The Dragon-Blooded. The Terrestrial Exalted. The Chosen. The Ten Thousand Scales. These are the names for a race of beings that are far beyond what mortals can expect; able to control the flow of Essence, that magical thing which binds all living things and everything that is or was or will be. Using this, they can perform incredible feats and sway vast crowds. Their greatest base of power is the Realm, where the Dragon-Blooded sit as the masters of Creation - the highest incarnations of worthy souls, blessed by the Five Elemental Dragons.

History

Any history of the Empire of the Dragon-Blooded is, by definition, a history of its Empress. She created it from the smouldering ashes of the Great Contagion, sustained it when it was weak and guided it throughout its history. It has always reflected her will and her vision, and it has always been the instrument by which she has imposed both upon the world. While there is no formal cult of personality within the Realm, there really doesn’t need to be one. Any inhabitant of the lands under her sway, from the haughtiest Dragon-Blood to the lowliest slave, knows that, on a fundamental level, the Empress and her empire are one and the same.

Our history begins in a very dark place, both in that it was a time of evil and a time from which we know few hard facts. Most of the knowledge of the Old Realm was lost to the Contagion and the years afterward, and we find ourselves relying on folklore to compensate for lacunae in the ancient records. The understanding we arrived at when we look at these two sources is that the world we now inhabit was originally infested with great malevolent spirits or demons and their insidious thralls, whom we have come to call the Anathema.

The Anathema, it is said, used bizarre and unnatural rituals to steal power from the spirits of the sky - sun, moon and stars - as a means of proving their worth to their hideous masters. Once that inversion of the natural order took place, the Five Great Elemental Dragons realised that the loathsome elder gods and their powerful servants must be overcome if any progress or good were to come of this world. They regarded the nascent species called humanity, sought out the noblest warriors among them and breathed into them power over the elements. In that way were the Dragon-Blooded born. The Dragon-Blooded are the first and, despite what you may hear in certain mistranslated old folk-tales, the only true Exalted. While we may take them for granted, it is important to remember that the Dragon-Blooded are our benefactors, our guides and our defenders.

With the powers of the Dragons, the first Exalted met the servants of the old gods in battle. One by one, the Solar Anathema fell before the power of the Dragon-Blooded. Seeing their warriors fall, those Anathema who had stolen power from the moon and the stars scattered and were largely destroyed. Once their servants were vanquished, the demons themselves became the target of the Dragon-Blooded. They, too, soon gave way to the elemental onslaught, and the Terrestrial made the world safe for the creation of the Old Realm.

With the riddance of the demons and the banishment of their servants, the Dragon-Blooded turned their attention to nurturing the young civilisation. The Dragon-Blooded established a society that would protect the common man and foster mankind’s higher nature. Farmers thrived when their crops were protected from wild beasts, merchants thrived when their trade routes were patrolled by the soldiers of the Realm, and under the aegis of the Dragon-Blooded, civilisation expanded to cover the face of the world.

Sadly, the Realm, led then by the predecessor to the Scarlet Dynasty, was not aggressive enough in its pursuit of the Anathema sorcerers who fled to the Wyld and to the Threshold. The Dynasty was yet young and had little notion of the ramifications that would follow from allowing the Anathema to survive.

The weird night-magicians, finding protection in the bizarre Wyld lands, continued to hound the distant colonies of the Realm with sorcerous incursions and guerrilla tactics. This approach gained them nothing. However, their worship of malevolent spirits and constant disturbance of the spirit world eventually called down the rage of Heaven. The Realm was held accountable by Heaven for its lax approach in dealing with the subversive Anathema. Heaven’s punishment took the form of the Great Contagion.

The Great Contagion was a virulent disease that killed over 90 percent of the population of the Realm. Whole cities were wiped out to a man, particularly those in the outlying lands. The Dragon-Blooded suspect that some of the beast sorcerers may have worsened the Contagion by sending vermin to spread it more effectively.

At the end of Heaven’s sentence, when all those who would die had done so, the Great Contagion ended. There was to be no peace for the survivors. The maw of the Wyld opened wide and swallowed entire provinces. Swarms of barbarians flooded into the Threshold and the mainland provinces, wiping out many small pockets of humanity that had managed to survive the plague. Great cities of old disappeared, destroyed by sorcerers and monsters, and only the timely intervention of the Empress saved the Realm.

Of those glorious cities, only ruins remain - most are overgrown, covered with woods or jungle, and still infested with the weird creatures of the Wyld. The years that followed the Contagion were spent fortifying the Realm and consolidating the citizens from outlying provinces into the relatively strong bulwarks of civilisation on the Blessed Isle.

