Sidebar: Terrestrial Exalted
It's not clear historically whether Terrestrial Exalted or Celestial Exalted were created first, even the memories of those directly involved having been distorted by the massive conceptual damage done to Creation during the Primordial War. Interestingly, each type argues that it was the other that came first and that they were created as a solution to a deficiency on the side of the other: the Celestial's limited numbers or the comparative weakness of the Terrestrials.
Whichever the case is, it is recorded that the five Elemental Dragons - the first of all the Elemental Spirits - each took two thousand mortals of suitable vigour and conferred upon them the gift of Exaltation. The legendary ten thousand Dragon-Blooded (nine-tenths of whom were female) would be the parents of the great army of Terrestrial Exalted that fought in the Primordial War and served the Solar Exalted until the Usurpation.
The Terrestrial Exaltation is hereditary, with the intention being that all children born to one of them would exalt (and in the same elemental aspect as their parents). It was expected that the Dragon-blood would confine procreation to their own ranks, and also their own aspects. It can therefore be presumed that the Elemental Dragons didn't understand humanity very well. Long before the end of the First Age, the Terrestrial Exalted had mingled their bloodlines not just across aspect lines but with mortals, all varieties of spirits and - to judge by some Wood-aspects - both fauna and flora.
At first this seemed to have no particular consequence but as centuries passed, it became clear that the Terrestrial Exalted were generally weaker than previously recorded. Typically shorter-lived than their Celestial masters, the Dragon-Blooded barely noticed this gradual degradation until, unexpectedly, they discovered that it was now possible for their children not to Exalt. This was at first scandalous, then unfortunate and eventually accepted. By the current age it is considered normal that most children of the Dragon-Blooded not to exalt. Only the most old-fashioned Dragon-Blooded even insist on marrying their own kind.
There were, of course, other problems for them to deal with. After more than three millennia of Solar rule, the Dragon-Blooded were increasingly unhappy with the excesses of their master. The Solar Deliberative, which might occasionally condescend to listen to lesser Exalted, was increasingly made up of erratic and terrifyingly powerful despots. It took relatively little prodding by those Sidereal Exalted who shared their concerns to inspire the Usurpation.
The coup was essentially won in the first days, as tens of thousands of crack Terrestrial Exalted caught most of the Solar Exalted at a feast in their capital on Mount Meru. Poisoned by the Sidereal Exalted, the Solar Exalted fought back ferociously, shattering the city in the process, but the overwhelming majority of them perished. The handful who had escaped or been elsewhere fell back into strongholds and awaited the exaltation of new Solar Exalted to join them in a counterattack... only to find no such exaltations taking place. As the Dragon-Blooded war machine ground each down in turn, further battles caused incalculable damage as the Terrestrials purged not only the Solars but many of their unexalted servants, accurately realising that their loyalties would not waver.
Meanwhile the remaining Lunar Exalted withdrew to the edges of Creation and the Sidereals departed, erasing themselves from history to render them more able puppet-masters to the Terrestrials who had inherited Creation. This was not an entirely simple process: the Solar Exalted had ruled by the Mandate of Heaven, which the Terrestrials lacked. It took immense effort by the Sidereals to persuade the gods to accept the new state of play, and they had to establish an order of monks - adherents to the so-called Immaculate Philosophy - to handle spiritual matters that would have previously required minimal effort by even younger Celestial Exalted. Meanwhile the Realm's infrastructure had been intended to be supported and operated by Solar Exalted that were no longer present, meaning many greater wonders had to be done without.
Nonetheless, the Dragon-Blooded grimly fought on, improvising work-arounds for what they lacked and squabbling periodically over who would rule Creation as their Shogun. If their Realm was less than its predecessor, it was still a wealthy and successful civilisation stretching across almost all of Creation.
And then the Great Contagion spread uncontrollably, killing ninety percent of everything that lived.
And then the Balorian Crusade unleashed uncountable hordes of Raksha, intent on conquering and destroying Creation completely.
