What distinguishes the kind of person who becomes a Lunar from the kind who becomes a Solar is this: Solars exalt by being faced with an insurmountable problem and choosing to push forward and try to surmount it anyway. Lunars exalt by being survivors and/or protectors. They are very specifically characterized as “stewards” in contrast to the Solars as “lawgivers.” However, being the “protector” of something can be a very broad concept indeed.
There are four types of Lunar—three Castes, and Casteless.
Full Moon: physical primaries. i forget what their special power is, but it definitely makes them more badass in a fight
Changing Moon: social primaries. their special power lets them temporarily steal someone else’s appearance without having to like... literally hunt them down and eat their heart for it
No Moon: mental primaries. their special power makes them extra good at occult shit
Casteless: swap between being any of the above based on the phase of the moon
In order for a Lunar to even HAVE a caste, they have to find other lunars and get moonsilver tattoos (after passing a trial to determine what they excel at). The tattoos lock their caste in place, and also provide protection against wyld mutation, which is like the Exalted setting equivalent of hell corruption. (Casteless lunars lack this protection and are very likely to get wyld mutations if they hide out there a lot.)
Back in the First Age before everything went to shit, there were five lunar castes (just like solars, sidereals, and dragon bloods all have five types) that were naturally set without having to get tattoos, but lunars having to hide out in the Wyld all the time + various other shit going wrong meant their castes got permanently fucked up, and now the situation is in its current state.
In order to build a Lunar, you decide your character’s spirit shape. In order to have the spirit shape be something larger than a polar bear or smaller than a bunny, you need to build the character with special shapeshifting “knacks,” but in terms of pure lore, the shape can be any animal you can think of.
The collection of spirit shape + human form + beastman version of spirit shape are all treated as the character’s “true form.”
Next, decide what the character’s Tell is: this is some feature that stays with them no matter what shape they take. (Examples: a distinctive scar, wolf ears, leopard spots, always having white hair/fur)
Because of ~magic~, even when non-lunars manage to notice the Tell, they have a super hard time connecting it to the lunar. (e.g. even if they notice the character has a spotted pattern on their shoulders, their mind refuses to register it as significant, or draw a connection back to the lunar if they then see a random bird with the same spots.)
In Imeeji, Beautiful End’s (Sashay Silfda’s) wolf ears and tail are their Tell. If they were in Creation, they could walk down a busy street and no one would notice their animal features. Other exalts can push past this effect, but it’s difficult even for them!
Finally, Lunars can learn to take any other shape they want by declaring a sacred hunt, then hunting down the declared target and drinking its heartsblood. As mentioned above, yes this applies to humans as well. However, there are a few shapeshifting knacks that provide alternatives, which are most useful for characters who specifically want to be taking permanent shapes from sentient creatures on the regular. (The Changing Moon ability goes a long way but is only temporary or has some other limitation; i am sorry, it’s been a while since i reviewed.)
Note: Lunars can learn lots of forms and varieties of their shapeshifting—including the ability to choose the physical sex of their body. Gender fluidity is a pretty common thing among Lunars.
The main organization of Lunars is known as the SILVER PACT. They’re where you find someone to give you moonsilver tattoos, and often serve as default questgivers for lunar PCs.
The reason Lunars have needed organizations like the Silver Pact is that, for the literal millennia the Solar exaltations were locked away in the Jade Prison and unable to reincarnate, the Lunars were still around. They have been being systematically hunted for several thousand years.
Some very rare Lunars actually have survived since the First Age, and they are, without exception:
- terrifyingly powerful
- extremely bitter
- at minimum lowkey crazy
The ones who are merely lowkey crazy are also extremely important leaders to the different Lunar factions. Also, since their whole shtick is being “stewards,” many elder Lunars have started building civilizations as like... a hobby, with varying success. The forest nation of Halta is probably the most successful example. (Inquire with Degen to learn more about Halta if desired.) This sort of thing is also how most types of beastfolk in the setting came into being.
The whole “systematically hunted as demonic ‘Anathema’ for literally thousands of years” thing is why the strong majority of Lunars hate the Realm, and sometimes even all Dragon Bloods, with a fiery passion.
In 3E exalted, the lore no longer has it that all solars are soulbonded to exactly one lunar. INSTEAD, they have the bonds be something that some solars and lunars consciously forged with one another in the First Age; additionally, they don’t necessarily have to be limited to two people.
The effect on their future incarnations is the same, though: solar/lunar mates will always feel that connection with each other (even if, say, the solar gets turned into an abyssal instead). There are Charms [furi: magic powers] that let them resist unnatural mental influence if it’s for each other’s sake; give each other buffs; etc.
In 2E... the balance of power always favored the solar, and there was a LOT of dubcon (or even outright noncon) potential in the dynamic, especially since Solars went far and away the most power-mad from the combination of the Great Curse and, you know, all that power.
In 3E, that stuff is no longer inherent to the bond, but some people (such as Mora, with Beautiful End) want to explore the consequences of that dynamic, and thus have established that in the First Age their mate was the kind of asshole who developed charms and/or sorcery to get those effects. Fun!!