The Dynasty of the Scarlet Empress grew powerful, both politically and magically, and it was she who prevented the forces of the Wyld from encroaching on the Blessed Isle. With her great elemental magic, the Scarlet Empress was able to defend the island and protect the citizens of the Realm, even as pirates and barbarians tried to launch incursions onto the Realm island itself. From her Manse in the Imperial City, the Scarlet Empress was able to push the Fair Folk back to the madlands where they belonged.

But while civilisation on the Blessed Isle grew strong, the magic of the Empress could not reach across the ocean to defend the far provinces, many of which came under the control of barbarians and Wyld savages of all description. Those beyond the reach of the Dynasty developed powerful criminal undergrounds, which used their influence to turn the people against the Dynasty.

Though these Threshold areas were once part of the Realm, most of their cultures are too debased to merit direct imperial rule. Instead, they are governed by their own princes and potentates, who rules with the advice of the Realm and pay tribute to the coffers of the Scarlet Empress. In return, the Realm protects them and allows them to bask in the glory of flying the flag of the Realm higher than their own.

To better manage the growing threats to the Realm, the Scarlet Empress recently placed other members of the Dynasty at the helm of state and entered into a period of reflection, during which she will determine how best to defend the Realm and retake the barbarian provinces. It is expected that the day she emerges from her meditations she will have discerned how best to deal with the new threat posed by the Anathema. Once they have been dealt with, it is expected that she will instruct the Realm navy to retake the impudent eastern provinces, and the Realm will once again begin to grow.

Five years ago, the Empress disappeared so completely that it was as if she had never been. This occurrence, in and of itself, was not necessarily unusual. She had taken brief sabbaticals from the Scarlet Throne before, some lasting as long as six months. Even in her absence in those times, the Realm continued to function smoothly, carrying itself forwards on sheer inertia as the mechanisms of government lurched along with business as usual. None of the Great Houses made a play for the Throne, wary that this could be some trick of the Empress’ to see which of her offspring were too ambitious for their own good. And always, she returned as if she had never been away, with no word as to were she had been or what she had done.

Five years ago, that all changed. The Empress vanished one morning, gone without trace. Almost overnight, the Realm’s empire began to crumble. The government was not built for a succession - there were simply no mechanisms to put a new ruler on the throne. There wasn’t even any proof that the Empress was dead. Weeks of indecision turned into months of political wrangling, until a figurehead regent was put on the throne. The provinces were bled white, as garrisons were withdrawn from the Threshold and brought home to the Blessed Isle. Any attempt to deploy the legions abroad was seen as a maneuver in the struggle for control of the throne - the armies of the Realm were paralysed. Even the Wyld Hunt has fallen to the wayside, as the contenders for the Throne gather their every iota of power.

Realising that the Realm’s armies and magical defenses were mere paper tigers, the Realm’s countless subject states began withholding their tribute. But the tributaries are no the only enemies to realise the weakness of the Realm. The barbarian tribes who lurk beyond the pale of civilisation have begun to raid more frequently without the Imperial Foot to retaliate against their attacks. From their strongholds within Creation, and from those outside it, the Fair Folk murmur of war. The lords of the Underworld unleash new monstrosities against the living, and everywhere there are omens of war and dark times. After millennia of vigilance, the Wyld Hunt has lapsed. And at this moment of weakness, the Solar Anathema have returned. Not a tiny handful but a great mass of them.

This is the world into which you have come.

Religion

The Immaculate Philosophy, the state mandated religion of the Realm, holds that the Dragon-Blooded are superior beings who have travelled farther down enlightenment’s road. The law forbids citizens, peasants, slaves and the disenfranchised from looking them directly in the eye. Even today, while no one worships Dynasts as deities, their advanced spirituality and frightening powers inspire awe among the peoples of the Realm. Some citizens flock to any public ceremony that promises a glimpse of one of the Dragon-Blooded, while others will go to any lengths to avoid their Exalted presence. Many peasants, rationalising the fact that they could never afford to travel to the Imperial City, declare that they’d never visit a place so full of the terrifying Dragon-Blooded. The Immaculate Pasiap wrote in the Immaculate Texts that nature has provided humanity with the Perfected Hierarchy. Since every rank of society fulfills a necessary role in the survival of all, no caste of the hierarchy is superior to any other. Though the Dragon-Blooded exist in greater harmony with their Essence and are further along the road to enlightenment, they still cannot prosper without the other parts of society, for what use is a ruler without a nation or a teacher without a class?

