text:
The Book of Ten Thousand Scorpions
Being a catalogue of the fell powers of the Yozis, the dread arts of sorcery and necromancy, the terrifying wonders of the Solar Exalted, the unnatural ways of the Lunar Exalted, the elemental powers of the Terrestrial Exalted and the entropic powers of the Abyssal Exalted.
There is a book, or so it is said. The Book of Ten Thousand Scorpions, the Book-Which-Is-A-Behemoth, penned (if that is indeed the term) by He Who Bleeds the Unknown Word in the early days of the Primordial War. From what can be told, the Book was intended to be a tool to catalogue the strange new empowered humans who were attacking the Primordials, a way of categorising and studying them, to trap them within narratives where they could be vivisected. Some see the hand of the Principle of Hierarchy in this work, but she of all beings would surely not engage in something so circuitous.
Whatever it was meant to be, that is not what happened.
The book-behemoth studied the Exalted, yes, but it also studied the Primordials, and indeed felt more affinity for them than it did its intended targets. It studied their arts of sorcery.
And then, rather than entrap the Exalted within its self, it invented new Charms. New Charms, possible, yet uncreated, Charms which could be learned by any of the right beings that found it. Primordials and Exalted alike have learned from it. And as soon as the first Primordial died, on the carapace pages of the Ten Thousand Scorpions began to form strange words, which would only be understood much later to be the glossolalia of the Neverborn, teaching necromancy over a thousand years before its discovery.
Many would kill to read it. Others would kill to destroy it. It speaks of strange things, of witch-Lunars who caress the Beyond, of the strange fecundities of the Yozis, of the healing-ways of Malfeas and the hidden blessings of the Ebon Dragon. It denies the existence of the way that Solars can steal the powers of the Yozis, and presents another way.
And it is said that the suggestions of its readers can lead to it budding new wonders within…
(The old, deprecated version of this document can be found here)
New Keyword: Pantheon-Anchored
Millennial Layers Metamorphosis
Traitors' Hearts Conflagration
Unbroken By Unacknowledged Blows
Impossibility of Base Treachery
She Who Lives In Her Name Charmset
Untouched Whisperer Revelation
:: SIDEBAR - Embrace the darkness, Yakai::
::SIDEBAR - The Doomed and the Damned::
Price-of-Everything Undercurrents
Esoteric Inundation Investment
Butterflies to Chrysalides Bombardment
Tilting the Scales of Destruction
Architectural Remembrance Recovery
Primordial Principle Emulation
Primordial Principle Internalisation
Cost: - ; Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Sorcerous Enlightenment of (Yozi) x 3, (Yozi) Mythos Exultant
The Primordials are masters over their own mythos. How could they not be? And so that all-encompassing existence, scribed against the shinma, exists within them and without. Even if sorcery may tap those aspects, it will never compare to their own mastery. This Charm permanently enhances Sorcerous Enlightenment of (Yozi) and its repurchases. Spells cast which directly invoke the Yozi or their souls by their very nature, such as a Malfean use of Total Annihilation, or a use of Narrative Shredding Bolt by the Dragon Beyond the World, receive a 5m, 1wp discount, to a minimum of 5m, 1wp. This explicitly stacks with any discounts which may be granted by the Sorcerous Initiation of (Yozi) to the spell in question. Use of Slave-Spawn Summons, Fiend-Vassal Conscription, and All-Commanding Oversoul Beckoning only provides the discount when summoning a demon from the soul hierarchy of the appropriate Yozi.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Any (Yozi) Mythos Exultant
The demonic races of Malfeas are beyond number, and throng the streets of the city. From their internalised mythos, the warlock takes such fecundity for themselves. The character gains the capacity to spawn weak deva by performing a thematically appropriate birthing ritual, which may take no fewer than four hours. The player and the GM should design the new species based on the birthing ritual, the Infernal's intent, and her personality, and it should be balanced based on the examples of extant First Circle Demons. The Infernal gains one free species with this charm, and may spend 1xp per additional breeding ritual to create further new species.
The newborn deva is mechanically a First Circle Demon who descends from the Infernal and may not be bound by any other sorcerer without her express permission. It is created with an empty motepool. If the warlock possesses an appropriate realm which resonates with her essence, such as the inner worlds created by Spirit of the Living World or Fourth-Soul Devil Domain, the deva returns there if banished. Otherwise, it is destroyed as if it was an Emerald Circle spell dispelled by Emerald Circle Countermagic.
The scars of the Surrender Oaths are burned into the Mythoi of the Yozis, and certain of these restrictions bind the warlock. When within Creation, the Infernal may make use of this charm no more than once per day, and may not summon a demon on a day she uses it and vice versa.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 4; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Titanic Spawn Uncountable
The thoughts of the Primordials are not those of mortal men. They are mighty spirits in their own rights, overflowing from the hearts of titans to form pantheons and landscapes. This Charm permanently enhances the Infernal's capacities. On the night of the new moon or during Calibration the feelings in the form of an Intimacy of the character may slip from his heart and take on independent form as a puissant spirit. This occurs when the Infernal would regain willpower from sleep - or another activity which substitutes for it - and may only occur once per new moon, or once per day in Calibration.
The newborn spirit is mechanically treated as a deva of the Second Circle who descends from the Infernal, and who may not be bound by any other sorcerer. They should be given statistics as if they were a newly created Demon of the Second Circle whose Motivation is derived from the Intimacy they formed from, and whose themes derive from the Intimacy filtered through all the First (Yozi) Excellencies that the character knows. The Motivation of the deva and the Intimacy of the Infernal are irrevocably linked; should the Intimacy change - such as from admiration to love - then so will the Motivation, and likewise should the Motivation of the deva shift so will the Intimacy. Should the Infernal lose her Intimacy, the deva dies as if slain by a spirit-killing Charm.
If the deva is banished, they return to the mind of their creator, and may escape again at the next new moon. The Infernal may also choose to willingly "banish" the deva by Touching them, and absorbing them back into her psyche. If they are slain, they may not escape again until a year and a day has passed. However, if they are slain with a spirit-killing Charm, they die permanently and Infernal loses the Intimacy. If he regains it - for example, by falling back in love with his wife - the spirit born from the regained Intimacy shares no continuity with the deceased deva.
The character retains an unconscious veto over whether a given Intimacy is permitted to take independent form; some hearts are so jealous as to cling so closely to certain feelings that they cannot escape. The Infernal may maintain no more than (Willpower + Compassion) extant Intimacies as deva at this level of development. Due to the sympathetic resonance of the bonds of titanic power, on any day where such a deva has formed any spell the Infernal casts to summon a deva who descends from another titan fails, and vice versa.
Primordials are not merely singular beings, in the manner of lesser creatures. Even lessened as they are, the Yozis are nations, civilisations, worlds in their own right. They are legion. And from the moment of their Exaltation, the Infernal Exalted have taken their first steps onto a similar path. All other Exalted have three souls - the hun, the po, and the keter soul of the Exaltation. The Green Sun Princes have in addition the fourth soul of their coadjutor, the once-demon fused into a synthetic soul hierarchy. Within them, however, they have the potential to expand beyond that.
Charms with this keyword develop an additional nascent soul within the Infernal. Other Charms can synergise with and play off this, and certain heretical Charms may ask for them as prerequisites (for example, Fourth-Soul Devil Domain requires that the Infernal has learned a Pantheon-keyworded Charm before they can build a small world within their soul).
The following Charms have the Pantheon Charm retroactively applied to them; Sun-Heart Furnace Soul, Counter-Pronouncement of Enthymemic Law, Crystal Facet Thoughts, Silence in Her Wake, Darkling Grace Complete, Carmine Mantled Emissary, Self-Seed Infestation, Toil By Proxy, Empyreal Invincibility Declaration. Pantheon-keyworded Charms should in general be Essence 3 or higher, and three to four Charms deep in a tree.
As their souls bud and multiply like nascent Primordials, an Infernal may delve into Heresy and develop Charm trees associated with the lesser parts of themselves. Charms with this Keyword are Heretical, and tied to a soul in the Infernal's Pantheon. They are costed as Unfavoured Charms, and should the soul they are tied to die, they collapse and are converted back into xp.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Blasphemy
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Titanic Heart Overweening
The green sun princes are given the trinket-rank of peer within the hierarchy of Hell. How will the Demon Princes react when they find their would-be pawns have souls who are akin to them in pomp and splendour? This charm permits the Infernal to permanently enhance the souls generated by this Charm's prerequisite. Once per Calibration, she may spend a day carrying out a unique ritual in accordance with her themes and the themes of the soul, to imbue it with greater pussiance.
As the ritual proceeds, Creation itself weeps in terrified awe with cataclysmic outbreaks of omen weather. With its culmination, the soul swells in power, becoming mechanically equivalent to a newborn Demon of the Third Circle who descends from the Infernal. It will spawn seven Second Circles, as is customary for its kind Their themes and nature derive from their progenitor and who dwell within the Infernal as described in this charm's prerequisite when not roaming Creation. The Third Circle will have unique Panoply Charms and wide-ranging spirit charms as befits a demon prince, though they are young and will not immediately equal the highest in the Demon City who have uncounted aeons of experience and learning behind them. The storyteller and the player should work together to expand the soul to such a rank, balancing it appropriately.
With such power comes tighter chains. Without the aid of summoning spells, the demon may only escape the mind of the Infernal upon Calibration - and even then, its escape conditions narrow as traces of the surrender oaths within the princes hold them tight. The Third Circle may not be bound by any sorcerer - not even its greater self. Such demons are not the slaves of their progenitor, and will act to further their own interests. In almost all cases this will involve the survival of the warlock, for its existence depends on theirs. Fear the demon who decides they would rather see their greater self dead than continue to live.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Titanic Will Unquestionable
Men were made to die; the Primordials were not. The princes of the green sun - who are man and titan alike - have not the full measure of their patrons, but the doom of man holds them weakly. Upon learning this Charm, the Infernal gains the following benefit as long as he has at least one of his Third Circle souls externalised.
The neo-Primordial power of his souls sustains his flesh. He ceases to age, and additionally cannot die of old age. If the warlock is slain, his anima banner flares totemic and he disintegrates in in a highly dramatic lightshow. His essence slowly coalesces, insensate and formless, within the hearts of his souls. A year and a day later, the Infernal reforms in the location of one of his Third Circles. If he has no externalised Third Circles, all his Third Circles are slain before he reforms, or he is killed with the use of a spirit-killing Charm, the Infernal is are dead beyond even the puissance of his titanic power to remedy. In the latter case, it is possible some of his souls may survive him albeit orphaned and lessened - sustained by embers of his power within their hearts - or they may too disintegrate.
It is possible that a greater form of immortality that does not rely on one's souls to sustain oneself may be possible. Perhaps a wise Infernal may recoil from such power, for to burn one's legend upon the shinma themselves might leave one vulnerable to the fate of the Neverborn. There are worse things than the death of men.
I have written a full playable Charmset for Oramus, the Dragon Beyond the World.
I have written a full playable Charmset for Szoreny, the Silver Forest.
Cost: 6m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple (Speed 7, -2DV)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Touch, Sickness
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Blight Internalisation Transcendence
Touching the patient, the Infernal floods their chakras with the hateful essence of Malfeas. This malign power destroys any lesser sickness afflicting a servant of the King.
This Charm instantly cures any Sickness with a Treated Morbidity less than or equal to the Essence of the Infernal by infecting the patient with a variant of Green Sun Wasting. This infection has a Morbidity and a Treated Morbidity equal to half the Infernal's Essence, rounding down. Characters with an Intimacy of Terrified Awe towards the Infernal or who bear a Magnanimous Warning Glyph cannot die from the Green Sun Wasting unless the Infernal permits it, and add the Infernal's (Integrity) in dice to shake the disease.
Obviously this Charm cannot be used to cure Green Sun Wasting or Final Viridescence.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Training
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Merciless Radiative Therapy
One cannot help but be changed by exposure to Malfeas. Some waste away when exposed to his majesty. Others, though, take a new strength from it, bearing new growths and toughening up.
When a character's fever breaks after being infected by its prerequisite or Blight Internalisation Transcendence, they may gain one dot in any of the following traits as a Training effect, up to a maximum of 4 dots; Strength, Stamina, Charisma, Resistance, Athletics, Performance, Conviction, or Valour. Should they wish, a character can convert their Appearance back into XP to pay for this, to represent twisting and scarring left by the disease.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Desecration
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Merciless Radiative Therapy
The hateful essence of Malfeas wishes to share its agonies - and one of those pains is being imprisoned in flesh.
This Charm enhances its prerequisite, which can now be used to cure Crippling injuries. When the patient recovers from the Green Sun Wasting, they gain the Creature of Darkness mutation and a thematically appropriate mutation which represents the twisted flesh that has regrown. A Lidless Demon Eye might rest in a formerly-empty socket when the scabs of Green Sun Wasting fall off, for example, or a severed arm grow back with Talons. The Malfean source of the healing is clear; gnarled new limbs are hardened with brassy scar tissue and faintly glowing organs pulse with unnatural vitality.
The patient gains an Intimacy of Terrified Awe towards the Infernal which may not be eroded or weakened or removed in any way until the mutation is removed. If the mutation is removed by any means, the Crippling effect reasserts itself.
Cost: 8m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Insignificant Embers Intuition
Lesser worlds might end in fire or ice. The Demon City's heart is too proud to allow such a fate to occur.
When using this Charm, the character's heart begins to beat more quickly, emitting an unseen corona of essence which renders her immune to environmental hazards. Whenever the character would take damage from a hazard, an Obvious manifestation of her terrible might averts it. Acid rain that would strip the flesh from her bones evaporates into steam and flees before it would touch her; a deadly Southern sandstorm is accompanied by the patter of molten glass as each grain flares green like a tiny ember in penance. She only takes damage or suffers Crippling, Sickness or Poison effects when they would be directly inflicted on her by the actions of another.
Cost: - (3-5m); Minimum: Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Crippling
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Scar Writ Saga Shield
Malfeas has grown new cities of his flesh and sent them slamming against the elder layers; a hundred times, at least, and possibly as many as a thousand. He cannot heal his tortured inversion, but the damage his thrashing does to his own flesh closes in continent-sized scars of brass and basalt.
The Infernal's healing factor is sped by a factor of (10 + current wound penalty). As a Crippling effect, this healing leaves scars made of the materials of the Demon City over the injuries; this is not optional. These scars heal in the time it would have taken the Infernal to recover from their injury without the benefits of this Charm.
At Essence 3, this Charm automatically upgrades. The Infernal may, as an Obvious dramatic action taking one minute, heal one level of damage, at the cost of 3m per level of bashing damage, or 5m per level of lethal damage. During this process, her heart begins to palpitate and her blood gleams with the green light of Ligier as the toxic essence of Malfeas floods her veins, twisting her flesh with the materials of the Demon City. Her hair may take on a brassy sheen or veins of basalt may run through her flesh; regardless, she suffers an internal penalty to all Appearance dice pools with non-Natives of Malfeas equal to the wound penalty of the health level healed. This diminishes at a rate of one per hour. Repeated uses of this effect do not stack the Appearance penalty, but do delay the time until it next decreases by (penalty of wound healed) hours.
Cost: - ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Obvious
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Countless Cities Clotting
Sometimes the great basalt ribs of the Demon City crumble, in a fall which could crush the Pole of Earth beneath their mass. And inevitably their replacements extrude themselves from the inverted flesh of the King of the Yozis.
The healing multiplier granted by Countless Cities Clotting adds the higher of the Infernal's Stamina or Resistance to the calculation, and the time it takes to heal the disfiguring scars is doubled. In addition, the character now heals amputation injuries and other Crippling effects linked to injury which would not usually heal for an Exalt as a normal part of their recovery. These replacements limbs and other organs are permanently made of the materials of Malfeas, and will not transmute to pathetic flesh.
The scars left by Countless Cities Clotting explicitly do not heal faster because of this Charm.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 4; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Obvious, Crippling
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Towers Rise Again, First Malfeas Excellency
Malfeas grows ever outwards, and yet only imprisons himself further. Such is his affliction.
This Charm permanently modifies the Infernal's capabilities. Regardless of any other forms of healing she has, she automatically heals one bashing health level every minute, one lethal health level every five minutes, or one aggravated health level every hour. This healing is treated as if it was done by Countless Cities Clotting.
However, such prodigious wholeness cannot be averted, and without injury to repair the growths of tower-like nodules and continental plate extrusions weigh the Infernal down. For each hour which goes by when the character has no injured health boxes, she adds a cumulative mobility penalty of -1. The mobility penalty from this Charm cannot exceed (Essence). Each point of lethal or aggravated damage inflicted on the Infernal reduces the mobility penalty by one, as it severs away overgrown layers of skin and flesh. These bounties hewn from the flesh of the King are made of any Malfean materials the Infernal chooses, and may have a Resources value no higher than (Essence).
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple (Speed 3)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Stackable, Touch, Obvious
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Countless Cities Clotting
Within the Demon City's hidden guts of black basalt, five thousand years of detritus lie undisturbed. Sometimes when his flesh breaks, vitriol-pitted wonders are exposed to the contemptuous gaze of the Green Sun.
Upon activating this Charm, an object which the Infernal owns and is touching is absorbed into her body, where it is broken down and integrated into her flesh and bone or stored within her guts, and becomes an invalid target for any other effect. The mass of the object is conserved, so the Infernal may wish to walk carefully on weak floors. At the Infernal's whim, she may have the object reform as a miscellaneous action. This ends the Charm. Worn objects may be donned in this way, and it may be used to ready a weapon.
If the Infernal is slain while this Charm is active, artifacts and other objects possessing a similar level of resilience reform within (and protruding from) her corpse. Other objects remain in their broken-down state, though the morbid may wish to harvest the literal veins of gold which were once a necklace. The Infernal may have no more than (Essence) invocations of this Charm active at once.
Mundane objects which spend more than (11-Essence) hours within the Infernal find themselves twisted by the titanic essence. As a Shaping effect, their aesthetics and construction is warped towards the Malfean, which can be noticed by a character with at least Occult 1 who gets three successes on a (Wits + Occult) roll.
Cost: 15m, 1lhl; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple (Dramatic Action, one hour)
Keywords: Shaping, Combo-OK, Sorcerous, Obvious
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Countless Cities Clotting
In five thousand years of Malfeas, the Demon City has split a thousand times, his inverted agony spilling out. He will do so forevermore.
By shedding her blood on a non-magical structure in a place of habitation, this Charm permits the warlock to taint it with the living essence of Malfeas. Over the course of the next day, the structure transmutes to a structure of basalt and other stones and metals found in the Demon City, which spreads outwards. This blight has a radius of (Resistance x 100) yards, and over the course of the day, buildings spring up from the ground to fill this area with labyrinthine architecture that mocks local architectural styles with the taint of the Demon City. These structures may have a Resources value of up to (Essence). Any non-magical structures in the surrounding area are subsumed by the Malfean blight, transmuting and warping as they do. Any Wyld-tainted land within the affected area immediately becomes part of Creation.
Feeding off the fear of the masses, the city grows ever outwards. Every week, the affected radius increases by 25 yards per dot of magnitude of residents with an Intimacy of Terrified Awe towards the Infernal. The city becomes a persistent Blasphemy upon exceeding five miles in radius.
The demonic structures may be damaged or knocked down, but any damage regrows completely within a day of the demolition. Holy effects extend this to (Essence rating of source) days. Non-magical structures require continuous effort to keep clear of the creeping Malfean subversion. Countermagic removes the demonic blight, converting it into a mundane structures that remain until removed by active effort or environmental factors. Emerald countermagic cleanses an area with a radius of up to 250 yards, while Sapphire and Adamant cleanse a radius of up to 500 and 1000 yards, respectively.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Social, Obvious
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Insignificant Embers Intuition
This Charm is mechanically identical to the version in Manual of Exalted Power: Infernals, save for the changed minima and prerequisites. It replaces the canonical version.
