that the Underworld needs a lot of navigation knowledge to travel through it and thus would need someone specialized in doing so, also makes sense for making ships and thus sailing them.

Day is more similar to its Solar counterpart, only having Ride changed to Survival, perhaps harkening to how real life's ninja teachings were about surviving in the wilderness, an ironic choice given their Exaltation

Moonshadow somehow has Integrity compared to an Eclipse having Larceny, which hm....I guess to give the Moonshadow to have integrity to represent ghosts interests honestly?

other than that, mechanically they basically create like Solars do, same numbers and all aside from stuff about Necromancy

Traits:
in terms of traits however, Abyssals however have a few things to keep in mind:
-they are considered undead when its beneficial to them, but don't receive the usual benefits of undeath.
-they are creatures of darkness and thus are vulnerable to certain magic such as the anti-CoD effects of the Solar Exalted. this however can be changed as abyssals who prove themselves enough of an an ally to creation can get this removed but this is a narrative milestone up to when its dramatic and right, and apart of an Abyssal's redemption to Solar
-they are also Enemies of Fate, and thus outside of fate due to it being severed at death, though Sidereal magic can restore their fate status if need be.
-doing stuff in harmony with death's chivalry they gain willpower and lose limit
-they have a lunar bond like Solars
-they can Void Circle Sorcery, and are only Resonant with Soulsteel
- their trappings of death shield them from a dice penalty if worn outside of crypts and other deathly places

The only new Merit is Whispers, which is a flexible merit that does a bunch of things depending on how you want to use it but is about calling upon the Neverborn for advice and help. keep in mind however the Neverborn don't use words, explanations or demands, their messages are cryptic premonitions, nightmares, and unclear imagery, open to interpretation even as one gains insight and meaning from them. however its not all beneficial the ST can use them against you once per session

other things about Abyssals can be covered with existing merits and you get details on what each merits does for what.

there full writeups for each caste all of which are great as usual.

universal Anima effects include sense approx location of nearby shadowlands which is good for navigating Creation. but also grow fangs to suck blood like a vampire and regain motes from it, because vampires, of course. their caste specific anima stuff is all much like solars but more spooky and gothic.

breezing past all the standard exp stuff, we get to the Abyssals Great Curse. unlike previous editions, the Neverborn can't remove it from them instead their Resonance and the Great Curse are the same thing now.

now the mechanics of Abyssal Great Curse instead of limit break there are Bleak Expiations, which normally happen at limit 10 but can be released early, and which are: Blight, Corruption, Stigmata, and Thralldom. Basically your effects for not being the Neverborn's good little murder pawn are in order: tainting the world around you (Blight), poisoning your soul negatively altering your intimacies or imposing whispers on you (Corruption), revealing your Abyssal nature through spooky supernatural effects (Stigmata) or being compelled to serve the Neverborn's will, uphold death's chivalry or fulfil their castes role for a scene (Thralldom) (its not really mind control as its just a really strong intimacy) also all these expiations except the last one come in minor, major and defining versions thus making you able to keep yourself to minor expiations so that you don't suffer all that much.

the traits chapter finishes with a sidebar saying the Great Curse isn't meant to punish people but to be fun for the players and make dramatic moments for them, and that ST's should keep this in mind when selecting expiations, probably to advise against adversarial GMing, which is all too possible in Abyssal Exalted which can be tempting given their strongly villain-leaning design and such.

overall the Great Curse is less harsh than 2e's Resonance, and made to be much more playable and Abyssals far more cool in a gothic horror sort of way. the Abyssals after all are meant to be darkly majestic vampiric monster knight lords riding out to make their own order, not mere servants, pawns or grunts of the Deathlords this edition and these mechanics help sell that.

[Rater202]

I like everything I'm hearing so far.

[Lord Raziere]

Okay good news everyone, I got the compiled manuscript for Abyssals finally! It took an oddly long amount of time this time....anyways

Spoiler: Chapter 6: Charms

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So, in the manuscript parts, the charms chapter is always the biggest and thus was split into two parts. I will attempt to cover both parts in one go.