Although the intricacies of the Immaculate Philosophy are debated within the order and the Dynasty and individual Immaculates have different understandings of the philosophy based on the Dragon they choose to emulate, a few fundamental tenets exist. While ignorant of many of the details, citizens and peasants understand these tenets as the core of the philosophies.

• Every soul walks enlightenment’s road. A soul dies and is reborn many times, reaching a new state of enlightenment with each incarnation, unless it strays from the road. Whether the journey ends in Ultimate Exaltation or continues on forever, only the most enlightened Dragon-Blooded know.
• To advance toward enlightenment, one must harness Essence - the more Essence one wields, the further along the road one has travelled. The Dragons of the Elements control infinite Essence.
• The Five Immaculate Dragons were the mortal incarnations of the Dragons of the Elements. From these five, the first Dragon-Blooded learned their Charms.
• The Dragons of the Elements were perfected beings, as enlightened as can be. Those who emulate their Immaculate incarnation follow the surest road to enlightenment.
• The birth of a Dragon-Blood is not an accident, but the sign of a soul that has almost achieved the perfection experience by the Dragons of the Elements. The Dragon-Blooded sit atop the Perfected Hierarchy so that they may guide others down enlightenment’s road.
• The Dragon-Blooded have reached Exaltation and must be respected. Lesser beings must always heed the Dragon-Blooded, for the Terrestrials cannot divert a soul from enlightenment’s road.
• Spirits exist, but one must not worship them as gods. Likewise, individuals of low spiritual status must not pay them homage. Those who act in a worshipful fashion toward spirits or pay homage to them must spend time in the Underworld to prepare them for a more auspicious return in their next life. Only the Dragon-Blooded are advanced enough to deal with them and pay them due homage.
• The Anathema who survived the Contagion dwell in the Threshold and the Wyld and seek to divert souls to heresy. The Realm must conquer these lands in order to purge them of the Anathema’s heathen influence. All souls must be given the chance to return to Enlightenment’s road.
• Heresy must be suppressed wherever it arises.

The Five Immaculate Dragons

Daana’d, Arbiter of the Immaculate Complaint: The Immaculate Texts portray Daana’d, the Immaculate of Water, as a capricious and rebellious youth from the Far West. Anathema saw her power and tried to lure her into their thrall, but Daana’d refused these seductions. After the Dragon-Blooded destroyed the Anathema, she swam down to the bottom of the deepest sea to lock the gate to the Underworld, to ensure that the Anathema would never again return to trouble the world of man. Daana’d taught men to follow the road of enlightenment and escape the cycle of life and death. Younger Immaculates on Daana’d’s path engage in all manner of spiritual athletics to develop the ultimate mastery of their own Essences. They often leave the order for many years and endure every hardship they can experience. The Antithesis of Daana’d is the “Unmanly Babbler”, who whines that he cannot solve his problems, when the true answer lies in his own Essence.

Hesiesh, Reciter of Loud Hymns and Efficacious Prayers: Hesiesh was an Exalted of great potential who used his powers only once in his life. Hesiesh saved up his Essence, stored it away and released it all at once to burn away the corpses of the fallen Anathema so that they would not rise as hungry ghosts. Because he reserved his powers for the time when they were most needed, he succeeded during the one moment that his life truly mattered. Followers of Hesiesh are the most involved in the order’s catechism. They see tradition as the hallowed ways that generations past used to save time and energy. These traditional methods became traditional because they worked. The antithesis of Hesiesh is the “Illiberal Churl” who observes traditions because that is what is expected of him, thereby missing the Essence at the heart of the hallowed ways.

Sextes Jylis, He Who Hath Strewn Much Grass: After the war against the Anathema, the Immaculate of Wood walked the lands and restored the Realm. He rebuilt toppled mountains and set fallen trees aright. Over razed fields, he sowed grass so that the fields might grow again. Sextes Jylis, the wanderer, exemplifies the responsible use of Exalted gifts. Those who emulate the Dragon of Wood travel the Realm repairing the damage caused by war and natural disaster, while, at the same time, seeking out heretics and ministering to small villages. The Antithesis of Sextes Jylis is the “Inconsiderate Horseman”. As he travels the road of life, he neglects to protect against easily preventable damage.

