Exalted is a White Wolf game, in the proper vernacular, wait White Wolf doesn't give a shit about being proper.
Exalted is a game about humans, ORDINARY humans, in a fucked over fantasy world that has been at war for eternity, getting power beyond their imagination through a catalyst event.* Only to realize that you got fucked over cosmically, and now everyone related to the government and the people in charge are hunting you. You then realize that these people in massed numbers can decimate you. And you only have 300* people like yourself in a world of billions. In the game Your characters are special, more than that, your characters more than anyone else in that world are destined to be PERFECT. Perfect at all things, and if you are perfection from unassuming beginnings, most people are going to want to flaunt it. Do ridiculous things, etc, etc. Only you can't because of the whole issue of the immaculate faith, the witch hunting buddhist style catholics of the time, and the dragon-blooded, hunting down anyone who strays from their dogma. The moment you do these ridiculous things, is the moment that you have to kill, and kill, and kill, until you manage to either get away or die. It's at that moment where you realize that, people are nothing compared to you, or possibly that you are nothing compared to people.
Heaven is against you.
The World is against you.
Hell is against you.
All you can do is mete out an existence of either fleeing or fighting. Trying to not harm, or trying to kill as many of the fuckers before they kill you. And eventually you discover cosmic mysteries, you find out that you in your past life locked away or killed the gods of old called the primordials, titans in strength, who grew arrogant and dismissed humans, because unlike all other creatures you were weak. You lacked the ability to do really anything. And so their servants the gods promoted humans, to the level of themselves, using the help of traitor primordials, Autochthon, the youngest and weakest, who was sick of being bullied by the other primordials, of having his creations, destroyed because all he could do was create and he lacked the strength of the will to fight, and Gaia, the second youngest, who was sick of being coddled, and wanted to strike out on her own. These primordials along with some of the gods themselves, Sol Invictus, the god of the Sun, Luna god(dess) of the moon and lover to Gaia, the Maidens of the Stars, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, Mercury, all made distinct creations, Sol Invictus, made consummate perfectionists, they couldn't help but be perfect, in times of peace they would be the greatest of artists, in times of war, the deadliest of enemies. Luna, decided that this could go wrong in many ways, and made creations to be the stewards of these solars, to help structure these Solar in many ways and to give them teachers in each new life, each lunar is paired with a unique Solar, and only that Solar. The Maidens in their own ways, decided to create artistry, these would be those destined to watch the loom of fate, they would be the advisers, they would be the ones who would watch those of the Solars and give them advice from watching the very threads of fate itself. Viziers they would be called. And the last to create such creatures at this time was Gaia, who took the essense of the greatest of her children, the elemental dragons, who patrolled the edges of the flat world of creation, insuring no wyld being entered, and no being of creation left. And she decided that the beings the others created were needing of something, they were powerful but they were few. So she created a virus, that propagated itself genetically passing on characteristics and allowing the breeding of the Dragonblooded. And so the collection complete, your past life warred with these beings, these primordials, where the gods, bound as they were to Geas to not rebel, could not. Many died but such was your exaltation tied to creation, that you merely came back. Time and time again, eventually you slew these titans of chaos and creation, or else locked them up. The ones you slew created something altogether new, the underworld, and finally the dead mortals did not merely come back, but those that died, went to the underworld to be tortured for ever more. The primordials that assisted your kind and the gods in your creation, Gaia and Autochthon grew so fearful of what the gods created, that they fled, never to return to creation. And so the first age started, and it was a time of great rebuilding. When the primordials died, or were locked away they had been so destructive that essential concepts had died.
Concepts had died, I want to emphasize that. Imagine our world without the concept of up, or gravity.