So, how to break this down? Well first to tell everyone the most important, general and basic information about the Abyssal charmset in 3e. The abyssal charmset is largely unsurprisingly, much like the Solar charmset, being ability-based, and having a lot of direct counterpart charms to their Solar versions but death-themed rather than sun themed, however unlike 2e, the 3e book actually has all the charms written out in this book instead of lazily using "mirror charm go read the corebook" like last edition. a welcome change. However there are a few things to take into account:
-the Abyssal charmset is stated by developers to be taken as a soft update and nerf to 3e Solars, as there are charms that Abyssals don't have counterparts for and Solar charms considered by both developers and community to be ridiculous and shouldn't have been printed, like Divine Mantle, the socialize persona tree, things like that and thus if Abyssals are weaker than a Solar in a particular area that doesn't have thematic justification, its probably because the Solars should be nerfed/updated to match Abyssals in terms of power and capability, because Solars have what is considered an outdated charmset by now, but the devs can't just go back and change them. this is an unfortunate state of affairs liable to misinterpreted and warped by some contextless ignorant person coming in and not getting the subtle hints the charmset drops or people somehow taking Abyssal design and power the wrong way, but oh well, I'll just state this now and hope the knowledge spreads or something
-there is however, charms that are starkly different from the Solar charms, and those are the Deathlord-inspired charm trees scattered throughout the charmset, adding flavor and flair to the Abyssals not present in Solars while still keeping to the ability-based charm trees. basically, since the Deathlords are the ones choosing the Abyssals, charms inspired by their abilities and themes are in there as well, making sure the Abyssals can play and feel different enough from Solars to be their own things rather than just being a dark copy.

So given that there are like 25 abilities to go through, and literally hundreds of charms, I have to pair this down a bit. let me give you highlights from each ability:

Archery:
a charm name Last Days Portent has the Abyssal able to fire an arrow at the sun itself to temporarily make an area up to a few miles darkened as if night, for various effects beneficial to Abyssals. yes that is right, Abyssals can now do the skyrim black vampire sun thing with archery, its pretty cool. its something uniquely technically not directly combative, unlike the rest of the charm tree, which does its job for being a dark archery tree well.

Athletics:
The rest of the charmset is pretty standard athletics stuff and does exactly what athletics does, but what stands out is Temple-Shattering Ruination Curse, a charm that you activate after destroying a structure to curse the ruins and land out to one mile to be a shadowland, instill a fear-based intimacy to anyone who sees it, and even become a lesser abyssal demense if it upholds an Abyssals negative defining intimacy. thats right you get benefits for being a revenge-filled jerk.

Awareness:
now this is, is where things get interesting. while it has the practical awareness effects it usually has of spotting danger before it strikes and such, Abyssal Awareness breaks from this with a charm tree that instead allows one to gather inspiration/successes for crafting and other creative projects by witnessing morbid things and finding beauty in them. Yes thats right, awareness used to enhance crafting, a deathlord tree inspired by Eye and Seven Despairs, this is the kind of difference I'm talking about, because these charm trees given Abyssals different directions to go down and different ways to work, this charm tree starts with Morbid Inspiration Witness, my personal highlight of the tree.

Brawl:
Abyssal Brawl mixes in normal brawl stuff, modern updates to charm design such as having a charm to replace dexterity with strength for certain things and charms with oddly religious references to them suggesting that the Bishop of the Chalcedony Thurible is a Brawler as well or at least, his skill in martial arts translates to this as well. the charm Void Avatar Embodiment is the obvious highlight, being the Abyssal equivalent to Ascendant Battle Visage where you become a howling void of darkness and violence to fight instead of going super-saiyan. very different vibe.

Bureaucracy:
This charmset makes you good at bureaucracy, with abyssal flavoring with things like effects against traitors to your organization, punishing people, things like that. it does what it does competently, but nothing I'm excited about

Craft:
here is where one of the big "soft update to Solars" comes in. the Solar Craft tree is honestly.....bloated. the abyssal craft tree solves this by cutting 50 charms down to a far more reasonable 26, getting rid of a lot of fat while focusing on stuff that makes craft functional and fun. a highlight of the charmset is Soul-Tarnishing Treasures which allows Abyssals to make objects that tempt people into destructive or criminal behavior, such as a chalice that encourage drinking to excess, a sword that wants violence, and another charm called Coveted Prize Artwork to make people fight to possess an object- thats right you can make One Ring like cursed artifacts with Abyssal Craft! and the one who keeps it always becomes a ghost obsessed with protecting and having the object, spun as a method of immortality. I guess you can spin it that way if you okay with being a greedy jerk ghost forever.

