Exalted Land Speed Record Build

Question

A while back, my group decided to see if we could come up with a way to get an Exalted Character, with unlimited XP and Personal Artifacts (those that can be worn for example), to run across creation in less than 10 minutes.

What we came up with was the following: An Infernal of the Fiend Caste with Essence 10, who had taken the Lunar charm Instinct-Driven Beast Movement which lets you increase your running speed for a scene by a multiplier depending on how much essence you spent, who also had Running to Forever and all of the Ajorani charms to make running count as sleep and being able to dash reflexively every tick. Couple that with a line of cultists across creation and Murder is Meat to gain back essence as you run by to further increase the amount of essence spent on Instinct-Driven Beast Movement which further increases your speed. We got to about 20 minutes to run across creation from East to West (coupled with some boots that let you run on water, can't remember which ones right now).

Our above example is flawed in a couple of ways. The primary one is they errataed it to clarify that scene long charms leave their motes committed, so we couldn't exponentially increase running speed.

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Using the following guidelines, how fast could an optimized Exalt run across Creation from East to West?

1. Must be an Exalt - It can be any kind of Exalt, Alchemical, Infernal, Solar, Lunar, etc. (Bonus points if you can make a Dragon Blooded.) Essence can be as high as 10, and taking the charms which gives you extra motes would be ideal.
2. No Instantaneous travel, and must be ground based travel - This must actually be done by running across creation, without the aid of vehicles.
3. Core and Supplements Only - So no fan-created charms, and I would also say exclude the Ink Monkeys charms as well. Anything printed in the Scroll of Errata is acceptable.
4. Dreams of the First Age doesn't exist - That book, is IMO kind of broken, so I'd prefer if we can come up with something awesome not using it.
5. Assumptions about path - Assume that the path from the east to west is a straight and perfectly flat road, until you hit the sea in the west. Thus, no terrain penalties until you hit water, at which you would have to have some way to deal with it, if possible.

Answer 1

If I understand the current Lunar errata spoilers, a Lunar should be able to, at essence 10, grow legs long enough to cross the entire distance in one step.

Other than that, or some sort of perfect racing charm like the Unconquered Sun has or the Yellow Path suggestion I made, any eclipse-like character taking all the speed boosting charms they can get should be able to, like you originally said, have the record.

Answer 2

Edit: I left my original answer below, but I actually realized a better way to do it. Take Draft Horse Measure, and buy two horses. Mount one, and use Draft Horse Measure, tethering it to the second horse. Dismount (Draft Horse measure affects your mount, and lasts for a day) and mount the second horse. Use Draft Horse Measure again, tethering to the first horse. Direct each horse to move reflexively to Essence times three yards west of the other horse. Repeat, always reflexively. If the horses begin to panic at the blurring speed, use Master Horseman's Techniques (Spirit Steadying Assurances) to calm them.

As far as I can tell, this allows you to reflexively move anywhere in Creation for three charms and sixteen motes. (Horses can swim, even while being ridden!) No Storyteller in their right mind would allow this, but I can't find any RAW that prevents it.

In unrelated news, I got whacked with the rulebook tonight...

Old Answer

What you'll need:

To start, be a Lunar with an animal form that can be ridden and can fly. (A pegasus or roc, perhaps.) Take the Allies background with a high enough rating to have your Solar mate hanging around; they're going to do all the real work.

Your Solar needs to be of at least essence 4. (Twilight caste probably, though any caste can do it.) They take Ride 5, and follow the Ride charm tree until you reach Draft Horse Measure. They also need to take Occult 3, and have Terrestrial Circle Sorcery and the spell Infallible Messenger.

One of the two of you needs to have at least one dot in Followers, and a follower stationed on the far side of creation. He's named World, for reasons which will become clear.

Step 1:

The Solar mounts you in your animal form, and begins casting Infallible Messenger. Once the cherub is summoned, the Solar directs it to say hi to your follower. The cherub "is able to travel from one point to another in creation or Yu-Shan nearly instantly. It travels hundreds of miles an hour and can traverse the world in less than a day."

Step 2:

The Solar uses Draft Horse Measure. Since it's reflexive, he can do it fast enough to target the cherub before it gets more than Essence*3 yards away. Once tethered via Draft Horse Measure, his mount may "effortlessly keep pace with the target, moving freely to any point within (Essence x 3) yards in order to maintain the minimum distance required for this Charm. The Lawgiver’s mount becomes tireless so long as Draft Horse Measure is in effect" and therefore follow right behind the cherub. Once you hit water, start flying.

Step 3:

Given that Draft Horse Measure has a duration of one day, and Infallible Messenger explicitly says it can traverse the world in less time than that, you should arrive at the far side of creation in less than a day- perhaps a few ticks after the cherub says Hello World. Step three is therefore "profit", as it should be.

Caveats:

Caveat the first: I could have sworn I'd seen a lunar charm that allowed you to run on water, but I can't find it at the moment. I'm hoping flying counts as close enough to running for your purposes. Alternatively, you mention you'd found some artifacts that let someone run on water- put those on. I'm stumped on this until I can get ahold of a lunar book and find that charm.

Edit: Just bounced this off my Storyteller, and she pointed out that since you can swim, nothing says you can't swim while your Solar mate rides you and keeps using the charm. Swimming is not running, though probably close enough for your purpose. The real problem with this is that plowing through water at these speeds sounds like it should prompt for some kind of damage you'd have to deal with, though I don't know how much. On the one hand, given the tether you should start skipping like a rock over the sea. On the other, bellyflopping off the water fast enough to create a sonic boom doesn't sound like much fun either. Boost hardness accordingly.

Caveat the second: This requires two exalts working together. It's not clear that this is against your rules, but it could be seen as cheating. If you count riding as close enough to running for your taste, then the Solar can do this on any mount that can cross water; DHM does't care how fast the mount normally moves.

Caveat the third: This is much slower than other methods suggested, at some unspecified amount less than a day. (Infallible Messenger is a clear case of writers can't do math (warning, TV Tropes link) since something moving at a thousand miles an hour could barey circumnavigate the earth in a day. If the cherub is moving at only hundreds of miles an hour, it should take much longer to cross Creation.) On the other hand, you can pull it off any time after essence 4, which is a shoestring XP budget next to an essence 10 behemoth.

Answer 3

I know its been forever, but You could also look at the conviction style ma charm Hurried proof. 1 mote and you take up to your dex+ma movement actions in one tick so long as you attack at the end. So.. however much you increased your movement by you could increase it by a further order of magnitude before hitting essence 5 and twice that at essence 10.