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple (Speed 4 in long ticks)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Social, Emotion
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: Crowned With Fury
The hearts of lesser beings quake when they gaze upon the Demon-King of the Yozis. Their flesh and blood cries out in terror, knowing that by his will their world was given form. As an unnatural mental influence, for the rest of the scene any character who interacts with the Infernal and whose Dodge MDV is lower than the Infernal's Charisma gains an Intimacy of Terrified Awe towards them. This may be resisted for a scene by spending one willpower, and as an exception to the normal rules for unnatural mental influence a character who resists does not gain Limit.
At Essence 5, this Charm's duration increases to Indefinite.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Social
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Crowned With Fury
In aeons gone by, none would have ever dared stand against Malfeas-That-Was. The Demon City may have been maimed and crippled, but he retains enough power to see that any anyone who belongs to him suffers for instrangience. This Charm permanently enhances its prerequisite. When it is used against a character who possesses an Intimacy of Terrified Awe towards the Infernal, the character must pay a lethal health level to resist the social attack, on top of any willpower cost. Their flesh visibly blackens and chars, the odour of burnt flesh marking their fleeting rebellion. Characters with a Limit Track may choose to pay a point of Limit in place of a health level the first time they would be affected by this Charm in a scene, which immunises them to its effects for a day.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 4; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Emotion
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Traitors' Heart Conflagration
Malfeas is a jealous king. Those who would have other lords before him and contemplate faithlessness quake at his incipient wrath. This Charm permanently modifies the Infernal's capabilities. Any character with an Intimacy of Terrified Awe towards her must pass a Valour roll at Difficulty 1 to act against the Infernal's commands or interests in any way, physically or otherwise. What is best for the Infernal is judged as perceived by the character, unless a command would contradict their belief. Moreover, they roll the lower of their Essence and Valour. Characters may spend one willpower to ignore the effects of this unnatural mental influence for one scene.
Essence users count each point of willpower spent to resist this Charm as a scene weakening their Intimacy of Terrified Awe. This benefit is not enjoyed by demons of the first circle and gods, for their kinds were made to be slaves and in slavery they shall remain.
Cost: 4m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 2)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Purity of Madness Defense
That which Malfeas does not acknowledge cannot exist, and that which cannot see cannot harm him. This Charm can be activated in response to any attack, social or physical, providing a perfect dodge against it. This charm functions against unexpected attacks. When used against social attacks, the Infernal dismisses all words without a single thought or any visible reaction. When used against physical attacks, the Charm is Obvious, as the world stretches and warps rather than permit a blow against the Infernal's crystallised ego.
The Charm bears the Imperfection of the Demon City, and cannot be activated while the Infernal is undergoing Torment. The Infernal is afflicted by an irresistible Compulsion as a result of using this Charm, which removes the memory of the attack from them. If the Infernal is attacked from surprise, and uses this Charm to defend against the attack, he does not automatically notice his attacker, although other characters are free to do so.
Cost: — (+1wp); Mins: Malfeas 0, Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Illusion, Shaping
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Unbroken By Unacknowledged Blows
Despite his crippling defeat, Malfeas still finds it difficult to contemplate the idea that any would dare to strike at him. On the balance of probabilities, it seems more likely that any such happening is nothing more than the fleeting hallucination of a pain-wracked Primordial mind. This Charm permanently enhances its prerequisite. The Infernal may spend one willpower to obscure any evidence that a blow was ever struck or unkind words ever spoken. This is an Illusion effect that automatically targets all onlookers including the attacker and Infernal, convincing them that the attacker froze up or hesitated rather than dare to strike at their true king. In addition, these is a Shaping effect which repairs any damage to surrounding terrain done by the attack within (Essence) yards of the Infernal. The unnatural mental influence can be ignored by non-Extras at a cost of one point of Willpower, despite the fact that it should be true, by all rights.
A second purchase of this Charm at Essence 4+ allows the truth of the world to be made self-evident. The Infernal may a spend a further two motes in Step 9 of any attack he used Unbroken By Unacknowledged Blows to defend against as a Counterattack, imposing a Knockback effect on his attacker. This effect moves them ([Strength x 2] + [Charisma x 2]) yards, and must move them as far out of the Infernal's line of sight as possible ("over a cliff" is a perfectly valid example of being out of the Infernal's line of sight). Whether or not the effect actually manages to remove them from his line of sight, they automatically re-establish surprise over the Infernal, who suffers an irresistible Illusion that removes all memory of the attacker's presence in their last action.
Cost: — (+3m); Mins: Malfeas 0, Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Obvious
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: World Weathering Incandescence
The light of Ligier casts no shadows, and the rage of Malfeas knows no obstacles. Those who believe that they can hide from their rightful King will be sadly mistaken. Whenever an Infernal with this Charm activates Green Sun Nimbus Flare, they may pay an extra three motes to ignore all cover penalties granted by things that World Weathering Incandescence can destroy. Any cover is permanently destroyed as with that Charm, leaving the naked cowardice of the foe revealed for all to see. The attack also ignores any defence bonus to PDV granted by shields that could be destroyed by this Charm's prerequisite. Should a character take any damage from this enhanced Green Sun Nimbus Flare, any worn armour or shield also takes damage as if hit by World Weathering Incandescence.
Cost: — ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Compulsion, Emotion
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Crowned By Fury
In times gone by, every beast knew the authority and dominion of the Primordial King. These ancestral memories leave them helpless in the face of Malfeas' wrath. This Charm projects an unnatural compulsion with a radius of (Essence x 2) yards, forcing all natural animals to submit to the Infernal. Camels kneel, flies land and cower, wings buzzing in harmony, birds freeze in place, singing songs to her glory; mechanically, they are rendered Inactive by their submission. A ridden animal may be spurred to ignore its reverence for a scene if the rider spends 2wp, and succeeds on a reflexive (Charisma + Ride) roll at a difficulty of the Infernal's Essence. Mounts marked by marked with Fealty Acknowledging Audience or who have an Intimacy of Terrified Awe towards the Infernal, or whose rider has been marked or has the Intimacy, may be spared these effects at her discretion so long as they are not hostile.
Any natural animal ridden by the Infernal has its Control Rating set to 0. Lord-Over-Beasts Dominion has no effect on animals which are magically compelled by other effects or supernaturally loyal, such as familiars. The Holy Tyrant had a similar charm, but it could be controlled; Malfeas, who harbours secret fears, must shout his dominance least any doubt him.
Cost: 4m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Blasphemy, Combo-OK
Duration: Indefinite (until the specified event has passed)
Prerequisites: Counter-Pronouncement of Enthymemic Law
Sometimes maddened demons return from the wastes beyond the Demon City, minds shattered by visions that demand obedience to avoid the wrath of the incoming sands. Such is the altruism of the Endless Desert.
This Charm empowers a dramatic action by the Infernal or her followers to warn a social group of a specific future threat - for example crop failure this harvest, an earthquake next week, or an invasion by a ravening horde of Cecelynian demons from hell in Calibration. This allows the Infernal to establish up to (Essence) instructions that may be taken by the social group to avert it. These must be possible, but must be onerous, significant and outside the range of normal activities taken by the social group - for example, an Essence 3 warlock may demand that they reject their former gods, take up the worship of her, and each family must leave the hide of a sacrificed animal outside their door each new moon. The warning must reach a majority of the social group and the instructions must be common knowledge, even if all discount it.
For each instruction that is followed by a majority of the social group, they receive a bonus success towards non-combat actions that are specifically taken to avert, mitigate or prepare for the threat. This counts as dice added by charms. However, for each instruction that is not followed they suffer a +1 external penalty towards them. For actions taken by a sub-unit of the social group, only their compliance is considered - for example, should one family heed the warning even as their neighbours laugh then they receive the bonus for their own actions even as the greater social group suffers.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Duration: Permanent
Keywords: None
Prerequisite Charms: Counter Pronouncement of Enthynemic Law
In the Age of Glory, Cecelyne declared that the progeny of spirits would be counted with their parent under her laws. Perhaps this is why the Exaltations are loathe to empower those with inhuman heritage.
This Charm permanently upgrades Cecelyne Charms. When it would benefit the Infernal, they may treat a character who knows a Spirit Charm as being an example of that class of being. For example, god-blooded who know at least one Spirit Charm may be treated as gods for the purposes of Cecelyne Charms such as Sublimation of Ordained Purpose, and must carry out the same purpose as their divine parent would.
Cost: — ; Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Sublimation of Ordained Purpose
The drop of one grain of sand every hundred years onto a stolen throne can grind it down to nothingness. This is the secret hope that lies in Cecelyne's barren heart. This Charm upgrades its prerequisite, allowing the Infernal to treat any god or deva under the effects of Sublimation of Ordained Purpose as a demon and a native of Malfeas for the purposes of all her Infernal Charms and Spells. This lasts until the spirit in question fully resists the Servitude effect of Sublimation of Ordained Purpose, and functions regardless of whether or not the Infernal was the one who applied the effect.
Gods of Essence 7 or less are treated as First Circle Demons; gods with higher Essence are treated as Second Circle Demons. Devas are treated as if they are a demon of the corresponding rank; the spiritual castration of the ex machinae means that all the devas of Autochthon count as First Circles, regardless of their Essence, with the exception of the Divine Ministers (and the Core) who count as Third Circles. Sorcerously bound gods and deva cannot spend Willpower to resist Sublimation of Ordained Purpose; however, they benefit from the same conditions as bound demons do under that Charm.
Cost: - ; Mins: Essence 3, Cult 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Messianic
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Penitents Like Scattered Grains
Cecelyne is a jealous goddess. Those who receive the prayers of men should fear her bright blue eyes.
This Charm permanently enhances Hellscry Chakra. While that Charm is active, a successful (Perception + Awareness) roll to notice details about a character will also reveal if, since the last Calibration, the individual has directed worship towards herself, any Primordials or Yozis, or members of their soul hierarchies. With three threshold successes, the nature (such as the species of first circle demons, or the Primordial that Second and Third Circle souls belong to) of any such beings are made Obvious to the Infernal, as if she had recognised the target of worship with Hellscry Chakra. The time since the last prayer and the frequency of the worship - ranked as hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally, or yearly - is also provided with such a degree of success, as is the name of the entity.
If the Infernal knows Wayward Divinity Oversight, the same level of information is also provided about valid beings for that Charm which have been worshipped by the target.
It is strongly recommended that any game looking for SWLIHN Charms should instead use Revlid's Pyrian Charmset.
Cost: 5m, 1 Compassion Channel; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: Freedom Lets Go
To Adorjan, weapons are just like feelings; things to be discarded at a whim.
While this Charm is active, the warlock may reflexively ready mundane or improvised close combat weapons with a -0 DV penalty. This includes scavenging improvised weapons from the environment or picking up a dropped weapon. When the Infernal's anima is at the 8-10 mote level or higher, she may even form silent gale-blades from the burning light of her soul, which may have the form of any mundane close combat weapon.
In addition, the Infernal treats all mundane close combat weapons as if they were their closest equivalent single or paired basic 1, 2 or 3-dot close-range white jade artifact weapon, as judged by the Storyteller. Improvised weapons benefit from this effect too. The murderous winds of Adorjan envelop the object, so a broom impales a man like a dire lance and chopsticks pierce like short daiklaives. Targets killed by an enhanced weapon are automatically targetted by a free activation of Kamilla's Sacred Inhalation. However, enhanced weapons only last for a single action - when the Infernal's DV next refreshes, they dissipate into wind and are destroyed. If the Infernal killed at least one enemy with the weapon and has an overdrive pool, she gains 2 overdrive motes when this occurs. She may only gain this benefit once per refresh of her DV.
If the Infernal uses this Charm to enhance mundane weapons stored within her Dread Panoply of the Silent Wind, the weapon is not destroyed, but returns to Elsewhere and may not be re-summoned until her DV refreshes yet again.
With a second purchase, this charm may enhance pre-existing ranged weapons or thrown objects. The warlock does not gain the capacity to create mundane ranged weapons from her anima. The maximum range of any enhanced weapon is the Infernal's Dash speed, the projectile disintegrating beyond that distance into red and white ribbons. In the case of weapons like bows or firewands, the weapon as well as the projectile is destroyed when the Infernal's DV refreshes.
Cost: 20m, 1 lhl; Mins: Enlightenment 7; Type: Simple (10 ticks, DV-3)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Compulsion, Sorcerous, Shaping, Illusion, Touch
Duration: Four days
Prerequisites: Freedom Lets Go
When Adorjan discards her transient passions, sometimes they escape and lodge in the minds of others. Men were not meant to be the vessels of the such desires and so they are twisted and warped around the whim.
This Charm may be used on any character with Enlightenment 2 or lower. The Infernal breathes out one of her Principles rated at 3 or lower in a red wind, losing it as if she had used Freedom Lets Go on it. She then rolls Persuasion + Expression against the target's Dodge MDV.
On a success, as a Shaping effect the target gains the discarded Principle which takes up residence in their soul as an Urge. This restructures their nature, rendering them an akuma of the Infernal and a Creature of Darkness. They gain a number of spirit Charms equal to the original level of the Principle, with themes associated with Adorjan and the nature of the Principle. As a Compulsion effect, they must act to further their Urge and must spend one willpower to ignore it for a scene. Their Enlightenment is raised to the original level of the Principle, if it was not already higher. They gain a mote pool calculated as if they were a first circle demon if it would be lower. They retain all their usual Attributes, Abilities, Principles and memories. At the end of the Charm's Duration, or if it is counterspelled, the Principle burns itself out of their mind and soul, taking everything they did while they were an akuma as an Illusion effect. If used as one of the Infernal's own clones made via Splintered Gale Shintai, the Duration is Instant and permanently alters the clone.
When an Infernal with Enlightenment 9+ uses this Charm, demons of the first circle and gods are always valid targets for this Charm regardless of their Enlightenment. At Enlightenment 10, use of this effect on a character of Enlightenment 0 character has a Duration of Instant and permanently subsumes them into the Infernal's Mythos, rebuilding their nature around the transitory delusion of a titan. This is equivalent to death and cannot be undone.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Hateful Wretched Noise
Perhaps if Adorjan had come into being before the Incarnate Rebellion, she would have heard them plotting and scheming to take their leisure at the Games. Certainly, every least mumble of unseen gods is as audible to her as any other sound.
The Infernal's sensory capabilities are modified in the following way; he can hear dematerialised creatures. This cannot be deactivated. As an Action-only reflexive action, he can choose to make himself so sensitive to the subtle resonances of essence that he can hear the dance of even the least gods who make up the head of a pin, and thus can make hearing-based awareness rolls to detect immaterial creatures even if they otherwise would be an invalid target for hearing; however, if he does this, the environment is counted as if the background noise is one step louder for the purposes of Hateful Wretched Noise.
Cost: - (3m); Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Untouched Whisperer Revelation
There are no temples to Adorjan in Malfeas. To seek to draw her attention bears a great risk - and that risk is that one succeeds.
This Charm allows the Exalt to hear individual prayers as though she were a spirit. This capability cannot be turned off and so counts towards the noise level for Hateful Wretched Noise - as a base guideline, if the Infernal has Cult rated at 3-4 her surrounding noise never falls below a whisper and if it is rated at 5+ it never falls below shouting. She must choose focus on individual prayers to hear their contents - otherwise their words are lost in the affront to her hush. Should she focus on a prayer, she knows exactly where it was made from so that she might extract her revenge.
The prayer opens a conduit down which sends a retaliatory slash of red wind howling down the threads of prayer at anyone who would pain them with noise. This thin gust erodes stone and bruises flesh, causing superficial cosmetic damage to the area. If the warlock pays attention to the prayer, she may spend 3m to intensify the wind. This inflicts one level of unsoakable lethal damage which ignores Hardness at everyone who participated in the prayer, and against any tools used in the course of the ceremony, including the temple.
If the Infernal has Eloquence in Unspoken Words active and the prayer was carried out in a place where she would not suffer a penalty from Hateful Wretched Noise, she may instead choose to warn them for their affront, allowing her to send one social attack or informative response to be on the red wind. This is conveyed as it would be through Eloquence in Unspoken Words.
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: One Tick
Prerequisites: Joy In Violence Approach
Adorjan finds the attempts of beings to hide from her in immateriality to be tedious. Their education in how futile such concealment is amuses her.
On the tick this Charm is activated, immaterial beings are valid targets for the Infernal's close combat attacks. The standard penalty for attacks against a target the character cannot see applies as normal.
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Supplemental;
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Crippling, Illusion
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite: Freedom Lets Go
All the demons of the Prison of the Exiles, from the lowest sesselja in the gutters to Unquestionable Ligier, know that there is no silence without death. So do they fail to comprehend the freedom from life unending that the Silent Wind grants.
As a Crippling effect, spirits that take damage from an attack supplemented by this Charm bleed from the attack as if they were mortals, the blood born on Obvious red gusts of wind. Whenever the target loses a health level from bleeding, an Intimacy also escapes, eroding to nothingness as an Illusion. This effect lasts until the wound is staunched, as per the rules on p151 of the Exalted core. Once the injury has been treated, it is at no risk of reopening. This charm costs 0m to activate against a target the Infernal has an Intimacy towards.
Should a spirit die from the raw damage of the attack, or the bleeding induced by this Charm, they are torn apart as their immortal essence is scattered to the winds, leaving only a shredded corpus behind. This death is permanent for spirits. Only the Yozis and the Neverborn are proof against such a fate, though Adorjan longs to teach her siblings this freedom such that they will accept it and be enlightened.
(Originally by Jon Chung)
Cost: -(+1w); Mins: Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite: Tragic Love Amusement
Lovers in Creation whisper of the blue strings of Fate, with which the Maiden of Serenity lovingly binds the fate of those destined to be. This is a comforting lie. While the binding cords of love exist, they are the deep crimson of heart's blood, and it is not Venus who wields them.
This Charm upgrades Tragic Love Amusement. The Infernal may commit the cost of Tragic Love Amusement in order to make the Intimacy it creates inviolate against any external influence while the commitment lasts, and grant her the ability to track her beloved wherever he may go, so long as he is on the same plane of existence. This knowledge manifests as a bloody red ribbon which only the Infernal can see.
While the commitment lasts, the Infernal receives her Compassion in bonus successes to track her love at all times, may always make a tracking roll even if no tracks exist to follow, and if she desires, she may spend 1 Willpower in order to automatically succeed at any tracking roll targeting her love with Compassion threshold successes. Should other magic contest this effect, add the Infernal's Essence in automatic successes to the rolloff.
If the Infernal knows Wind-Carried Passion, the Infernal may choose to bestow this ability upon those she targets with it by committing the cost of Tragic Love Amusement in the same way.
While Adorjan could not leave the Demon City save in dreams, the surrender oaths that protected the Solar Marus do not apply to the beloved of the Infernal Exalted. At Essence 4, this Charm may be repurchased. Doing so allows the Infernal to track their Intimacy across realms of existence, and if they choose to spend 1 Willpower to automatically succeed, they also know the method the target used to enter that realm of existence and how to follow them there.
Cost: — ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite: Bound By Blood Red Strings
The breezes of Adorjan tie her heart to others with blood-red strings, and those breezes wordlessly whisper many things to her. They tell her of the infidelities of attachment committed by those she loves, and how she can free them from those ties.
This charm permanently enhances its prerequisite. Whenever the Infernal makes a roll to read the emotions and displayed Intimacies of a target who she has a Tragic Love Amusement intimacy towards, she automatically succeeds as if she had rolled twice the required number of successes. She learns all Intimacies the character has displayed in the current scene, and their context as they relate to characters who are present. In addition, she now gains the capacity to channel her Compassion towards any attempt to hurt any of those Intimacies; after all, she is doing it out of the maelstrom of her bountiful love.