Dodge:
Dodge has charms from both the Black Heron and The Lover, the Heron's charms having themes of black feathers while the Lovers has a theme of ice and despair, oddly manipulating people intimacies through dodge. another highlight is Tenebrous Cloud Dissolution which allows an Abyssal to turn into a dark fog with all the benefits and downsides that come with it, a very vampire-like turn into mist charm that can do a lot of things, and a follow up charm to that for the abyssal to shove their fog down someone's throat to suffocate them because why wouldn't they be able to do that?

Integrity:
mostly normal integrity stuff: resist social influence, protect against shaping stuff. however it has things related to the Old Laws charms based on upholding deals and punishing those who break them-including things oath of vengeance for yourself against others. note to self: don't break deals with Abyssals. but the true highlight of this charmset is Immortal Malevolence where an Abyssal can come back from the dead as long as they have a negative defining intimacy to hold onto, rising from the dead the next day. so....Solaroids can't come back from the dead because of a persona identity magic thing but they can come back from the dead if the power of their feelings (positive or negative) makes them hold onto life hard enough. Okay.

Investigation:
a lot of normal but Abyssal themed investigation stuff, there is a charm for the abyssal to basically cast speak with dead whenever they want, another charm to recognize other killers and how many lvies they've taken, make things haunt people they accuse of crimes, though also a theme of spy networks and informants a bit as well.

Larceny:
one of the abilities for Day Castes to take note of, aside from the normal larceny it allows for your trappings of death to be real subtle so you can walk around town without looking super-goth and even lets impersonating the dead count as wearing a trapping of death so if you want small confirmation about the Scarlet Empresses's fate from the ST, just simply use Inconspicuous Funeral Guest to disguise yourself as the Scarlet Empress and see if the disguise counts as a trapping of death, if it does the Empress is dead, if not, you know the Empress is alive somewhere :P. (I kid it probably doesn't actually do that). but the real highlight is a charm called Death Cheating Deception which allows a larceny-focused Abyssal to escape if they incapacitated or would suffer death for any reason, basically faking their death and trying to hide to avoid it. So....I guess the current devs problem with the Solar's methods of cheating death was that it was in socialize and attached to a charm tree that created redundant character sheets rather than them being able to do it.

Linguistics:
okay so the highlights of this charm tree is that you can scribe stuff in blood, but also you can speak in like a dark/demonic cthulhu tongue that only undead and demons understand, oh and you can compose a message that is ANITHETICAL to understanding, so that when someone reads it, they stop understanding ALL languages except the anti-language glossolalia that the abyssal can speak....indefinitely. Thats some Cthulhu mythos nonsense right there.

Lore:
this of course has the returning charms of Abyssals doing things like draining motes from people, Crypt Bolt attack, things like that. whats really important about Lore is that like Craft, its gotten the fat trimmed from the Solar's 50 charms down to 19, once again soft-updating the solar charms. it also contains things like a charm to bring one of their nightmare creatures from their dreams into existence when they wake up, Nightmare-Carving Murmur which is the wyld-shaping equivalent but for the underworld, and of course a charm to commune with the Neverborn to unleash doom and disaster upon a region of the world, called Promised Nightmare Unleashed. Fun.

Medicine:
this is basically the unethical mad doctor charm tree. it can heal people, but if it has something to do with modifying the human form in ways you shouldn't or plagues or undeath....it probably has that. the standout charm is Foetid Earth Miasma which the Abyssal can use to blight an entire land with disease using a ritual, which fouls the water, makes the air stink, rots the wood, things like that, and of course helps with forming shadowlands

Melee:
Basically just like Solar Melee but colored dark and deathly. A highlight charm is one called Soul-Cleaving Wound which the Abyssal can use to harm your intimacies, your essence, willpower, emotions things like that. Abyssals are full of intimacy harming stuff like that

