Difference between revisions of "Alchemical Intricacies"

Revision as of 20:02, 19 January 2013

Overview

• “[I]t was decreed in all nations that new Alchemicals could be Exalted only by unanimous vote of the National Tripartite Assembly. Finally, and most importantly, the role of the Exalted in Autochthonia was finally legally codified. As officially designated state heroes, all Alchemicals were given equivalent ranking to Tripartite membership but would be beholden directly to their National Tripartite Assembly and were forbidden official, non-honorary membership in any Tripartite branch. Although they had not actually governed directly in centuries, it was now sealed into law. In the Realm of Brass and Shadow, the Exalted would perform their heroic labors in support of mortal rule.”

• “Finally, in 3590, the horrifying truth emerged—the Soulsteel Caste leading the investigation, Iron Hand of Justice, was the leader of the cults infesting Jarish. He fled to the Far Reaches just ahead of an assembly sent to capture and destroy him.” Iron Hand of Justice renamed himself Blade of the Apostate.

• Infinite Facets Observer was the first Adamant caste.
• “In this age, the public sees the Apocryphal Ones as just that: beings best used in lector plays and stories as deus ex machina, stepping out from behind the curtain at the end to explicitly deliver the moral of the story to the audience. In the crèches and living quarters of the Populat, parents threaten recalcitrant children with the retribution of the Adamant Caste. In a factory below quota, a foreman idly punctuates his threat of Exalted interference with the possibility of Adamant reprisal, shattering the tension and prompting laughs from the gathered workers—and causing them to nervously redouble their efforts.”

• “The Great Maker updated the protocols of the custodians and other minor machine gods and automata within his body before drifting off into his ageless slumber. Those that operated closest to those areas where the Machine God expected his mortal population to spread out and occupy were designed to recognize humans as a benign element of his biosphere. Custodians at significant distances beyond that range received additional coding, so that they would show automatic deference to the Alchemical Exalted.”

• “The Chosen of Autochthon presently number roughly 1,000, including the great metropoli, the hidden Adamant Caste and the Void Lords of the Far Reaches. . . . [W]hile a given Alchemical probably has not met all of the other Champions sponsored by her home nation, she is almost certainly at least familiar with them by name and reputation.”

• “In his wisdom (and anger, and fear), Autochthon bequeathed the secret of Exaltation to the mortals dwelling within his world-body… and none other. Not only are Exalted forbidden from ever obtaining this mutation by any means, but even God-Blooded are never considered valid candidates for Demiurge status. Attempts to interrogate a Demiurge or read his mind are doomed to failure—the mortal himself only fractionally comprehends the work of which he is capable, with the vast majority of his knowledge distributed throughout the crystalline Core of Autochthon. Likewise, watching a group of Sodalts at work creating an Alchemical is as fruitless as observing Lytek polishing and recycling an Exaltation (a task that was undertaken hundreds of times over the course of the First Age, to little benefit). The process is merely a technological ritual permitting the Great Maker’s animating power to flow through the Demiurges and into the nascent Exalt.”
• “Only the arts of the Solar Exalted, such as Order-Affirming Blow or Solar Circle Sorcery, have the capacity to cleanse a subject of Gremlin Syndrome. Yet, even such restorative wonders will do little good if the patient has wholeheartedly embraced the Void. Any installed Voidtech immediately re-imposes the mutation in temporary form, as normal.”

“[T]he Alchemical Exalted . . . roughly match the Lunar Exalted in terms of raw might but are much less versatile because of their limited Charm availability. They are the peers of the Solars in their genius for crafting artifacts, but they are able to do little else while outfitted for research and development. Where they are more efficient than Creation’s Chosen, they are generally less powerful, and where they meet or exceed the might of the other Celestials, they are normally less cost efficient.”

