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There are many more beings in Creation than just the various types of Exalts and spirits. There are Primordial-created races lost, cast down, and thriving alike, the Half Human Hybrids of everything from gods to ghosts, the strange, singular monsters created by the god-kings of Creation on a whim (whether those kings were Exalt or Primordial), and things so mysterious that even the books never clarify exactly what they are. And, of course, there are mortals.

You can find them all here.

Dragon Kings

Dragon Kings

Mayan/Aztecan styled dinosaurs who are effectively immortal, and realize their previous lives' memories and abilities as they grow older, starting out as feral creatures when they're hatched.

Ubiquitous Tropes

  • The Dark Side: The Dark Paths, that tap into the elements of the Underworld. Too much of it can turn a DK into a Creature of Darkness. And it's very easy to gain power in it.
  • Expy: Of several different people. Mayincatec, Lovecraft's evil snake people of Leng (minus the evil part, mostly), and the Aboleths.
  • Fling a Light Into the Future: See Human Popsicle below. It's less successful than intended, but there is a fair chance for the Dragon Kings to rebuild themselves to their former glory.
  • Human Popsicle: The Great Contagion and Fair Folk invasion devastated the Dragon Kings, and many of them tried to Fling a Light Into the Future by putting the wiser among them in cryogenic stasis, waiting until the disasters passed, hoping to rebuild their races in a more stable future. Unfortunately, the chaotic situation of the world means that a lot of those cryogenic chambers are disturbed into malfunctioning or just plain destroyed. The few Dragon Kings sleeping today can't wake up on their own due to the deterioration of their chamber. It doesn't help that the humans who find them are deeply unnerved upon chancing upon them --that experience amount to a scene from Alien movies-- and try to destroy those chambers.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Talking, Kungfu-fighting, spell-slinging T-Rex with very ancient memories.
  • Planet of Hats: Ankloks are warrior-priests, Mosoks are assassin-sailors, Pteroks are sorceror-scribes, and Raptoks are diplomats.
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Verily. The average Dragon Kings are fearsome savages, with enlightened ones few and far between (and they are most likely not interested in your well-being).
  • Time Abyss: A DK doesn't start as one, though s/he can awaken to ancient memories, possibly dating as far back as the age of Primordials.
  • Willing Channeler: They have always been a religious race, and in the past, were able to invoke this upon themselves by a special ritual. The ones lucky enough to host the gods are called olchilike, or Chosen. Unfortunately, no DK remember how to do this anymore, and the few gods who do are barred from doing so by the High Heavens.

Anklok

Mosok

Pterok

Raptok

Mountain Folk

Mountain Folk

Our Dwarves Are Different. The Mountain Folk are a race of people born out of rocks found deep underground in Creation. Except that only some castes are short, surly, bearded fellows. Some of them are tall, lithe, pretty, and have pointed ears. They're all basically Raksha who were caught in the formation of Creation. This of course drastically changed their natures, and they went from being creatures of story to creatures of work. They were awakened by Autochthon, whom they worship and revere...and also despise for abandoning them.

Much like intra-Artisan relationships, it's a complicated thing.

The First

Worker Caste

Warrior Caste

Artisan Caste

  • Lonely at the Top: Given how much Artisan culture is based on paranoia and bitterness, they often come to this conclusion.

Chaos Seers

Being both creations of Autochthon, you would think the Pattern Spiders and Mountain Folk would have a working relationship.

Well, certain Enlightened (fully intelligent and empowered) individuals have learned Charms that let them do just that. It is also a very bad idea.

You see, something about the channels to the Loom of Fate does...weird things to a Chaos Seer's mind. Over time, they begin to lose their Compassion Virtue, until they hit Zero, at which point they go utterly and completely bonkers, following bizarre and garbled directives from the Loom, distorted by their madness.

They are also freed from the Great Geas altogether, allowing them to act completely freely in this regard. Oh, and did we mention that they can teach others the Charms through a Hannibal Lecture...?

