Creation

Close your eyes and dream of the world as it was in its youth. Imagine a forgotten age of gleaming cities of stone and bronze; of heaving seas and demon-ridden storm winds; of mighty heroes, blessed by the gods, and their wars which rent all Creation asunder. Dream of an age after the casting of the world from the stuff of chaos, after the fall of the first and greatest era of mankind, but before the gods and demons and their manifold champions vanished from reckoning. Imagine a flat world, floating atop the immensity of chaos. This is Creation in the Second Age of Man. This is the world of Exalted.   At the center of Creation lies the Blessed Isle, the gleaming heart of the greatest civilization known. The Realm’s decadent lords have dominated the world for seven centuries, laying it prostrate before their ambitions and appetites. Now their ageless Empress has vanished, and all eyes turn to her empty throne. Treasuries are emptied equipping armies and training assassins for the struggle to come.   Across the wide Inland Sea rests the immensity of the Threshold, those outer lands bounded by the Elemental Poles, ground for centuries beneath the heel of the Realm’s legions and subjugated by its mighty sorcery. Cast your eyes to the outer Directions.   The South is bordered by the Pole of Fire and dominated by an immense, hungry desert where the ambitious seek lost cities and precious gems. Its temperate coast is crowded with wealthy trade cities, while its outer regions are a poorly-mapped welter of steaming jungles, pirate coves, smoking mountains, and ferocious savannas.   The Pole of Wood blesses the East with fecundity beyond reckoning. Here farmers bring in three harvests in a lean year, and a great confederation of river nations maintains defiance against the Realm’s hegemony. Closer to the purity of the Pole, rolling hills and fertile plains give way to thousands of miles of primeval forest in which dwell lost tribes ruled by men who walk as both gods and beasts.   Freezing winds sweep in from the Pole of Air, scouring the North. This harsh land produces strong people, animals, and iron, but poor crops. The Realm has long been the undisputed master of the Northern cities, but can make scant claim to the blizzard-wracked tundra; here canny nomads eke out a living through raiding and ancient pacts with patron spirits. Their worship buys protection from both the killing cold and the unchecked appetites of the Winter Folk and the restless dead.   To the West stretches the immensity of the Great Western Ocean, and beyond that, storied islands, strange gods, and exotic riches. Few ships are up to the voyage, and so the West remains shrouded in rumor and mystery. Even the Realm has only sporadic contact with its Western holdings. Legends proclaim that the Pole of Water rests somewhere beyond the farthest isle, where the sky touches the sea and the gates of the Underworld yawn wide.