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Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide

Created by Onyx Path - Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide

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Latest Updates from Our Project:

Sneak Peek: Optional and Alternate Social Rules
2 months ago – Wed, May 27, 2026 at 08:29:24 AM

Hello Super Storytellers,

We had an amazing manuscript drop  yesterday, but that's only the first half of Chapter 2. In addition to combat, there are also options presented to tweak and modify the way you use your Social rules in the game.

Here's a sneak peek at some bits from our next manuscript section, coming next Tuesday.

Optional and Alternate Social Rules

This section offers new options for modifying the social influence system (Exalted: Essence p.128-135) with including rules for Defining Intimacies, changes to Virtues, and a reexamination of resisting social influence. Storytellers and groups should feel free to pick and choose which options best fit their games, or use them as starting points for their own rules tweaks. 

Options for Influence 


Exalted: Essence’s social influence system is a narrative vehicle for playing out singular dramatic scenes: the biting remarks over desert that humiliate the satrap, a stirring monologue to quell a mutinous starving pirate crew, or the spear-point interrogation of an earthbound hawkrider. The options below cover other situations.

Letters Like Knives

Writing a letter as a means of social influence use the creative works venture. Characters exchanging love letters or philosophical treatises to influence each other are opposed ventures (Exalted: Essence p. 154-157). If it would be more appropriate for a scene length written influence, such as hastily scrawled note or a poetry contest at a Dynastic salon, use social influence rules using an appropriate Craft, Embassy, or Performance roll. Influencing indirect readers, such as multiple targets (Exalted: Essence p. 134) or through the Incite influence effect (p. XX), add two to those character’s base Resolve. 

Languages and Ciphers
Creating and deciphering coded written works, translating languages, and other actions are nominal parts of a court intrigue venture (Exalted: Essence p. 160) or an Embassy or Sagacity roll.

Language Families in Creation
In Exalted, the most common languages are divided into vast related language families, containing thousands of regional dialects. There are countless lost and isolate languages.

• Riverspeak: The most common language throughout Creation, it flows from the Scavenger Land trade routes into ten-thousand dialect streams.
• Forest-tongue: In the East this language flowered in isolation, seeded from an ancient forgotten tongue.
• Flametongue: In an era that is dust, a conquering empire seared this lexicon across the South.
• Seatongue: It is said in the West, a port is not a port without a sailor singing and fisher cursing in the sea’s tongue.
• Skytongue: The glossology of the North is frozen in the stone-carved runes shared among hundreds of isolated dialects.
• Guild Cant: Only the Guild’s most valuable members share this secret argot. It is learned in oaths and spoken in ceremonies as unconstrained as the syndicate itself.
• Old Realm: The magical language of gods, demons, sorcerers, and saints. Many languages descend from this ancient speech.
• High Realm: The Old Realm-derived administrative language of the Scarlet Empire is spoken by members of the Great Houses, patricians, and elites in satrapies across Creation.
• Low Realm: A slang, and regional-infused language descended from High Realm and spoken on the Blessed Isle and Realm’s satrapies.
• Dragontongue: Spoken in House Mnemon’s Realm and Threshold holdings, the Great House resurrected this poetic Shogunate language as a sign of learning among elites, savants, and artists.
• Autocthonic: Within the isolated Realm of Brass and Shadows, this Old Realm diverged tongue is the Octet’s official language and is written in pictographic script.
• Ten-Thousand Tongues: In addition to the major language families, there are unaccountable isolated and unique languages that are spoken in Creation and Beyond.

New Influence Effects

The following are secondary influence actions a character may take against her target, only as extra successes on another influence action.

  • Bolster (3 successes): You create a situation where your allies remain resolute against manipulation. This could be through intimidation that quashes disloyal thoughts, genuine empathy or flattery to bolster their ego, or cutting off a persuasive argument. On a success add one to an ally’s Resolve on the next social influence used against him in the scene. Extra successes may add one more, to a maximum increase of two. 
  • Glean (5 successes): You learn a fact about your target’s history that is not widely known, or you learn something about the target that they don’t know about themselves. The Storyteller determines the details, but you may suggest ideas. Taking advantage of this information grants a two dice bonus to an appropriate roll.
  • Incite (5 successes): Your influence affects another character in the target’s orbit in the scene whose Resolve doesn’t exceed the target’s, such as trivial subordinates, a lover, advisor, friend, or family member.