  • Mad Oracle: Um, yeah.
  • Screwed by the Network: Later fixed in errata but they are both mentioned in the original Scroll of the Fallen Races book...and don't show hair nor hide of their Charms or actual writeup.


Darkbrood

Darkbrood

The Mountain Folk have neighbors in their caves, and most of them aren't friendly. At all. Ever: "Darkbrood" is a fairly generic term for the various races cursed to be Hurt By The Sun, usually for very good reasons, by the Primordials or the Unconquered Sun. Whether they be Eldritch Abomination, Exclusively Evil, or simply xenophobic, the Warrior Caste is in no danger of ever being without an enemy...

...No matter how incompetent their enemy is.

  • Forever War: Subverted. The repeated skirmishes with them is called the "Endless War", but given how disorganized and self-destructive most Darkbrood are, with the human Underfolk being peaceful isolationists, it's really more of an Endless Annoyance. Used to be straighter in the First Age.
  • Screwed by the Network: Again-overview, no writeup whatsoever.

Alaun

Alaun


Ereta'een

Ereta'een


God-Blooded

God-Blooded

The Half Human Hybrids of the setting, God-Bloods are the children of the various supernatural beings in Exalted and mortals. They're stronger than the average mortal but are usually weaker than an Exalted in power. In spite of being called God-Bloods in general, they're divided by their supernatural parentage. These include God-Blooded, Demon-Blooded, Ghost-Blooded, Fae-Blooded, the Half Caste children of powerful Exalted, and Beastmen (Lunar Half Caste spawned with animals).


The Lintha

The Lintha (in the Time of Glory)

The Lintha Family

Demon-Blooded descendants of the Yozi Kimbery, the Lintha are a thousands-strong extended family of thieves and killers who dwell on Bluehaven, a living island that is part demon and part lashed-together shipwrecks. They control a vast pirate fleet, extensive slavery operations, and, through a network of witting and unwitting fronts, a growing land-based criminal empire in the Southwest of Creation.

  • Body Horror: Lots and lots of Lintha have Wyld mutations. Furthermore, many Lintha ritualistically castrate themselves for religious reasons, and any non-pureblood who hopes to visit Bluehaven is required to be castrated.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: As close as you can get in Exalted -- they openly worship Kimbery, they are gleeful slavers, and they want to Take Over the World.
  • The Clan
  • Completely Missing the Point: The incest-and-castration bit was actually cribbed from an Ancient Lintha's writings that was actually filtering their glories through a Nostalgia Filter. He himself was actually documenting how sure he was the Lintha would go extinct, not laying down a guide book for how to return to glory.
  • The Don: The senior grandmother of a sept (the individual clans within the Family) fills this role. Dukantha (Kimbery's favorite akuma) is often one for the Family as a whole.
  • The Family That Slays Together
  • Fantastic Racism: Against all non-Lintha.
  • I Have Your Wife: Initiates into the Family are required to turn over a child or close family member as a hostage to ensure their loyalty. The hostages live in supreme luxury...unless the initiate ever betrays the Family, at which point they are tortured in prolonged and inventive ways.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: The Lintha often consume the flesh of other Lintha as a sign of respect.
  • Irony: Where do we start...?
    • See Completely Missing the Point above-and keep in mind that it's canon that interbreeding with normal humans wouldn't dilute the blood, and may actually start reviving its potency.
    • They claim to honor the Ancient Lintha, an ancient elf-like race created by Kimbery. Their ghosts are still around, and they are disgusted by the Family.
    • And last, but not least-their living island, Lintha Ng Oroo, is constantly being drained of Life Energy to preserve the Family. The constant sucking of it is killing her, and she has begun to sink.
  • Matriarchy: Kind of. The senior grandmother of each sept is its absolute ruler on Bluehaven itself, and sets the budget for the sept's operations throughout Creation. Grandfathers, however, directly manage the sept's piracy, slavery, and other criminal operations off of Bluehaven, as well as being the sept's diplomats, so a particularly wily and ruthless grandfather can remain independent of a senior grandmother in practice.
  • Pirate: Very definitely Type 1.
  • Pirate Girl: Sometimes, although it is looked down upon. The Lintha have fairly rigid ideas about gender roles and pirating is thought to be the man's job, while the women stay home and run things.
  • Polyamory: Pureblooded Lintha are expected to take dozens of spouses during their lives, to increase the possibility of breeding more purebloods.
  • Religion of Evil: The official Lintha religion, the Cult of Dukantha.
  • Super Breeding Program: They try, but with all the aforementioned polyamory going on, it's impossible to prove beyond a doubt which male Lintha sired which offspring.
  • The Syndicate
  • Tattooed Crook: Demon-ink tattoos (which is to say, tattoos made from the magically rendered essence of demons) are very popular.
  • Thieves' Guild: Although based around an actual family, the Family does allow people to buy their way in as initiates. These initiates rarely rise even to the rank of father or mother, however, and most are taken for all they are worth and then unceremoniously killed. It is, after all, an article of faith among the Lintha that no human has real value compared to a Lintha.
  • Villainous Incest: It's actually a crime in Lintha society for a pure- or half-blooded Lintha to mate outside the Family, and mating outside their sept requires permission from the heads of each sept.