Cost: 4m, 1wp, 1 comp c; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple (5 ticks, DV-2)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Sorcerous, Pantheon
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Tragic Love Amusement
Imre the jade-winged Archer Upon the Clouds releases his arrows which fall like rain upon the layers of Malfeas. They seek out those who manage to flee the instruction of the Silent Wind, bearing her affectionate teachings, bringing heartbreak and enlightenment together. Such is love.
Upon learning this Charm, the Infernal stirs a new soul to life within them that exists to carry the messages of their heart. When she uses this charm, she weaves a dream or flight of fancy from her boundless compassion which lasts no longer than 444 seconds, targeting a character the Infernal has an intimacy towards. The contents of the dream can be used to make a social attack with a speed no longer than seven long ticks which may be enhanced with charms as normal.
This vision travels down the blood-red ties of love, travelling at forty thousand miles an hour. Once the dream has found the target character, they experience it the next time they sleep and will recall it upon waking. The context of the Intimacy the Infernal used to channel this message is made Obvious to the target, because it flavours every part of the fancy. The Infernal may not reuse this charm against a character until they have experienced the previous dream. Should the target character be within an area warded against scrying, the dream will not find them until the next time they leave a protected area.
This charm may be repurchased at Essence 4. Once the character experience the dream, a Sorcerous blessing is applied to the target. The dream recurs whenever the character sleeps, any social attack likewise repeating. Men have been driven mad, knowing that no matter how far they run they cannot escape the visions that come at night. Only one sorcerous dream may affect a character at once, and should this charm be reused the new dream will overwrite the old.
Cost: 12m, 1 lhl, 1 comp c; Mins: Essence 4; Type: Simple (15 ticks, DV-2)
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Form-Type
Duration: One dream
Prerequisites: Love-Born Sweet Fancies, Bound by Blood Red Strings
Closing her eyes, a happy smile appears on the warlock's face. She smiles because she knows she will dream of her love. Her body tears apart into a cloud of blood-soaked threads which disperse on a sudden gale, leaving her empty skin behind.
Upon activating this charm, the character selects one of her Tragic Love Amusement intimacies currently in the same plane of existence. The next time the target sleeps, they find themselves in a dreamscape made up of the Infernal's dream body. The Infernal builds the dreamscape as if she had accumulated (Essence + Compassion) successes for Adorjan World-Shaping Cosmogenesis. Whenever she channels Compassion on an action within the dreamscape, she may reassign these successes.
The Infernal is both world and avatar, and possesses a body with her normal Attributes. In addition, her senses simultaneously observe from all points within the dreamscape as though using All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, though she does not pay attention to all points equally, thus permitting stealth.
To the target, the dreamscape is unreal. Though mote expenditures and health levels should be tracked, they are just the product of their imagination and return to their original values when they wake. Willpower and virtue channels lost in the dream are really gone, however. By contrast, the Infernal is physically in the dream and any motes they spend and damage they take are real. When the Charm ends, the Infernal reforms within her empty skin. If her skin has been destroyed, she reforms where she left it and takes 3ahl from her presently skinless condition.
The target character does not automatically realise that there is anything unnatural about the dream, though with 4 successes on a Wits + Occult roll they can realise the hellish note to the landscape. Should the character 'die' by the hand of another in the dream, they wake having lost 1wp from psychic shock and are shaken but otherwise fine. Attempted suicide, however, is not the way out - they 'wake' into another dreamscape, allowing the Infernal to reallocate the points and extending the duration of the charm. They may escape otherwise by finding a symbolic exit within the dreamscape and spending one willpower. At least one such exit must be included, though the Infernal may hide it. The charm terminates after a dream-scene or - obviously - if the character kills the Infernal.
At Essence 5, this charm may be repurchased allowing it to target characters currently in different realms of existence to the Infernal. Should the Endless Desert separate the two of them, the blood soaked ribbons of the warlock form must travel across Cecelyne before it can reach their beloved. It is as yet unknown how the Silent Wind managed to slip into the dreams of the father of the Four Winds.
For the purposes of all Ebon Dragon Charms whose functionality changes in direct illumination, other characters unable to perceive light or who are blind treat themselves and the Infernal as being in a state of no visibility. This specifically refers to light; characters who can act as if they are not blind through superhuman hearing or some other mechanism are still treated as being blind. The Infernal does not take account of their own capacity to see, as their Essence recoils from the light whether or not they can perceive it. However, their own anima does not count as illumination for the purposes of Ebon Dragon Charms, unless specified otherwise.
It is written in the most ancient of texts which talk of the Shadow of All Things that he loves the doomed and dying, especially those who in their death will change the world. Perhaps that is the reason that he invented the concept of Fate - to fill Creation, as he sees it, with beauty. For the purposes of Ebon Dragon Charms, the following categories of being count as Doomed;
The condition which puts a doomed character in that state is referred to as their doom; alleviating a doom involves removing the root condition rather than the symptoms. For example if a character is at a -4 wound penalty and has an open wound, healing the character or preventing them from bleeding to death would be alleviating the doom, but providing pain relief would not be.
Storytellers may, at their discretion, declare that other beings may count as doomed despite not technically falling into one of these groups; for example, a young Solar Exalt who labours to acquire the love of a great musician, unaware that his heart has gone to another, and who - when she discovers this - will try to throw her life away in battle may be judged to be doomed.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Compulsion
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Cracked Cell Circumvention
The Ebon Dragon is a creature of forbidden knowledge and dark secrets, a lover of those whose passing will change the world. He cares for those who fall under his domain with the same tender care with which his shadow protects the natives of Malfeas from the light of Ligier. This Charm permanently modifies the Infernal in the following ways;
Cost: 4m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: Doomed to Die
Even before his captivity, the Shadow of All Things ventured deep into the lightless heart of Creation, and drank from darkened lakes which no being should sup from. He could tell many things of the origin of the Well of Udr, though those are secrets he keeps in his hollow heart.
A successful Awareness-based roll against a doomed character while this Charm is active makes their doom Obvious to the Infernal, and in addition, if they are a ghost, each degree of success on the roll reveals one Passion. When this Charm is active, the Infernal is capable of seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling - but not touching - immaterial doomed characters, rendering them valid targets for Awareness actions. They are perceived as tenebral, colourless figures, wan and yet fair.
Cost: 6m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Sorcerous, Obvious, Touch, Emotion
Duration: Lesser of (Until next sunrise) or (Essence + Compassion hours)
Prerequisites: Doomed to Die
A passing where pain does not obstruct the change one's final actions will have on the world; this is the mercy of the Ebon Dragon. In the place of agony is left emptiness, shadows seeping into flesh and hollowing out agony and distress.
This Charm cancels up to (Essence) points of the target's internal penalties from Sickness, Poison, deprivation, exposure to environmental conditions, or injuries, and in addition grants them (Essence) temporary -0 health levels. Each scene spent with this Charm active counts as a scene towards building an Intimacy of "My Death (Calm Acceptance)" in the target. This Emotion can be resisted at a cost of one willpower a scene.
At Essence 3, this Charm can be repurchased to affect social units with a Magnitude no greater than (Essence) with a surcharge of +3m, 1wp. Activating the Charm in this way requires the Infernal to be leading the unit, or to touch the leader.
Cost: 10m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Sorcerous, Compulsion
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Doomed to Die
There are those is this world who are doomed, and yet do not fight their doom; accepting it and so choosing to use their ending to change the world. The Ebon Dragon looks upon them with great affection, and from within his jail will sometimes send his benefaction out to sit in the dark places behind their eyes.
The Infernal may activate this Charm when they are within (Essence) yards of a living doomed character, which may not be themselves. Doing so sends a tiny sliver of shadowy essence wriggling out of the Infernal's mouth, which brushes against the lips of the target.
While under the effects of this Charm, the target does not need to sleep, and does not get fatigued. Their pains are numbed, halving all internal penalties due to wound penalties, sickness or poison. They receive an automatic success on all rolls, or a number equal to half the Infernal's Essence if the roll would bring them closer to death or further their Motivation. This counts as dice granted by Charms. However, they are also under a Compulsion to not attempt to avert their doom. This costs one willpower to resist for a scene (which suppresses the benefits of this Charm), or five willpower to throw off entirely, which must be paid all at once and which ends the Charm. The effects of this Charm automatically end if the target ceases to be doomed.
It is possible for the target to unconsciously reject the gift for a cost of one Willpower, thereby avoiding the blessing and its associated drawbacks. This effect is not Obvious, however, so
the target's player only knows the positive things this Charm grants, without learning anything about the source of the effect or the costs.
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Illusion, Obvious
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: Cracked Cell Circumvention
The Ultimate Darkness does not exist, but he tells Nirguna he does, and the shinma is fooled. Sometimes he squirms free from his own lies, escaping from the petty confines of logic and reality.
The Infernal rolls (Manipulation + Socialise) coaxing a horrified acknowledgement of her unreality from Nirguna. She counts as having Essence in automatic successes when she is not directly illuminated.. All colour fades from her form, and those who look closely can see the smoke-like effervescence of her translucent silhouette. Characters whose DMDV is exceeded by the Infernal's roll cannot overcome their instinctive refusal to acknowledge what they perceive. This Charm exerts an unnatural Illusion on anyone who sees the Infernal, removing all perception of her or her actions from the minds of those affected. Resisting this for a scene costs four willpower, or one if someone points the Infernal out to the target or she is directly illuminated. The Illusion also automatically passes into abeyance for a target if the Infernal interacts with them in any way, which lasts until they can no longer perceive the Infernal.
Characters who perceived the Infernal while this Charm was active remain under the effects of the Illusion. The mind flees from the horror of unbeing, and they will not remember what they truly saw without external prompting; even then, it costs four willpower to shed the comforting shadows the Dragon leaves behind.
Cost: - (1wp); Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Loom Snarling Deception
The Ebon Dragon is the Shadow of All Things. Why would he be constrained to a single false face? This Charm permanently improves Loom Snarling Deception. With the expenditure of one willpower, the Infernal may reflexively change their appearance as if he had just reactivated that Charm. Any upgrades which apply to Loom Snarling Deception also apply to reactivations of this Charm.
Alternatively, when activating Loom Snarling Deception the warlock may escape the concept of identity. His features, gender, Fate and every other feature which Loom Snarling Deception could affect shift constantly. This is Obviously supernatural and renders any attempts to mundanely draw conclusions about the true identity or nature of the Infernal invalid. The Infernal adds their (Essence + Socialise) in automatic successes to contest any roll off.
Cost: 10m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple (Speed 7, DV-2)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Form-Type
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: Bloodless Murk Evasion
In the dark places of the catacombs of Malfeas lurks the Ultimate Darkness, hidden away from the prideful gaze of Ligier. Those who think that they need only watch for the Ebon Dragon do not think to see what might be hidden right behind them.
Upon activating this Charm, the Infernal and her possessions become a shadow of what they once were, flesh and matter shedding the temporary falsehood of solidity. She is rendered a featureless, tar-like mass of faintly translucent darkness; amorphous and somehow not quite of this world.
At Essence 4 this Charm automatically upgrades, its duration becoming Indefinite.
Cost: - ; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Cracked Cell Circumvention
To those whose eyes are opened under the Shadow of All Things, he is a thing of wonderful beauty. Erembour is said to be as fair as the Argent Madonna, and she comes by her looks as honestly as any soul of the Ebon Dragon can.
The Infernal doubles the maximum MDV bonus or penalty he can inflict or benefit from based on difference in Appearance. In addition, when not in direct illumination his unwholesome beauty leads men and women to revel and indulge. All social attacks he makes designed to form Intimacies of love or infatuation (whether towards himself or another), or to prompt another to suppress Temperance, are unnatural mental influence. If both conditions apply, the social attack costs an additional willpower to resist.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Obvious, Pantheon
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: My Dark Lady
The melancholy waltzes of the Ebon Dragon are accompanied by a clamour of instruments, played by ten thousand thousand soul-born shade-beasts spawned from his sun-obscuring majesty.
As long as there are shadows in her surroundings, the Infernal counts as having the required tools for any performance where she dances, sings, or plays music. The Things Which Lurk in Corners born from her shadow play them for her, using her characteristics, and may be enhanced with Charms as usual. For any performance which might need a certain number of assistants, she counts the darkling-beasts of her shadow as (Essence) magnitude. The flickering creatures also obey her will to create tenebral images, Essence flares and other strange sensory effects within (Essence x 10) yards of her - the creativity of the Shadow of All Things allows these to be used to deceive or confuse others, with an appropriate stunt.
At Essence 4+, the Infernal may, when not directly illuminated, freely stunt the appearance of her iconic anima banner, and may also make use of the spectrum of black colours invented by the Shadow of All Things, shifting its colour to darker shades (which does not change its mechanical effects).
Cost: 6m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK, Sorcerous, Obvious
Duration: Until the performance ceases
Prerequisites: My Dark Lady
When the Ebon Dragon raises his voice in broken-hearted lament, even the light of Ligier dims to hear such woeful beauty. Lesser flames are less hard-hearted, and join him in his song, partaking of his nature.
This charm supplements an action to make music, dance, sing or otherwise perform in any of the ways beloved of the Yozis. The character rolls her (Manipulation + Performance), adding her Essence in automatic successes. Any non-magical light source within (Appearance x 10) yards joins in the performance, invalidating its Stealth as if it was a 7-9 anima banner, and inverts its nature, consuming light where once it shed it. The visibility conditions of affected light sources (Exalted, p135) are inverted - for example, a bonfire permits no visibility within ten yards, murky vision from ten to twenty yards, and clear vision (if there would have been sufficient light beforehand) at greater distances.
If the Infernal knows Darkling Grace Complete, the Things Which Lurk In Corners which dwell in her shadow may continue the performance for her. When activating this Charm, she may choose to instead make the Duration "Until next sunrise" for a surcharge of four motes and one willpower.
At Essence 3, the range automatically increases to (Appearance + Essence) times ten yards. At Essence 5, the multiplier is fifty, rather than ten.
Cost: 7m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple (Speed 5)
Keywords: Shaping, Combo-OK, Touch
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Corrosive Pattern Infliction
The Immaculate Order says "Give me a child for the first seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards." The Ebon Dragon needs far less time.
To use this Charm, the Infernal must make skin contact with a pregnant being. The Charm targets the unborn child, though they are still protected by any defence the mother may have. The child will be born with the Creature of Darkness mutation and up to 8 points of Ebon Dragon themed mutations. The touch of the Ebon Dragon flays away the restraining bonds of kinship; the child will not metaphysically descend from their parents, but will instead count as being descended from the Infernal, but only in circumstances which benefit the Infernal. When it does not benefit them, the child is left alone in the darkness unbonded to anything.
In addition, the Shadow of All Things is a creature of antagonistic anti-Virtue, and so are the children who have seen his darkness while still unformed. The Infernal chooses one Virtue of the child, which may never be raised above 1. This grants the child a free dot of Willpower, and increases the cap on Willpower by 1.
Cost: - (+2m); Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Womb Darkness Retention, Inner Devils Unchained
The Ebon Dragon would corrupt all life until they are like him. This Charm permanently enhances Womb Darkness Retention for an extra 2 motes. Instead of altering the child as described, the Infernal may instead transmute the child into a demon that they could create using Inner Devils Unchained.
The demon-child is not a normal example of their species. Although they are born with the traits, virtues and mindset of a typical demon of that kind, they appear to be a demon-blooded of their parent species, despite their inhumanity. They physically grow as a normal child would until they reach an age chosen by the Infernal, whereupon they no longer age. They are a First Circle demon of their species in all other aspects, and so can be summoned, bound, banished and so on.
A mother pregnant with a demon is wracked by nightmares, suffering a -1 to their roll to regain Conviction after sleep. Each time they fail this roll counts as a scene of building an Intimacy of Paranoia towards an aspect of their life that they blame for the nightmares, which can be anything save their unborn child.
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 10)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Counterattack
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Cracked Cell Circumvention
The Ebon Dragon has never been a fan of facing the consequences for his actions. Better to run from them and leave his pursuers stewing in the knowledge that he has escaped.
This Charm functions as the Solar Dodge Charm Leaping Dodge Method, but must move the character away from the source of danger or remove the character from the line of sight of the danger.
This Charm may be repurchased. The character may now activate this Charm immediately after committing an act of depravity. If used in a murder or an assault, this allows it to be activated in Step 10. The leap must be away from the location of the act of depravity.
Cost: 6m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple (Speed 7, -2DV)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Fleeing the Scene
The Ebon Dragon spares the world the harshness of unwanted truth, telling it much more pleasant lies. That the untruths divert ire is only an added benefit.
The Infernal activates this Charm in the same location where they previously committed an act of depravity, taking an action to meddle with the crime scene and rolling his (Intelligence + Larceny). Success on this roll obfuscates the Infernal's involvement, and allows him to describe an alternate sequence of events that the evidence seems to suggest. When a character attempts to investigate the crime scene, failure on the roll means that the investigator instead finds that the evidence supports the Infernal's fictional sequence of events - for example, that Ledaal Kes slipped on a discarded Gateway piece and fell onto his own daiklaive, rather than being stabbed by an assassin. Additional successes impose an external penalty on rolls to investigate the act of depravity, up to a limit of the Infernal's (Larceny).
This roll is Difficulty 1 for events that logically flow from the evidence, for example if the character murdered someone with a knife belonging to someone who was a known rival of the victim. Implausible or more unlikely scenarios increase the difficulty of this roll and implying that the Scarlet Empress returned and murdered a random farmer in the Scavenger Lands may be Difficulty 10 or more.
Use of this Charm counts as an act of depravity for the purposes of Fleeing the Scene.
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: Fleeing the Scene
The Ebon Dragon flits from place to place, never resting when there is mischief to be done.
This works as the Solar Athletics Charm Monkey Leap Technique.
Cost: 2m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: One action
Prerequisites: Spring-Heeled Shade
One's own shadow is a door that Ebon Dragon may walk through, for he is the Shadow of All Things.
Until the Infernal's next action, he may take a special Jump action in place of a move action as long as he is not directly illuminated. This Jump may be to any location that is not directly illuminated within his sensory distance, as long as it is within (max unenhanced jumping distance x 5) yards. This may allow him to jump to places he could not physically fit if he moved conventionally, such as jumping through a keyhole. Areas warded against scrying force a Charm roll off. The Infernal moves as an unseen inky shape or collapses into the shadows rather than moving through the intervening space, and if the Infernal jumps to a location with no visibility he may reflexively roll to re-establish surprise.
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Supplemental;
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Mother Sea Mastery
Kimbery is the ultimate trafficker, and extracts a price from those who beseech her based on what her aid is worth to them. This Charm supplements a normal or dramatic action to estimate the value of a good or service and the quality of it. Examples include the condition and value to the owner of an allegedly "priceless" pearl, or much "not flooding a district of Malfeas" is worth to her supplicants. This Charm gives the Infernal a perfect awareness of the target quality's condition, and how much ownership of it is worth to its prospective or current owner. This awareness grants her two bonus successes on any price haggling which ensues.
Cost: 2-4m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Supplemental;
Keywords: Combo-Basic, Social
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Price-of-Everything Understanding
Always the mistress of dark and forbidden bargains, the Sea Who Marched Against The Flame plays off the secret currents of the mind and brings them to the fore when she makes her offers. This works as the Solar Charm Irresistible Salesman Technique, save that the Charm costs 2m if the Motivation or a known-to-the-Infernal Intimacy of the target is in line with the social attack, and 4m otherwise.
Cost: 10m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple (Dramatic Action);
Keywords: Combo-OK, Sorcerous
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Price-of-Everything Undercurrents
The ocean carries flotsam and jetsam with it, depositing it upon the beaches of the ocean in acknowledgement of how she erodes them. So too does Kimbery offer her gifts to those who aid her passage.