Changing Virtues

Virtues are a shorthand for describing what it is that a character values and cares about. What she is willing to stride into battle to support and what she considers before every hard decision. Virtues help players quickly define their characters’ worldview, but some game wish to focus on characters who embody virtuous ideas not covered by the seven Virtues in Exalted: Essence (Ambition, Compassion, Courage, Discipline, Justice, Loyalty, and Wonder). Alternatively, you may wish to eliminate Virtues completely for another kind of specific definition, several options are presented below.

Removing Virtues

The biggest hurdle with removing Virtues is it eliminates a primary means of defining what a character values, and a trait that raises their Resolve against social influence attempts. Major Virtues add or remove three and Minor Virtues add or remove two to Resolve. There are several options:

  • Replace Virtues with Intimacies. Using Defining Intimacies (see above), character’s select one Defining Intimacy, and an additional Major Intimacy. If only using Intimacies, choose an additional Major and Minor Intimacy, but one Major intimacy must include a principle that speaks to the character’s motivation or worldview. 
  • Replace Virtues with other aspects. If choosing one of the other methods or your own defining aspect, ensure that it provides a similar resistance during social influence scenes, ranging from +1 to +5 bonus/penalty to Resolve, depending on the significance of the aspect.
  • Remove Virtues. Eliminating Virtues entirely, increase the value of minor intensity Intimacies to add or remove three dice and major intensity Intimacies to add or remove four dice.


Again, these are just snippets from a much larger section. Just little tastes to get us excited about some of the options. I'll have another quick preview coming on Friday, and then the back half of Chapter 2 out to backers on Tuesday.

Remember to invite others to join in and spread the word about our campaign - every backer who joins in gets us closer to unlocking bonus rewards for all that participate, so the more the merrier!

Systems and Subsystems and Bears, Oh my! [Draft Manuscript Part 2A]
2 months ago – Tue, May 26, 2026 at 06:00:15 AM

Hello Super Storytellers,

After the last few previews, it's time to get to the goods - the next section in our draft manuscript previews. This is the first half of Chapter 2, which is all about working with the systems and subsystems in the Exalted: Essence rules, and then switching out to alternates and options to make the game work best for your group!

Lots of good stuff in this one, and it's only half of the Chapter!



Draft Manuscript Previews

Over the course of these 4 weeks, backers will receive the entire current draft manuscript for Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide, but it's not going to come to you all in one go. The previews will come out in Tuesday-sized sections each week of the campaign. This helps me seem interesting over the next 28 days, but it's more about guiding the conversation and helping steer feedback for the developers.

Because they want your feedback! These manuscript previews are of the current draft manuscript – the document in its latest, approved form. This may not be the final form after editing and any additional development, but you can consider it about 95% finished, so keep that in mind.

In fact, you can help guide the team through the next stages of development by providing feedback on these manuscript previews! The Onyx Path team has set up a special Feedback Form just for campaign backers for this very purpose: <Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide Feedback Form>


You can use this FEEDBACK FORM to share your thoughts directly with the Exalted: Essence creative team to help guide them through the next rounds of development and editing.


DRAFT MANUSCRIPT PREVIEWS - BACKERS ONLY

Remember, thanks to BackerKit sorcery, these download links are visible to Backers only - you must be logged in and reading this on the website to have access to the manuscript preview links. So, if you're reading this via e-mail, click that "Reply to this Update" or "Learn More" button on the bottom and I'll see you below the Exalted emblem.