Behemoths

Behemoths

Mother Bog

Proof that not all Behemoths are simply Kaiju: Mother Bog is a sapient ecosystem, a mobile swamp with a canny mind and a gluttonous appetite. A large danger of the Scavenger Lands (the part of the East easily reachable by the Blessed Isle), Mother Bog is both a physical titan and a mental one, being quite capable of communicating her greatest desire to the worshippers she's picked up over the years: To grow, whether it be in area, breath of knowledge, or power.

  • Genius Bruiser
  • Mook Maker: She's called Mother Bog for a reason-sacrifices to her can allow her to create homonculi from her body.

Vorvin-Derlin, the Slayer of Armies

Arad the Hunter

Primordial-created Egomaniac Hunter who menaces the East regularly, looking for a Worthy Opponent to hunt and fight.

Lintha Ng Oroo

The Ur-Snake

Other

The Emissary

The Lookshy Rebel

The Hidden Judges of the Secret Flame

The Priests of Cecelyne


Mortals

Mortals of Creation

The Guild

The only organization that goes beyond claiming to have control over the entirety of Creation, and actually does so. The Guild is a worldwide organization of tradesmen, craftsmen, bureaucrats, gangsters, and drug dealers. They are the Mafia, the Yakuza, the Freemasons, drug based gangs, and all Fortune 500 companies shoved in a blender. With dinosaurs that eat opium poppies and piss heroin.

The Cult of the Illuminated

The White Veil Society

Please disregard this entry. The White Veil Society does not actually exist. Its nonexistent membership is not cleverly concealed amongst the highborn socialites, partygoers, and debutantes of the Realm, Lookshy, and the Threshold, nor does it use these nonexistent connections to gather vast amounts of money, favors, and blackmail to further the far-reaching political agenda it doesn't have.

It is, furthermore, patently absurd to suggest that an organization that does not exist could have the resources or talent pool to invent its own unique martial arts style. White Veil Style does not allow its nonexistent practitioners to kill the enemies they don't have in plain sight, without anyone, including the victim, noticing there was ever a fight. (Which, of course, there wasn't. Obviously.) Poison and disease are not potent tools of this nonexistent style, and obstacles to the White Veil Society's nonexistent agenda do not die, sometimes silently and sometimes screaming, days or weeks after not being on the receiving end.

Nexus

Great Forks

Sijan

Sijan is the city of the dead. Not in the sense of being a necropolis -- well, okay, it's something of a necropolis. Wait. Let's start this over.