Mela, Petitioner of Clouds Accordant to the Call of Battle: The Dragon of Air was the eldest in the legends of the Five Immaculates, the first soul to ever reach Ultimate Exaltation. She taught humans strong in spirit and body the use of Essence, and when the Dragon-Blooded marched to war against the Anathema, she used her power to blow the fires away from the Chosen, so that they would not be burned. Mela represents perfection, and those who emulate her seek to make themselves the best at everything. Those who follow the Immaculate of Air are the most accomplished warriors in the Realm, and Mela’s name is often invoked in times of war. The Antithesis of Mela is the “Sickly Whore”, who although she possesses great beauty, wastes her gifts on the degradation of herself and others.

Pasiap, He Who Illuminates Both Worlds with Majesty and Power: The Dragon of Earth was born into the human incarnation of Pasiap just at the end of the wars against the Anathema. When the other Dragons returned to the Celestial Sphere, Pasiap stayed behind to teach humanity the way to control the Essence of the Earth. He also showed the Dragon-Blooded how to use their Charms to construct great temples and awe-inspiring towers. Followers of Pasiap are great architects and builders. Few Manses have been built without the advice of an Immaculate who follows Pasiap. The Antithesis of Pasiap is the “Ostentatious Peasant” who lives far beyond his means, even though his possessions are worthless next to the true wealth of enlightment.

The Order of the Immaculate Dragons is a monastic order of Exalted and their human servitors. The order is made up of Dynasts who seek refuse from the political life of the Imperial Manse and outcastes who see the order as a path to higher understanding. Overseeing the entire order from the looming Manse known as the Palace Sublime is the office known as the Mouth of Peace. Below the Mouth of Peace are the Most Righteous Paragons, one representing each of the five Immaculates. The Paragons are those Dragon-Blooded who have most faithfully emulated their Immaculate Dragon.

Immaculates are regarded as deadly warriors and wise men beyond all conventional limits of learning. Even less superstitious folk hesitate when their actions might attract the attention of the Order. When facing a Dragon-Blooded Immaculate, one faces a near-perfect warrior, a foremost scholar of the Realm and one of the most powerful Exalted to have ever existed, all in one.

Heresy

The Hundred Gods Heresy isn’t one faith, but a collective term for the cults in the Realm and elsewhere that worship the natural spirits that pervade the land. These cults usually base themselves on the older pagan religions common in the ancient past or in remote regions. While the Order of Immaculate Dragons recognises the existence of these spirits, it considers them to be spiritual functionaries who are distracted from their duties by worship and prayer. Members of the Order give ritual thanks to the spirits on the appropriate holidays, and this, which is no more and no less than the Dragons decreed proper, is what should be given.

Every city and many of the villages of the Realm have cults devoted to some local deity. Sometimes, entire communities display the trappings of the Immaculate faith but in reality worship older gods. In the Threshold, matters are different. While all tributaries pay lip-service to the imperial cult, the degree to which the inhabitants of a given kingdom actually honour the faith varies wildly. In some places, belief is sincere, while in others people merely smile and nod until the missionaries and magistrates depart.

Outcaste

Not every member of the Dragon-Blooded is a Dynast. Through accident of birth or ancient consanguinity with the Dynasty, the Dragon-Blooded pop up in all levels of society, even among the slaves and the disenfranchised. Similarly, some Dynastic Dragon-Blooded, sick of the politics of the Imperial Court, resign from the plots of their kin and take up lives away from the conspiracies of power. Still others are banished and disowned for crimes against House and Realm.

These rare Dragon-Bloods who take up lives separate from the Dynasty, called “outcastes” invariably leave their mark. The great pirates of the Threshold, Sesus Ossissa and Eos Atitha, are two such Exalted. Ossissa, a son of House Sesus, and Eos, a peasant girl born an Aspect of Air, have joined in an alliance to rob the Guild of its riches. Outcaste bandits form many such unlikely alliances. They draw both nobles ousted by the politics of the provinces and peasants displaced by war or famine.

Sometimes, ousted lords and their former servants pillage side by side. Although the “Forest Witches”, who operate mostly to the north of the Scavenger Lands, live dangerous lives, they’ve amassed wealth to rival some small kingdoms and provide a home to outcastes from any stratum of society. In a realm so concerned with rank and privilege, bands such as the Forest Witches enjoy the most egalitarian cultures around.

The Dynasty despises outcastes and considers them members of the disenfranchised, that unhappy stratum of society with almost no rights whatsoever. The Order of the Immaculate Dragons teaches that a being who has reached such a sublime Exalted state only to squander it by rejected his place in the Perfected Hierarchy has alienated himself from enlightenment’s road. Far from higher powers, outcastes waste their spiritual potential on pillaged jade.