Creation and Physiology

• Alchemicals: Creation of Alchemicals is covered on p. 27.
• Alchemicals wake up knowing themselves, their skills and personality cobbled together from past lives (sometimes resulting in outdated ideas in there too). In addition, those born in vats are fed local information by their municipal.
• Alchemicals however cannot access any memories of previous Alchemical exaltations they have until their Clarity is 7+, and even then only memories extending to their current Essence rating. This causes problems when older Alchemical heroes die, as though they have proven competent, a freshly exalted Alchemical with the same soulgem will have a long gap in memories until their Clarity and Essence ratings rise.
• “Despite being human in shape, the body of an Alchemical is clearly artificial. Her skin is slightly clammy to the touch and is usually grayish or stained slightly with colors appropriate to her caste. Although her head bears hair, the rest of her body is smooth. She breathes only to speak. And most strikingly, she bears Charms. Steam-driven pistons and synthetic musculature endow her with superhuman might.”
• “Alchemicals are more than mere automata powered by captive souls. Like Creation’s Exalted, they are heroic men and women imbued with divine power—namely, that of the Machine God. Each requires not simply a heroic soul, but a soul that has achieved greatness worthy of Celestial Exaltation repeatedly throughout its various incarnations. This lineage of heroism merges in the awakening Alchemical, forming a composite personality complete with skills and memories from its most prominent constituent lives. Any lesser spirit will fail to catalyze and bond to an Alchemical’s body, resulting in a useless pile of brass and clay with no life in it.
• Some players find it difficult to conceptualize a being who’s “born” as a physical and mental adult. While it’s true that Alchemicals step out of the vats with no history to call their own, they do possess memories—many memories—of previous lives. Players might find it useful to draw up quick character concepts for three or four of the Alchemical’s most heroic previous incarnations. The background narrative of these lives may be developed during the course of play, as the Alchemical recalls skills and incidents from her previous selves and applies them to her current existence. Doing so enriches the series and connects the character to the mortals she was Exalted to champion.”
• “Although they are capable of engaging in and enjoying sexual intercourse, Alchemicals are infertile. They cannot produce or bear children. In addition, Alchemicals do not age, even at the drastically reduced rate of other Exalted. They can, however, be killed through violence or misadventure. Upon death, their bodies dissolve into a slag of melted clay, crystal shards and scrap metal. All Charms shatter or explode, leaving only raw materials to pick over (easily worth Resources •••••, with enough raw magical materials present to construct a number of five-dot, caste-appropriate artifacts equal to the Alchemical’s Essence rating).”
• “Alchemicals need not breathe save to speak and, as a result, are immune to drowning and suffocation as well as any toxins that must be inhaled to be harmful. They are completely immune to mundane disease and enjoy the usual Exalted hardiness when faced with supernatural illnesses. They require sleep and rest as normal.
• Alchemicals cannot starve to death, but they must nourish themselves with as much food and drink as a mortal of similar body size to stay healthy. After a number of days of starvation equal to the Alchemical’s Stamina occur, each successive day imposes a cumulative one-mote penalty on the Exalt’s hourly respiration rate.
• Injured Alchemicals bleed a luminous oil that is clearly not blood. They normally heal from injuries at the same rate and with the same effectiveness as Solars. While starving, Alchemicals heal as mortals rather than Exalts. Once the starvation penalty reaches the four-mote level, they cannot heal naturally at all.”
• “Alchemicals respire Essence in the same fashion as other Exalted, but store their power as a semi-liquid energy in a crystal reservoir where a mortal’s heart would be. They are considered to be associated with the magical material matching their caste for the purpose of attuning artifacts.
• Resting in a regenerative nutrient broth at a vats complex allows an Alchemical to heal and regain Essence at (Essence) times his normal rate. vats technicians can repair any Crippling, Poison or Sickness effect while the Champion is healing. Doing so requires one hour of work per effect corrected.
• As part of the Design of Autochthon, Alchemicals are considered to be outside of fate.”

Castes are detailed starting on p. 100 of Alchemicals.