Sijan is a city built entirely around being the final resting place for thousands. It is a neutral party in most conflicts, and serves clients from all over the Shadowlands. Being a city of the dead, the Deathlords have great influence in the city, but even then, they're not the paramount power. Sijan's also not a city of the dead entire - there are plenty of mortals who live in the city, but remain below ground, as the surface is the province of the dead and buried. And their ghosts, who are often recognized as equal citizens.

  • Grave Robbing: Very, very, very discouraged. If the Morticians don't get you, the hungry ghosts will. And there are a lot of hungry ghosts.
  • The Necrocracy: The city is ruled over by the Mortician's Order, who oversee the preparation and burial of the dead, as well as the preservation of their grave goods. And of course, the Deathlords are all too willing to throw their muscle about to get some corpses and souls.
  • Urban Segregation: Dead people up above, living people down below.

Thorns

Halta

If you've read about Lunars on the page for Exalted characters, you know they're fond of running long-term social engineering projects, in an attempt to find a stable alternative to the oppressive, centralized Exalt-ruled empires that have screwed up so much of Creation. Halta is one of their great success stories.

Located in the vast redwood forests of the East, Halta was designed by its Lunar patrons as an experiment in tolerance and democracy. Sapient animals hold full civil rights and live harmoniously among Halta's human citizens, and beastmen are almost as accepted. And although Halta started out as a hereditary monarchy, it has since evolved into a republic and is now one of the most democratic societies of the Second Age.

Oh, we should probably mention that they're one of the few societies in Creation willing to negotiate and even ally with the soul-sucking Eldritch Abominations known as The Fair Folk, and even feed prisoners to them on a regular basis. Other than that it's a great place, though, really.

  • Elective Monarchy: The people elect a legislative council, and the council elects the queen.
  • Hereditary Republic: ...However, the council is limited to choosing the queen from among the previous queen's close female relatives.
  • Talking Animal: In Halta, they're full citizens.
  • Tree-Top Town: The Haltans live in the redwoods, while the Fair Folk roam freely on the ground beneath them.

Linowan

Chaya

You're sure to enjoy your stay in beautiful Chaya, one of the most stable and pleasant societies of Creation's Second Age. Located in the East, Chaya is blessed with fertile plains and mild weather. The land is divided into about a dozen villages, each kept at a reasonable size and based on the same logical grid pattern. Each village elects representatives to send to the capitol, Larjyn, where they rule over Chaya as a democratic republic. Culturally, the Chayans are known for being a friendly and easygoing people with a strong sense of community, united by their reverence for the sacred fire trees that grow only in their homeland. Crime is rare, and war almost unknown. All in all, what's not to like?

Oh, if you stick around for a while you might notice a few oddities. Like the curious lack of pets and livestock in the villages. Or the fact that if you mention Chaya to anyone in any of the neighboring societies, they'll invariably look nervous, mutter something about how you'd best be sure to move on before summer, and refuse to say any more about it.

You'd better listen to them. Around midsummer, those fire trees start blooming. To visitors, the pollen is mildly intoxicating, about as potent as a glass of wine. For native Chayans, the effects are rather more dramatic: the pollen intensifies emotions and removes all inhibitions. The entire country becomes a crazed bacchanalia of sex and violence for weeks as the mild-mannered Chayans become an uncontrollable horde of hedonistic Mood Swingers with Hair-Trigger Tempers. If you're lucky enough to escape the country without being torn limb from limb by an Ax Crazy mob, and brave enough to come back later, you'll find the Chayans have returned to their normal placid selves, retaining only vague memories of having been in some kind of state of religious ecstasy.

Chaya doesn't get a lot of repeat visitors.

Gethamane

A mountain in the North which was partially hollowed out back in the First Age and hosts a moderately well-to-do city-state in the Second. There's a steady supply of filling if somewhat bland mushroom-based food, the Realm doesn't bother them much since they don't have much to offer, and in the event that something big and nasty comes rolling along they can just close the massive First Age doors and wait for it to leave. Most of the lights still work, lots of traders stop by regularly, and folks generally get along well enough.