If you decide to be an ex-member of one of the 11 Great Houses, please read up on your chosen House in the downloadable Dragon-Blooded book, pages 84-137, to get a flavour for your character’s background in childhood.

The Threshold is where most Outcastes end up.

There is a great deal of world between the roiling chaos of the Wyld and the urbane sophistication of the Realm. Though the scions of the Dynasty condemn the outlying lands as barbaric, and keep them as tributaries, they are in truth, vibrant and dynamic. Unfettered from the convoluted politics and the corruption of the Dynasty, the Threshold embodies possibilities and new solutions, innovation and a vibrant determination to succeed against the odds.

The term Threshold typically denotes the ring of princedoms and city-states on the outer edge of the Inner Sea, too barbarous to govern directly but still civilised enough to pay tribute to the Realm. The Realm proper only directly rules the Blessed Isle. Everything else is nominally independent, a kingdom or republic paying tribute and respect to the Dynasty and advised by an imperial satrap.

In the past, this meant imperial rule in everything but name. The Dragon-Blooded and their legions made the Empress’ word law in almost all lands bordering the Inner Sea. All paid homage to the Immaculates and acknowledged the spiritual superiority of the Dragon-Blooded, though in many places this was purely a matter of honouring the imperial cult. But recently, the power of the Realm has crumbled, and more and more of the states that border the Inner Sea are reducing their tribute or eliminating it altogether.

This campaign will be set in the Mid-East, where the Realm’s influence doesn’t really extend past the fiercely independent Scavenger Lands, in the Hundred Kingdoms.

Aspects

As beings invested with power from the Five Elemental Dragons, Dragon-Blooded are inherently tied with one of the five elements of Creation; Air, Earth, Fire, Water or Wood. Each can attune themselves to different colours of Jade, their magical material, and by thus doing so achieve incredible effects. Air attunes itself to blue, Earth to white, Fire to red, Water to black and Wood to green jade. More information can be found on each Aspect’s page at the top of this site.

While Dragon-Blooded have certain tendencies as a result of their Aspect, their personality does not have to complement or match the stereotypical portrayal of that Aspect and may even take on some or all of the traits denoted more to another Aspect.

Anima and Rules

All Exalted, even the perfidious Anathema, have an “anima”, an aura of power that surrounds them. Normally, this aura is so faint that it is imperceptible to normal human senses, but when the Exalted spends motes of Peripheral Essence, the anima intensifies to form a so-called banner. Except for the 1-3 and 16+ effects, the anima banner fades at the rate of one table entry per scene, or per 10 to 15 minutes, if the scenes are very long.

Dragon-Blooded have very powerful elemental animas, they are so raw as to actually inflict damage. This is the reason the Dragon-Blooded do not ride horses into war. The damage varies, and may seem to come from biting winds, scratching thorns or burning flame, but the source is the same - the raw elemental power of the Dragon-Blooded’s Essence. For descriptions of the different Aspect’s anima’s, please see the Aspect Pages at the top of the site.

All Dragon-Blooded can use a single mote of their essence to do the following:

• Cause the skin tint natural to her aspect to deepen and become slightly luminescent for a scene (clearly marking the character as one of the Chosen of the Elemental Dragons)
• Cause her anima to glow brightly enough to read by for a scene.
• Know her exact location in relation to her aspect’s corresponding elemental pole (enabling a Dragon-Blooded to subtract 1 from the difficulty of a roll to navigate or orient herself.

Regaining Essence

An Exalted’s motes, once spent, return to him only gradually - thus, an Exalted has to shepherd his mystical energies carefully, lest he find himself powerless and beset by enemies. An Exalted cannot recover any motes if he engages in strenuous activity (combat, manual labour, hikes, forced marches, and so on). If at ease, but not completely relaxed (such as watching an artistic performance, taking a leisurely stroll or debating) he recovers spent motes at the rate of four per hour. When he’s completely relaxed (sleeping, receiving a massage), he recovers motes at the rate of eight per hour. Characters first regenerate their Personal Essence, regaining motes of their Peripheral Essence only when their Personal Essence pool is full.

In addition, characters who are attuned to Manses recover their Essence more quickly. Characters within a Manse they are attuned to gain a bonus to their hourly recovery rate of four times the Manse’s rating. A character carrying the raw Hearthstone of a Manse against his bare skin (or set in a Hearthstone Setting he is attuned to) gains a bonus of twice the Manse’s rating. Characters attuned to Manses gain the Manse’s Essence bonus even if they are engaged in strenuous activity.