Occult:
aside from the usual occult spirit-stuff, it features charms to enhance your Whispers, to send telepathic messages to others up to 50 miles, infect other people with Whispers, oh and they can eat spirits like Lunars can, horrifying but neat, do a psychic scream that is unblockable and undodgeable to deal damage to everyone around them which a follow up charm can extend to a range of miles and extend its time. y'know. things like that

Performance:
normal performance stuff but tuned to deathly apparitions to make it more spooky and oh look yet another charm to use the skill to cause massive hurt and damage to everyone around the Abyssal, not even notable anymore. no, whats notable about this charm tree is in the Acting section, which shuffles the persona charms over to performance to perform roles and nerfs them from making whole character sheets down to merely giving you new intimacies and only being like two charms which can easily be backported into Solars.

Presence:
Presence is notable for having a starting charm that turns what used to be an assumed part of Abyssal appearance into something you can opt in: used to be with Abyssal you'd either get superhumanly deathly beautiful as a vampire or so ugly you had to wear a mask with no in between as you go along, but now this charm means you can NOT take it and thus have a relatively normal human appearance, giving you more options. other than that its kinda Bishop themed, but probably a good soft update to Solar Presence since I know that later splat leverage intimacies more than Solar presence does. Killing Words technique makes a return so you can hurt people by talking to them, and a follow up charm to inflict mental derangements on them, other than its more general negative intimacy manipulation stuff for the most part

Resistance:
the highlight charm here is Iron Tomb Imprisonment, at first glance its just just a quick armor donning charm, a normal Exalted charm to see- but not here. Iron Tomb Imprisonment is emulating the First and Forsaken Lion here and encasing you in your armor- to take it off you have to RIP IT OFF and increase your wound penalty by -2 for doing so! otherwise it just stays on forever. this downside doesn't apply to the essence plate Abyssals can conjure though. then there is Corpse Needs Nothing which makes it so you don't have to eat or sleep or drink or breathe- at the cost of not being able to taste anything ever again, if you take this charm hope your character can handle eternity without their favorite food. another charm is being able to conjure/animate these chains from your armor to manipulate things with them, and another fun charm is Iron Maiden's Kiss which uses those charm to form and iron maiden and trap people in said iron maiden either killing or imprisoning the foe, if they are slain they become a ghost who is terrified and obedient towards you. yes this is all still Resistance, this is the First And Forsaken Lion emulating charms here.

Ride:
seems to be an ordinary if Abyssal themed ride tree, aside from the Obligatory "cause harm/destruction to a lot of things at once" charm because of course the Abyssal can do that with their mounts. it seems that they can do that with everything probably, thats just like...a pattern with this.

Sail:
lets see does this charm tree follow the same formula.....no? huh this is full of actual thematic underworld ferryman and knowledge of underworld waterways, make ships into ghost pirate ships with ghost crews, make her legend precede her arrival by spreading stories about herself, shroud ships in fog, haunting spooky things like that, but wheres my charm to cause a lot of harm to other people just because? Ocean Maw Malediction there you are, cause mists of despair to drive people mad, why you shouldn't have.

Socialize:
normal socialize stuff to hide, read intentions, read the culture, manipulate people, charms involving negative intimacies, things like that, as I said before no persona charms thats all nerfed now. but no charm to cause massive damage to people though social skills, unfortunately. Guess I'll just have to settle for normal superhuman manipulation.

Stealth:
the second thing for Day Castes to keep an eye on, it has assassination vibes and is probably the skill the Heron has a lot in because while its normal stealth stuff and even some hiding in shadow stuff similar to Solars, its later stuff starts including black feather stuff to dodge, then the highlight charm: Seven Edges of the Raiton where an Abyssal conjure seven black father blades that float around her and can each be used once per scene so they're an ambush attack, and they each do different things but once they're used for an attack, they vanish. Yes this is still stealth, it makes this very definitely lean on assassination over spying.

Survival:
normal anima taming, some wilderness and underworld navigation- wait there are their charms to make yourself unnaturally cold for offensive and defensive purposes in combat, follow up charm to manifest an aura of killing cold out to short range, and third follow up charm to call upon blizzards, deadly hailstorms and the like upon her enemies, and then a charm to desecrate a wilderness region with the usual shadowland benefits, whew we both got the region desecration and cause massive harm to everyone in there, its holding to the pattern.