Well... there's the crazy cult of farmers who figure that blood sacrifice is needed to keep the mushroom trays working. They're wrong, but try telling them that. And it really wouldn't be right to gloss over the giant centipedes that break through the floor regularly. And, well, they appear due to the fact the whole city is kind of built on top of the corpse of a dead Primordial, whose mad and wrathful spirit threatens the boundary between Creation and the Underworld with its very presence.

Nice place, aside from that. Bring the kids.

  • Blob Monster: The aforementioned mad and wrathful spirit is represented by Vodak, a shoggoth Expy made from the Neverborn's heart's blood. Oh yeah, and another thing about Gethamane? There are no ghosts, because Vodak ate them.
  • Dungeon Town: Yeah, kind of.
  • Elaborate Underground Base: The whole thing, top to bottom to even lower bottom. Originally built as a back-up Pole of Earth in the event that the midden really hit the windmill.
  • Tunnel Network: Most of the lower levels are unmapped tunnels which lead to other tunnels, which themselves lead to even more tunnels, and then you've gone much, much too far down.

The Haslanti League

The Icewalkers

The Lap

Paragon

The Perfect of Paragon

Ruler of the Police State of, well, Paragon, the Perfect (he doesn't use his real name anymore) may often look (and act) like a First Age Solar, but in reality, he isn't even a Terrestrial -- he's actually the result of what happens when a scavenger lord gets incredibly lucky and knows he has.

After finding an incredibly powerful Artifact called the Scepter of Peace and Order, the man who would become the Perfect overthrew the original city-state's crime lords and its ineffectual and corrupt monarchy. Soon afterward, he discovered the Scepter had made him ageless as well, and proceeded to reform the city-state to depend on him and the Blood Oath power the scepter gives him. Soon, he transformed the nation into a callback to the First Age's living conditions, leaving only one question...

Namely, why isn't he a Solar already!?

He knows perfectly well that the Second Breath comes to heroes, and what can be more heroic than recreating the First Age for the South? Thus, he has grown more and more bitter about his mortality, not helped by the fact that his favorite consort is a Solar herself. Until then, however, he's just trying to be the best ruler he can, iron fist or no.

An-Teng

Varang

Gem

One of the rare locations in Exalted that doesn't have its origins in the First Age. Gem got its start as a mining boomtown -- as the name implies, it's located near valuable deposits of precious stones. The city is far enough south to have escaped domination by the Realm, and is built on the side of a volcano, which provides enough shade to keep the summer heat bearable.

...What's that? Sounds dangerous, you say? You're concerned that the volcano might erupt? Oh, don't worry about that -- the Paragonese, the Alchemicals, the Fair Folk, or the First and Forsaken Lion will probably get there first.

  • Boom Town: Both in the literal sense, and in the sense that it will probably explode.
  • Chekhov's Volcano: This trope explains a lot about why writers and Storytellers alike are so eager to destroy Gem.
  • Doomed Hometown: The general consensus is that if destructive things happen in Creation, Gem is the first city to go. Exalted, by its very nature, has destructive things happen in the course of any chronicle. (This actually started with several First Edition sourcebooks, published around the same time, that quite coincidentally all mentioned possible scenarios involving the destruction of Gem. It has since become a running gag.)
  • Made of Explodium: It's in a trade war with Paragon that could turn hot at any time, it's located between a Deathlord's base of operations and some major Fair Folk tribes, it's an ideal first target for the Autocthonian invasion of Creation, and it's on a volcano.
  • Privately-Owned Society: Gem's political and economic system manages to combine all the worst aspects of hereditary feudal aristocracy and unrestrained robber baron capitalism -- each noble family has a legally enforced monopoly on a particular industry.