Development - Colossi and Cities

• “An Alchemical is under no obligation to retain the appearance with which he is born. Many Champions upgrade themselves extensively and with an eye toward only efficiency. . . . Other Alchemicals are more concerned with the preservation of their self-image. . . . Most Champions walk a middle road between man and machine, attempting to balance self-image and necessity. Their memory-echoes of former lives and full humanity remind them of what they have to lose, while the thrumming might of their Exalted implants speak of what they stand to gain.”
• “Essence 6 and 7 Alchemicals must undergo full-body reconstruction while meditating to raise their Essence rating. The Essence reservoir is massively expanded, and the Exalt’s original body is disassembled and used as the basic framework for a new, radically upgraded and much more powerful frame. An Alchemical who undergoes this transformation is known as a Colossus and is significantly mightier than his younger comrades… and much stranger. Colossi stand between 15 and 30 feet tall. Their skin is now wholly artificial, consisting of pressurized plates and woven strips etched with tiny prayers to help direct and channel their enormous Essence reserves. A Colossus’s face is often nearly immobile, rendered as a stylized mask with only a superficial similarity to his former visage. His voice is either loud and booming, or quiet and notably modulated.”
• “Colossi often incorporate integrated light implosion bows and lightning ballistae, internal factory-cathedrals or troop-transport facilities, and other purpose-built military Charms. Others utilize their expanded intellect to route cogence systems throughout their entire bodies, capable of precognitive insight and real-time universe modeling.”
• In this ascension, they find communication and convert operations impaired by their form, and many install the Remote Drone-Body Guide charm which lets them control a copy of their old body through a dummy soulgem.
• “Upon attaining Essence 8, an Alchemical’s body massively expands—beyond Champion,beyond Colossus, the Exalt becomes the streets, buildings and spirit of a city. Ancient Alchemicals comprise the substance of all major Autochthonian cities, with male Exalts known as patropoli and females as metropoli. . . . Rather than mere physical implants or siege weaponry, Municipal Charms comprise entire buildings, infrastructural elements or even city districts.
• Older patropoli tend to dispassionately regulate themselves, spending their endless, immobile centuries lost in the song of Clarity, communing with the autonomic processes of Autochthon. Younger cities often remain active and involved in the lives of their inhabitants for some decades or centuries, communicating with high-ranking Tripartite representatives or younger Alchemicals through Hologlyphic Projection Stations. While a city’s suggestions on how to best expand and govern it are always taken under the most serious of consideration, even these most seasoned of Exalts ultimately bow to the decisions of the Tripartite Assemblies that govern them.”
• “There are two additional keywords heavily used by the Alchemical Exalted: Municipal and Colossus. Space restrictions prevent them from receiving a full treatment in this product, but these guidelines should help Storytellers incorporate the reality of these Charms into their games.
• Colossus effects are those Charms that only by Essence 6–7 Alchemicals using warstrider-scaled bodies can sustain, allowing them to accomplish transhuman feats of warfare, social conditioning and mechanical genius. Colossus-level Alchemicals often incorporate siege weapons such as light implosion bows and warstrider weaponry into their bodies. Two of the best-known Colossus Charms are Integrated Mobile Sanctum and Remote Drone-Body Guidance. The former folds space within the Alchemical’s body, creating a large staging area carved out of Elsewhere that allows the Exalt to act as a mobile troop transport or even to outfit her body with a fully staffed factory-cathedral. The latter allows her to grow a replica of her former human-scale body and outfit it with a remote-controlled dummy soulgem, allowing her to carry out operations on a human scale. This Charm is somewhat dangerous, however, since the Alchemical’s real body remains inactive and unaware wherever she chooses to leave it.
• “Municipal” is the name applied to Essence 8+ Alchemical Charms. These wonders of industry go far beyond mere bodily implants, generally taking the form of large-scale elements of Autochthonian civic infrastructure. A Municipal Charm could include an entire factory (or a factory could simply be a small component or submodule of an Essence 10 Municipal Charm).
• Most Autochthonian mortals constantly benefit from a wide array of unseen Municipal Charm and submodule effects. Their food is kept edible and safe by Health-Promoting Filtration Baffles. The output of the factories (themselves Charms) are further enhanced by the Industry-Optimizing Timetable Manipulation submodule. The spread of illness is minimized by the city’s Rat-Slaying Electrification Grid.

A metropolis is normally seen and felt as a living being only through Hologlyphic Projection Station nodes. In times of war, though, Autonomic Civic Defense Emplacement Charms are brought online. Then, invaders face electrified streets, lashing moonsilver lighting installations, hidden turrets and worse.