Cut a Bloody Swath: Optional and Alternate Combat Rules
2 months ago – Mon, May 25, 2026 at 09:14:56 AM

Hello Super Storytellers,

I've got another preivew for you today, snippets of the first half of Chapter 2, which will be available for backers to download tomorrow. As a reminder, we'll be previewing the entire approved draft manuscript in five pieces coming to backers every Tuesday. By the time we're finishing up the campaign, backers will be able to read the entire draft manuscript - before any pledges are processed or payments collected.

So, if you're sitting on the fence, it's pretty safe to jump in and read the text and you'll get a pretty good idea if the book is right for you.

Before we get to today's preview material, just a reminder about our second Stretch Goal. We're closing in and will hopefully unlock this before the end of the week!



At $50,000 in Funding - Adventures on the Blessed Isle

Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Supplement - Adventures on the Blessed Isle - A set of plot hooks, scenario ideas, and perhaps story outlines set in and around the Blessed Isle will be added to the Exalted Essence Storyteller's supplement being built by Stretch Goal achievements.

Backers receiving the Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide PDF will automatically have this Storyteller's Supplement PDF added to their list of digital rewards.

Backers pledged to receive either of the Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide hardcover editions will also receive a code to order the Print-on-Demand version at a discounted price.

Cut a Bloody Swath: Optional and Alternate Combat Rules

The following section presents a broad array of optional and alternate rules that modify the combat system presented in Exalted: Essence. These are deliberately presented as a broad menu of separate changes, some of them incompatible: The goal is to provide a broad view of the many ways in which the base system can be altered to better fit your table and its needs, from which you can pick and choose which ones you like, as well as draw inspiration from for your own houserules. Later on, we provide a specific combat overhaul which combines multiple rules changes to create a complete alternative experience.

Attacks, Defenses, and the Tools of Violence

These rules present options for modifying the basic flow of combat operates, modifying the tempo established by the core rules. 

Alternate Withering Attack: Hero’s Trick
The following rule is an alternative option giving withering attacks more flexibility, originally published in Pillars of Creation. 

After succeeding on a withering attack, the character may immediately apply Power earned on the attack to enact a gambit on Step 5. If the gambit requires additional successes (such as reveal weakness or distract) the character may spend Power earned past the gambit’s cost one for one to increase its effectiveness. This does not override any immunities to gambits, such as a character who cannot be knocked down.

Wearing Down Foes

When running combat between powerful opponents with high Soak values and players lacking explosive offensive power, you may find that combat becomes sluggish, trading hits that only do minimal damage. The Wearing Down Foe rules change the way concentrated attacks (Exalted: Essence, p.140) work:

  • When a character is hit by a withering attack, or a decisive attack which fails to deal damage, their Soak and Hardness are reduced by 1 + the attacks Damage on Step 5 for withering attacks and Step 7 for decisive attacks. This is cumulative, to a minimum of 0. Upon suffering damage from a decisive attack, Soak and Hardness reset to their normal value. 

Broken Foes

This optional rule works in combination with Wearing Down Foes. A character whose Hardness and Soak have both been set to 0 is Broken, putting them in a position of high vulnerability. The player who brought them to this state may halve the target’s soak (round down), or select a single Quality (if the character is an antagonist) or ongoing Charm effect (if a player character) they benefit from, whose benefits are suppressed while the character is broken. 

Characters recover from being broken at the end of the turn on which their Soak and Hardness reset. 

Wounds and Injuries 

These rules modify the effects of harm done characters, both in the thick of combat and its aftermath. 

Painful Injuries

The rules for recovering from injuries presented in Exalted: Essence focus on ease of play and cinematic experience, ensuring that as long as characters can take a short rest and interact with one another, each battle can be approached as its own scenario. For certain games, particularly those using the Creation as Threat model, or when running scenarios where attrition matters such as a Solar Circle actively pursued by the Wyld Hunt, players may prefer more emphasis on the growing toll of injuries and recovery taking time, such that even winnable fights ask the question, “is it really worth it to get into this?” and Medicine-focused characters have a bigger part to play. In this case, consider the following adjustments: 

  • Each recovery scene only heals injuries of the highest level of wound penalty the character suffers from. If a character has lost all Bruised and Injured health levels and one Critical health level, her first recovery scene will only heal that Critical health level, and the next one only her Injured health levels.
  • Recovery scenes cannot directly follow one another. After a recovery scene, character must engage in action and face risks of some kind before they receive another opportunity to heal. 
  • Dramatic injuries to Attributes do not heal on their own. After receiving a minor milestone, a character must dedicate a recovery scene to receiving care specific to their type of injury. Magic such as Wellness-Restoring Meditation can bypass this.
  • Apply the rules for irrecoverable injuries covered below.