This Charm functions as the Solar Charm Speed the Wheels, save that the Infernal must first offer and have accepted a gift of an object or service with a Resources value equal to or greater than half the Essence of the target. If the Infernal has previously used Price-of-Everything Undercurrents (or other equivalent methods) on the target, they may choose to use what the gift is worth to the target instead. The sorcerous nature of the Charm is centred in this gift, and any countermagic to dispel it must be targeted at the gift - which may be literal in the case of a pearl necklace, or more conceptual such as how the wife rescued by the Infernal may anchor it.
This Charm may be repurchased at Essence 4. Should the leader of the organisation be Beloved, the requirement to give a gift is removed as the beloved ones of the Great Mother always aid her - at least in her own mind. The sorcerous effect is instead anchored in the relevant Intimacy, either of the Infernal or of the loyal descendent. If the leader of the project is Reviled, should they not contest its completion the Infernal may, regardless of any other effects upon her, choose to lose the negative Intimacy as a sign of their obvious and clear sorrow for their deeds.
Cost: 14m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple (Speed 6 in long ticks);
Keywords: Combo-OK, Emotion, Servitude, Social, Sorcerous
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Hidden Depths Temptress
Kimbery is the most benevolent and sweetest mother who has ever existed. Why else would those she rewards be so willing to pay back her gratitude?
Using this Charm requires the Infernal to offer an object or service to the target. The recipient must accept the gift or the Charm automatically fails, so prior persuasion may be needed to ensure cooperation. Provided that the gift is accepted - and in the case of a service, the service is complete - the Infernal's player rolls (Appearance + Socialise) as an undodgeable social attack, adding bonus successes equal to the gift's Resources value. If the Infernal has previously used Price-of-Everything Undercurrents (or other equivalent methods) on the target, they may choose to use what the gift is worth to the target instead.
Should the social attack succeed, a fragment of indigo ice freezes within the heart of the target, inflicting a Sorcerous curse of gratitude upon them. Each time they think of, use, or see the gift, it counts as one scene of building an Intimacy of "Gratitude" towards the Infernal; this Emotion effect may be resisted for 1wp, and spending (Infernal's Essence) to resist it immunises the target for one month. When the target is suffering from an Intimacy of Gratitude towards the Infernal, should the Infernal express a desire of them for a service or good with a Resources value equal to or less than the gift they were given the target must as a Servitude effect spend at least ten hours a day working towards obtaining it for the Infernal. They may spend 1wp to avoid doing so for a single day, or an Exalt may take one Limit - and if it leads to madness... well, they were mad to try to weasel out of the kindness of the Great Mother.
The only way to escape the grasp of Kimbery is to pay her back in kind. Should the target give the Infernal a gift equal to or greater than the value of the gift they were given, they may roll (Appearance + Socialise) as an undodgeable social attack, adding bonus successes equal to the gift's Resources value. Success on this roll breaks the sorcerous curse.
Cost: 2m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Reflexive (Step 10)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Great Mother's Tears
The sacred essence of the Great Mother is much too potent for the endless parasites who would seek to take advantage of her generosity. Their screams are some small penance.
The Infernal invokes this charm whenever her attack would kill a character. Vitriolic essence surges into the target, dissolving and transmuting their mind, body and soul. They bloat and burst, spraying a pool of liquefied acidic viscera over the area. This creates an environmental hazard with a radius of (target's Essence x 2), lethal piercing damage of (target's Essence x 2), and trauma of (target's Essence), which screams with the voice of the deceased. Beloved characters are immune to this hazard, and cannot hear the moans. Fire can be used to dissipate the hazard, which burns away with a thick purple smoke if a single health level is done to it. It can also be drunk as if it was chalcanth, and provides (target's Essence) doses, though doing so inflicts a dose of the poison produced by Spiteful Sea Tincture to non-Beloved characters.
If a spirit is killed by an attack supplemented by this Charm, the death is permanent. Infernals with Essence 7+ can actually unravel the souls of beings with perfect reincarnation who normally resist permanent destruction, such as Dragon Kings and Jadeborn. Only her siblings, whether living Primordials and Yozis or dead Neverborn, are proof against the vengeance of Kimbery.
This Charm may be repurchased, so that this Charm's effects may be applied to damaging Kimberyian poisons when they are created for no surcharge. This only takes effect if the poison kills the target.
Cost: 15m, 1lhl; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple (One fifteen minute dramatic action)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Desecration, Sorcerous
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Tidal Renewal Discipline
Though Gaia may have included some water in her nature and been praised for her beauty, Kimbery has first claim upon the depths and rivers alike and will not let them go.
This Charm allows a warlock to taint water, twisting anything which relies upon it. The Infernal sheds his blood, singing hymns to his own generosity. This is a fifteen minute dramatic action, and affects all bodies of water, including groundwater, within a radius of (Resistance x 100) yards around the Infernal. Over the course of the next day, the affected waters turn bitter and cold, flooding the affected area. The weather shifts, such that it rains frequently, even in the Deep South, and a residue of brightly coloured salts can be seen left on things affected by the tainted waters.
The waters of the Great Mother twist those who consume them. Any living being which gains the majority of their water in a given week from a tainted source rolls their (Resistance); failure means they gain a single Cosmetic mutation with an aquatic theme. Unintelligent creatures who get the majority of their food from mutated sources halve their Endurance for the purposes of this roll. Failures in later weeks mean they gain a 1-point mutation, up to a limit of (Infernal's Enlightenment/2). Characters with at least one mutation from Kimberyian sources perceive the waters to be sweet and wholesome, and reduce the difficulty to find food within the water by their number of mutation points. Once water has been away from a tainted source for five days, or has been diluted down to being one-fifth tainted by volume, it no longer counts as coming from such a source.
Kimbery is generous and rewards those who pay her tribute through her presence. The Blessed Waters increase based on the value of the sacrifices made to Kimbery, the Infernal or any of their souls. At the end of each week, the radius increases by 25 yards for each dot of Resources sacrificed to it. The sum total of the sacrifices should be considered here - five Resources 1 sacrifices are not equivalent to a Resources 5 sacrifice. Ownership of the sacrificed objects passes to the Infernal.
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Sea
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Tidal Renewal Discipline
Kimbery's waves have touched many shores and countless tongues have screamed desperate prayers to her. Such knowledge lurks within her depths. T
he Infernal can activate this Charm after meditating for (8-Essence, minimum 1) hours while submerged, allowing her to develop a basic understanding of a language commonly spoken within a region. She can speak, write, understand and otherwise communicate in that language. She is clearly not a native, and speaks with a notable Old Realm accent - specifically the dialect of the ancient Lintha. The language slips from the cold darkness of her mind when she ends this effect – alternatively, she can instantly acquire it as a Linguistics specialty, as a Training effect.
When the Sea keyword applies, the warlock may communicate in all and any languages spoken within the region.
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 9)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Counterattack, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Intolerable Burning Truths
The Great Mother knows agony well. It was her companion in her earliest days, and it is her favoured tool now. No wonder she flows away from promised pain, letting her foes exhaust themselves before she comes crashing down upon their foolish heads.
The warlock invokes this Charm against an attack. With flowing, inhuman grace she retreats away from the blow, moving up to ([Appearance + Athletics] x 4) yards away from them in any direction. The multiplier increases to x8 if her assailant is Reviled, or the attack uses fire or fire-aspected Essence. The Exalt chooses the direction and distance of her retreat, though it must be away from her attacker. This Charm is treated as a counterattack and so reduces the Infernal's DV by 1, cannot be used with another counterattack, and is resolved in step 9 of attack resolution.
Cost: 5m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple (Speed 4 in long ticks)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Compulsion, Emotion, Social
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: Mother Sea Mastery
A creature of unquestionable poise and elegance, every flowing word and inhumanly beautiful gesture from the Great Mother draws the eye and ear away from lesser beings.
The Infernal rolls her (Appearance + Performance). All targets who can perceive her with a Dodge MDV lower than the successes on this roll are affected by an unnatural mental influence which compels them to stay in her company. They are obliged to ignore any other character who has a lower Appearance than the Infernal, unless they are competing for her attention or both obeying a direct command from her. Resisting this Compulsion for up to five minutes costs one willpower, and once they have spent three willpower they are immune for a scene.
Cost: - (+4m, 1wp); Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Compulsion, Emotion, Social
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Attention-Holding Grace
When one of the lesser forms of the Demon Sea takes human shape and walks among the hordes of Malfeas, flattering wars break out over her.
This charm upgrades its prerequisite. By spending an additional four motes and one willpower when activating it, the warlock modifies the effects of Attention-Holding Grace. Characters under the effects of Attention-Holding Grace may now engage with other characters they perceive as rivals for the attention of the Infernal, if they are seeking to remove them as a threat.
If they have a positive Intimacy towards the Infernal, they treat it as a negative Intimacy towards any other character who competes for her affections. Additionally, if they already have an Intimacy of any kind towards the competitor, they treat it as a negative Intimacy. Characters affected by one of these modified Intimacies pay an extra willpower point to resist Attention-Holding Grace. If a character is under both of these effects the Intimacies stack and the cost is raised by two willpower, likely leading to bitter bloodshed.
Cost: 4m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple (Speed 4)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Emotion
Duration: One Scene
Prerequisites: Attention-Holding Grace
In the Demon City beautiful things are made to break the mortal heart with exquisite pain - and Kimbery is the fairest of all of them.
This Charm is a form of unnatural mental influence. For the rest of the scene, any character who perceives the Infernal and who has a lower MDV than the warlock's Appearance suffers an unnatural Emotion effect. The emotion felt is grief at the sight of something so beautiful, and the spiritual pain this inflicts is so agonising that they suffer a -2 wound penalty from it for the rest of the scene. Beloved characters are immune to this. A character can harden their heart by spending two Willpower to resist the Emotion, and as an exception to the usual rules for mental influence this does not grant Limit. In addition, the Infernal doubles the maximum MDV bonus or penalty she can inflict or benefit from based on difference in Appearance against targets while this Charm is active.
At Essence 4, this Charm becomes Indefinite in Duration and the wound penalty increases to the difference in Appearance ratings, if it would be greater.
Cost: 7m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Reflexive (Step 2)
Keywords: Obvious, Compulsion
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: Attention-Holding Grace
Wrapped in a mantle of victimhood, the Great Mother seeps into the impulsive and lonely hearts of those who would oppose her, and makes them hers and hers alone.
This Charm surrounds the Infernal in an exquisite wide-eyed aura of supernatural vulnerability which seeps into the minds of those empty-hearted souls who do not love others, or those with weak minds who are controlled by their lusts. This negates any physical or social attack made against her unless the attacker succeeds on a reflexive resistance roll. The Infernal chooses when purchasing this Charm whether a Compassion roll or a Temperance roll is the appropriate means of resistance. These rolls are difficulty 1, and need only succeed once per action, regardless of the number of attacks made. This is unnatural mental influence which costs 3 willpower to resist for a scene.
This Charm may be repurchased for half the cost. The attacker must now roll the lower of Compassion and Temperance to attack the Infernal.
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Illusion
Duration: One Scene
Prerequisites: Attention-Holding Grace
It wasn't his fault! They'd always hated him! It was self defence!
Upon activating this Charm, the Infernal rolls (Appearance + Performance), adding a number of automatic successes equal to his Essence. Observers with a Dodge MDV less than the number of rolled successes automatically rationalise anything they see the Infernal doing as being provoked or otherwise justified, as an Illusion effect which automatically affects the character too. If he cuts down a man in the middle of the street, well - they were an assassin going for a weapon. If he takes a sweet delicacy from an infant, he was just doing it to protect the child's health. Resisting the Illusion for the remainder of the scene costs two willpower points, or one willpower point if the Infernal threatens or harms the character or their possessions. The Illusion does not prevent targets from defending themselves, although they do so reluctantly, sure that this is all a misunderstanding.
Even after the Charm has ended, witnesses accept the justifications their mind produces and do not attempt to correct their recollection without external prompting and a personally compelling reason. The human mind is all-too-fallible and creates further justifications, meshing their recollections into a web of rationalisations. They must spend four Willpower points to accept the spite of a world which would deny such a beautiful creature just cause.
Cost: 10m, 1wp; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Pantheon
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Beauty-Over-Truth
Within the dark hidden places of his body, the Infernal coats the accumulated malice and hate of a world which unfairly persecutes him in a protective scarlet nacre, birthing a nascent hungry soul. When he nudges this newborn into wakefulness, it grows strong on the wrongful cruelties of harsh reality.
The Infernal's player rolls ([Manipulation or Appearance] + Socialise), adding a number of automatic successes equal to the Exalt's Essence. An almost imperceptible halo of crimson light briefly forms around her head, before fading into intangibility. The first time in any day another character attempts to remember any way which they have been wronged or offended by the Infernal, or anything which would negatively affect her judgement of the character, she must reflexively roll (Intelligence + Socialise) and achieve more successes than the Infernal. If she fails, she can only remember the positive - in her memories, she rationalises them as being someone else's fault, brushes them over, or simply fails to remember them. Characters who have a negative Intimacy towards the Infernal and channel Conviction on this roll add successes rather than dice.
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling
Duration: One action
Prerequisites: Intolerable Burning Truths
No harbour wall or jade-steel breastplate can guard against the vengeance of the Demon Sea, and her foes' flesh is left liquified and bloody within their armoured shell.
This Charm enhances a physical attack, adding one to its minimum damage, giving it the piercing tag, and ignoring Hardness. In addition, as a Crippling effect damage from an attack enhanced by this Charm causes bleeding and heals as it would for a mortal, organs bursting and rupturing even while the armour remains untouched.
Cost: 10m, 1lhl; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Sorcerous
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: Sea-Within-Veins Prana
Toxic and cloying, the Great Mother seeps into dark places within the Demon City and spreads her rising waters until they drown entire districts of the Demon City. Such does she spread her love to places which have never known her touch.
While this Charm is active, the warlock's sea-blood hisses and steams out of pores and tear ducts, creating a thick multi-coloured miasma around her with a radius of (Essence) yards. Characters within this Sorcerous zone of cloying mist are considered to be underwater (Exalted, pp. 155) and so suffer the usual -2 external penalty to most movement, the need to hold their breath, and so on. Ranged attacks made into the zone from the outside also suffer the penalty to "movement", as twirling tendrils of fog twitch them off-course. Fire-based attacks (such as flaming arrows) ignore this penalty.
This briny smog impairs visibility to the same degree as fog at night (Exalted, pp. 135), and can only be pierced by fire-based light sources. Other light sources such as sunlight simply refract into oily rainbow halos, causing the smog to invalidate stealth as though it were an anima flaring at the 4-7 mote level. Visibility penalties apply to attacks made into the fog, as those within seem indistinct and shapeless. Additionally, the alien acidity of the smog tarnishes metal with a multicoloured patina and leaves indigo ice-rime on plants, adding the Infernal's (Essence) in bonus dice to any attempt to track her passage through an area she had this Charm active.
Cost: 40m, 3lhl; Mins: Essence 5; Type: Simple
Keywords: Blasphemy, Form-Type, Obvious, Shaping, Sorcerous
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Lurking Indigo Haar, Great Mother's Blessed Waters, First Kimbery Excellency
Upon the outer layer of Malfeas, a tributary of the Great Mother lies exposed to the eyes of all. Sometimes this Creation-sized body of water moves, and where it passes it drowns entire domains, serfs and citizens alike dying in agony. Such is the whimsy of the Demon Sea.
Upon activation of this Charm, the Infernal bursts - the terrible pressure of her ocean-blood tearing her flimsy human form apart. From this is born her true tsunami form, which rushes forth across the land with terrible fury.
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Supplemental (Dramatic Action)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Intolerable Burning Truths
Outsiders should not be allowed to know what goes on inside the family. It's none of their concern.
This Charm enhances a dramatic organisation-scale action taken by the Infernal or a beloved character. It imposes a +2 external penalty on all Awareness or Bureaucracy rolls to notice anything suspicious about the dramatic action, or +3 if every member of the organisation involved in the action is either beloved or a descendent of the Infernal. This benefit requires the characters involved in the dramatic action to uphold a degree of subtlety - oaths of secrecy to not speak of a conspiracy, sailing under false flags when raiding or disguising demonic icons as gods during a mass summoning would be sufficient.
Cost: 8m, 1hl; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling, Stackable
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Haar-Hidden Dealings
Cheap novels in the Realm whisper of foul vows sworn by the cultists of the demon empress Kimbery, who demands her servants desecrate their bodies prove their fidelity.
This Charm enhances a dramatic action where another character swears an oath and spends one willpower, witnessed by the Infernal. As part of the ritual, the swearer receives a Crippling mark on his body - this may take the form of a cult tattoo, ritual scarification, the self-amputation of the topmost joint of his little finger, or other forms of bodily alteration compliant with the themes and aesthetics of Kimbery. The Infernal seals the oath with her toxic, burning essence, which seeps into the mark. A character may swear up to (Infernal's Stamina) separate oaths.
If the character is about to break his oath, deliberately or otherwise, the mark twinges with agonising pain. This serves as a warning, making it Obvious that the action will betray his vow. If he does betray his oath, the character suffers a -2 wound penalty as a Crippling effect, the pain emanating from his Crippling mark. This penalty stacks per broken oath. Mundane medicine has no cure for the chronic pain, beyond amputation of the body part that bears the mark (or equivalent, such as burning out a cult tattoo with a hot iron). Supernatural medicine requires a charm roll off against the Infernal. Additionally, if the Infernal, demons who descend from her, or her priests see the mark of a traitor, the broken oath becomes Obvious to them.
This Charm can be repurchased at Essence 3. Any priests of the warlock who are loyal descendents gain this Charm, ignoring the Essence requirement, though they must pay the cost of the activation. For each 4m an unenlightened priest cannot pay, he may substitute it for one willpower or one lethal health level. These priests may only witness oaths which further the interests of the Infernal or an organisation she leads.
::Sidebar - PACTED::
For the purposes of Kimbery Charms, a pacted character is one who has sworn an oath of loyalty or servitude to the Infernal, or an organisation she leads, and the oath has been consecrated by Pain-as-Witness Oath
::End Sidebar::
Cost: 15m, 1lhl; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Desecration, Combo-OK, Obvious, Touch
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Pain-as-Witness Oath
Those who pledge themselves to Kimbery are lost. There is no escape from her depths - and the baubles she tosses your way cannot be worth damnation.
This Charm may only target pacted humans or spirits. The character must have reaffirmed his oath in some way in the current scene, whether by deed or word. Laying her hand upon his mark, the warlock floods him with malign essence, twisting her target down to the very core of his being and burning his oath into his souls. Not even the removal of the mark will now free him from its constraints; only a complete reconstruction of his body, or Exaltation, will do that.
The marked character becomes a native of Malfeas and a creature of darkness, a twisting that also grants 1-3 points of Kimbery-themed mutations of the Infernal's choice. With access to an appropriate tutor, he may now learn Spirit Charms for 10XP each that belong to First Circle demons that descend from the Infernal, or which she has internalised within her demonic library. Should a Crippling effect destroy the mark, he loses all access to these Charms immediately. If he lacks a mote pool, the character gains an initially empty 10m personal mote pool, which only regains motes through sacrifice to the Infernal (two motes per Resources value of the sacrifice). Upon learning this charm, the Infernal adds one First Circle Demon breed to her library, and may buy additional ones for 1XP each.
If the Infernal has the capacity to hear prayers, she may activate this charm as a Reflexive Charm in response to a successful prayer from a pacted character where he sacrificed a minimum of Resources 4 to her.
Cost: --; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Illusion
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Pain-as-Witness Oath
They say the vile cultists of the Demon Sea exist as a great writhing incestous family, flaunting the acid-burns on their soul given by their bitter demon-queen.
