I'm thinking about a game which starts just before the traditional Exalted prelude: few to none of the characters are exalted. Given the recent release of Lunars, I'm inclined to make it a Superfriends game: Terrestrial Dynasts, Lunars, and Solars are allowed (so are God-Blooded or Alchemicals, if anybody's feeling particularly weird). The defining features of the party are not their supernatural species, but their reactions to the prominent NPC groups: the Immaculate Order, the Cult of the Illuminated, the Silver Pact, and the Celestial Heirarchy. Maybe it'll go far enough to deal with the overthrow of the Gods and the salvation of Creation; maybe not.
Players should follow the usual character generation rules for their splat, then hand that character sheet to the GM. The GM hands you back a character sheet for a Heroic Mortal. You start without any of your Artifacts, Manses, and probably without some of your other backgrounds. You don't get experience points for the first few sessions... instead, the first month or two of game are spent dealing with the Exaltations of the various characters. The actual Exaltation scene is probably somewhat scripted, and is quickly followed by tomb-raiding for your last incarnation's stuff.
I'm writing some SampleExaltations. All were originally for Solars, but might work for Lunars as well.
The characters should have about the same level of knowledge as the average citizens of a Scavenger Lands city-state: A thousand years ago, the Anathema and their demon servants ruled an empire of Evil. A number of their servants were visited by the Elemental Dragons, the Incarnate forces of Creation, and taught the Immaculate Discipline. These favored servants betrayed their Demonic lords, put them to the sword, and each raised up a nation of Dragon-Blooded. Though each was moral and upright, still they came to blows over the proper interpreation of the Immaculate Teachings.
Centuries of civil war were interrupted by the emergence of the Great Contagion, a terrible plague which killed nine men in ten, afflicting mortal and Dragon-Blooded alike. The ravening Fair Folk, who lurk outside the edges of maps, in the Wyld beyond Creation, took advantage of civilization's weakness to invade. The soldiers manning the defenses of Creation were dead at their posts; all appeared lost. One Dragon-Blooded lieutenant, far from the front lines, called on the virtue of the Dragons and braved the security system of the Imperial Manse to activate the ancient defense systems. By the inspiration of the Dragons, she succeeded. The Fair Folk were routed, and that brave lieutenant was crowned the Scarlet Empress. Though most of the Anathema lay quietly in their graves, a few hungry souls rose to trouble the living, making pacts with greedy sorcerers or possessing the bodies of innocents. A special branch of the military, the Wyld Hunt, was created to defend the Realm against the Anathema and the Fair Folk. Over the next eight hundred years, the Realm cemented its control over Creation, turning trade to alliance and alliance to subjugation.
The Scarlet Empress never used a tight hand on her government; after all, they were Dragon-Blooded, the spiritually pure servants and saviors of Creation. She went into seclusion for months, sometimes even years at a time. Five years ago, she appeared to enter such a period of seclusion. Now the rumors that she has disappeared for good have spread beyond the borders of the Realm. A crisis of succession is in place: the Realm has always been ruled by the Empress. Each of the noble lines has recalled its house troops to the Blessed Isle; the Threshold is undefended. Several provinces are already in open revolt, and many more are late with their tribute.
http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~kissa/rpg/exalted/creation.html has nice notes on background.
Characters should have an Archtype, a Nature, a Party-Brain Theme, a Melodramatic Hook, and at least two Goals: one Short-Term and one Long-Term. A Party-Brain Theme is the role the character plays in the party's thought process: Wolverine is "Aggressive", Giles is "Reasonable", Troi is "Sappy." These are single-word caricatures of the character's theme in party discussions. Long-Term goals can be implausible, like "Overthrow the Realm," "End Slavery Everywhere," or "Destroy the Gods." Short-Term goals should be acheivable within a handful of game sessions, if you work at them. Long goals should be able to spawn a sequence of Short goals; Short goals should be able to spawn a sequence of adventures. Brewing an alchemical potion out of some available materials is not a good short term goal, even if it's a legendarily difficult potion, because that's not a cool action to watch happen. If you know that it needs five rare ingreedients, of which you know three, and will need to visit an oracle to learn the names of the other two, that's going to spawn four to six adventures, and the oracle provides a great opportunity to pick up a new short-term goal. If you ever find your character without at least two goals, come talk to the GM! That's what you have Backgrounds for, after all.
Speaking of Backgrounds, please don't write a detailed background. Whatever you can express in your archetype is fine (e.g., "barbarian warrior" means I'll have you coming from the edges of the world somehow, and not from the core of the Realm), but you'll be playing out the character's Exaltation and the formation of the party in-game. You'll be getting some background elements from me with the Heroic Mortal sheet, to make sure all the characters know each other pre-exaltation, even if they don't realize it (You'll see).
Solar: 8/6/4 stats, 25 skills, 7 backgrounds, 5 caste skills + 5 favored skills, 5 virtues, 15 bonus, 10 charms.
Lunar: 9/7/5 stats, 23 skills (3 preallocated), 4 favored skills + survival favored, 7 backgrounds, 5 virtues, 20 renown, 15 bonus. Don't forget Renown and Heart's Blood backgrounds. 8 charms + Finding The Spirits Shape.
Terrestrial: 7/5/3 stats, 35 skills (10 preallocated), 5 caste + 2 favored, 5 virtues, 15 bonus. Artifact and Manse backgrounds count (roughly) double. 7 charms.
Note that the numbers directly above are not correct. They might be after I get a chance to sit down with some books. --bts
Here's a checklist for Charms:
talking snakes (Genesis 3:1), a time when giants roamed the Earth (Genesis 6:4), a guy who stops the sun from moving (Joshua 10:12-13), folks who routinely live to be 900 years old (Genesis 5:2-32), people who can open up whole seas like a zipper (Exodus 14:26-28), folks who camp out in whale's stomachs (Matthew 12:40), flying horses (2 Kings 2:11), gentlemen who are able to live inside furnaces (Daniel 3), stinky rotting corpses that jump out of graves (John 11:39-44), and swimming seven headed fire breathing leopards sent to destroy the world, (Revelation 13:1-10)"