Irrecoverable Injuries 

Dramatic injuries in Exalted: Essence give players an option to avoid defeat at a cost that must be recovered later, but dramatic injuries are by design a push-and-pull mechanic in which characters are temporarily hindered only to bounce back to their full strength after time has passed. Players may instead desire the option for lasting, character-changing damage to reflect moments of dramatic downturn that force a change in their character’s approach to life, at their own initiative. This is where irrecoverable injuries come in. 

When a character would take enough damage to become Incapacitated, their player may instead ask to take an irrecoverable injury: Their arm is cut off, they are blinded in both eyes, or the like. The normal damage from the attack is negated, replaced by this special injury. Now or after the current scene, the player and Storyteller agree on a specific set of actions that suffer a –2 penalty going forward. For the rest of this scene, however, the character waives all wound penalties and generates 1 Power per round as their soul and body are pushed to their brink and respond with desperate power. After the scene ends, they must contend with their new, diminished state, as a candle that’s burned too brightly.

An irrecoverable injury’s penalties need not be strictly assigned to what’s physically normal for humans. If the Storyteller and player are in agreement, a swordswoman who’s lost her eyesight might find that she suffers the penalty to her sensory rolls and ability to decipher writing, but that her peerless sword skills are undiminished as she adapts to her new condition and develops her other senses. 

For their name, irrecoverable injuries are not entirely permanent. Rather, healing an irrecoverable injury always requires powerful magic and a personal quest: A character might craft a new arm out of sorcerous wood she has grown over a season with her own blood, or purchase a demon’s silvered tongue from the Demon Lord Makarios at a tremendous price. These are not mere obstacles, but the opportunity to be a story of their own: Healing an irrecoverable injury is about your character and their personal journey.

Incapacitation as Escalation 

Exalted: Essence rules allow for characters to recover from Incapacitation during battle but leaves them vulnerable, while keeping the possibility death a consensus-based choice for the party. Incapacitation as Escalation instead simplifies the ability to come back from Incapacitation, making it a single surge of strength offering a second chance, while leaving death as an individual choice. Replace the Incapacitated rules (Exalted: Essence, p.144) with the following: 

When a character reaches the Incapacitated health level, she has had the fight knocked out of her. She may or may not be unconscious, but is unable to take actions or express more than a few words. She’ll survive the scene, but may find herself in dire straits: Friends may need to extract her and give her medical attention, foes may capture her for interrogation, or she may fall off the top of a conveniently-placed cliff and find herself lost in the wilderness, depending on the outcome of the scene. 

A character can choose to recover from incapacitation once per story. In doing so, she rolls to Build Power at Difficulty 0 as a reflexive action, and regains Health Levels equal to the Power gained. From this moment on, death is on the line for her. If she is Incapacitated again, she will perish. This fate can only be averted by powerful, dedicated magic, and she will retain some kind of lasting injury or change. 

Injuries as Impairments

Tables who want to give more focus the specifics of how a character gets hindered and recovers from setbacks in combat may consider injuries as Impairments, which function like combat-relevant Intimacies. These replace the dramatic injury system. 

When a character takes damage, they may elect to take an Impairment, which is either Minor or Major. Impairments are not necessarily injuries but are always relevant to the danger at hand. The player of the injured character and the Storyteller must agree on an Impairment that is relevant to the circumstances: A hammer blow might break a nose, but it’s unlikely to slice the straps on one’s gauntlet.