• Finally, Avatar-Launching Silo is worthy of particular consideration. This Municipal Charm is a staging bay containing one or more replicas of the Alchemical’s former Colossus and human-scale bodies. Because patropoli and metropoli cannot afford to divert their full consciousness away from maintaining the cities they have become, they spin off one full subsidiary memory-facet of their former lives to guide each Avatar-body they choose to em-power. While an Avatar is still fundamentally the Alchemical—it has all of her skills, memories, Motivation and Intimacies—it is more strongly colored by the past life imbuing it than the Alchemical’s normal personality is, making Avatars notoriously eccentric and difficult to anticipate.”
• “There are approximately 50 patropoli and metropoli in Autochthonia, but a vastly greater number of Alchemicals have survived for the time required to ascend to that stage of development.
• This is due to a widespread and mostly unspoken phenomenon that those few who have been crass enough to mention it alternately term either “delayed progression” or “cowardice.” Many old, powerful Alchemicals reach Essence 5 and simply stop. In some cases, these Exalts are happiest doing their work on a human scale and simply have not yet grown bored with personal manipulation or disguise-infiltration. They do not wish the added inconvenience of managing a drone body. In most cases, however, the Champion simply does not want to abandon her human form. Many Alchemicals quietly fear the higher reaches of Essence and the accompanying extinction of the Exalt’s humanity beneath an inevitable accumulation of Clarity, so they concentrate on expanding their power laterally, into new areas of competence. The eldest Essence 5 Exalt in Autochthonia, Unbowed Golden Oracle, is over 3,000 years old.
• Perhaps even more common are Colossi who never move up to patropolis and metropolis status. Even those Exalts who are unconcerned with the balance between man and machine often cherish their independence and mobility, dreading the thought of a long, sessile eternity of completely uninterrupted service to Autochthon and Autochthonia.
• The subject of which Alchemicals are neglecting to cultivate their Essence and why is a popular topic for gossip, though it is considered extremely rude to raise the subject to a Champion’s face (and slightly dangerous, if the Exalt is already ashamed of her restraint). This does not stop some Colossi and patropoli from haranguing their younger comrades for neglecting what the older Exalts regard as their proper duty, but such arguments rarely move those who do not wish to be moved. Therefore, the number of Autochthonia’s great cities grows only slowly.”
  • “Where Creation’s Chosen expand their prowess through a regimen of intensive training and meditation, Alchemicals may improve only their Abilities, Willpower and Virtues in this fashion. All other growth is achieved through surgical modification performed by sorcerer-technicians of the five Sodalities.
  • An Alchemical seeking such advancement must enter a vats complex and fully immerse himself in a regenerative nutrient broth. Sodalts prime the concoction to its full regenerative potency and induce catatonia in the waiting Exalt. Then, while the subject is unconscious, they go to work to improve the Champion’s capabilities. For purposes of raising Attributes, the process involves upgrading the Exalt’s body through complex surgery. An Alchemical’s artificial flesh is flayed, and new synthetic muscle fiber is woven in to improve Strength, for example, or the Exalt’s skull is carefully removed in sections while delicate remote-guided armatures construct additional neural pathways in his brain to increase Intelligence. Raising an Attribute takes a number of weeks equal to the dots being added. (For example, raising Stamina from 3 to 5 would take two weeks.)
  • The process for managing Charms and Charm Slots is similar, but faster. A new Charm Slot takes a day to install, while it requires only an hour of work to upgrade a Slot from Dedicated to General. Removing an old Charm is an almost trivial process, requiring only a few minutes, but installing new Charms takes five hours per Charm installed. Vats facilities rotate staff in order to work around the clock on such refits.”
  • “Raising Essence is a far lengthier and more involved process, requiring a number of months of work equal to the Champion’s Essence at the time he goes in for refitting. Unlike Attribute enhancements or Charm refits, the Alchemical remains conscious throughout this period, though he is kept immobile and in a state of sensory deprivation. The Exalt uses this enforced downtime to turn his focus inward, refining and purifying the patterns of his Essence. Meanwhile, vats technicians flay the Alchemical’s body down to its barest essentials while they work to expand his Essence reservoir. When the Exalt’s inner quest for enlightenment synchronizes with his enhanced, upgraded and far more demanding heart, the reconstruction process begins. The Essence-cultivating broth is drained and replaced with a regenerative nutrient mix that regrows the Alchemical’s flesh from the bones outward, reconstituting him into a more perfect vessel for Autochthon’s power.”
  • “The transition to Essence 6 is marked by far more radical surgery and an attendant transformation of the Alchemical’s body. While Essence 2–5 Exalts are of human stature (barring the installation of size-altering Charms), elder Alchemicals become mechanical giants. During the requisite period of meditative enlightenment, engineers strip an Alchemical’s body down until nothing is left but his Essence reservoir and a tangle of wires connecting it to his soulgem. The two are then combined into a single armored core, and the rebuilding process begins. What emerges some months later, dripping with regenerative broth, is an armored Colossus standing between 15 and 20 feet tall. The Alchemical’s new body may resemble a warstrider or perhaps a scuttling many-limbed engine of warfare or industry whose only concession to humanity is a stylized mask to facilitate communication with mortals. Only Alchemicals who have lived for over a century survive this transformative surgery.