The Dragon-Blooded could not counter the Contagion, but the tenth of them that survived it rode out to face the Balorians (aided, unknown to them, by many of the Lunar Exalted they feared and hunted as Anathema). Very few of either survived.
And some seven centuries and change ago, one Dragon-Blooded officer ventured into a long-abandoned Solar Manse and activated - at horrible cost - the ultimate weapon system of the Exalted. The Sword of Creation obliterated the Balorian hosts, saving those parts of Creation that remained. And then she used it to obliterate every other claimant to the vacated throne of the Shogun, along with their armies.
That officer proclaimed herself the Scarlet Empress, and over the following decades she established herself as the direct ruler of the Blessed Isle and, via satraps, over most of the rest of Creation. The Immaculate Philosophy became official state policy, integrating the Immaculate Order into this new Realm. Her children, and those of her closest supporters, became the Great Houses of the Scarlet Dynasty, the single largest concentration of Exalted in all Creation.
Beyond her reach, scattered bloodlines have either dissipated save for the occasional Exaltation among those with little knoweldge of their heritage, or banded together into communities that endeavour to keep their Exalted heritage alive - most notably in the cities of Lookshy and Cherak.
Sidebar: House Tepet
House Tepet is one of the eleven Great Houses that currently make up the Realm's Scarlet Dynasty, the extended family that - through blood, marriages and adoption - includes the majority of the approximately 10,000 Terrestrial Exalted native to the Blessed Isle. While not one of the largest Great Houses; numbering almost a thousand Exalted and several times that in their mortal relatives, House Tepet is comfortably in the middle-ground in terms of both population and of the number of notably powerful Exalted.
The house is descended from Tepet, a legion commander during the third and fourth centuries who was an Imperial Consort between RY 362 and his mysterious disappearance in RY 371. Shortly thereafter, Tepet's five adult children were granted the status of a Great House along with considerable estates and imperial favour, making them a useful counter to some of the Empress' elder children and their ambitions. (Tepet himself had been prominent in crushing House Manosque after their failed coup in RY 244). Such politics play no small part in the reason that only eleven of the twenty-three Great Houses declared over the centuries of the Scarlet Empress' reign still exist.
The Tepet are mostly centred around the city of Lord's Crossing and the prefecture that takes its name from that city, which has the almost unique status of being a direct dominion of a Great House. Almost half of the house treat the great fortified manse at the heart of Lord's Crossing as their permanent residence, even though they may not see it for years. In addition, five major off-shoots form distinct households elsewhere in the dominion with only the sixth and smallest branch of the House settling outside Lord's Crossing entirely. Tepet's two daughters Vergus and Marek established the first and largest of these, although Vergus' influence was curbed by her own daughter Tilis forming her own distinct household.
Together with the main household, the Vergus, Marek and Tilis households have a very strong martial tradition, with the majority of their number serving as officers in the legions. As a result of the significant number of senior Tepet officers able to exert patronage and other influence, five Imperial Legions (the 5th, 8th, 38th, 42nd and the 43rd) have their senior ranks dominated by Dragon-blooded and mortal officers from House Tepet and from affiliated patrician houses. Other legions have a much smaller presence, but the Tepet aren't so isolationist as to steer all their younger members into their 'traditional' legions.
The Berel and Nerigus households, descended from the elder children of Tepet's youngest son Jyuko, are both more focused on mercantile affairs and developing the wealth of their estates on the edges of Lord's Crossing dominion than on military careers; but even those Tepet who don't make the Legions their lives have often served for some time. The most recent household was established, by Tepet Demarol, who retired from a successful military career to Juche prefecture, the playground of the Blessed Isle's wealthiest Exalted, over a hundred years ago. While the Demarol household is by far the smallest and most far-flung of House Tepet's branches, Demarol and his wife wield great influence through the social and political connections they've made at lavish galas and during expensive hunting trips. This diversification is significantly boosting the power of the Tepet, something not welcomed by their rivals.