  • A Minor Impairment is an inconvenience that can be resolved easily: “Blood in my eyes,” “Slipped in mud,” “Lost breath,” “Deafened by explosion,” “Loosened armor.” They could also represent “Embarrassed in front of my lover” or “Used a penalized move” if these are relevant to the circumstances why this fight is taking place, such as a duel of honor or a martial arts competition. Taking a Minor Impairment negates two damage from the triggering attack. 
  • A Major Impairment represents a significant (but not permanent) injury or setback: “Sprained ankle,” “Splintered shield,” “Broken nose,” “Bleeding injury.” They could also represent “Revealed a forbidden technique” while fighting in front of their master or “Broken mask” when fighting under a concealed identity, as long as both represent significant narrative or personal consequences for the character. Taking a Major Impairment negates four damage from the triggering attack.


Again, these are just snippets - just little sections take from material that will be shared in the first half of Chapter 2 coming tomorrow! Stay tuned for more Exalted: Essence tricks and tips and options and alternates, and let's keep at it! Remember to invite others to join in and spread the word about our campaign - every backer who joins in gets us closer to unlocking bonus rewards for all that participate, so the more the merrier!

I'll be back tomorrow with our next manuscript section!


#XSSTG
#ExaltedEssenceStorytellersGuide

Ventures!
2 months ago – Fri, May 22, 2026 at 08:49:21 AM

Hello Super Storytellers,

It's Day 2 of the campaign, and we've already got more to celebrate!

Yesterday, we achieved our funding target in two-and-a-half hours. Today, just over 20 hours into the campaign, we unlocked our first Stretch Goal! Thanks to your support and the support of every backer who joins in over the next 4 weeks, we've given the Exalted: Essence team the opportunity to turn the guidelines and advice from this book into more concrete examples in a new Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Supplement.

Backers receiving the Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide PDF will automatically have this Storyteller's Supplement PDF added to their list of digital rewards.

Backers pledged to receive either of the Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide hardcover editions will also receive a code to order the Print-on-Demand version at a discounted price.



ACHIEVED! - At $35,000 in Funding - Antagonists from the Blessed Isle

Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Supplement - Antagonists from the Blessed Isle - An Exalted: Essence Storyteller's supplement will be created, featuring antagonists that could be found in the Blessed Isle.

Even though we won't see any antagonists guidelines or examples until our draft manuscript for Chapter 3, which comes to backers on June 9, we already know that we'll be getting *MORE* antagonists in the future! I love it!

Of course, the next question is what to do with those antagonists? Well, let's see if we can keep the project growing and unlock our second Stretch Goal target...



At $50,000 in Funding - Adventures on the Blessed Isle

Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Supplement - Adventures on the Blessed Isle - A set of plot hooks, scenario ideas, and perhaps story outlines set in and around the Blessed Isle will be added to the Exalted Essence Storyteller's supplement being built by Stretch Goal achievements.

Pretty exciting, and I'm happy that we're all working together on this exciting venture. Speaking of... how about a sneak peek at our next draft manuscript tuesday download?

Ventures

Ventures are a tool to track the passage of time around connected events without getting as granular as combat timing. Importantly, a failed roll on a Venture rarely ends the whole Venture. This means Ventures let obstacle flow into the next, tracking momentum and the swings of fortune. Ventures are flexible. Not just a tool, but your tool. Don’t feel compelled to use them if they won’t help. In addition to advice, this section offers additional rules and options on how to use Ventures, expanding and modifying the rules given by Exalted: Essence.

Ventures in Play and Downtime

Ventures hold a series of connected “beats” together, helping a storyteller build each scene or obstacle around the approach a circle takes. This means that a table can decide to “zoom in” on an obstacle, turning it into a more detailed scene with multiple rolls. If no roll stands out as the “most important” in a scene toward a Venture, decide advantages, consequences, and success based on the narrative outcome of the scene. 