Raising an Alchemical’s Essence to 7 requires a similarly dramatic refit and mandates that the Exalt be at least 250 years old. The resulting Champion stands between 20 and 30 feet tall, depending on bodily configuration.”

• • “Ascending to Essence 8 requires an Exalt to have survived for over half a millennium. Rather than relying on vats technicians, this evolution occurs at the behest of the Alchemical himself. The Exalt and his followers make a pilgrimage far into the Reaches, following omens and portents transmitted by the Divine Ministers until they find an auspicious junction between the Great Maker’s vast organ-continents. The Alchemical then enters a dormant state, extruding an armored chrysalis around himself. Drill-tipped tentacles burrow deep into the Machine God’s flesh, seeking out appropriate conduits and Essence grid access ports.
  • The Alchemical sinks into the rising song of Clarity and the slow thrumming of biotectonic forces. For eight months, his body dissolves in a self-produced nutrient bath, rendering itself back down to a core Essence reservoir and soulgem as he reconfigures himself into a central vats complex. The now-sessile Exalt is helpless during this period, relying on his followers to protect his 100-foot-high chrysalis. A rough shantytown generally springs up during this period, reminiscent of the colonies of the tunnel people. At last, the steel cocoon unfolds like a flower, revealing the core of a new Autochthonian city. The Divine Ministers cause nearby areas of the Reaches to offer up their bounty, and the construction of Municipal Charms begins. The only way to destroy the Exalt at this point is to storm his central vats complex and attack his armored core.
  • The ascension of a [municipal] to higher Essence requires the Exalt to have endured for 1,000 (for Essence 9) or 2,000 (for Essence 10) years. Such an ancient hero comprises the substance of every major city of Autochthonia. The refit process for such elders is extended to years or decades, allowing the city to remain active throughout. The Exalt’s Essence reservoir and soulgem remove themselves from the city’s central vats complex at some point during this process. The precise location of a major city’s core is considered a state secret throughout Autochthonia (although the state itself has no clue in many cases). Attempting to locate a patropolis’s core without direct authorization from the city’s Tripartite Assembly is considered an act of treason.”

Liberty and Publicity

• “As state heroes, Alchemicals have enormous freedom. They are expected to be passionate in a world that has few outlets for passion. They are expected to be eccentric in a world that promotes uniformity. They are expected to be wise and mighty and active, and as such, they are generally left to operate with little or no direct supervision. When a local or National Tripartite Assembly conveys its will to an Alchemical, it expects the Exalt to carry out any assigned orders, but rarely stipulates how the Champion must do so. When an Alchemical takes off time for herself, she is generally assumed to be laboring toward the betterment of the state and left alone. Such great latitude for free thought and free action can be exhilarating, empowering, terrifying and lonely—often all at once.”
• “Alchemicals live very public lives. . . . Alchemicals are used to boost morale and provide moral instruction to the Populat. All of the Eight Nations regularly produce propaganda to promote their industrial Champions. The exact implementation varies from nation to nation—Claslat favors commemorative murals, while Jarish’s lectors incorporate tales of the latest heroic endeavors of the state’s Chosen into their sermons. Regardless, Alchemicals live in the public eye at all times. Although mortals generally keep their distance from the Exalted, they constantly gossip about what their Champions have done recently, how well it was done and what they will do next.
• Some Alchemicals thrive under these conditions, and many actually seek out and actively work with state propaganda experts to determine how to best package and sell themselves to the masses. Others are immensely annoyed by this arrangement. Starmetal Caste spymasters are especially prone to resent the necessity of declassifying operations so that the public may occasionally see the hand that invisibly protects them. They try to hide their best tricks, but it is ultimately the plutarchs who decide what information to release to the public.
• Finally, some Alchemicals are simply uncomfortable with fame. Shyness and self-reservation occasionally emerge as major components of an Exalt’s composite personality. The state does not generally care, and these Chosen are expected to simply find a way to deal with it.”
• “In general, mortals view the Chosen with a mixture of religious awe, instinctive fear and, if they manage enough familiarity to get past those two reactions, poorly veiled curiosity.”