Some Solars, called cauldronists decided they wanted to remake the world. It was shortly after this movement started gaining traction late in the first age of creation that the sidereals gathered for a grand conclave. All 50 sidereals were in attendance, a sidereal had discovered something in the loom. It stated that the Solars would cause some great essential change to the world that would destroy everything in existence. At this proclamation, the sidereals all balked and split into 2 factions, one, supporting the solars, and only wanting to enslave them. The others, wanted to kill the solars, eventually a vote was called and a plan was made, they invited every Solar to a party, informing them to leave their lunar mates at home, this was a celebration of their perfection. And on that night, guarded by 5 full legions of trained dragonblooded soldiers, they fell upon the blades of their servants. The dragonblooded had been incited into a furor over the fact that the solars had everything, that they were the most numerous so they should lead. And so the higher souls of the solar as they were slain, were sent to sit in a false realm, a prison from which there was no escape, that was then sunk to the bottom of the ocean. That was 300 years ago. Shortly after that happened, a great contagion spread through the world, killing 1/4 to 1/2 of the population, it spared no one, dragonblooded and mortal alike died in this plague. This plague was spread from the underworld from the ancient now dead, but not, dead, but dead, but not dead, but dead, neverborn, the souls of the defeated primordials who were not locked up. Roughly 100 years ago, the great contagion had mostly died out in the intervening years, and a person was born, empires of dragon blooded had attempted to form, but this dragonblooded was the one who would rule, the Scarlet Empress rose from unassuming origins, and sought to rule an empire. The trial that lead to this, was one of great detailed that most of which was surely faked. The fae had been encroaching because the solar in their arrogance had created channels to the wyld. A crusade was being mustered from the Raksha of the wyld, and that crusade came, rolling in from the north, masses of fae, creatues so foreign to the natures of creation that should they stay in it long enough they corrupt the land and turn to pure calcium doing so, and their hatred of creation, so strong that they are willing to risk that. The Scarlet Empress at this point, the horde nearing the blessed isle the center of creation and the location of one of it's anchors, was taken with inspiration, and took control of the Creation Defense System, a relic of the first age, that would not have been used in centuries, and destroyed the horde in one fell swoop and had the greatest bargaining chip anyone in creation has ever had over the threshold.
What follows is that which is unknown to you. But will become relevant eventually.
100 years passed and the Yozi, the souls of the primordials not killed but imprisoned. Sought to gain some traction on their Creation once again. They got some demons that were being summoned in masses by the dragonblooded sorcerers to to arrange a deal with the Neverborn, they would use the powerful ghosts called deathlords to free the solars, and using a device the labs of hell came up with, capture the souls of those Solars they could. They managed to capture 150, and split them evenly with the Neverborn, 75 for them, 75 for the Yozi.
Then they needed somewhere to store the souls for the modifications would likely be stripped by Lytek God of the Exaltations. So they created the Womb Phylactery, and contacted the daughter of the scarlet empress, by the way the scarlet empress at this time had disappeared, whether that was to be wed or to simply flee the responsibility of the courts. And bought the youngest daughter of the imperial dragonblooded family, turning her into the mother of each of the exalts. The corrupted nature of her role being such that she constantly either screams in agony as if in constant childbirth or, moans in pleasure as if enjoying the worlds best longest orgasm, she has been in this state since age. When shes not in such fugue states, she is demanding company, or just lying in a mottled ball of mutated flesh and extra appendages. But we'll move onto the the neverborn creations now. The did not need to keep the exaltations somewhere, they had an entire world for them to roam. What they did was simple, they took the exaltations, they tortured them, and they scarred them, and the burned them, until the essense itself inverted. Where the Solars needed acts of heroism, the Demons of the Yozi took in those who desired to be heroes. The Abyssal Host of the Neverborn, took those who had died in the act of heroism, and gave them a second chance.
And that is where the story of the exalts sits for now, but what of Autochthon, the now sleeping primordial. His world runs low on souls, and the Alchemical Exalted monitors of this world, meant to be everything the other Exalts are but more. The Metal Soulsteel, having been created by him discovering a realm and accidentally killing all of it's inhabitants trying to analyze what they are. He is sleeping, his world is failing and he is dying of some form of cancer. The infinite corridors of Autochthon are in need of souls, and as such his servants the Alchemicals may come to creation in search of said souls. Yet another faction in the massive brawl about to take place where no one is allied with anyone, even their own kinds being schismed through the events of the last 300 years.
But yeah, sure, deny it any depth by calling is boring and Animu, which quoting April Fools jokes and 4chan's TG. Who only like Warhammer 40k and shitty games like that. If it makes you feel better.
Here's a hint, WhiteWolf games always have some of the best, deepest writing in table top and some of the most boring rules. It's something I hope they correct with 3e'd.