At other times, an obstacle might pull focus away from more interesting moments, so the table might choose to turn it into a dramatic scene. Players can always use a Stunt once an interval has passed to declare a roll they’re making also matches a venture that’s going on in the background if they have a sudden clever idea or make a connection. Finally, sometimes you can even “nest” a Venture within another Venture, treating the “smaller” Venture as an obstacle of the larger one. (Use this sparingly.) For example, a Venture with an interval of “actions” to get through the cursed defenses and traps in a forgotten city might count as a single obstacle on a Research Venture which has an interval of “Sessions.”

Ventures in Downtime

Ventures can also be used to create a ”background story” during Downtime; the breaks between, and within stories. While scenes and stories are the highlights and moment-to-moment beats of the plot, Exalted are always doing something, even just filing out reports in the Celestial Bureaucracy, indulging in the spoils of victory, or playing a wandering hero in smaller adventures. Running “Downtime” as a set of Ventures can set up new characters, plot beats, goals, locations, tie up loose ends, set up the next arc, and depict the day-to-day life of the Chosen. These Ventures aren’t too complicated, and all have an interval of “Downtime,” meaning they’ll be resolve in quick dramatic scenes, and have around 2-3 Obstacles each.

Each Player should focus on a single reasonable goal for a downtime Venture, and work with the Storyteller to determine of it fits the narrative time available. Some goals may be out of reach if they’d be better handled “during” a story or would be otherwise disruptive. Even if an Essence 1 Circle has years, it might not fit to have them conquering kingdoms or overturning nations in narrative montages.



Setting up a Venture

Questions to ask when building a Ventures are:

  • What is the ultimate goal?
  • What is the scale? (Does this affect a person, a local organization, a city, a nation?)
  • Who opposes this venture? 
  • How much time will it take, and how much time until the situation changes? 
  • What changes after each obstacle? 
  • What are the important locations for the Venture?
  • What resources does the Circle have, and what do they lack? (Money, Soldiers, Exotic Materials, Political Authority, Access, Information.)

For many Ventures, Obstacles tend to fit neatly in defined phases. To create a freeform venture on the fly, default to 3 base Obstacles: One for planning, the second for preparation, and the third for execution.

Planning Phase: The Circle gathers information. Who are the important people or what are the important resources? What are the major threats? Where are they? How will they get to where they need to go? Often, failures in this phase cause unexpected problems during the execution Phase.

Preparation Phase: The Circle gathers resources and moves them into place. If they need labor funds or supplies, they gather them. If they need transport, they acquire, build, or charter it. Often, failures in this phase create penalties, or otherwise make things harder in the execution phase.

Execution Phase: The plan goes into motion. This is the part where they forge the demon sword, broker peace between warring tribes, or dive into the ancient tomb. Often, failures in this phase create additional Obstacles.

Wrap Up: The characters find safety, and bask in their rewards, or lick their wounds. The table determines what in the world has changed and move forward.

New Ventures

Treat Pandemic
Phases: Identifying Symptoms, Diagnosing the Ailment, Developing a Cure, Quarantine, Treatment
Questions: Who knows of this disease? What rare or unusual curatives are needed? Do your patients trust the players? Do you have enough labor? How fast does it spread? What will protect you?
Obstacles: Rare or Confusing Symptoms, Rapid Spread, Suspicious Population, Intentional Spread, Rare Cure, Squalid Conditions, Unaware Spreaders, Supernatural Origin

Assassination
Phases: Profiling the Target, Setting up the Scheme, Execution, Escape.
Questions: Who are they? What is their day like? Who and what protects them? How will you kill them? What is your distraction or alibi? What is your escape? Who will avenge them?
Obstacles: Reclusive Target, Supernatural Bodyguard, Demonic Protection, Body Double, Innocents in the Way, Protected by Traps


This Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide features a ton of advice and guidance for using the rules and systems to tell your epic tales, and these are just a few of the bits in a pretty big Ventures section that we'll see in the draft manuscript on Tuesday.

There are also alternate combat rules, which we'll get a preview of on Monday when we look at optional Wounds and Injury rules. 

Until then, please continue to spread the word about this campaign. Everyone jumping in gets to read the draft manuscript, and we'll have the complete book on our screens before the end - before any pledges are processed or payments collected. And everyone who joins in will help us get closer to unlocking that second stretch goal and expand our Stretch Goal Storyteller's Supplement!