Influence and Relationships

• “As direct representatives of the slumbering Machine God, Alchemicals are figures of immense authority to the Populat. Workers are generally as quiet and studious as possible around the Chosen, fearful of attracting attention. A casual word of chastisement from an Alchemical is often sufficient to provoke demotion by a worker’s shift supervisor, while a severe dressing down is sometimes enough to bring a lever puller up for review and possible demotion to Lumpen status. Yet, even the most off-handed praise bestows significant social elevation. Alchemicals leave social turbulence in their wake as their glances, expressions and body language are scrutinized for approval or disapproval.
• Junior Tripartite members are also often awed by the presence of their Champions. Familiarity soon refines this reaction, however. As they are often called upon to work alongside the Chosen, members of the Tripartite learn to regard them as individuals worthy of awe on the merits of their prowess rather than because they are abstract religious icons.
• Senior members of the Tripartite generally hold a somewhat more jaded view of Alchemicals. They understand the industrial power and unbound genius of their Champions but learn not to be blinded by these traits. It falls to them, after all, to determine how to best harness and direct that power for the good of the state.”
• “Alchemicals who refine and develop their Clarity have increasing difficulty relating with the mortals around them, and it is these Chosen who set the stereotypical Autochthonian view of the Exalted. Most Alchemicals are assumed to be clipped, mechanical, aloof and concerned with productivity and results rather than mortal concerns such as comfort and happiness.”
• “Regardless of the difficulties inherent in their position and their condition, many Alchemicals still attempt to establish personal relationships with the mortals around them. Most friendships between Alchemicals and mortals are with the junior or mid-rank Tripartite members with whom the Chosen work. These relationships are often immensely productive, but difficult to maintain. Association with one of the Chosen is often a fast track to positions of authority and greater duty, which can remove the Alchemical’s former co-worker from frequent contact with the Exalt.”
• “Friendships with the Populat are both safer and more disposable, but also immensely disruptive to the life of an Alchemical’s lower-class companion. Any worker, chief or administrator known to associate heavily with one of the Exalted becomes an immediate focus for gossip, scrutiny and occasional jealous recriminations. The rest of their social life is likely to completely collapse as their other friends and lovers can find nothing to speak to them about other than the Exalt. Some are even disciplined for causing disruptions and distractions within their manufactories.”
• “Sharing an Alchemical’s bed can be, if anything, even more trying. . . . Serious relationships are more difficult. Benefits can be significant for a live-in lover, since Alchemicals tend to be granted some of the largest and most well-appointed living quarters in Autochthonia and can often exercise significant leverage to get a paramour’s work schedule reassigned to accommodate either her personal desires or the needs of the relationship. Yet, the price usually makes itself apparent in fairly short order. The lovers of Alchemicals are generally assumed to be using the relationship to their advantage, and any accomplishments such a mortal manages on her own will generally be credited to the Exalt pulling strings or putting her name on his own work. They must also deal with the Alchemical’s swings between intimacy and Clarity, and are implicitly expected to be there to talk the Champion back from the cold embrace of the machine.”
• “One of the peculiarities of Clarity is that it is not kept at bay by the companionship of other Alchemicals. Two Exalts who dedicate themselves to one another exclusively will enjoy only a bare few weeks of love before rising Clarity begins choking out their infatuation and turning the relationship hollow. Alchemicals must participate in mortal society in order for their interactions with one another to retain any emotional depth or meaning, rendering emotional and social exclusivity impossible. The strange accommodations truly dedicated Alchemicals have concocted to work around this problem produce some of the juiciest grist for the national rumor mill.”
• “Young Champions often enter into informal apprenticeships under older Alchemicals, including Colossi and, on rare occasions, even patropoli. The price such mentors extract for their advice and training usually comes in the form of burdens upon the younger Exalt’s time. Help with personal projects, drumming up support for policy initiatives the elder supports or labor to speed up the construction of Municipal Charms are all commonly requested favors.”
• “Autochthonian society does not view the Alchemical Exalted as enlightened bodhisattvas, as the Immaculate Order and Realm society view the Terrestrial Exalted, but as public figures more akin to celebrities. The awe and respect granted to the Champions by the Populat is not ingrained, but earned time and again through highly visible acts of service. This ethic of community and sacrifice engenders gratitude, not envy, from the mortal population of Autochthonia. Again, the Alchemical Exalted themselves have never felt the effects of the Great Curse, and consequently, Autochthonians have not suffered depredations at the hands of the Champions as a whole. (Apostates are another matter, of course—one of growing concern to the Tripartite.)
• The people of Autochthonia toil in a staid and monotonous existence, greatly alleviated by living vicariously through the Chosen. In many ways, the Champions are more akin to modern-day superheroes than classic heroes. Although they are possessed of abilities far beyond mortal ken, the Chosen selflessly work to improve their society and uplift the mortals alongside whom they stride.”
• ““Vanilla” Exalted casts the players’ characters as industrial heroes, seeking to defend their nation against enemies foreign and domestic. Besides defending the Populat against gremlin hordes and vast industrial accidents, the players’ characters argue theology with the Theomachracy, work and deal with the Sodalities and engage in the Machiavellian manipulations of the Olgotary. After that, they might negotiate a favorable trade agreement with a nearby nation, followed by sieges of gremlin hives in the Reaches. This series seeks to play up the nationalistic pride of the Alchemical Exalted and their roles as true heroes of the people, leading their charges indirectly by example rather than directly through force, acting as Champions of Autochthon while fulfilling their roles within Autochthonian society.”

