Creation

**Creation** is the world of Exalted as known to mortals and terrestrial gods. Other realms, such as the Underworld, Malfeas, and Autochthonia, are truly worlds as well - but when we speak of the world, we speak of Creation - the seat of all life in the universe.

## Overview

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 stormwinds; 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.

## The Flamepeaks & An-Teng

Realms west of the Flamepeaks are as rich as the South and prostrate as the West. Foreign powers, whether Dynasts or Lunars, mortal princes or corrupt gods, subjugate the peoples of these humid lands—jungles and forests, marshes and savannahs—to claim their wealth and resources. Buccaneer fleets ravage shipping lanes while slavers and Fair Folk prey upon impoverished villages. Near the center of things, the folk of wealthy satrapies hide their hatred behind adoring smiles, then kneel in secret before forbidden gods to call curses on their suzerains.

Closer to the world’s edge, towns and tribes lie scattered across coastal islands or encircled by monster-haunted marshlands and smoldering volcanoes. Here, where peoples are strange and their customs baffling to outsiders, any selfish godling, budding necromancer or ruthless sellsword can carve out a dominion.

    No place in the Glorious Principality of An-Teng is as wealthy as the City of the Steel Lotus. Visiting Dragon-Blooded come to indulge their basest desires in this prostrate satrapy. The docks bustle with merchants bringing delicacies from across Creation. Emporia proffer objets d’art of ivory, teak, and precious stones. In brothels and teahouses, lovely youths wait on Dynasts hand and foot, concealing their resentment behind servile smiles.

Today, the princes of An-Teng ready their private troops in the jungled hinterlands—the Shadow Puppeteers, the Elephant-Riding Ghost Generals, and the Masked Commanders of the Animals—lest the Realm’s garrison prove unreliable in this time of tumult. Meanwhile, other forces move furtively within An-Teng, from the ghosts of the City of Dead Flowers, where the last High Queen lies uneasy in her grave, to her hidden descendants in the demon cult called the Seven-Stranded Vine.

## Other Nations

The Flamepeaks are home to many indepdendent city-states. The Realm has long coveted their resources and land, but the terrain of the mountains - and their wealth due to proximity to the trade routes of The Guild - has thusfar ensured their independence.

1. The Thanocracy of Aksaray
2. Hyrcania
3. Hermopolis