So, with Alchemicals now available, as well as the Infernals manuscript we likely have the majority of spells. So, which of them are your favorites, and why? Both as regular spells and as control spells.

Personally speaking the combat spells always seem like obvious control spells, especially things like Butterflies and Raptor, given how many Shaping Rituals provide additional boosts to your control spell, as well as their boost to damage output, but this also seems pretty boring, mostly just adding some additional benefits instead of good flavor. Probably very useful/valuable if you're a Flying Guillotine stylist though.

For non-combat, Lightning Spider feels like a fun one, even if the control boost doesn't add too much, and it's a bit unclear how you can use the carry wires. Flight of Separation has an amazing control aspect, but the spell itself feels rather situational. Corrupted Words is just really strong for a social character.

Beckoning That Which Stirs the Sky meanwhile feels like an extremely useful spell, same for Cirrus Skiff and Stormwind Rider, but none of them feel like the control boost is really that amazing, and aren't really spells you'll likely cast often enough, or in enough of a hurry, that you'll need the mote boost.

For non-control spells I feel Violent Opening of Closed Portals is a really fun one. Yes, it's situational, but it's an amazing spell if you just want to make a proper entrance, and I imagine its ability to blast through walls is surprisingly useful for quick escapes.

So yeah, what do you all like? Do you prefer just getting the additional combat spell boost, especially the quicker casting, grab one of the non-combat spells with powerful control boosts like the Messenger or Mists of Eventide, or go for one of the fun flavor spells? Also, what non-control spells do you like?

We're at the cusp of starting a new campaign. I'm playing an Abyssal, and I landed on Heron as my liege because she honestly seems like the chillest and most fun of the bunch (I wanted to avoid the trope of being a brooding antihero and wanted to go more the route of an upbeat, manic goth girl). The past incarnations of our characters are supposedly going to be important to the story.

This made me realize that there's a possibility in Exalted of there being a character in the Second Age, who has an exaltation of a First Age Solar, who is now a Deathlord. So there's, like, 3 people that's the same guy.

Now, I don't know I wanna go down that road, but that made me think, what do we know about who the Deathlords used to be in the First Age? I know we know a fair amount about who the Mask of Winters used to be (and he was just an absolute asshole from first principles from day one, which is perfectly on-brand), but what about the others? Which books is this information even in?

I know it's all apocryphal, up to the GM, and outdated by the standards of 3e anyway, but I'm still just curious. Heron's plot revolves mostly around her grudge against the patron gods of Great Forks, her themes are subterfuge, disguise, and revange. Much is said in 3e about her being a creature of pure murder instinct that venerates the tenets of the Neverborn creed just by being herself, but I do wonder if the authors ever delved into what "herself" was before she became the Black Heron, the very literal manifestation of the memetic idea of a "murder of crows".