# Day 27: Wushu for Exalted - Radiant Cataclysm, Solar Necromancer tags: #articles/CharacterCreationChallenge/2026 #game/rpg/wushu #game/rpg/exalted > [!quote] [[Character Creation Challenge 2026]] > > ![[Character Creation Challenge Image.png]] You're just going to have to bear with me today. We were predicted to have a serious ice storm. What we actually have is a scattering of not particularly coherent snow and relatively clean roads where I'm at. But in recompense, I apparently have a cold. I also have a lot of drugs, but I just wanted you to know in case you wonder why this entry may be a little tighter than usual. It's because I really want to be done with it so I can slither back into my containment pod with a book. ## Game of Choice I have been around a long time. So long that there was a moment at which I was really excited for the RPG *[[Exalted]]*. It was going to be simultaneously the previous cycle to the Sixth Age as depicted in the World of Darkness, and possibly simultaneously its inheritor. It had crazy, over-the-top action heroics and T-Rexes that pissed heroin. What red-blooded American male could catch that pitch and not be thrilled with it? But then we got it, and it was a super crunchy, not particularly interestingly balanced smorgasbord of insanity. The last bit was fantastic. The previous bits, not so much. But at least it tried to accomplish some interesting worldbuilding. It was just mechanically… it wasn't in the right place. Fast forward a few years, and people had been tinkering for a while, including some whose work I had been following. Benjamin Baugh decided to take a stab at converting one of my favorite RPG systems, *[[Wushu]]*, to *Exalted*, or vice versa. This was one of the two projects at the time, which aimed at this, and my personal feeling is that this is the one that's slightly inferior because it tries to do more of the conversion rather than letting *Wushu* breathe and run. It doesn't matter because this is where we're going to start. I'm sure that we will talk about *Exalted* itself at a later time, though probably not later enough, looking at the schedule. ![[Wushu For Exalted (cover).jpg|400]] I bring you *[Wushu for Exalted](https://share.google/h2r3vOyoyO3wBcM1S)*, which you can have for free, but it really does require that you have a copy of *Exalted* of some edition or other to use as a reference because it makes considerable reference back to the source text. Also, this conversion explicitly only covers Solar, Dragon-Blooded, and Lunar Exalted, which means I have to **not** create one of my adored Abyssal Exalted. The pain will fade in time. ## Acts of Creation This character creation system is pretty sloppy, so we're just sort of going to roll with it and try to keep our foot out of any obvious pits and/or our mouths. ### The Usual Stuff Yes, that's the way the text puts it. The usual stuff: concept, name, background, and so on. Over the years, I've come to think that this stuff should be at the end rather than at the beginning, because coming up with a concept that the mechanics won't or can't describe is a pain in the ass and means you have to change anyway. Plus, you can't really come up with a concept without full knowledge of everything that's going to come during the process, which is irritating. To that end, we're just going to be very lightly sketching here. I want a Solar Exalted who has only recently reawakened and is trying to keep a low profile. He's got a natural affinity for sorcery. - **Name:** Radiant Cataclysm (goes by "Cat") - **Concept:** Seeker after the hidden mysteries of destruction - **Personality:** Surprisingly aggressive for a bookworm. When in doubt, go for the most aggressive, violent, and destructive course of action, with the assumption that it's easier to clean up a mess than be the mess to be cleaned up. - **Dress & Gear:** Doing his best to keep his head down, he dresses as identically to the average peasant in the area as he can, though it's almost impossible to avoid adding a little flair here and there, a touch of gold on a medallion, or an exotic belt buckle. ### Attributes At least this is simple. There are three attributes: physical, social, and mental. They apply to exactly what you think they should. As usual with *Wushu*, dice rolled under the appropriate value are considered a success. All of our attributes start at one, and we can add a total of four points to the pool wherever we like, but no single attribute can go over three. | Attribute | TN | | --------- | --: | | Physical | 2 | | Mental | 3 | | Social | 2 | This is actually kind of a crappy layout because only with mental stuff do we have a 50-50 chance, so we better