Chiaroscuro

The Coral Archipelago

A military dictatorship bent on dominating its neighbors, Coral respects exactly two things: money and power. There's no hereditary aristocracy or Fantastic Caste System in Coral; if you want to make yourself somebody important, your options are getting rich or joining the military. The ruler, the Sea Lord, is popularly elected...but he's traditionally chosen on the basis of his promise to fund public works through conquest and plunder, and the only checks on his power are the military bureaucracy and wealthy plutocrats who serve as his advisors. The poor (unless they serve in the military) are regarded as lazy, shiftless and spiritually unworthy, despised by the very gods; while they're not left to starve, those who accept state welfare are publicly shamed for it. Women, if anything, have it even worse: they're legally under the authority of male relatives throughout their lives, they're barred from military service, and while they can technically own property and go into business for themselves, it won't earn them any respect even if they're successful -- businesswomen are widely regarded as jokes who are probably only pursuing careers they're obviously unsuited for because they're too ugly to land a decent husband.

It's not a Mordor-style Dystopia, it's just a rather nasty place all around, in a depressingly realistic way.

  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: A bit less obvious than most, but by Word of God Coral's economy, politics and social mores are all based on Victorian Britain.
  • Never a Self-Made Woman: Invoked -- successful businesswomen are not unknown in Coral, but popular opinion invariably attributes their accomplishments to their obviously more competent male relatives or lovers.
  • No Woman's Land: The West in general is not the greatest place to be female, but Coral is probably the worst.
  • Privateer: Pirates who swear to only prey on Coral's enemies can receive a letter of marque from the government, in exchange for a significant fee.
  • Privately-Owned Society: The legislature? Chosen from among only the wealthiest citizens. The head of state? Picked for his ability to throw lavish public spectacles without raising taxes to fund them. Crimes? Always punished with fines, or indentured servitude if you can't pay. If it's serious business, it's all about money in Coral.
  • Proud Warrior Race: The only thing Coral respects more than military prowess is wealth.

The Wavecrest Archipelago

Unlike most of its neighbors, Wavecrest isn't totally dependent on the sea; the islands boast fertile volcanic soil, making Wavecrest a central agricultural supplier for the entire West. Men and women are largely restricted to separate tasks -- fishing, sailing and other jobs that require sea travel for men, farming and land-based crafts for women -- but actual sexism against either gender is relatively mild, at least compared to the rest of the West. The archipelago is ruled by a democratically elected president called the Feathered One (because he wears a feathered cape as his symbol of office), and while the nation retains a small but capable defense force, it is generally fairly peaceful. All in all, Wavecrest is a pretty nice place, unusually low on oppression and dark secrets as locations in Exalted go.

Well, okay, there's the whole volcano god issue, but that really is a relatively minor quirk by Creation's standards...

  • Appease the Volcano God: They use criminals. If the jails are empty, the Feathered One is expected to offer himself to the hungry spirits in the lava, which provides him with a healthy incentive to enforce the law with great vigor.
  • Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life: It's not a case of All Crimes Are Equal -- minor crimes will get you just a week or so in the local correctional facility, and Wavecraft's prisons really are relatively pleasant. But if the volcanoes start acting up, anyone unlucky enough to be in jail is a candidate for Human Sacrifice, starting with the most serious offenders and working all the way down.
  • Proud Merchant Race: Other Western nations like to make fun of Wavecrest for being a nation of farmers and merchants rather than warriors or pirates. They're probably just jealous.

The Skullstone Archipelago

The Neck

Luthe

Mortals of Autochthonia

Claslat

  • Didn't See That Coming: they introduced a form of currency as a way to keep the Populat happy during a period of high-profile scandals...what they didn't expect was that this would send everything to hell and lead to the rise of semi-criminal "glot bosses", who are so good at using money to make more money that they've managed to go a long time without actually taking a lever-pulling shift.
  • The Necrocracy: Not at present, but this is the long-term goal of a conspiracy within its upper echelons. Their fundamental problem is that they have no clue what they're actually doing.

Yugash

Estasia

  • Hired Guns: The nation itself, in return for resources.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: Deconstructed-they're not particularly good at anything else.

Sova

Nurad

Kamak

Jarish

Gulak

Loran

Xexas

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