This Charm permanently improves its prerequisite. Pacted characters are modified in the following ways:
Cost: 1lhl ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Pain-as-Witness Oath
Demonologists know of the terrifying secret oaths of the cultists of the Demon Sea. Better to die than swear them and become one of Kimbery's brood, they say.
This Charm supplements a dramatic action to legally adopt a willing character. This can include adoption into organisations run as a family, such as the Lintha or many organised crime syndicates in Creation. As part of the process, the Infernal feeds them some of her body fluids. This is most commonly blood, though warlocks with a landscape body may have rivers or lakes that someone may sup from. From thereon in, this fluid flows in their veins, making them a descendent of the Infernal as a Crippling effect. This does not affect any children conceived before the adoption, but any future children will be the Infernal's descendents. These children 'naturally' descend from her rather than from a Crippling effect.
This Charm may be repurchased at Essence 4. Any priests of the warlock who are loyal descendents gain this Charm, though they must pay the cost of the activation. Individuals adopted by proxy are both the priest and the Infernal's descendents.
Cost: 14m, 1lhl; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple (Dramatic Action)
Keywords: Obvious, Touch, Training, Desecration
Duration: One Week
Prerequisites: Haar-Hidden Dealings
Through love and pain, Kimbery teaches her children the same lessons she learned before time began.
This Charm involves training or instructing a group of non-reviled characters with Magnitude no greater than (Essence), using methods compatible with the themes of the Great Mother. This Charm requires at least an hour of tuition per day. At the end of the teaching, the students gain one of the Intolerable Burning Truths known by the warlock as an Abomination, and the Creature of Darkness mutation.
If the student already knows one of the Intolerable Burning Truths, the warlock may instead train them in a Style she knows, increasing its rating by one. She may not increase others' traits past her own rating in the Style.
Cost: - ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Instructions from Mother
The Demon Sea whispers hidden secrets to her favoured children. Only the most loved receive such a blessing.
This Charm upgrades its prerequisite and consists of four variants. When one of her students knows at least one Intolerable Burning Truth and has three dots in a Style, she may choose to teach them an Attribute or Ability which could be used with that Style. The Attributes and Abilities she can instruct them on depend on the variants she knows:
She cannot increase others' traits past her own, and may not raise character's traits past 4 dots with this Charm. When she purchases this Charm, she selects two variants to learn. Additional variants may be purchased for 5XP each.
Cost: 8m ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisites: Haar-Hidden Dealings
Ah, fear the hungry ocean, but fear the monstrous mother and her rapacious cult-family more.
This charm enhances an Organisational Action in the Creation-Ruling Mandate system. It can be purchased multiple times, with each purchase providing a different effect.
Cost: 10m, 1lhl ; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple (Dramatic Action)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Sorcerous
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Haar-Hidden Dealings
Taking a dramatic action lasting a minimum of six hours, the Infernal constructs and sanctifies a shrine to themselves, Kimbery, or demons who descend from either of them within a structure. As long as the shrine remains intact and within the structure, the faintly pulsing altar protects the sacred place from suspicion. It causes Awareness, Investigation and Bureaucracy actions to notice anything that would rouse hostility or suspicion about the structure or activities carried out in it to automatically fail, unless the observer has at least a two dice benefit from circumstances. Examples of relevant circumstances include rumours of criminal activity in it from an informant (+1), suspicious individuals lurking within (+1), the building being particularly extravagant or prominent such as a castle overlooking a town (+1), and walking in on a ritual of human sacrifice to a demon (+3). Characters who would not consider the activities within to be suspicious or induce their hostility are not obstructed, so drug-addicts looking for a seaside opium den or cultists heading to their secret temple are permitted to find what they are looking for.
This magical protection does not apply if the investigator can perceive the shrine, which pulses faintly with the Infernal's anima and warps to conform to Kimberyian aesthetics. Characters with at least Lore 1 can infer the demonic nature of the shrine with one success on a (Wits + Lore) roll. Destruction of the shrine ends the Sorcerous effect.
Cost: 15m, 1wp ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple (Dramatic Action)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Sorcerous, Stackable
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Well-Reputed Grotto
Taking a dramatic action to travel between two locations the Infernal has previously sanctified with Well-Reputed Grotto, the Infernal maps out a smuggling trail with demonic skill as she leaves markers and carries out Kimberyian rituals along her way. She may permit characters or organisations to make use of the trail, though certain actions the Infernal specifies must be followed daily while on the trail to enjoy the benefits - for example, they must fly a certain banner, or carry out evening prayers to her. Failure to perform the actions means that the benefits of this charm cease to apply for the rest of the journey. No more than (Essence) Magnitude characters may make use of a given trail at once. This Charm terminates if either Well-Reputed Grotto at either end is destroyed.
This Charm has several variants and may be repurchased to unlock extra ones:
Multiple versions may be used to enhance a single trail, though the Charm must be activated separately for each variant as she refines her maps and hides idol-waystones along the way.
Cost: 2m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Palate Without Limit
"Help me!" calls out your missing friend. Don't follow their voice. It's coming from Metagaos' gullet.
This Charm supplements an action where the Infernal mimics the voice of another or another noise, such as the roar of a wild animal or even the sound of a waterwheel. The Infernal may ignore any physiological barriers or obstacles to her making the noise, allowing her to speak with strange behemoths in their native tongue that no human mouth could speak or mimic the sounds of a whole crowd. Additionally, characters are at +4 difficulty to notice that the sound is false. If the Infernal has tasted the subject of her mimicry in the current scene, characters require inhuman sensory acuity to recognise the deception. Note that this Charm only applies to hearing - obviously if another character can see the Infernal when they speak in the voice of their missing friend, pointed questions may be asked.
At Essence 3, this charm upgrades, allowing the Infernal to "throw" her voice, making it appear to come from anywhere within (Essence x 4) yards of her in an act of voracious ventriloquism.
Cost: 1wp; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Stackable
Duration: One story
Prerequisite Charms: Mind-Eating Assimilation
Metagaos cares little for book learning. He prefers to scoop knowledge from the brains of those he infects.
When the character is presented with a challenge or problem - however mild - he may activate this Charm and gain one temporary dot of an Ability or Speciality that is known by a character he has infected with Self-Seed Infestation and which would help him with his problem. The character must have the Ability or Speciality rated at a higher level than he does. This dot lasts until the end of the current story. Specialties granted by this Charm do not count toward the maximum number she can possess, but the maximum dice that specialties can add remains +3. The Exalt may permanently internalize any of these specialties or Abilities as a Training effect, ending this Charm early. This Charm can be purchased up to (Essence) times, and can be stacked a number of times equal to (number of purchases x 3). Abilities count as 3 specialities for the purposes of stacking.
In addition, upon learning this Charm the Infernal is permanently modified and treats any character he has infected with Self-Seed Infestation as a trainer for any Ability, Speciality or spell that they know that is rated at a higher level than he has. This psychic parasitism does not require the character to be present, instead being conveyed as intuition and gut instinct. Metagaos spreads constantly without compunction, and so characters infected with his Self-Seed also gain this benefit.
Cost: — (1wp); Mins: Essence 4; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Desecration
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Chimeric Corpus Cultivation, First Metagaos Excellency
Metagaos must be extracted root and seed from his infected - else he'll be back.
This Charm permanently upgrades characters the Infernal has infected with Self-Seed Infestation. Infected heal as if they were Exalts, even if they are mortal. In addition, once per scene when reduced to their -4 health levels or lower, the infected may spend one willpower and take a Miscellaneous action and take up to (Infernal's Essence) points of negative mutations with a Metagoyin theme as a Desecration, healing that number of levels of bashing or lethal damage as long as they were not caused by fire or Holy damage. The XP from these negative mutations may be spent immediately on positive mutations with a Metagoyin theme which manifest at the same time.
When purchasing this Charm, the Infernal should devise a "default" package of negative and positive mutations that extras will manifest, which serves as a personal signature. Infected extras will manifest this package, even if levels of healing are "wasted". Extras may not use this Charm to heal if they already have the package. This default package may be changed when the Infernal raises his Essence. This does not retroactively alter characters who have already made use of it.
Cost: — ; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Mutilation Feast Method, Hunger Without Satisfaction
Within Metagaos lie ten thousand bulging stomachs, filled with morsels for the lean times.
Upon purchasing this Charm, the warlock's digestive system rearranges itself to add many lesser stomachs that are much bigger on the inside. When the Infernal would kill a character with Mutilation Feast Method or consumes food when he has a -0 hunger penalty, he may instead choose to save the meal for later. The character or food is swallowed whole and stored within the Elsewhere-gut, kept in an Inactive state. The preservative chemicals within the stomach prevent the food from spoiling and prevent injured characters from bleeding out. No more than (Essence) Magnitude characters or meals (they're much the same thing) may be kept this way at once.
He may later regurgitate any characters or meals kept within his Elsewhere-gut to devour or release, spending one willpower and taking an unflurryable Miscellaneous action to do so. Alternatively, he may purge his gut in a bulimic display taking five long ticks, spending three willpower and releasing everything trapped within. Characters released are reduced to their Incapacitated health box, and characters that cannot heal as Exalts will perish without supernatural medical assistance.
Alas, the hunger of Metagaos longs for the tang of Exaltation. Any Exalts kept within the Elsewhere-gut are automatically digested after a season, but the Exaltation itself is beyond even his gastric juices. The Primordials could not use him as a jailer, for his greed prevented it.
Readers looking for charmtech which expands on the use of the Coadjutor, along with the Unwoven keyword, are directed to The Fourth Soul document.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Heretical
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Titanic Heart Overweening
Some among the green sun princes may tire of the watcher imposed on them by jealous titans. Pity the unwoven coadjutor who finds themselves caught in such a position.
This charm may only be learned by a warlock with the Unwoven Coadjutor background rated at 0 dots. Upon learning this charm, a soul of the Infernal's choice devours their hated coadjutor and takes its place. Such an infusion of power elevates it to the position of a fetich. It becomes a Third Circle Demon and spawns seven Second Circle demons that may be manifested using this Charm's prerequisite or summoned by the Infernal using sorcery. The fetich can no longer manifest in the outside world, for men are more jealous than Primordials and hide their hearts within their chests.
The Infernal's Unwoven Coadjutor background is replaced by a Fetich background, which is mechanically identical and satisfies any requirements for Charms with the Unwoven keyword. The level of the Fetich background should be determined by the Infernal's relationship with their new inner heart. The Infernal's Urge is permanently set to the Motivation of their fetich, and the player and the ST should devise an appropriate Act of Villainy for the character. The Yozis and Unquestionable may no longer control the Infernal's Urge.
An alternate version of this Charm exists, which may only be learned by an Infernal with the Unwoven Coadjutor background rated at 5. If this version of the Charm is learned, the warlock instead shatters their beloved coadjutor's bonds to the Yozis and lets it suckle deep upon the terrible power of their Exaltation, elevating it to a fetich. The Charm is otherwise mechanically identical.
Cost: -; Mins: Essence 4; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Heretical
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Titanic Heart Overweening, one Yozi Shintai Charm
Letting her flesh blossom with the promise of the primordials, the Infernal grows metaphysically so that she might house the multitudes within her mind.
This Charm creates a Sanctum within Elsewhere for each of the Infernal's souls created by Titanic Heart Overweening, where they dwell when not externalised. These begin with a rating of one, and can be upgraded normally by the souls. The soul is permanently materialised within the sanctum and has full access to its own Charms and Essence while in it. The Sanctum is themed appropriately for the soul in question.
Unlike normal sanctums, there are no external entrance, though they are permitted to interconnect (permitting the souls to interact). The Infernal controls passage exclusively. No entity or object may exit or enter it, save by the methods described in this or later expansion Charms; this is resolved as if it was a defence again any effect which would contest this.
The soul may leave the Sanctum via the method described in Titanic Heart Overweening. They gain an appropriate escape clause which they may use to slip out, which the player and the ST should balance appropriately. With the permission of the Infernal and the soul in question, sorcerers may use the appropriate summoning spell to summon them from their Sanctum. Likewise, the Art of Demon Summoning may beckon them with an appropriate ritual. The soul may always refuse to be summoned by anyone apart from the Infernal, and no one apart from the Infernal may bind them. First circle demons resident within the sanctum may be summoned should the Infernal or the soul give their permission, and may also be bound with permission.
Upon learning this Charm, the Infernal and her souls gain the capacity to design and build demon-bound manses upon Yozi-aspected demesnes for Yozis with themes compatible with the soul in question. These manses will favour appropriate manse powers for the themes of the soul.
::SIDEBAR: Welcome to the Tiger Empire, Revisited::
Titanic Progeny Paradise may take the place of Fourth Soul Devil Domain as a prerequisite for Blossoms of the Tiger Empire. The radius of the Tiger Empire is instead (Number of souls made by Titanic Heart Overweening) km, rather than (Coadjutor rating) km, with the Sanctums of the souls located as physical places within this space. Should the Infernal know both charms, this radius stacks - becoming (Coadjutor rating + Number of Titanic Heart Overweening souls) kilometres.
Cost: 10m
Target: Caster
The sorcerer exhales into cupped hands until her lungs empty, forcing her Essence into the breath. As she does this, (Essence) actinic dots, which invalidate Stealth like a 4-7m level anima banner appear along the forearm of her dominant hand, wreathing her in a corona of sparks. Each dot can be reflexively converted into a javelin made of brilliant blue-white lightning. These javelins have the same stats as a mundane javelin, except they add +(sorcerer's Essence) to Accuracy, inflict +(5+Occult)L damage, and, on impact, inflict their base damage on every other target within 5 yards of them in a thundercrack of arcing electricity as an attack with the same number of successes as the original attack, which ignores cover penalties. Damage inflicted by The Kiss of Mela, whether from the original impact or the blast, cannot be blocked by non-magical metal weapons, and cannot be soaked by armour composed mostly or entirely of non-magical metal. This spell may not be recast until all the javelins created by a previous casting are used up.
When cast with the Malfean Initiation as Searing Hate-Strike, the base damage from these irradiating bursts of Yozi Essence, which leave behind flash-dried corpses, receives the damage bonus of the initiation.
Cost: 15m
Target: Area (40 yards by 40 yards, centred on target location with 250 yards of the sorcerer)
With care, the sorcerer traces the Mudra of Attraction in the air. However, just before she finishes, she corrupts the symbolism, inverting it, and causing the little gods of Creation to violently repel that which she gestures at. Everything within the target (down to the top layer of soil) area rises, as if falling upwards, to a height of twice the sorcerer's (Essence + Occult) yards, wreathed in trails of blue and white ribbons. They remain there for five ticks, unable to move, though they may twist in mid-air or block things, allowing them to retain their DVs. They may be moved horizontally by the sorcerer, during this time, as a Reflexive Move action, using the sorcerer's own Move speed. At the end of those five ticks, they plummet back down, taking normal falling damage. Heroic characters can avoid being affected by this spell if they succeed on a (Wits + Athletics) roll, under the same rules and conditions as the normal rules for Falling (Exalted, p126). Characters with a solid roof over them impact on it, taking fall damage then, and also fall.
If the Malfean Initiation is in use, the normal damage bonus granted by the Initiation applies to the falling damage from this Charm, the world warping so they fall faster than they should. After all, the King of the Yozi reasons, why should his foes be permitted to fall, when they can be thrown instead.
Cost: 20m
Target: Area (15 yard radius around the caster, or ritual area)
The fights of the Exalted cause so much damage to the surrounding area that it was inevitable that attempts would be made to minimise it. Combining the Mudra of Earth with the Mudra of Hierarchy, the sorcerer infuses all things with solidity and rigidity in a sphere around them. For the rest of the scene, no inanimate object within the area may be damaged unless that was the specific function of the attack. A blow which misses will bounce off a teacup; a barrage of arrows may be stopped by a paper wall, thus saving the life of the person hiding behind it. This may be bypassed by stunting; for example, a character who declares that they will stab the person behind them through the wall will be able to do so, but the value of the cover provided by objects is increased by one. This does not provide cover where none is to be found. The increased resilience adds the caster's Essence to the Lethal and Bashing soak of all inanimate objects within the area, and gives them a Hardness equal to the caster's temporary Willpower (which means the value changes as the character gains and spends Willpower). This spell especially sees use by Dragonblooded, because it can render breakable environments proof against their anima flux; something beloved of Fire Aspects in a paper mill that they own.
Alternatively, the character can choose to cast it over a single structure. Every window and entryway must be traced with a paste composed of ground quartz, rosemary and mercury, which costs Resources 3 to make. This extends the effect to a month, or, if the spell is cast during Calibration, a year. Once this has been cast once, it only costs the equivalent of Resources 2 to renew. Despite the convenience, many are wary of living in a dwelling warded like this; things don't quite act like they should, and to trip and fall into a paper wall, only to find it as hard as rock to an accident, is an unpleasant experience.
If cast using the Sorcerous Initiation of She Who Lives In Her Name, the caster may choose to make every inanimate object within range not currently being used by a character appear to be made of solid, clear crystal, weaving her version of hierarchy into the fabric of things. This makes objects nearby as transparent as glass, invalidating their use for concealment by any individual.
Cost: 15m
Target: Conjured automaton
Just as the Elemental Dragon of Water does not rest solely in the oceans, so too may a sorcerer let deadly water fall upon his foe. This spell requires that the sorcerer have a bow in hand, and, while holding it, make the Sign of Liquidity Dismissed, the mudra made by the small gods who regulate evaporation. Once this is done, they draw an arrow, which glows a midnight blue, and fire it into the sky. Rather than rise forever, however, it lodges in the air 20 yards above the ground, and disintegrates, forming a vaguely feminine, vaguely cephalopodian figure in the sky made of rainwater and blue light. Rainbow bows in her many tentacle-like hands, she salutes the sorcerer once, then begins to pour arrows made of rain down on the sorcerer's foes.
The Arrow Cascade Maiden understands complex instructions, and has an infinite supply of her rain arrows for her rainbow bows. The dark blue light she emits invalidates her Stealth like a 8-10 mote anima banner, unless it is raining, whereupon the light is quenched. She, as an innate property, applies her Archery-based attacks against five separate targets (or one Mass Combat Unit five times), rolling only once and comparing that to their DVs, but may not flurry them with any other action, for this takes her full concentration. Her arrows of rain have the stats of Broadhead arrows, and her rainbow bows are statted as composite bows (included in her stat-line below). She can fly, as if she had the Wings Abomination, and if engaged up close, will attempt to grapple her foe with her tendril-like arms. The Arrow Cascade Maiden disintegrates if she comes within two yards of the ground, the Essence of Earth absorbing her. Otherwise, the spell ends after 7 hours.
This spell can only be countered during casting. Once the maiden appears, only killing her gets rid of her. When the duration of the spell ends, or the maiden is killed, she disintegrates in a heavy, but brief rainstorm with a 100 yard radius, which lasts one long tick, causing appropriate environmental penalties. In times of drought, sorcerers who know this spell have been known to summon Arrow Cascade Maidens just for this purpose.
The adepts of Kimbery would disagree that this spell has its roots in Immaculate Teachings, though; this act of sorcery has older, and darker origins. To them, it is known as Loving Mother's Skysent Gifts. This variant of the spell can only make three attacks per action, but the rain-arrows are vitriolic and burning. Any targets which suffer damage from the attacks are affected by a Poison with the stats of Arrow-Frog Venom.