be pursuing some quality descriptions to get enough dice on the table to get some successes. ### Pick Caste As ever, there are several casts of Solar Exalted, and they help describe and determine what basic abilities you get and what your anima power is. It seems a little on the nose, but we're going to go for the Twilight cast. They are typically the ones who are into deep research and occult knowledge. Plus, they tend to be more powerful sorcerers. - **Caste:** Twilight - **Abilities:** Craft, Investigation, Lore, Medicine, Occult - **Anima Power:** Spend a point of Essence, and for the remainder of the Scene your Ebon successes counter twice as many Scarlet successes if they represent physically damaging attacks. That's a pretty good set of abilities to start with, and being able to double defend never hurts, especially when you don't have particularly remarkable physical stats. ### Pick Abilities We can now pick five additional abilities from Anycast list. We can master an ability by putting three ability picks in it, or master one of our cast abilities by putting two ability picks in it. Just having an ability adds one to the base attributes when you make a roll, which doesn't hurt. There's no described advantage mechanically for having mastered an ability, which is kind of annoying. I would say that it bumps up your base attribute by two and allows you to narrate more exotically over-the-top things, but that's me. | Ability | Value | | --------------- | ----: | | *Craft* | + | | *Investigation* | + | | *Lore* | + | | *Medicine* | + | | *Occult* | ++ | | Melee | + | | Awareness | + | | Bureaucracy | + | It just wouldn't do to have an ostensible sorcerer rolling around without mastery of occult, so two points went into that. Then a little bit of melee talent, awareness for perception, and bureaucracy, which sounds like a weird skill until you realize that dealing with bureaucratic dynasts is actually something that happens fairly often in *Exalted*. Knowing how to work the system never goes awry. ### Pick Backgrounds We've got five points to invest in backgrounds and can invest two points in a particular background to make it extensive or exceptional. So you know where we're going with this, I think. | Background | Value | | ------------------------ | ----: | | Sorcery | ++ | | Familliar (Fallen Shade) | + | | Allies | ++ | We're going to bump Sorcery up to just short of its max because that's the kind of person we are. We're going to take a handful of allies who have some pull. That's six allies for us with that investment, and that'll probably come in handy. I imagine they are fellow sorcerers or other exalts on the run, but we don't have to figure those out right now. Lastly, we have a familiar, which in this case I believe to be a raised spirit of some sort. - **Fallen Shade** - **Attributes:** P3, S1, M2 - **Abilities:** Melee, Dash, Intangibility, Linguistics, Presence - **Essence:** 2 ### Choose Your Nature Now, the fun thing here is that your nature defines how your character perceives creation as one of the two ways you can regain essence, and it refers you to see page nine. Want to ask if there is a page nine in this text? What do you think? That's right, there is no page nine. In fact, there's nothing really in *Exalted* that hooks into nature in this sense outside of first edition. So we're just going to make something up. - **Nature:** Challenge Can regain essence by throwing himself into a challenging conflict, win or lose. That seems like something that should start enough trouble to keep interest high. Cat just likes to be in the middle of things. It makes him feel good. He gets a charge out of it, literally. ### Pick a Virtue This gives us a little boost to a situation in which our virtue applies by allowing us a bonus die in excess of our limit imposed by our essence. - **Virtue:** Forbearance Knowing when to stop short of maximum effort, maximum effect, or maximum destruction is wisdom indeed. ### Pick a Flaw It's largely what you think it is. Interestingly, it needs to be related to our virtue, and if we roll a virtue die and it comes up a six, we get a point of limit. When we have five points of limit, we have a limit break, and we act upon our flaw for the remainder of the scene. Any action counter to the flaw is rolled against with a trait score of only one. This actually provides some mechanical tooth in ways our character might act contrary to our desires. - **Flaw:** Excess Too much is never enough. Kick them when they're down so they don't get up again. Burn the village to the ground to save it. Keep going, you never know when you're going to need a little more. ### Essence Being Solars, we