God-Blooded are the mortal offspring of awakened, Essence-channelling beings. When a spirit, Exalt, or Fair Folk has mortal human or animal offspring, some of their nature is passed down in small part. The offspring are still mortal, but noticeably touched by magic.
Conversely, certain awakened races cannot breed with humans or animals at all, such as the Dragon Kings. The Yozis, produce unique and bizarre offspring on the extremely rare occasions that they deign to mate with mere human beings.
For some God-Blooded, their inheritance merely elevates them to the highest heroic but mundane potential among their species, or grants them a single, very minor Heritage Power. Others have a birthright of subtle magic, lesser than the Dragon-Blooded but great enough to let them channel Essence themselves, potentially learn some of the weaker Charms of their parents, and even achieve initiation into First Circle Sorcery or Necromancy.
Heritage[]
- God-Blooded is also, when used more narrowly, the name for human and animal offspring of gods and elementals. More specific names for God-Blooded of this heritage are God-Kin, Sunset Dalliances, Divinity's Shadows, and the Harvest of Sighs. They are by far the most common of the God-Blooded (in the broader sense). Their Heritage Power is to see across invisible gods, elementals, and sanctum entrances, and the most mighty can learn spirit charms and Emerald Circle Sorcery.
- Half-Castes are the offspring of Exalted with highly refined Essence, and mortal humans (or, in the case of Lunars, normal animals). They have no Heritage Power aside from extra Attribute dots, but can potentially learn Exalted Charms.
- Golden Children are the children of Solar Exalted.
- Moon-Born are the children of the Lunar Exalted. Most tribes of Beastmen ultimately began with Moon-Born founders, but most Beastmen are mortal humans, despite their appearance. The Moon-Born can also look like baseline humans.
- Star-Blessed are the children of Sidereal Exalted.
- Shadewalkers are the children of Abyssal Exalted.
- Grandchosen of the Yozis are the children of Green Sun Princes.
- The offspring of Liminal Exalted, Getimian Exalted, and Exigents have no known sobriquets.
- Dragon-Blooded cannot have God-Blooded children. Their nature is to pass on Exaltation through blood, so their children are always either fully mortal or fully Exalted, unless they breed with another type of Exalt.
- Demon-Blooded are humans touched by demons from Malfeas. Some such demons are summoned to Creation, but others escape on their own. Despite their own universely non-sexual modes of reproduction, demons can breed with humans just as gods and elementals can. The Demon-Blooded Heritage Power lets them detect infernal beings and energies, including Akuma.
- Yozi-Kin are created when a mortal or other human is endowed with power by a demon.
- Hellspawn, also called Half-Damned, are born from a mating of human and demon.
- Devil-Beasts are the offspring of demons and animals.
- Deva-Blooded are the extremely rare children of a human and one of the devas of Autochthon or, potentially, of Gaia. In the Time Before, the souls and progeny of other Primordials spawned Deva-Blooded as well. The Lintha pirates are thought by many to be descended from Kimbery in this way.
- Ghost-Blooded should be impossible. The dead should be sterile. But the Arcanos Fertile Soul Endowment allows a ghost of any sex to impregnate a living woman within a Shadowland. The eerie, grave-tainted children are forever marked apart from humanity. They can see invisible ghosts and shadowlands as their Heritage Power. Every single one is doomed to become a ghost upon death.
- Fae-Blooded, or Changelings, are engendered or conceived by the Raksha or Hobgoblins. They cannot learn the Creation-based principles of Sorcery, but they do have access to the reality-warping Wyld energy of their progenitors. Their Heritage Power is a paradoxical resistance to being warped and mutated by the Wyld, but some become soul-ravaging emotional vampires like the Fair Folk themselves.
- Children of the Mountain are the obscure children of human and Mountain Folk parents. Mountain Folk are neither spirits nor Exalted, nor even true Fair Folk, but they were the prototype from which humans were built. The Children's Heritage Power is their immense talent with the crafts and arts.
God-Blooded Life[]
From conception, most God-Blooded are set apart. Ghosts, spirits, and Fair Folk do not necessarily conceive children through sexual intercourse. They might use any number of different interactions to impregnate a human, an animal, or themselves, and may shorten the pregnancy for their own convenience. Gods, like demons, can also Endow mortals with a gift of Essence, transforming ordinary people into God-Blooded of their Heritage, but they demand long servitude or some grand service in recompense.
From their birth, God-Blooded are seldom allowed to live ordinary lives. Spirits usually create mortal offspring for a particular purpose, and expect their children to serve them all their lives. Lucky God-Blooded are raised by their mundane parent, even if that does mean they are brought up in a temple, as a slave of infernalists, or abandoned alone. The unlucky are raised directly by spirits, who seldom have any comprehension of human psychology or needs, and may live in Yu-Shan or Malfeas instead of Creation. Regardless, almost all such God-Blooded spend their lives in the shadow of their magical parent, as a servant or closely-monitored agent. Some are promised transformation into a spirit of the same type when they have proven their worth, but this is only an elevation into the lowest ranks of the Terrestrial or Celestial Bureaucracy, or into serfdom as a First Circle slave in Malfeas.
The Ghost-Blooded are raised in Shadowlands as servants to emotionless ancestor ghosts and/or Deathlord cults. They are taught that life is merely an inconsequential prelude to undead, and most are required to commit suicide at a certain age so they can join their ancestors.
The Exalted are human beings, and they have children for the same reason any human does. However, the Exalted live extremely interesting and dangerous lives, and may either drag their children along or abandon them. Exalted also live centuries or millennia, and eventually become decidedly inhuman in their outlook. Some, especially the Lunars, deliberately create God-Blooded children to serve them as soldiers or retainers. This is usually the reason Lunars create spawn of Beastmen, and they often continue to use them generations after they have become wholly mortal.
Note[]
In real life, the name "Half-Caste" is an extremely derogatory slur for the biracial children of whites and Australian Aborigines, invented in a context of mass kidnapping and genocide.
Version Differeces[]
In First Edition, Dragon-Blooded could have God-Blooded children called Dragon-Touched, just like the other Exalted. This concept was removed in Second Edition.
References[]
Exalted: Exalted Players Guide 
, Ch. 2