Arrow Cascade Maiden
Motivation: To puncture the hearts of her sorcerer's foes with her arrows
Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 4, Stamina 2, Charisma 3, Manipulation 1, Appearance 3, Perception 5, Intelligence 2, Wits 4
Virtues: Automaton: Never fails Valour checks, never makes others
Abilities: Athletics 3, Awareness 4, Dodge 4, Archery 5 (Rainbow bows +1, Against People With Unarmoured Torsos +2), Presence 4 (Striking Fear Into The Hearts Of Her Summoner's Foes +1), Martial Arts 1 (Clinching +3), Stealth 0 (In The Rain +3), War 3 (Against Those Who Cannot Strike Back Against Her +2)
Join Battle: 7
Rainbow Bow Cascade: Speed 6, Accuracy 10, Damage +6L, Rate 1, Range 300 yards, Tags B
Clinch: Speed 6, Accuracy 8, Damage +0B, Defence -, Rate 1, Tags C, N, P
Soak: 5L/5B (Rain-nature 4L/2B)
Health Levels: -0/-1/-1/-2/-2/-4/Incap
Dodge DV: 4 Willpower: 10 (0 against sorcerer)
Essence: 1
Other Notes: Unless given orders to the contrary, an Arrow Cascade Maiden will always aim to get the maximum possible benefit, and will preferentially target anyone who wears armour which does not cover the chest properly or who lacks armour there entirely, the better that her arrows seek out the hearts of her master's foes. In a rainstorm, she will attempt to reestablish surprise, and conceal where her arrows are coming from among the rain.
Cost: 35m
Target: Area (250 yard radius, centred on target point within 1 mile of sorcerer)
A Silurian innovation, this spell uses the motonic principles of Death of Obsidian Butterflies, but expands them up to the Sapphire Circle. As the sorcerer shapes the spell, a collection of butterflies, some in obsidian, others cast in a faintly fluorescent greenish-yellow glass begin to spiral the caster, their flight spelling out the Word of Complexity, which represents sudden change in faraway places from small alterations.
When the character releases the spell, they roll their Perception + Occult, adding their Essence in automatic successes. On the completion of the spell, the butterflies arc up into the air, coming down a tick later on the target location as a great swirling cyclone of enormous glass butterflies, each butterfly anywhere from a foot to a yard across. Everything within 250 yards of that target is subject to the attack. The attack descends from above, so any cover must be at least an inch of stone overhead to protect; the butterflies are quite capable of cutting through the roofs – and upper floors – of most Second Age structures to shatter on the inhabitants within.
Characters defend against Butterflies to Chrysalides Bombardment as if it was a hand-to-hand attack, and each attack is independent, so magic which protects only one person will not protect others subjected to the same attack. Treat the butterflies as rolling a number of attack successes equal to what the sorcerer's player rolled, -1 for each two dice of penalties that circumstances impose. In cases of thick fog or a heavy low cloud level, characters may have to reflexively roll (Perception + Awareness), Difficulty 1, to avoid it being a surprise attack. The attack inflicts 12L, plus any extra successes on the attack roll as per usual.
However, this spell does not merely litter the ground with broken glass (though it does so, much like Death of Obsidian Butterflies). The butterflies, in their brief flight, release small lumps of igneous rock, around the size of a man's fingernail, which litter the ground within the affected area. Compared to the brightness of the glass, they are dull and mundane. However, moving or Dashing across the affected area, for the next lunar month, risks life and limb. Each tick where the character moves or Dashes requires a (Perception + Awareness) roll, at a difficulty of half the sorcerer's Essence, and the roll may only be made if the character is aware of the danger. Failure means that a character's shadow has fallen on one of the chrysalides. From it, grows a spear-like bush made of fused butterflies made of black and green glass, directly pointed at the obstruction to the light, which then blossoms in a newly formed canopy at head height. This is modelled as a hand-to-hand attack against everything within 3 yards, which counts as having rolled the same number of successes as the original attack, and which inflicts +6L damage. The spear-bush created are living creatures, but will wither and die, turning brittle, if not fed on blood. The Imperial Legions have strict policies for what is to be done if it is found that a legion has wandered in such a formation, often including the use of Earth Aspects to turn over the soil, safely defusing the unhatched chrysalides. Sapphire Circle Countermagic safely defuses all the chrysalides in the area; Emerald Circle Countermagic can disarm all the ones in an area equal to that produced by a casting of Death of Obsidian Butterflies, allowing a formation to be moved through a so-covered area. Once the lunar month has passed, the unhatched chrysalides turn inert, but any spear-bushes that have grown remain.
Cost: 30m
Target: Area (50 yard radius) centred within 200 yards
There are many things carried within the blood. And one of those is the characteristic motonic traces of the Elemental Poles, those subtle influences that would allow a wise man to pinpoint their place of birth. The sorcerer barks the word of location, but twists it, so that those traces within their blood become the element. Those affected have their blood transmuted into whatever element the nearest Elemental Pole to their birthplace was. Those born on the Blessed Isle find granite shards filling their veins, while those from the East have thorns tear them from within, flowers bursting forth from wounds. Westerners turn ghost pale as seawater replaces blood, Northerners crackle with the cold fire of lightning, and those from the South ignite. If used on Autocthonians, all but a few polar mutants will end up with molten metal in place of their vital fluids. The less said about the poor unfortunates born in Malfeas or the Underworld, the better. The sorcerer must know Old Realm to be able to cast this spell. This spell affects ghosts as if they were the person they were before death, but all damage against them is halved, for their necrotic plasm carries the traces poorly. Wildlife and vegetation is affected normally. Fair Folk are affected based on the nearest Elemental Pole to where they took on Shape. Mountain Folk are always affected as if by Earth. Dragonbloods are always affected by their own Aspect's element, and halve the damage before soak as their own connection to their element bolsters them. It cannot affect necrotech and other unliving things that were manufactured, rather than born.
When the caster speaks the word, the sorcerer rolls (Perception + Linguistics), adding a number of automatic successes equal to her permanent Essence. Everyone within the attack area, a 50-yard radius centred within 200 yards of the sorcerer, is subject to attack, as the Old Realm character flares on the ground below them, burning itself into the terrain and trying to ensnare them with tendrils of transmutive Essence. Characters defend against the grasping tendrils as if it were a hand to hand attack. Each attack is independent, so magic and penalties which reduce the attack do not help others defend. Treat the streams of Essence as rolling a number of attack successes equal to those which the sorcerer rolled, minus one for each -2 dice of penalties that circumstances impose.
This spell does base damage of 15 dice of lethal damage plus any extra successes in raw damage, as a Shaping effect, which may not be soaked by armour. Targets killed by this spell are consumed by their birth-element; those born near the Pole of Earth leave statues frozen in agonised postures, while those near the Pole of Fire merely burn like a bonfire for the rest of the scene. Individuals who are not killed have their blood transform back, but suffer agonising deaths over the next day or so, unless they can heal as Exalts, or receive supernatural magical treatment capable of healing the rapidly-lethal Crippling effect to their internal Essence flows.
When Malfeas casts this spell, as Theion-To Exclamation, he rejects the elements of Traitor Gaia, and brings his own masterpiece into the world. The spell always transmutes targets to vitriol, regardless of which pole they were born near, bringing painful demise in hissing green acid. Theion-To Exclamation may be learned as a separate spell by individuals who do not know the Malfean Initiation, and sees notable use by those who do not mind the adverse affects of vitriol on the environment as it bypasses the elemental protection of the Dragonblooded.
Cost: 35m
Target: Self
Breathing in deeply, the sorcerer exhales a seven syllable name that is not one of the impossible names of Oramus into his cupped hands, charging it with Essence. Five days in the past, the Dragon Beyond the World did not hear the name that is not his, but there is just enough sympathetic resonance for a trickle of blood from his broken wings to escape, hissing and drying as it crosses the barren wastes of Cecelyne, to emerge in the hands of the sorcerer as the Narrative Shredding Bolt, a slender barb of notched impossibility. To use the arrow, it may be fired from any bow, or alternatively thrown, by the sorcerer and must be used within the scene. No more than one such arrow may exist at any one time per sorcerer. It acts like a conventional frog crotch arrow, except it adds (Essence) to the raw damage of the attack.
However, that is not by any means the true power of the arrow. As soon as the arrow comes to a stop, whether by being parried, dodged, or hitting its target, it releases the impossibilities contained within as a thunderous detonation of narrative-shredding chaos. Everything within (300 + {Target's Essence x 100, if it hit and injured}) yards, including terrain and inanimate objects suffers a hand-to-hand attack of flying fragments of impossible blood, which rolls a number of successes equal to that of the Archery or Thrown attack used by the sorcerer. The attack is resolved separately against each target, so powers which protect one person will not affect others in the blast area. If the original target was injured by the original attack, it is undodgable, unblockable, and unsoakable against that target. Against creatures of static reality (Creation-born, inhabitants of Malfeas or the Underworld, and individuals on the Design of Autocthon), it does base damage of 2B, and conveys to injured targets a single Oramus-themed Pox as a Desecration effect. Against Creatures of the Wyld, on the other hand, it is far more dire, tearing their inner narrative apart like rice paper, as the meaningless of a story in a universe where anything is possible is revealed. The burst does a base damage of 16 levels - not dice - of Aggravated damage, and reduces any Attributes they had rated at 6 or higher to 1 as a Crippling Effect, until they heal all the damage inflicted by the Arrow and recover their grasp on their own narrative. All fantasies in the area are torn asunder as a Shaping Effect. This attack perforates Creation with impossibilities too; for the remainder of the scene, it counts as being Calibration in the area within the blast area, as the Loom resets to cover the area. This is a Blasphemy Effect and for the next five Calibrations, the affected area is contaminated with Yozi Essence. Not surprisingly, in the First Age, use of this spell was usually restricted to Wyld pockets and on safaris.
Cost: 77m
Target: Area
Even the Incarna and the Exalted could not confine Oramus, the Dragon Beyond the World, fully. Despite his broken wings, his dreams and thrashing still influence wyld pockets within Creation, and give dreams and nightmares to savants, driving them mad with profound impossibilities. But the acts of sorcerers of the Adamant Circle go beyond mere dreams and whispers, to tear some of the pain that the eldest of the Primordial feels from his broken wings to channel it into productive use. Before this spell can be cast, the sorcerer must, in a seven hour ritual, carve the fractal seven-winged sigil - which was preferred way of the pre-human Aluan to refer to the Primordial - into their chest, an icon of such complexity that their torso appears near flayed. This inflicts 4 aggravated health levels of damage, which may not be healed without shattering the spell, as per Adamant Countermagic, and requires seven successes on a (lower of Dexterity + Stamina) and (lower of Craft: Air and Occult) roll, made at the end of the ritual to successfully inscribe. Failure in this is not evident without detailed scrutiny, and should a miscarved sigil be used, the spell will shatter. The ritual to cast the spell, once this must be done, must be begun within seven hours of the carving of the sigil, or the sigil inverts, killing them instantly as a Shaping effect, and inflicting seven levels of unsoakable aggravated damage even if they survive that.
Once this preparation is complete, the sorcerer can cast the spell. This is a Dramatic Action, lasting 77 minutes, and through the sigil, impossible lights burn, tainting the sorcerer's anima banner, which twists and turns kaleidoscopically, lifting the sorcerer up into the air, and causing the sky above to ripple with an aurora so bright it renders night into day, and rivals the Daystar during the hours of sunlight. If the sorcerer is moved or distracted during this time, the spell shatters, spreading a haze of mutagenic essence over the surrounding countryside, with temporary Bordermarch-like effects. Assuming that it is not interrupted, slowly, a being comprised of unlight and their anima emerges slowly from their chest, the birth of it mewling and shrieking, before taking off into flight, its seven wings bearing it aloft. It flies vertically upwards, growing massively as it does so, before coming down anywhere within the sorcerer's line of sight. The wings of the newborn monstrosity are seven miles in radius, from its central body, and it spreads them wide.
And then it twists, inverting into the Beyond. This is a Blasphemy effect, and causes Pattern Spiders to scream in agony as threads snap all across the Loom, cascading Fate errors propagating like wildfire. Everything within the target area, which has a radius of 7 miles from the central point of where the dragon-thing landed, is made impossible as a Shaping effect, being thrown into the Beyond, which removes them from play as if killed (Celestial Exalts subject to this fate lose their Exaltations, which flits away from its unreal host, while Primordials and entities which have a personal First (Primordial) Excellency - like Infernal Exalts with Triumphant Howl of the Devil Tiger - are immune, as they have carved their legend into the shinma and are beyond this doom). while impossibilities are dragged into reality in equal measure. However, not to put it lightly, they are impossible, and so cannot exist, detonating as Nigurna takes them back to join it in non-existence, leaving pure chaos in the voids where they used to be. This creates a pocket of Pure Chaos in Creation, with all the normal effects of that part of the Wyld, composed of seven waypoints.
This is, of course, an unstable state of affairs. After seven long ticks, six of the waypoints will have decayed to Deep Wyld strength, and after seven hours, those six will have decayed to Middlemarches strength, while the one remaining one will have decayed to Deep Wyld state. Their progression from thereon in is dependent on the progression of the Loom and other affairs. In the First Age, this spell saw notable use by members of the Cauldronist faction, for the way it could produce Wyld Zones within Creation, but the necessary Oramus-thematics left it proof against alteration, and the pain and bloodloss involved in the spell left many looking for a better way, which led to the invention of the Hand of the Great Maker.
Cost: All motes in the sorcerer's Personal and Peripheral pools + Special
Target: Dharma, and through it, one creature
Dharma, the Cup, is the pure, all-knowing, righteous, self-sacrificing, and wise fountain of all corrosion, ignorance, and desire. Compared to such a being, everything is corrupt and flawed. And the Exalted are more flawed than most, cursed, broken, by their inherited sin of murder. The mightiest of them can take more sin, more flaw into themselves, lessening Dharma, and so influencing the pure and righteous by snatching the shinmaic integrity of one hatred figure and binding it within themselves.
To cast this spell, the sorcerer must have an arcane link to the target, and render it down into a tattoo. Then, over the course of forty days and forty nights (or over the length of an entire Calibration), where the Exalt must meditate and may not sleep, they concentrate on flaw, on weakness, on hatred and on their target, bringing new hatred and new ruin into the world and into themselves. Finally, at the end, they tattoo themselves with an abstract glyph which forms to represent their target in some way, which flares colours that are never seen again. And the world shakes, as a Essence 10 Blasphemy effect is felt all over all realms of existence that Dharma affects. The effects on the sorcerer are immediate. Their Permanent Limit is set to 9, unless it was already higher, as they are now binding fragments of the Shinma of corrosion forced to become what it definitionally could never be within themselves. The tattoo opens as a permanent level of aggravated damage which may not be healed as long as this spell remains active, blood seeping from the wound.
However, the effects of the spell are much more widely felt than that. As a Shaping Effect constantly affecting all of reality, everything gains the capacity to permanently kill the one target. This allows targets with spirit-level immortality, Primordial-level immortality, Deathlord-level immortality, and Behemoth-level immortality to be permanently killed if they take a fatal amount of damage. Only the Neverborn are invalid targets for this spell, for it is through their Great Curse that it is cast and so it binds them to their undying death. Primordials killed via this method produce Neverborn; all others are completely and utterly totally destroyed. Gods killed by it have their Panoply Charms destroyed irrevocable, and no replacement may take up the same charms; Incarnae killed via this may not be replaced by The King Is Dead, although it is possible that a different Maiden may form if an attempt is made. In addition, the target is under a Shaping Effect - by Dharma - that strips their capacity to channel Virtues from them (counting them as permanently suppressed), for their removal from the books of Dharma fills them with corrosion, ignorance, and desire. This is an alteration to reality itself, so reasserts itself should it be removed or should any Shaping defences against it fall or cease to apply.
The only way to end this spell is to slay the sorcerer, or slay the target. Adamant Countermagic may only counter this spell while it is being cast. If the sorcerer is slain, the effects of this spell persist until the next Calibration. If the target is slain, the effects instantly end, as they cease to apply. The Permanent Limit of the sorcerer is reduced to 5, unless it would normally be higher, and falls by 1 for each decade which passes.
This spell can only be cast by targets suffering from the Great Curse, for only through the death-curse of fallen Primordials may Dharma be altered in this way. It is beyond the reach of both the Primordials and any Exalts who may have been able to remove the Great Curse.
Cost: 18m
Target: Location
In the depths of the Labyrinth fly the Butcher Birds of the dead, skeleton owls of black-thorned iron, whose eyes burn from within with cold blue flame. A skilled necromancer may evoke them, to cause fear and death over a region. First, the necromancer must obtain or make a polished lump of iron, the size of a chicken's egg. To cast this spell, the necromancer plants the egg at sunset. This is a dramatic action taking 15 minutes. Once this has been done, the egg hatches, a twenty-three yard tall tree of barbed iron growing from it, and like grotesque fruit, the Butcher Birds hang from the branches.
The Butcher Birds have the statistics of a strix from the Exalted corebook, except they are Creatures of Death, and count as wearing reinforced breastplates, from their metal-thorn bones. There are initially (Necromancer's Essence) Butcher Birds, and during the night, they will fly out, attacking anything alive. The iron-thorned birds will roam up to seven miles from their tree during the night, but become immobile and paralysed if exposed to sunlight, so will always try to return before sunrise. Animals they will kill, but sapient beings and Wyld-creatures they will attempt to grapple, and take back to their tree, whereupon they impale their victim and leave them to die. New Butcher Birds are produced in a square number system; the first new Bird requires one victim, the second requires four new victims, the third nine, and so on. The death of older birds does not reset the counter. The necromancer may also help by impaling victims, and the Butcher Birds obey him as a bound demon would, but will not willingly move than seven miles from their tree.
Cost: 18m
Target: Area (70 yard radius from caster, then 40 yards wide, 80 yards long, 20 yards high)
Tilting the Scales of Destruction draws upon the ambient Essence of the world, tainting it, fractionally, towards death and removing the tainted Essence. From this wellspring, the necromancer releases a destructive cascade of streams of multi-coloured Essence, the ambient mix of the local area viewed through dark glass. When casting the spell, the necromancer's anima flashes dark, once, polluting everything within 70 yards of the Necromancer as a Shaping effect. Raising one hand, she pulls in the tainted Essence into an orb before her, extinguishing all fires. This kills all small plant life and insects in the area, flowers wilting and bees dropping dead, and larger animals and mortals will be more prone to sickness and sleep poorly, imposing a -2 internal penalty to resist Sickness for the next day as a Crippling effect. Moreover, the ground itself loses rigidity, becoming dusty and dry and forming sinkholes as its strength is sapped, providing a -2 external penalty to all Athletics checks that rely on having solid ground, and penalising Dashing in the same way. Creatures of Death, and the caster, may step safely on the ground without peril, for the dead earth knows its own.
When the caster releases the orb, the necromancer rolls (Perception + Occult), adding a number of automatic successes equal to her permanent Essence. Everyone within the attack area, which is 40 yards wide, 80 yards long, and 20 yards high, not behind objects which can block immaterial beings is subject to attack by streamers of Essence coloured appropriately for the mix of ambient Essence. Characters defend against the oncoming streams as if it were a hand to hand attack. Each attack is independent, so magic and penalties which reduce the attack do not help others defend. Treat the streams of Essence as rolling a number of attack successes equal to those which the necromancer rolled, minus one for each -2 dice of penalties that circumstances impose.
The base damage of this attack is 4L plus any extra successes in raw damage, which is Piercing. However, this is highly variable based on the environment. In places which are rich in ambient Essence and wildlife, such as a jungle, up to +3L may be assigned; likewise, in areas which lack easily accessible and taintable Essence, such as the deep desert and the world-bodies of healthy Primordials, up to -3L may be deducted. In the Underworld and Shadowlands, it is always assumed to be rich in usable necrotic essence, and the full bonus is always enjoyed.