#XSSTG
#ExaltedEssenceStorytellersGuide

Exalted Excellence! Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide is Funded!
2 months ago – Thu, May 21, 2026 at 01:30:26 PM

Hello there!

I love this project and this community, and I'm thrilled to see so many people come out to support this expansion for Exalted: Essence. The Exalted: Essence core rules covered a lot of ground when they came out and had to explain a million different things within the two covers, and the Player's Guide that we crowdfunded last year helped shed even more light on the various Exalted types and their abilities.

Even with all of that info, however, we can always use more tools and guidance to turn that text into our games and tell some epic tales of bravery and heroics!

This book gives advice and options, alternate methods and more monsters! Elevate your Exalted: Essence experience! That's a lot of "E"s all in one sentence.

If you've read the first Chapter that was shared in the draft manuscript preview, you've seen some of the great advice and tools that are coming your way. And a lot of that stuff is useful far beyond your Exalted: Essence table, too! So you're probably as excited as me to read the rest of the book and the alternate and optional rules that are coming our way.

But enough of that... let's get right to the point! 

Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide is FUNDED!



Thanks to your support, the Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide has been funded and will get a fully-developed PDF, hardcover AND Deluxe hardcover release! Let me quickly switch into my Exalted mode...


It's me, but trading words for swords.

While not entirely unexpected, given the amazing support of Exalted fans throughtout the years, it still takes me by surprise when we fund so quickly. So let me scramble to get this all sorted...

Because we're not done now that we've hit our funding target! It's time to mark some milestones and build a bonus reward!


As we increase the overall funding and support for the project, we’re able to add additional resources to the project, building a companion book of Essence examples of adversaries and story scenarios. Each Stretch Goal will have a target that, once reached, will add a project to the reward list for backers of the relevant Pledge Levels. Whenever we achieve a stretch goal, the listing will be updated to reflect the achievement.

At $35,000 in Funding - Antagonists from the Blessed Isle

Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Supplement - Antagonists from the Blessed Isle - An Exalted: Essence Storyteller's supplement will be created, featuring antagonists that could be found in the Blessed Isle. Backers receiving the Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide will automatically have this Storyguide Supplement PDF added to their list of digital rewards. Backers pledged to receive either of the Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide hardcover editions will also receive a code to order the Print-on-Demand version at a discounted price.

At $50,000 in Funding - Adventures on the Blessed Isle

Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Supplement - Adventures on the Blessed Isle - A set of plot hooks, scenario ideas, and perhaps story outlines set in and around the Blessed Isle will be added to the Exalted Essence Storyteller's supplement being built by Stretch Goal achievements.


As we move through the campaign, additional funding is going to allow the Exalted: Essence team to build a Storyteller's supplement book filled with examples of the rules and options presented in the Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide. We've still got some time before we get to the draft manuscript previews for Chapter 3, and I can't wait to see the adversaries and antagonists that fill that chapter! But we all know that we always want MORE! And our first Stretch Goal will see additional antagonists written up for your Exalted: Essence game!

And then we may be able to expand that and, having more antagonists, give them something to do! The first chapter in our draft manuscript had some amazing ideas for stories and structures and plots seeds and plot points - this will expand on those ideas and the antagonists presented in the first section of this Stretch Goal supplement.

So we're off to a great start! The Exalted: Essence Storyteller's Guide is funded and will become a real release with PDF, hardcover, and deluxe edition. As true Exalted fans, we're already working on what's next to conquer! So let's keep at it! Please spread the word and invite others to join in and let's see if we can't get some Blessed Isle antagonists added to our rewards!

Tomorrow we'll have a sneak peek at next Tuesday's section of the draft manuscript, and then I'll be back with another preview on Monday to keep us humming! Until then, if you wanna discuss what you’ve read in today’s manuscript preview, feel free to join in on our Discussion post on the website. You may also be able to get further insight and possibly some in-depth conversation at these Onyx Path discussion zones:


#XSSTG