I love the setting, but from a bit of a distance — I had a couple of the first edition books but none of the second edition stuff. I keep reading interesting posts about the game that rely on stuff I don't understand. Can anyone provide either a link to a summary, or a summary? A list of important books in the line might also be useful.
[RPG] summary of the Exalted metaplot
exalted
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It's a tricky question to answer, because the Exalted metaplot ends at a specific time, and that specific end time hasn't changed since the 1e corebook. A few products have extended the Exalted timeline -- "Return of the Scarlet Empress" is the latest to do so -- but these generally provide possible futures. The First and Forsaken Lion doesn't necessarily conquer Autochthonia, the Sidereals don't necessarily unleash the Kukla, the Scarlet Empress doesn't necessarily enact a plot to render Creation and Hell one and the same.
What the Exalted metaplot has mostly been, then, is background. Setting elements that were implied to be X in a brief mention in an early sourcebook were expanded at length and revealed to be Y. Characters, power groups, whole regions were unveiled as unexpectedly awesome and tied to other setting elements in unexpected ways: the Haslanti League, like Halta, was a Lunar experiment. A Gold Faction Sidereal might share an office in Heaven with a Bronze Faction Sidereal. Astrology works along different principles than one might expect. The floating mountain in the far East isn't full of upsy-daisium, it's a derelict flying war machine.
Thus, there isn't a single good source to follow, because there isn't a single narrative throughline. The 2e core book hits a lot of the high points accreted over the course of the first edition, but it's presented as setting, not metaplot.