Cost: 25m
Target: One Structure
Devised a century ago by Elira Rjordsdottir, a now-estranged student of Raksi, this spell is a deliberate application of Silurian principles to Necromancy, cross-referenced to sorcerous effects, in order to maximise its effectiveness while minimising the collateral effects. To cast this spell, the necromancer must be in the Underworld at night, and target a single structure with dimensions no greater than (Intelligence + Craft (Earth) + Essence) x 10 yards in any direction. Structures linked into the stagnant Essence flows of that place, such as Underworld Manses, may not be targeted. The necromancer must leave a trail of salt precisely around the outer edge of the structure, marking every five yards in the line of salt with a single drop of her own blood. The spell, which is a 15 minute dramatic action, must be cast from within this enclosure, and as it comes into effect, the sky above the structure ripples, gauzy veils of the sky of Creation breaking through the greyness of the Underworld. At the completion of the spell, the structure is bought into Creation, becoming real and composed of non-grave-good materials, although the spell cannot realify exotic materials such as the magical materials, and will instead replace them with their nearest mundane equivalents (such as iron for soulsteel). Creation is shunted aside as a Shaping Effect, warping so the newly real structure fits into the world, although it will likely not do so smoothly (for example, it may be facing the wrong way, or push the street in an ugly half-loop around it.)
The recovery of such things from the lands of the dead leaves its passage in the boundary between Creation and the Underworld. The structure is a localised Shadowland co-located with its outer walls, a halfway house between Creation and the dead, until the next full moon. If cast on the night of the full moon, no Shadowland forms. Such places always carry their origins with them in a chill in stone and dampness, and it will be easier to form a shadowland for years to come.
Cost: 15m
Target: Self
In the mad glossolalia of the Neverborn, there is a concept of broken cycles, and the power that lies within them. Speaking that unword, the necromancer cuts their palms, and the blood wells out cold and dull, spreading over the palms and transmuting them into long, monstrous claws of iron frozen over with bloody ice. The Claws of Blood and Iron enhance the character's natural Punch and Kick attacks, allowing them to parry unarmed blows without a stunt and inflict lethal damage, adding (Essence + Whispers) to their damage, and adding (Whispers + 1) to their Accuracy. This transformation lasts a scene.
However, the true perversion of these vile weapons is revealed when they kill a target. The slain target rises three ticks later as a shambling zombie, hemorrhaging freezing grey-red blood from all orifices, their bones transmuted to iron post-mortem as a Shaping Effect. The zombie has Intelligence, Wits, and Perception 1, and uses the same physical statistics as the deceased target, but reduces their Dexterity by 2, to a minimum of 1. However, the same transmutation armours them; the zombie counts as wearing a reinforced breastplate from the iron bones and solidified blood. At the end of the scene, the zombies collapse, dead again, although they will almost certainly produce a hungry ghost from this desecration. Such corpses are very useful resources in necrotech, counting as a component valued at Resources 4.
Cost: 35m
Target: Area (40 yard radius, within 220 yards)
Cold is the anti-reflection of heat, and mirrors show that which is not real. But if one were to twist the hot so it became cold, one could bring the unreal from a mirror. Such is the mad logic of the Labyrinth. The necromancer must have a reflective surface in hand to use this spell; a sword blade or a handful of liquid is enough for it to work. Exhaling, the necromancer breaths upon their reflective surface, and it freezes over. Then the ice-rimmed object is dashed against the ground, a crack resounding, and on the other side of the battlefield, the ground becomes an slick mirror, drawing foes down into its depths, those lost to it appearing again as slave-reflections.
When the caster breaks the ice, the necromancer rolls (Strength + Athletics), adding a number of automatic successes equal to her permanent Essence. Everyone within the attack area, a 40-yard radius centred within 220 yards of the sorcerer, is subject to attack, as the ground under their feet becomes ice-slick mirror. Characters defend against this as if it was an unparryable hand-to-hand attack. Each attack is independent, so magic and penalties which reduce the attack do not help others defend. Treat the invisible ensnaring warping of the world as rolling a number of attack successes equal to those which the sorcerer rolled, minus one for each -2 dice of penalties that circumstances impose. This only affects characters within (necromancer's Essence) yards of the ground.
Against those who successfully defend against it, they merely face the problems of moving on an ice-slick mirror, which imposes a -3 external penalty to all Athletics based rolls. Those who do not defend, however, are drawn down into the depths of the mirror as a Shaping attack, and as reality is conserved, a pallid simulacrum takes their place, crawling out of the reflection encrusted with ice. Heroic characters may spend 2wp and a Valour channel to strike down their reflection before they are drawn in, avoiding this fate. The simulacrum has all the same attributes and abilities and equipment as the original, has the same number of health levels and has taken the same amount of damage, except artifacts are replaced by an identical-looking perfect-quality version of their mundane equivalent. However, as soulless replacements, they have virtues like an automaton, automatically passing all Valour checks and automatically failing all others, and cannot spend Willpower. These replacements are bound to the necromancer in the same manner as a bound demon, and will obey him without questions, but will not obey Unacceptable Orders, such as to fall upon their swords, or attack each other. They do not suffer the external penalty for moving on the ice.
At the end of the scene, the mirrored ground turns into clear, flawless ice, to a depth of (necromancer's Essence) yards. Characters take all the damage that their simulacrums took during the scene, downgrading all damage by one step (so bashing is negated, lethal becomes bashing, and aggravated lethal). The exception is that if the simulacrum perished, so did the affected character. Characters who survive appear, lying prone on top of the flawless ice. Ones who do not survive appear in the ice, frozen corpses staring up at the sky with terrified expressions. Incidentally, necrotech made from such corpses only requires maintenance half as frequently if the average temperature is below freezing.
Cost: 44m
Target: Area (Up to 1000 yards by 1000 yards)
Once, Mardukth was the lord of beasts and creatures and land and sky alike. The Holy Tyrant stole his authority, and the Exalted stole his life. Now, he has no authority, but in the name he once had, there is still the traces of his old power, which when charged with necrotic Essence are enough to snuff out mindless beasts. Before this Charm is cast, the name once born by He Who Holds In Thrall must be burnt into the ground or marked in ash, the design subtly warped by the addition of powdered rust. This takes a successful (Perception + Occult) roll at Difficulty 4, taking 5 minutes per 200 by 200 yard square that must be marked out.
Once that has been done, the Onyx Circle Necromancy spell may be cast, as usual, the anima banner of the necromancer warping momentarily to convey impossible height and mass, before snapping back to normal. Once it has been done, the rune begins to glow a terrible eye-sucking black, and continues to glow for a scene. While it is active, any non-sapient being that enters the area marked out dies as an unblockable, undodgeable Shaping Effect, 3 ticks after entering the area. The method of death is Obvious and horrific; flesh sloughs from bones, eyeballs boil, insects explode in freeze clouds, vegetation ignites in pyre-flame. This even extends down to least gods, breaking attunement and ownership as a Shaping Effect which breaks the least gods utterly and imposes an internal penalty of the Necromancer's Essence to any attempt to use anything that has been taken into the area. This penalty lasts until the next Calibration, when new gods are assigned to replace the broken necrotic husks bound in thrall of He Who Was Once Mardukth. Appropriate prayers to Heaven or magic can get new least gods assigned faster, or the odd ways of the vitriol alchemists can infuse chacalaths to replace the ruined gods which removes the penalty at the cost of tainting the object with vitriol.
Cost: 40m
Target: Area (Radius of (Essence of victim) miles)
A flower for the dead, a blessing for those gone. All these things were not given to the Sister of Beauteous Blossoms, the Expressive soul of Sextes Jylis who did not agree with the path taken by her greater self, but kept her quiet until the death of the first Primordial, when she began to leak information to the other Primordials. She was caught by the vigilance of the Sidereal Exalted, and she was scourged from the soul-hierarchy of the Wood Dragon. Cast out, the castrated kami was, into Elsewhere, and it was not long before it was decided that she would be better to be... removed... and so she was called back into Creation, only to be executed. Something of her survives in the Labyrinth, though, in the corridors where the flowers bloom in a place without sun, and a necromancer may call upon her remnants to bring her blessings to this treacherous world. A victim must be acquired, who suffers from one or more diseases. Over the course of six hours timed so the spell ends at midnight, the necromancer must inflict cut upon cut on their victim, spreading their blood over the area while keeping them alive. At midnight, when the spell ends, their throat is finally cut, and they bleed their last out onto the ground. And then, for a number of miles around, every flowering plant blooms with bone-white, pus-yellow, and blood-red flowers which have a peculiarly strong, sickly scent. These flowers are an airborn vector for every disease that the victim was suffering from the start of the ritual, and soon these diseases will be spread across the area; this spell can convey supernatural diseases just as well as it can mundane ones. These flowers blossom until they are killed (which can be done as easily as any other plant), or until the next new moon when they wither and die.
The scent of the blossoms is specifically the vector for the disease; if one can avoid smelling them, one is saved. Generally speaking, moving within ten yards of a flowering plant is enough to risk infection, although this can depend on weather conditions and temperatures. Shogunate-era textbooks recommended the use of specialist thaumaturgical compounds to temporarily remove the sense of smell, but where not available, stoppering the nostrils with wax and smearing animal dung on the upper lip proved sometimes effective. Wood Aspects count these diseases as a plant-based poisons for the immunity granted by their anima power, for the remnants of the Sister of Beauteous Blossoms cannot touch the children of her once-oversoul. The diseases inflicted by this spell are not contagious, unless the necromancer also knows Void Circle Necromancy and casts using that Initiation, playing an extra 20m when doing so, whereupon they spread normally. This spell, and its upgrade, are Blasphemy Effects, at the rating of the highest Morbidity of the diseases spread by this manner; after the Great Contagion, Heaven set up certain protocols to flag mass-scale necrotic Essence diseases, and this - perhaps unintentionally - trips those warnings.
Cost: 80m
Target: Area
Around the Well of Oblivion, the tomb worlds of the Neverborn orbit, monolithic structure-bodies of tortured stone and petrified flesh and ten thousand other such things. Quiescent, they dream undying pain, save for those who the Black Nadir Concordat awoke, and those ones do not merely dream. But what has once has been done can be done again, and the principles of what those tomb-desecrators did was public knowledge among certain types of occult experimenter in the First Age. From that monstrous act was born this spell, which infuses a single focus with a fraction of the infinite pain of the Neverborn. And a fraction of an infinity is still infinite, save in the un-numbers of the Labyrinth.
The ritual is a thirteen hour process, which affects a thirteen mile radius, which must be begun precisely half an hour before sunset, and requires that a single human child, below the age of thirteen, be systematically broken of every single last hope, every last light in their life, every reason to live, while remaining untouched and perfect, without even a single scratch on their body. For that reason, it is usually necessary to immobilise them through magic, to prevent self-inflicted wounds from making them an unsuitable ritual candidate. In addition, ritual components aspected towards one of the Neverborn, and the Primordial that they once were must be acquired; for He Who Holds In Thrall, for example, symbols of slavery would be appropriate, and the ritual may be carried out on top of a great mountain.
During the night when this is cast, one by one, the stars overhead disappear, the Maidens being the last to go, and to all eyes, Luna begins to turn red, fading and dimming on the stroke of midnight. All is darkness, for at that moment, all non-magical fires in the area are extinguished. And then the spectres start to appear. They are not ghosts, not even nephwracks; instead, they are memories of First Circle species descended from the Primordial-that-Was, warped into their new aesthetics. They circle overhead, and creep along the ground, spectral figures in a phantasmal parade or carnival. They are not real, and cannot interact with the world in any ways, but in this uttermost darkness, they are the only light. This darkness continues, as the spectres grow more and more real. And as the sky lightens as dawn comes, the sky of Creation is not what it shows. Instead, above there is a dead sky of horrors, imagery flashing above of the moment of death of the Neverborn. The sacrificial child begins to babble at that moment, combining Old Realm inflections and catechisms with shapeless glossolalia, and slowly their eyes begin to darken, like miniature voids which suck in all light.
And when the spell is cast, at the moment that the sun should have risen over this blackened realm, everything changes. The child shifts and warps, becoming an unbound hekatonkhire-avatar of the target Neverborn, the aesthetics of the dead god merging with their basic personality and nature to create a warped monstrous being with the approximate power level of a Third Circle Demon. A phantasmal hybrid of a monstrous fish-being and an armoured human waltzing eternally to a mad silent tune, a figure of pyre flame and bones that weeps eternally, a giant of limbs that spans the area; all are possible shapes. This is the harbinger of the greater change as, instantly, the entire area, at the moment of this transformation, is interposed with the metaphysical weight of the tomb-body of the Neverborn, and collapses through Creation and the Underworld alike, to form what is known as a Tomb Cyst in the Labyrinth, taking the necromancer with it. From the point of view outside the 13-mile radius target area, the area disappears, to be overwritten by the terrain in the Underworld, which forms a shadowland. Unlike in normal cases, the Underworld version is dominant, for the Creation-side has apparently ceased to exist. This shadowland is metaphysically deeper than normal ones; the Labyrinth lies very close to it indeed. There are paths that can lead into the Labyrinth hidden there, even during the day, behind the shadow of a door and within the gaps between rays of sunbeams, and they lead directly into the Tomb Cyst.
The interior of the Tomb Cyst resembles a sick hybrid between the tomb body of the Neverborn in question, and the landscape that was subsumed by it. It is within the Labyrinth, and the usual rules for navigating that fell place must be used to get to points within it, including to find the centre, where the hekatonkhire-avatar dwells. Everything within is recast, as a Shaping effect, to fit this new monstrous paradigm. This is represented as if the target character was exposed to Pure Chaos, except mutations acquired are themed towards the targeted Neverborn, and at the point where they would normally become non-viable for life in Creation, they die and form monstrous ghosts. All ghosts within a Tomb Cyst are targeted with a Total Control effect which costs 1wp a tick to resist, and forces them to take up roles in the passion play façade which happens within the Tomb Cyst, a manifest form of the thoughts of a Neverborn, incidentally granting them Whispers 5 as a Training effect. This bleeds up into the shadowland above, although ghosts need only spend the point of willpower once a day during daylight hours, and once an hour at night, to resist the effect. Once a ghost succumbs, they may not resist further.
The hekatonkhire-avatar within is the focal point for the Tomb Cyst, and its destruction collapses the Cyst, returning it to normal Labyrinth. It may not be bound by Summon Hekatonkhire, for it is already anchored to the Tomb Cyst and may not leave. It may harbour a fragment of the consciousness of a Neverborn, just as a living Third Circle may be possessed by a Primordial, although in its mad thrashing it is already hard to distinguish between the two. If any attempt is made to close the shadowland, the hekatonkhire-avatar has the capacity, as a generic Panoply Charm, to tear wider holes into the Shadowland and bring them directly into the Labyrinth, where it will attempt to kill anyone who has the presumption to do such a thing. Beyond that, though, it will act with the madness of a dead titan and a broken child alike within this world, which it may reshape within the permissible themes as if using Wyld Shaping Technique.
If cast inside the world-body of a Primordial, the timing restrictions do not apply, and the blasphemous power of the void allows the necromancer to reach beyond time and probability, and aspect the created hekatonkhire towards the Neverborn that a not-yet-dead Primordial could create. The Engine of Extinction, when cast within Autocthon, is the most obvious possibility, but the Broken-Mirror Deadwood, within Szoreny, or the Ocean Evaporated by Aeons of Pain, within Kimbery, are also possible, but to name two examples – and, perversely, two castings of the same spell will not always produce the same future-Neverborn. However, an awake Primordial will certainly be alerted to such a casting beginning, and so retaliation will most likely be swift. If it is successfully cast, the Tomb Cyst manifests directly within the body of the Primordial, rather than falling into the Labyrinth.
Almost without exception, the Deathlords will not use this spell willingly, without an imminent threat to their unlives or a direct compulsion from their masters – which are infrequent indeed. They, too, are vulnerable to the loss of self that comes to any ghost from this spell, and though they can defend against it, being this close to an avatar of one of their masters means that they risk being ordered to drop those defences, and losing all self. The Eye and Seven Despairs is the only one to have used it multiple times; it is believed that he modified the ritual which enabled the construction of Cold House from this spell, and there are several such places in the Bayou of Endless Regret. The Dowager is also believed to have created one, although some nephracks say that she threw it into the Well of Udr to unknown effect; either way, she has not created another. Abyssals will not be so limited in their use of the blackest circle of necromancy.
Cost: 71m
Area: Up to a circle of radius 2 miles
Within the depths of the Labyrinth are hidden fragments of the fell anti-mathematics of the Void, which defy rational understanding with their tainted-yet-alluring simplicity. The necromancer declares to Creation one of the more simple proofs, charging the words with Essence to scar Nirguna and Nirupadhika alike with the concrete reality of That-Which-Cannot-Be. Before this spell can be cast, the necromancer must surround the target area with the oroborus-variant of the proof, forming an unbroken circle around the target area. This takes ten minutes per hundred yards of the circumference, and also requires a successful (Dexterity + Craft: Air) roll at Difficulty 7 to ensure the calligraphic blasphemies of the anti-mathematics are correctly defined. This roll should be made in secret. If the roll was failed, or the line of symbols was broken, the spell instead backlashes on a one-yard radius centred on the necromancer. For that reason, many who use it choose to carve the symbols into the ground and form a secondary overlapping layer, rather than relying on more malleable substances.
Once the ritual is prepared, the spell takes one hour to cast as horrific words and un-numbers spill from the necromancer's mouth. The necromancer stands just outside the target area, on the Old Realm word for "instruction" marked into the ground. Once the ritual has begun, the anti-mathematical symbols begin to radiate black light, twisting and writhing at the edge of vision, and are as hard to destroy as an unattuned artifact. Anything which crosses the perimeter takes one level of unsoakable aggravated damage as a Shaping effect, their flesh and soul unmade by the anti-mathematical proofs.
Once cast, everything within the target area, to a height and depth of six-and-a-half miles, ceases to have the concepts of existence, space and location apply to them. Mechanically, this is resolved as a Shaping effect which instantly destroys anything within the area. The damage is more comprehensive than that, however. This is not mere destruction; this is inapplicability. The target area does not exist and does not have location, and hence the perimeter of the area now touches as a point. Creation itself warps to allow this to happen. One cannot walk into the affected area, for it no longer exists. Characters immune to Shaping are - as the concept of distance still applies to them - instantly moved outside the once-area.
This spell is a Blasphemy 7 effect, leaving the Loom screaming from undefined errors as its very fabric twists and warps. The spell remains active until the Loom is manually adjusted to prove the impossibility of the anti-proof, a (Wits + Craft: Fate) extended action at Difficulty 5, with a roll interval of five long ticks and a total number of successes needed of 13. Even once this is done, cascading Fate errors and rolling failures of destinies will plague the Bureau of Destiny for years after the event.
Perhaps the worst consequence of this spell is that more fragments of the anti-proofs of Oblivion worm their way into the Labyrinth each time it is cast. Who knows what horrors may come to be because of its use?
Cost: 5m, 1 wp; Mins: (Combat Ability) 4, Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Merged (Melee, Thrown, Archery)
Duration: One scene
Prerequisites: Call the Blade (Melee) or Call the Blade (Thrown) or Phantom Arrow Technique (Archery)
To see the oak tree in the acorn; to see the man in the boy; to see death in a rice-threshing flail. Such is the wisdom of the Lawgivers.
While this Charm is active, the Solar may reflexively ready mundane or improvised weapons with a -0 DV penalty. This includes scavenging improvised weapons from the environment or picking up a dropped weapon within (Essence) yards. In addition, the characters treats all mundane close combat weapons as if they were their closest equivalent single or paired basic 1, 2 or 3-dot oricalcum artifact weapon, as judged by the Storyteller. Improvised weapons benefit from this effect. The killing genius of the Solars allows a broom to impale a man like a dire lance and a stepladder to break bones like a goremaul.
