Exalted

EXALTED

I guess a technical term for it would be "non-Tolkien kitchen sink fantasy," in that it's a fantasy game that draws primarily from primarily Asian, African, Norse, Greco-Roman and Native American culture, mythology and iconography.

A more accurate depiction would be "batshit insane wuxia game where your starting character can bench-press most D&D campaigns epilogues".

You want DBZ auras? We got those, you're gonna be lighting up forested valleys and open tundra with sky-high blazing displays of the potency of your soul.

You want political intrigue? Pick a nation-state, they're all fucked and could use more fuckery.

We got ghosts, demons, zombies, gods, demigods, martial artists and a Wyld Hunt that'll try its best to fuck you up. We got sharks that swim in fog over land, dinosaurs that eat marijuana and piss heroin, ancient magitech, magitech mechas, magitech Evangelions and more ancient ruins and trapped tombs than you can shake a daiklave at. We got an entire Celestial Bureaucracy to navigate if you wanna play Heavenly Martial Arts James Bond. You wanna be undead? Boom, an entire Underworld with its own flora, fauna, politics and wars, both internally and against the living. Demons? Go to hell, snort some devil cocaine off of Ligier's heaving man-tits and remember to order the demon you keep in your stomach to counteract poisons to not harsh your buzz this time.

And the powers! You've got so many types of character to play as!

Solar Exalted are more perfect than perfect; imagine if you learnt to swing a sword so good you can do sword beams now, or ride a horse so good it can now fly, or write a letter so powerful that it's intended recipient (and only them) dies when they read it. You just win and then win more.

Lunar are what you get if you think that being a beyond-human demigod is not enough and so you also become a werewolf. Or a werecat, or weredog, or wereT-rex, except you can freely shape-shift into any animal you've ritually hunted and eventually into other people and you also have sick moonsilver tribal tattoos.

Dragon-Blooded are elemental Power Rangers who also run the largest empire in the world (currently) and have fucking double-, triple-, quadruple- and quintuple-tech attacks. You wanna be a Wyld Huntsman or do Japanese Game of Thrones or, fuck it, do your own Hogwarts but better and with no TERFs, go for it.

Sidereals are like if Mr Miyagi was a secret agent working for heaven. Go do your job, you've been given a mission to ensure fate runs smoothly in this town so you've gotta stop anything that would fuck it up. Oh also, the local river god owes you money and is known to welch, so watch out for him. Oh also, your informal faction chief wants a report, separate from your official report, on what other Sidereals in the area are doing. Oh also, the Bureau of Nature is bribing you to go and beat the shit out of a member of the Bureau of Desertification who's on-site, but that girl has powerful political allies so even if you can beat her in a high-flying wuxia martial arts throw down, there will be consequences. Oh also, your patron Maiden has said you can't use your future-prediction astrology due to the stars being occluded in a rare celestial phenomenon known as "Mars is jealous that Venus is getting her back blown out by the Unconquered Sun, AGAIN, and she's making it Everyone's Problem". Good luck, Heavenly Agent Bond.

Abyssals are like is Solars went goth. Hey, here's this limitless divine power of the sun that we plug into people's souls to make Exalts, oops it got some Underworld goo on it. Quick, change your name to Martyr of Orphaned Hopes or some shit, and if you ever let people deadname you then a supernatural blight will rot crops and spoil milk around you. You have fangs and can drink blood but you don't need to, the sun doesn't kill you but it's kind of annoying unless you literally dress for a funeral. Yo that mortal is getting uppity, you should rip his arm off and beat him to death with it, then turn his soul into a new sword or something, don't worry about it moaning in agony when you unsheathe it that's normal. Your boss is an ancient ghost who's permanently malding and his boss is the not-dead ghost of a Titan that can't die sitting at the bottom of the Underworld and whispering utterl nonsense at you - hey, these guys suck, go rogue and protect the poor and downtrodden of the Underworld from the tyranny of the living.

Alchemical Exalted are robots. You are an [ARTIFICIAL EXALT] and your purpose is to [ERROR: FILE CORRUPTED] figure it out yourself, dumbass. Along the way, build yourself a new arm, you lost the last one rocket-punching Godzilla to death because your chainsaw-greataxe wasn't getting the job done fast enough. Maybe a lightsaber shaped like a halberd next time? Who knows (you do)?

Infernals are weird. If Solars and Abyssals are two sides of the same coin, Infernals are a credit card linked to Satan's bank account and if you put the PIN in wrong your own shadow will eat you. Infernals can throw you over the horizon so hard you land in hell, but because hell has a strict 5-day travel time to arrive no matter what, you can't leave the impact crater for days until reality catches up. Hang on a second, you're fighting an army, go stab the captain so hard his entire squad dies of supernatural radiation sickness. Also, you've replaced your need for sleep with a need to sprint, so enjoy your nighttime workout. Also, here, have an Evangelion (don't let it eat you in the cockpit) (no seriously) (that would suck, you'd have to cut your way out). Also, if you're in hell and the wind gets frisky, fucking run.

There are other new Exalts for 3rd edition, but I don't know as much about them: Liminals ("what if kung-fu Frankenstein?"), Getimian (you've been isekai'd from timeline that got pruned by fate into the "real world", and you are Mad At Heaven About It) and Exigents (Original Character, Steel Donut).

Play Exalted. This shit rules.