start with 6 essence, which means we can state six details on any action with a maximum of seven dice. We also recover one point of essence a day if we can rest, plus a bonus point at our caste time of day, which in our case is Twilight. - **Essence:** 6 ### Charm Thank Hades, we don't have to go through a vast list of charms like you do in standard Exalted. Instead, all Solar Exalted get the same charm: the ability to spend one point of essence to double the dice pool for a single round. So theoretically, you could be tossing 14 dice on a single action if you push it. That is pleasantly bonkers. - **Charm:** All solar exalted can spend 1 point of essence to double their dice pool for a single round. ### Bonus Points We have seven more points to drop in on increasing attributes, abilities, and backgrounds. Frankly, the first one is obvious. We're going to take sorcery from second circle up to third circle, solar circle. That's going to take two points of our seven, which leaves us with five. Two points of that is going to a singular artifact, the Book of Ebon Bindings, which will let us have two more dice and major special effects on throwing around occultism, and possibly doing research on things of occult nature. That leaves us with three. I think I'm going to drop two points into contacts to represent the sorcerers that we know from all over the globe. No matter where we go, we can probably find somebody we know, or at least know of, and who knows of us. That brings us down to one. I'm going to drop that last bonus point into resources, not to represent property per se, but the fact that we always have some money on us. The question of whether we can pay for something reasonable just doesn't come up. And that takes care of bonus points. Could I have taken some additional abilities? Yes, absolutely. But I think this suits a guy who's out on the run, knows a little bit of everybody, always seems to have some money in his pocket, has a bound spirit, and third circle sorcery for absolute over-the-top fuckery. ## Exunt That's it. That's the character. Is there an actual character sheet for *Wushu for Exalted*? Absolutely not. That's okay. We'll be all right. --- - **Name:** *Radiant Cataclysm* (goes by "Cat") - **Concept:** Seeker after the hidden mysteries of destruction - **Personality:** Surprisingly aggressive for a bookworm. When in doubt, go for the most aggressive, violent, and destructive course of action, with the assumption that it's easier to clean up a mess than be the mess to be cleaned up. - **Dress & Gear:** Doing his best to keep his head down, he dresses as identically to the average peasant in the area as he can, though it's almost impossible to avoid adding a little flair here and there, a touch of gold on a medallion, or an exotic belt buckle. | Attribute | TN | | --------- | --: | | Physical | 2 | | Mental | 3 | | Social | 2 | - **Caste:** Twilight - **Abilities:** Craft, Investigation, Lore, Medicine, Occult - **Anima Power:** Spend a point of Essence, and for the remainder of the Scene your Ebon successes counter twice as many Scarlet successes if they represent physically damaging attacks. | Ability | Value | | --------------- | ----: | | *Craft* | + | | *Investigation* | + | | *Lore* | + | | *Medicine* | + | | *Occult* | ++ | | Melee | + | | Awareness | + | | Bureaucracy | + | | Background | Value | | -------------------------------- | ----: | | Sorcery | +++ | | Familliar (Fallen Shade) | + | | Allies | ++ | | Artefact (Book of Ebon Bindings) | ++ | | Contacts (Sorcerers) | ++ | | Resources | + | - **Nature:** Challenge Can regain essence by throwing himself into a challenging conflict, win or lose. - **Virtue:** Forbearance Knowing when to stop short of maximum effort, maximum effect, or maximum destruction is wisdom indeed. - **Flaw:** Excess Too much is never enough. Kick them when they're down so they don't get up again. Burn the village to the ground to save it. Keep going, you never know when you're going to need a little more. - **Essence:** 6 - **Charm:** All solar exalted can spend 1 point of essence to double their dice pool for a single round. - **Fallen Shade** - **Attributes:** P3, S1, M2 - **Abilities:** Melee, Dash, Intangibility, Linguistics, Presence - **Essence:** 2 --- Yes, technically, we've put together a solar-powered necromancer. If this guy ever gets turned abyssal, things will get really awkward. That's it for us today, at least. Frankly, I'm kind of glad of it, given how much and how far my nose has run tonight. Tomorrow, weirdly enough, things don't change a whole lot. Stay tuned and stay tight to see how that shakes out. Until then, be careful out there. It's cold.