Alchemical Charms and Clarity

• “Alchemicals have the option of using Background dots to stock their panoplies with additional Charms. Doing so costs one Background dot per extra Charm on retainer at the vats.”
• The vat complexes themselves are municipal charms, allowing service to as many Alchemicals as the city's Essence. Details on construction are on p. 94 of Alchemicals. All charms an Alchemical have are contained within the system allowing them to swap in any city, but Alchemicals cannot 'loan' charms to other Alchemicals.
• “Clarity is a draining of human imperfection and the ascension of precise, calculating logic. It is not sociopathy. Regardless of his Clarity, an Alchemical retains his essential Motivation and those Intimacies that manage to survive the streamlining of his priorities that results from an increase of Clarity. The logic so cherished by high-Clarity Alchemicals is a means, not an end in and of itself. . . . Sadism, carnage and excess of any sort are wasteful and inefficient. Clarity abhors inefficiency.”
• “It is tempting to portray characters with high Clarity as robots dedicated to the extreme and abstract notion of pure logic. Clarity is neither logic nor sadism, however. If Clarity were to be reduced to a single word, the word would be efficiency. Logic is a method of thinking and a manner in which a character views and interacts with the world, not an end unto itself. Clarity, then, is an altered state of consciousness and a roleplaying challenge for a player. It moves the character ever farther from a human point of view. . . . Heartless, perhaps… but not cruel.”
• Essence 5+ instills one point of permanent Clarity per point of Essence above that.
  • “Effects that produce amputation may be used to target and disable Alchemical Charms as though they were limbs or organs. Amputated Charms melt into useless slag and toxic Essence emissions an hour after their removal and may be regenerated through an hour’s rest and repair at a vats complex. Amputated Charms are still considered to occupy the Charm slot in which they were installed, and Essence remains committed to sustain them. As such, even though a Charm is nonfunctional while amputated, it still satisfies installation prerequisites.”
  • “As surgically implanted artifacts, most Alchemical Charms have externally visible components. Observers may examine any unknown Alchemical Charm that lacks the Internal keyword as though they were attempting to scrutinize a Charm with All-Encompassing Sorcerer’s Sight in order to determine what it is and what it does. Charms with the Obvious keyword reveal their function as normal when used, whether or not they have the Internal keyword.”
  • “Should Alchemicals be exposed to the warping properties of the Wyld or similar forces, they add three dice to all resistance rolls due to their nature as Champions of orthopraxy.”