In both the First Age and the modern day, Exalts created all manner of items of power, ranging from magical weapons and armor to flying vehicles or enchanted disguises. A character with the Artifact Background possesses one or more such items. Most First Age artifacts were lost or destroyed centuries ago, and much of the knowledge of how to make such items has also been lost. Today, all artifacts are rare and precious.

Consider carefully how your character acquired her artifacts. She might have been powerful or rich enough before her Exaltation to have some trappings of First Age glory. Or perhaps she followed prophetic dreams after her Exaltation and looted the hidden fortress-tomb where the body and weapons of her previous incarnation were buried. Maybe she stole the artifact or took it from the body of one of her foes. Solar Exalted can have artifacts made from any of the five magical materials, but most use artifacts made from golden orichalcum.

Trait Effects: Your character can purchase this Background multiple times, once for each artifact she owns. Each artifact has a rating between 1 and 5, and this is the Background cost of that particular artifact. Artifacts with ratings of 4 and 5 are now exceptionally rare and will be greatly coveted by other Exalts and gods. For information on the various artifacts, see Chapter Eight.

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The scions of the Realm and Lookshy have access to massive remnants of First Age and Shogunate wonders. The ruins of Deheleshen included extensive armories of military hardware and a substantially intact Shogunate military complex, and the Realm is built upon the Blessed Isle, which though stripped of much of its mobile military assets at the end of the Contagion, still retained significant infrastructure and Shogunate-era resources. As a result, both states—and their satellites, such as Cherak—have access to substantial resources of jade artifacts and wonders.

This Background represents not only those artifacts the character has been given for one reason or another, but also those that they have had an opportunity to purchase, trade for or otherwise acquire before play begins. They are the character’s property and may be traded or sold without overt problem (assuming the right paperwork is filled out, and the right bribes are placed)—though House or Gentes elders might still be annoyed that they were sold without permission.

The Artifact Background grants Terrestrials twice the number of dots worth of artifacts as normal, although any single artifact cannot exceed the Dragon-Blood’s rating in Artifact. (A character with Artifact 3 cannot buy a four-dot artifact, but he can buy two three-dot artifacts.) Even Dragon-Blood with no rating in this Background will have a single one-dot artifact of the Storyteller’s choice, so prevalent are jade wonders in these places.

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Alone among the Exalted, the Dragon-Bloods are capable of directly passing their power down to their children. While the scions of powerful Celestial Exalts bear the mark of their heritage, it is no more than an echo of power and has as little to do with the Celestial’s purpose or design as do the mutations bestowed on those who live too close to an untapped demesne.

Even in the First Age, arranged marriages and careful breeding programs were used to strengthen the Blood of the Dragons in the children of Terrestrial Exalts, increasing their chances of Exalting and the power of those who did. In the Realm, the Great Houses refined this process to a fine art. Careful use of marriage incentives, genealogical research and extended research into the inheritance of the Blood of the Dragons has resulted in Terrestrials with greater numbers of Exalted in their ancestry and a higher concentration of the holy Blood of the Elemental Dragons.

In Lookshy, the Terrestrials of the Seventh Legion have taken a different route. Despite being the largest concentration of Dragon-Blooded outside of the Realm, they have always lacked numbers sufficient for their goals, and their breeding incentives have stressed prolificacy rather than power. Better a half-dozen Terrestrials of moderate power, than a single Dragon-Blood of great puissance. As a result, although they are as likely to have this Background as Dynasts are, they only rarely have it at great levels (meaning that the cost for a character to have four dots or five dots is doubled).

Other outcastes only rarely show signs of Breeding. It takes several generations of careful eugenics to reveal even low levels of improvement, and even in the Realm and Lookshy, this Background is not exactly common. This does not mean, however, that it is impossible. Just as the Blood sometimes springs forth in bloodlines that have not had an Exalt in them for generations, so too do feeble bloodlines combine in surprising ways.

On a metaphysical level, the more pure a character’s bloodline is, the more powerful his connection to the elemental force of his aspect is. This elemental resonance manifests in both the character’s appearance and his spiritual strength. The higher his Breeding is, the more obvious his elemental markings and anima banner become, as well as the higher his Essence pools are.

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Dragon lines of Essence run through the entirety of Creation. By attuning themselves to pools where this natural magic gathers, the Exalted can draw upon a vast wellspring of power. These pools are called demesnes if they have not been harnessed by occult architecture. If this power has been focused and controlled by geomantic means, they are known as manses. Weak demesnes are quite common, but the more powerful ones are rare and are usually controlled by powerful magical creatures such as Lunar Exalted, Fair Folk nobles or important gods, who are unwilling to relinquish such a valuable resource.

Characters inside a manse or demesne to which they are attuned regain four times the level of the site per hour in Essence motes. Characters who control a demesne can build a manse to channel the power of the demesne into an object called a hearthstone, a crystal the size and shape of a chicken egg. In addition to allowing the Exalt to recover Essence at twice her level in this Background even when away from the demesne, a hearthstone grants its owner special powers when it’s set into a special artifact. Characters can take this Background multiple times if they wish to control more than one demesne or manse. For more details on manses, their construction and the mechanics of how they generate hearthstones, see page 133 of Chapter Four. For sample hearthstones, see pages 382-384 of Chapter Eight.

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The Blessed Isle has been civilized for Ages upon Ages, and it’s geomantic resources have long been carefully mapped, tuned and optimized to enhance the countryside and its citizenry in any number of ways. Its demesnes have long-since been tamed and had manses erected over them—many of them dating to the early First Age in initial construction. The vast majority of these manses are held by the Great Houses, the Immaculate Order or the Scarlet Empress herself (now held in trust by Regent Fokuf). Therefore, Dynasts have great difficulty in claiming a manse as their own property. Most households and estates are built around manses, and being able to purchase the rights to one or more is an essential step in starting a new household or line.

Rather than representing a single manse to which the character has laid claim, the Manse rating of a Realm Dragon-Blooded character indicates generally the number of manses to which she has been attuned. Characters who carry the hearthstone from a manse probably don’t actually own it, but are instead holding it on extended loan. In case of family emergency, the stone might be recalled, particularly if the hearthstone is powerful or unusual in nature. Level-1 and -2 manses are common throughout the Realm and typically used as vacation dachas, hunting lodges, manor houses for small estates and the like. Their hearthstones are unlikely to be recalled unless the Realm is at war or their particular powers are needed.

Non-Dynastic Terrestrials, including those of Lookshy (which devotes many of its hearthstones to defensive systems and weapons — use the Arsenal Background to reflect hearthstones issued by the armorers), use the normal Manse Background found on page 113 of the core Exalted rulebook. Realm Dynasts may be allowed to purchase the standard version (rather than this alternate) under certain circumstances. Those who have spent substantial time in the Threshold might have resources they have developed out there and not bothered to inform their Houses about, for example.

Resources represents your character’s wealth. She may own large tracts of fertile land, a pottery factory, a ruby mine, shares in a shipping firm or simply a large horde of gold and jewels. This Background includes such things as property, clothing and basic equipment, and it shows how easily your character can acquire more. While Resources are not entirely liquid assets, all possessions can be sold to gain money (though doing so could take some time depending on what is for sale).

Each dot of Resources conveys an income beyond any gear or wealth your character gains during play. The source of this wealth must be detailed (rents on property, sharecropping, government stipend, interest in a mercantile concern, tax farming), since it may be increased, reduced or cut off entirely depending on events in the series. As with Influence, few Exalted have problems acquiring Resources — through one means or another.

Note: Almost everyone in Creation has at least one dot in this Background. Those who do not are both homeless and destitute.

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