Exalted: Blood and Fire Cortex Plus Heroic Exalted is a fantasy roleplaying game set in the mythic prehistory of the world, a time when gods still walked openly among men, the world was flat, and the restless dead roamed on moonless nights. Players take the role of the Exalted, heroic men and women granted blessings of power by the mightiest of the gods. The Exalted can slay gods with their blades and arrows, leap across vast canyons, master ancient and miraculous sorcery, endure the burning heat of the desert or the killing cold of the tundra with only their natural resilience, and outwit demons using their razor wit. The mightiest of the Exalted are the Solar Exalted. The Solars were once rulers of the world, but were betrayed and banished for many centuries. Now their power has come back into the world, imbuing men and women with divine might. They are stalked by the Wyld Hunt and feared by gods and men for their incomparable power, which will only grow in the fullness of time. Will your characters attempt to rebuild the glories of ages past, or remake the world according to a new vision? Will your power save the world—or destroy it? This is your tale. What legends will they tell of your deeds? Exalted: Blood and Fire uses the dynamic Cortex Plus system as its basic engine, specifically the variant known as Cortex Plus Heroic. In this system, when a character wants to act he assembles a dice pool and makes a roll, either against an opposing character or the GM’s special dice pool, the doom pool. Core Mechanics The game follows the following fundamental rules. 1. Describe what you intend to do. If you are the active player and what you want to attempt has a chance to fail, it is described in these rules as taking an action. 2. When taking an action, assemble your dice pool. 3. Roll the dice. 4. Set aside any dice showing 1s: they cannot be used in the action. These dice are called opportunities and can be triggered after the roll resolves for a variety of effects by an opposing party. 5. Pick any two remaining dice; add their values together for your total. 6. Pick any one other dice to use as your effect die. Only the size of the die matters for your effect die, not what number it is showing. If you have no remaining dice for your effect die, the default is a single d4. 7. Decide if you spend Motes to add additional remaining dice to your total, or add another effect die (with some restrictions). SFX and Limits may also allow you to modify rolls. 8. Choose whether your effect die (or dice) will be used to inflict stress (and what kind), inflict a complication, or create an asset. 9. The opponent then assembles a dice pool similarly. If the action does not directly affect another target, the opposition is the doom pool. The opposition rolls a reaction, which also generates a total and effect die. 10. If the action’s total equals or exceeds the reaction’s total, the action was a success. If the reaction’s total is higher, the action fails. 11. If the reaction’s total was higher, a counterattack may be possible (if the GM rolled an opportunity). 12. An opposing party can buy any opportunities (anyone directly involved in the roll gets the first chance, then if they decline, others may buy them instead). The GM buys player opportunities to add dice to the doom pool, and players may buy GM opportunities for stunts/resources in their next action/reaction. Partial Defense: If your opponent has a larger effect die than you, your effect die is stepped back by one. So if you have a d8 effect and your opponent has a d10, your effect die becomes a d6. This is known as a partial defense. Extraordinary Success: If a total beats the opposition’s total by more than 5, the effect die is stepped up. The effect die is also stepped up for every 5 above after that. Once an effect die hits d12, you get to add an additional effect die from the unused dice of your pool for every additional difference of 5 in total. If you don’t have any more dice, you can add a d4 effect if you want. Glossary of Terms Act: A single session of play. Action: Rolling dice to achieve a desired outcome. Opposed by a reaction. Action order: The order in which the characters act, determined by the situation and then by the players. Action Scene: A scene focused on a conflict in some kind in which time matters. Activate an opportunity: Spending a Mote or a doom die to gain a benefit from an opponent’s opportunity (roll of 1 on a die.) Arc: A story spanning several sessions of play (Acts). Attack action: An action taken to inflict stress or a complication on a target character or trait. Can be close or ranged. Asset: A beneficial effect die that can be added to a hero’s dice pool, whose creation represented some kind of risk. Categories: Sections of a character’s sheet and the situation that contribute dice to a dice pool. Using more than one die from the same category requires spending Motes. Character: The fictional people represented in the game by the players and the GM. Complication: A problematic effect die that is added to an opposing dice pool. Counterattack: On a successful reaction, if the opposing side shows an opportunity, the reacting player can activate the opportunity for a counterattack. On a counterattack, the reacting player inflicts stress or a complication with his effect die, or creates an asset, as appropriate to the narration. Dice pool: A collection of dice from various categories that support or help to achieve a goal. Distinction: A trait that represents defining backgrounds, personality traits, or catchphrases that summarize important facets of the hero’s outlook and approach to life. Doom dice: Dice in the doom pool. Doom pool: The pool of dice the GM uses in place of Motes to oppose the heroes and activate additional threats, challenges, and situations. Double: Roll two dice of the same type (such as rolling 2d8 instead of d8). Effect die: A die from a rolled dice pool not included in your total, and used to create an asset, complication, or stress. Essence: The die that represents the general power level of a character. Normal mortals have no Essence die, while heroic mortals, gods, demons, and the Exalted have increasingly higher Essence dice. For NPCs, this die is replaced by Threat. Exalted: The Chosen of the Gods, wielders of an incredible power that makes them more than human. Each type of Exalted is affiliated with a particular force of reality: Solars, Lunars, Sidereals, Terrestrials, Abyssals, Infernals, Alchemicals, Liminals, and Exigents are the known types of Exalted. Experience Points (XP): Earned by hitting triggers in Milestones, and used to unlock additional abilities or benefits. Extraordinary success: When your action total is 5 or more points higher than your opponent’s reaction total. GM: Game Master; the referee of the game, whose responsibility it is to create Arcs and portray the world of the game. Also called a Storyteller. Large Scale Threat: A more powerful and important version of a threat that can challenge multiple heroes at once. Limit: Restriction on a power set that helps the player generate Motes. Limit Break: A condition in which an Exalted character’s emotions overcome his reason, causing him to become intemperate and dangerous. Milestone: A guide to the sorts of decisions the hero should make or seek out during play. Mob: Anywhere from two to a dozen or more individual threats that act and behave as a group. Motes: The currency of play, earned by investing in the story or taking risks; spent to enhance your hero’s actions, activate opportunities, and more. NPC: Non-player character; any character represented in play by the GM. Opportunity: A die that comes up a 1 in a roll; the opportunity is granted to the opposing side. PC: Player character; a character controlled by a player rather than by the GM. Player: One of the real people playing the game. Power Set: A thematic collection of power traits, SFX, and Limits on those powers. Power trait: A trait in a Power Set that represents an exceptional ability. Reaction: Rolling a dice pool in response to an action. Recovery action: Rolling dice to attempt to recover from stress more quickly. Resource: A bonus die linked to a Specialty representing contacts, knowledge, or tools that come naturally from training. Scene: A period of time centered on a single conflict or situation. Scenes can be divided into Combat Scenes and Transition Scenes. Scene Distinction: Assets and complications that can help or hinder those involved in the scene from the environment. Shutdown: When you can’t use a power trait or Power Set until the recovery condition is met. Specialty: A trait that represents skills, contacts, knowledge, and training beyond the level of an average person. Each Specialty is rated at either Expert or Master. Special effects (SFX): Personalized tricks that individualize Power Sets to suit a hero or threat. Step: The difference between consecutive sized dice, such as the difference between a d4 and d6. The difference between a d4 and a d8 is two steps, and so on. Step back: Switch out a die for the next one with fewer sides (such as from d8 to d6).