Thrown:
also apparently the Heron is a thrown user because more crow stuff shows up in this, nothing more to say on that

War:
Finally, we got Abyssal war, which the more I read the more it reads the most evil overlord charms possible, which I guess Bureaucracy also does to some extent, but War is where the most evil overlord vibes come in and not in a uproarious funny way but a cold, mechanical brutal way, its very First and Forsaken Lion, and you can do things like linking minds directly to your battlegroups to oversee the battle personally, with charms like Hivemind Horror Tactics and Omnipresent Overlord technique, and of course, charms to raise the dead and fight for you in your army. doesn't need a charm of mass destruction, because its War and its already horrible enough.

So basically: most of the abilities are similar to Solars but with some ways to cause mass destruction or a lot of harm mental or physical to many people added in that make sense, mixed with thematic twists from the Deathlords to bend the abilities in different archetypal directions that make sense for Abyssal vibes such as assassination, morbid inspiration, spying, undead ferrymen, things like that. it gets foundational basics down while still being its own thing, and is well-designed for the number things it needed to set out to accomplish: be its own abyssal charmset, soft-fix the Solar charmset, provide more flavor and information on the deathlords by making charms inspired by them, its kind of elegant for kind of taking two problems and solving them with each other: 2e Abyssals had the problem of being too much like Solars while the Deathlords were done badly, so they used the Deathlords to inform how their charmset is different and to provide a better feel for what they are about skillwise, giving them clearer specializations and focuses than just being seemingly invincible elder solars with death magic.

but thats enough for me. next time I'll be finishing this up by covering the last chapters probably all at once, while the content is good, it won't take me long to talk about any of them.

[Rater202]

So to sum it all up, Abyssal charms are "murder time, fun time?"

[Lord Raziere]

Well....yes. but thats just the combat side of things, let me clarify

But also socially....lots of negative intimacy stuff "fear me, I'm your new overlord", "despair at the futility of life" and so on kind of stuff. they don't just kill you, the hurt you emotionally, mentally and such to manipulate you into despairing and accepting their deathly ways. its possible of course to make an Abyssal who doesn't do the negative social stuff, but they'd be working against a lot of stuff by doing so.

another theme is obviously, undeath, a lot of charms raise zombies just as a matter of course. a lot of the destructive charms I mentioned have a side effect of making a shadowland for them to use later, perhaps to expand their kingdom. furthermore some charms are more effective against the undead, more beneficial to ghosts, and knowledge charms often have themes of either giving knowledge of the underworld or stuff relating to murder and death.

sure yes, Murder Time is Fun Time, but its more that such a thing is a normal part of your expected procedure for your adventures and expanding your powerbase: an Abyssal ruler wanting to maximize their power will probably get an undead kingdom to rule and expand that kingdom through shadowlands, while trying to gain more ghosts to rule over- and thus you use destructive charms to make those shadowlands, probably take over ghost kingdom to start with and kill people to make them become ghosts and whatnot even if you aren't a follower of the Neverborn or anything- its the kind of systemic incentivization the Abyssals are forced into by having their power and thus end up doing the Neverborn's bidding even if they don't specifically serve them or intend to obey them, because so much of their power relies on them setting up systems of undeath to benefit them and every shadowland is one that expands the Underworld's influence to who knows what end. we're not in 2e anymore, its not a guaranteed "the world will be destroyed" scenario, but I doubt Abyssals doing that is a good thing regardless. and even if you think the undead and shadowland stuff aren't bad, the fact that so much of their social charms rely on negative intimacies both for themselves and for manipulating others can lead to a lot of bad things, like ruling by fear, or making the Abyssal have a defining unbreakable tie of vengeance towards somebody good, or driving people to despair with your music, things like that. Again we're talking hardcore, sauron villain stuff, the cold, heartless evil overlord type that orders cruelties and live sacrificing without flinching or expressing warm emotions type, the kind that doesn't even joke about it. thats the vibes I get from their charms.

now obviously, a Abyssal isn't obligated to act like that, but they're going against the grain of their charms and limit track if they aren't acting at least like an edgy anti-hero who makes tsundere-like proclamations of "its not as if I did it to save your life or anything". Abyssals can be good, but they are very villain-coded in how everything works.