However, enhanced weapons only last for a single action - when an enhanced weapon deals any damage to a target or is successfully parried or used to parry, it breaks the next time the Solar's DV refreshes. In the case of ranged weapons, the weapon as well as the projectile is destroyed when the Solar's DV refreshes if an attack has been made with it. If the Solar has an overdrive pool, she gains an offensive mote whenever a weapon breaks. She may only gain this benefit once per refresh of her DV.
At Essence 4, this Charm automatically upgrades. When the Solar's anima is at the 8-10 mote level or higher, she may even form glowing blades from the burning light of her soul, which may have the form of any mundane weapon from an applicable ability she has rated at 4+. The Solar's skill is born of ten thousand broken weapons, and weapons she creates cannot use the same artefact template until her DV has refreshed twice.
Cost: 5m, 1 wp; Mins: (Combat Ability) 4, Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Merged (Melee, Thrown, Archery)
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisites: Call the Blade (Melee) or Call the Blade (Thrown) or Phantom Arrow Technique (Archery)
Better to face a student who wields a blade than a master armed only with a fresh-cut branch.
This Charm enhances a specific mundane or improvised weapon carried by the Solar, and applies the benefits of the enhancements of Weapon-in-All-Things Mastery to it. Weapons enhanced by Stick-As-Sabre Meditation do not break on use and enjoy the durability possessed by artefact weapons for the purpose of Charms such as Heavenly Guardian Defence. While the effects of this Charm apply, the Solar owns the weapon. The Obvious keyword only applies to this Charm when the character has joined battle and the weapon is readied.
If the character has an Intimacy towards the weapon and possesses an overdrive pool, she gains one offensive mote whenever she successfully parries, is parried by, or injures an opponent. She may only gain this benefit once per refresh of her DV.
Weapons that enjoy the benefits of this Charm for extended periods of time and are used for many valiant deeds frequently spontaneously become artefacts in their own right. Such weapons often only display their true nature in sunlight, when wielded by a virtuous individual, or in the hands of one of the Sun's chosen.
This Charm is a valid prerequisite for Glorious Solar Sabre or Glorious Solar Bow.
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Investigation 3, Essence 2; Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK, Emotion, Compulsion, Crippling
Duration: One day
Prerequisite Charms: Irresistible Questioning Technique
The kind hearts of the Lawgivers cry out when they must resort to more crude interrogation techniques. But they are the hard men who make the hard choices and do what has to be done, and their sorrow at the harsh necessity is the righteousness which makes glorious their actions in the eyes of Heaven.
This Charm supplements a torture action where at least one point of lethal damage is inflicted on the target, and may explicitly enhance actions which use Abilities rather than Investigation. As a Crippling effect, any wound penalties inflicted by the torture are doubled for the duration (for example, if a target already suffering a -1 wound penalty suffers enough damage from torture to move them to a -2 wound penalty, they suffer a total penalty of -3). This increased penalty does not apply to actions where the target is following the Solar's orders. In addition, the target must spend one willpower to disobey the Solar's orders for a single action, as an unnatural Compulsion. Once (the higher of Investigation and the points of damage inflicted, maximum of five) willpower have been spent to resist, the target is immune to this effect for a week.
If the Solar inflicts a Crippling injury as part of the torture, the willpower cost to disobey the Solar is increased to the lower of the Solar's Investigation and Essence, and as an Emotion effect the target loses one willpower and gains an Intimacy of Fear towards the Solar. Until the injury heals or until the Intimacy is broken, whichever comes sooner, any social attack made by the Solar against them which threatens pain or injury is unnatural mental influence. Against mortals, this lasts until both conditions have been fulfilled.
Cost: — ; Mins: Essence 4, Occult 5; Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Sapphire Circle Sorcery, Summon Elemental
Throughout the First Age, all was peace and harmony between the Deliberative and the Elementals of Creation. The Solar Exalted were kings beyond compare, and as loyal servants the children of the elements served them well, fulfilling their tasks.
This Charm permanently enhances the capacities of Summon Elemental. Firstly, it allows, when the spell is cast, for the Solar to chose to bind summoned elementals for a year when bound to service, or indefinitely when task bound. Elementals bound this way are more weakly bound than usual; once the normal period of servitude has passed, the binding may be broken by Emerald Circle Countermagic or Emerald Circle Banishment, the latter returning the elemental to the place they were summoned from originally. Use of this option on elementals with a role in the Celestial Hierarchy is a Blasphemy effect equal to the permanent Essence of the Elemental after negotiations with Yu Shan, which argued that some elementals were vital parts of the bureaucracy and should be exempted from extended servitude. Secondly, any elemental bound by this Solar, whether using the extended duration or not, gains an automatic Intimacy towards the Solar, based on the Lawgiver's highest Virtue, which cannot be weakened during the period of binding, as follows;
Compassion: Quiet Adoration
Conviction: Devoted Loyalty
Temperance: Humble Reverence
Valour: Overwhelmed Awe
In case of a tie, the Solar choose which Intimacy to give. While the Intimacy is in place, all Social attacks which play upon the Intimacy are unnatural mental influence which cost 1wp to resist. With such virtue evident, how could the Elementals of Creation not be outraged by the Usurpation?
(Add the Blasphemy and Native keywords to the Charm)
(Replace everything after [...the acrid Essence-flows of Kimbery.] with the following)
Before this Charm can be learned, the character must summon and bind a Third Circle soul of their chosen Yozi, which cannot be the fetich. K'tula's calculations definitively showed that attempting to use the fetich for this purpose would have catastrophic effects, at best tearing the Solar through the weave of Creation into Malfeas, face-to-face with the titan (who would have felt what was happening to their heart, and would not be best pleased). With the demon bound, the process can begin. The Solar retreats from the world, preferably to a manse aspected to their chosen Yozi, or vitriol, alone save for the Third Circle.
Over the training time, the Third Circle begins to glow from within with a terrible golden light; this causes it agonising pain, and it will likely beg and plead with the Solar to stop, which may require the character to suppress Compassion to continue. Finally, on the last day, the demon has been transmuted into a figure of golden fire, and the sorcerous binding shatters asunder. The Chosen of the Sun must then manage to kill the demon personally, who will likely fight or flee, depending on their personality. As they die, rather than discorporating, the Essence of the Demon Prince tears itself apart, being absorbed by the anima banner of the Solar, which flares totemic to welcome the new addition. This is a Blasphemy Effect, as the Loom of Fate detects a sudden surge of Primordial Essence; K'tula had a manse set up Outside of Fate to blind the eyes of Heaven to what she was doing.
The internalised Essence patterns of the Third Circle soul permits the Solar Exalt to buy the Charms of their chosen Yozi, up to Essence 5, at a cost of 12XP per Charm. At this level, their Essence is treated as a maximum of 5 for Yozi Charms, so they cannot benefit from repurchase options or upgrades with an Essence greater than 5. The bound Demon Prince allows them to buy the Unwoven Coadjutor merit, which can count as a Trainer for Yozi Charms up to their rating in the Merit. In addition, as a Third Circle soul is mighty indeed compared to the lesser First Circles of Green Sun Princes, they also receive the benefits of Past Lives at a rating equal to their dots in the Unwoven Coadjustor merit. This comes at a cost; the stress of calling on the mind of a Third Circle means they gain a point of Limit for each time they call on the Third Circle, including one point of Limit per day training Yozi Charms. At this level, the Charms learnt are still tied to the living Primordial, and so their death or fetich-death will have as-yet-unknown adverse effects on a Solar who knows their Charms via this method. If the character's Essence falls below the Essence 6 requirement for this Charm, they loose access to all Yozi Charms they know until their Essence rises again.
The imbalance of Essence within the Solar's body, as the burning golden light of the sun wars with the fallen might of world-building titans, makes the flow of Essence disruptive. Both Solar and Yozi Charms suffer a one-mote surcharge to all activation costs, as with a Dragonblood using an out-of-Aspect Charm. The legendary efficiency and directed purpose of the Solar Exalted suffers, too; they now pay 10XP for Favoured Solar Charms, and 12XP for Unfavoured Solar Charms. In addition, as the character's souls are already reaching out to emulate a cosmic principle, no Martial Arts Form-Type charms may be used; should they learn a Shintai Form-Type Charm, however, they may still be used. Finally, as this Charm is still built on the foundations of Solar Excellence in the Occult, they may not learn the (Yozi) Sorcerous Initiation appropriate to their chosen titan.
The binding of the Third Circle is a vital component of this Charm. Therefore, unless the character could manage to force a free Primordial into an oath of a similar magnitude to the Yozis' Surrender Oaths which would permit them to bind their souls in the same way, this Charm may only be used to access the Charmset of a Yozi. Whether the Abyssal Exalted could do something similar with hekatonkhires to access the Charms of the Neverborn is unknown and probably best not known, despite the superficial similarities of this method to the creation of the Deathlords.
Cost: - Mins: Essence 6, Occult 6
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Blasphemy, Native
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: Primordial Principle Emulation, First (Yozi) Excellency, one (Yozi) Shintai Charm
Woe to you, oh Creation. Let Heaven weep, for the power of the Solar Exalted outdoes their wisdom, and their reach exceeds their grasp. When the champions of Virtue will shun the golden light of the sun to assume the mantles of those who built him, what can lesser beings do?
Once again, the Solar (if that term is quite appropriate any more) retreats for the world; this time, she must have access to a Manse aspected to their chosen Yozi or Vitriol with which they remain, alone save for demons of the emulated Yozi, for the duration of the Training Time. When she emerges, she has internalised the principles of her chosen Yozi, woven strands of its legend into her own Essence, in a way which scars the Exaltation in a matter not-dissimilar, though far lesser in scale, to the changes that the Yozis made in the Exaltations of the Green Sun Princes. Learning this Charm is another Blasphemy, as with its prerequisite.
The changes go even deeper than before. The Solar's very Exaltation has been vandalised by the declaration of the identity of the Yozi, and observation of her native Charms will display the same kind of low-level warping that Terrestrial Spells cast through a Yozi Initiation display, discernible through a reflexive (Wits + Occult) roll at Difficulty 5, and concealable through use of Universal Precept Shroud. She has now internalised the Excellency and nature of the Yozi, and the death of the titan will not affect her access to their Charms at all, and neither will her Essence falling below 6. She can now purchase all charms of the Yozi, and is no longer subject to the Essence 5 cap of Primordial Pattern Emulation. The character no longer takes a one mote surcharge on use of Yozi Charms, and the cost of each Yozi Charm is 10XP, effective retroactively, providing a return of 2 XP per Yozi Charm already learned. However, the increasing taint of the titans affects their Solar magic; the surcharge on Solar Charms is now two motes.
With the shift in the nature of their Essence, the character's Sorcerous Initiations warp, being replaced with the Yozi versions of the Charm. All Charms which have them as a prerequisite, with the exception of Primordial Principle Emulation, are lost to the character, and refunded. Likewise, access to Sidereal Martial Arts is now forever beyond the character's grasp, and all Sidereal Martial Arts charms they may already know are refunded for XP. However, access to Martial Arts Form-Type Charms is now restored to the character, as with the internalisation, they need not contort their Essence to alien-to-them forms.
Should Lytek get access to an Exaltation of a character who knows this charm, whether by their death or by their completion of the next step, (Yozi) Cosmic Principle, he will have to work to clean off the intricate, almost-organic growth of Primordial Charms from the fundamental Solar core. Without maintenance, it is unclear how the next incarnation of the Exaltation would be affected.
Individuals looking for Lunar Charms are directed to the revised Terrifying Argent Witches charmset.
Cost: 3m; Mins: Melee 4, Essence 2; Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Artful Maiming Onslaught
The untold years of the Jade Prison are remembered by the Exaltations of the Abyssals. The depths of time, of isolation, are well understood by the Chosen of the Void, and they stand unchanged even as others age and fall to ash. If the enhanced attack inflicts any levels of damage, then this Charm inflicts one additional level of unsoakable aggravated damage, and one level of unsoakable bashing damage, as the flesh around the wound greys and dies, crumbling like grave-ash.
In addition, as a Shaping effect which resolves separately, the attack cuts one year per level of damage inflicted from the life expectancy of a target within Fate. The Pattern Spiders chitter in terror as their thread ages, imperishable materials tarnishing. Deaths hastened from the plans of Heaven are Obviously linked to the possibly-years-old injury, which reopens upon their corpse. Targets outside of Fate and the Abyssal Exalted do not suffer this separate effect.
Cost: -; Mins: Melee 5, Essence 4; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Blade of Years Strike
Some last beyond the mayflower years of mankind. All will die given time. And the Abyssal Exalted carry time in their blades and in the heads of their hammers. This Charm permanently enhances its prerequisite. the Abyssal now inflicts (Essence-1) levels of unsoakable bashing damage with Blade of Years Strike rather than just one, and for each hundred years the target has lived, rounded down, one of the levels of bashing damage is converted into unsoakable aggravated damage.
Moreover, her attacks gain a particular terror for beings that do not naturally die from age, for in the time-laden weight of the blows, they bear the promise of death from the years. If such a being takes damage from Blade of Years Strike, they must spend 1wp, or, as an Emotion effect, gain an Intimacy of "Abject Terror" towards the Abyssal. As a peculiar oddity which has not yet been discovered, as ancient Solar ghosts murdered, who bargained for power, having already lived long past their years and aeons more in the Underworld, the Deathlords are particularly susceptible to this fear, and must instead pay 3wp to resist.
Cost: —; Mins: Medicine 5, Essence 4; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Native
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Ivory Whirlwind Restoration
The twisted genius of the Abyssal Exalted at the dark science of necrotech takes the best attempts of the First Age, and labels them as a fumbling child's attempts. Under their hands, tendons rival the finest mail and bones are whittled to tiny gears which should not be able to provide the terrifying effectiveness that they do.
This Charm permanently improves the Abyssal's skill at making necrotech. With an appropriate stunt on the first roll of the crafting project a number of bonus augmentation points are given to the design equal to (Stunt Rating) times the coil rank of the necrotech. An "appropriate stunt" for the purposes of this Charm must take the ingredients and the design of the necrotech into account, the Storyteller should reward thematic appropriateness or innovation in the field, and the bonus augmentation points must be spent on features that fit in with the stunt. For example, when making a Rank 4 Meat Puppet, a simple description of how the character layers on the muscles would, as a 1 dot stunt, give 4 extra points, which could be spent on things such as Undead Strength, Undead Stamina, Unholy Damage or Funereal Armour. By contrast, a 2 dot stunt which describes a cunning mechanism made of bone slivers and iron cogs which dynamically reconfigures the internal structure of the Meat Puppet for the threat it faces, with the 8 points granted, enhance it considerably more.
At Essence 6, this Charm permanently improves, and the bonus number of points given by this Charm increases to (Stunt Rating x 2) times the coil rank. A third and final improvement happens at Essence 9, when the bonus increases to (Stunt Rating x 3) times the coil rank.
This Charm may not be learned by Deathlords, for their stagnant, dead minds cannot truly comprehend the creativity of rot. However, the Eye and Seven Despairs has a unique Panoply Charm, which emulates the Essence 6 version of this Charm, for in his mad obsessions, his fractured mind can find moments of genius. This is one of the reasons for the fearsome nature of the Venomed Assembly to End All Hope, perhaps the most deadly small risen force in Creation.
Cost: —; Mins: Medicine 5, Essence 4; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Native, Overdrive
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Black Genius Innovation
They said she was mad! Mad! She was going to kill them all with her crazy plans! As it so happens, that was perfectly correct.
The Abyssal gains an Overdrive Pool with a capacity of ten motes. Initially empty, it gains one offensive mote whenever the Abyssal perceives a necrotech construct they crafted which benefits from the enhancements granted by Black Genius Innovation kill a mortal. They gain two offensive motes instead if the death was a non-Exalted Essence user. If the Essence user killed was a Terrestrial Exalt, five offensive motes are gained. If the Essence user killed was a Celestial Exalt, ten offensive motes are gained. In addition, the Abyssal gains the capacity to spend motes from their Overdrive pool to fuel any Essence-based powers which valid constructs may possess, such as firing integrated artifacts. These must be properties of the necrotech, rather than of anything which inhabits it such as a Nemissary.
This Charm is beyond the Deathlords, for they cannot truly feel the unholy glee of genius revealed in their dead hearts. However, the Eye and Seven Despairs has a unique Panoply Charm which functions identically to this Charm.
Cost: — ; Mins: Lore 3, Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Overdrive, Native
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Elemental Bolt Attack
Why should the Children of the Dragons tire themselves smiting their foes when their great patrons fill Creation with elemental Essence? This Charm permanent improves Elemental Bolt Attack. This Charm grants an Overdrive pool of 10 motes, which is initially empty. When using Elemental Bolt Attack, stunts which use the environment to get the appropriate element (drawing ice from a lake for water, channelling the wind for air, and so on) grant a number of Overdrive motes equal to the lower of (stunt rating +1) and the number of motes spent on Elemental Bolt Attack. The flaring anima banner of another appropriately aspected Terrestrial (though not the user) is always an appropriate source of stunts. Once the Dragonblood gains even one offensive mote from this Charm, any Charms that create or enhance a non-Elemental attack suffer a surcharge of one mote when paid for (even partially) with offensive motes. This surcharge ends once the Dragonblood's Overdrive pool completely empties, reapplying only when he next benefits from this Charm.
((Author's Notes: Yes, it's bending. I regret nothing. Also, Mnemon Azula is actually Air Aspected.))
Cost: — ; Mins: Integrity 4, Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Overdrive, Native
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Ten Thousand Dragons Fight As One
Ten thousand swords, ten thousand bows, ten thousand spears are raised to the sky in unison, and they descend upon the foes of the Terrestrial Exalted without pity or mercy. And each little dragon is empowered by the greater host, so that their foes may not stand against them. This Charm grants the Dragonblooded an Overdrive pool, with a capacity of 10 motes. Initially empty, it fills at a rate of one offensive mote per action per point of numerical Magnitude of Dragonblooded engaged in the same combat. Blood relatives of the Terrestrial who knows this Charm count as five people in the Magnitude calculations.
(Notes: Yes, nothing says the Dragonblooded have to be on the same side. The wars between the Terrestrials are especially tragic and bloody)
Cost: — ; Mins: Investigation 4, Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Native, Overdrive
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Scent of Crime Technique
Guilt is a dead give-away to the children of Da'aad. And the guilty should be afraid, for the punishments of the Terrestrial Exalted are always perfectly appropriate for their sins; all criminals know that in their hearts. This Charm grants an Overdrive pool of 5 motes, which is initially empty. When the Terrestrial joins battle against an individual who they have previously successfully used Scent of Crime Technique on this scene, they may choose to gain one offensive mote if the guilt was slight, two offensive motes if their guilt was moderate, three if it was intense, four if it was severe and five if it was overwhelming. In addition, if the Dragonblooded knows or has good reason to believe what the crime was, she gains one offensive mote per action where she exclusively engages the guilty party or other people who are actively trying to prevent her from engaging the guilty party (such as guards sent to obstruct her), with the end goal of enforcing punishment appropriate to the local laws, or the laws of the dominant polity of Creation - which is the Realm in the present day. Laws from Primordials who are not Gaia, or their souls are never valid laws - this includes Autocthon, the Old Laws of the Neverborn, and the laws of the Deathlords (who are, after all, empowered by slain deva). However, should the Dragonblooded, having accepted those motes, spare her target or fail to genuinely attempt to enforce punishment for more than one action, she immediately loses all offensive motes from her Overdrive pool.
((Author's Note: Oh, Charms built on false premises; namely, that Scent of Crime Technique finds criminals, not people who feel guilty. In character, this Charm is probably responsible for quite a few Dragonblooded legal excesses. And I would never suggest that a satrap might want to change the law to benefit him when using this.))
Cost: — ; Mins: Melee 4, Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Overdrive, Native
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Blinding Spark Distraction
Fire can be stoked, built up, used as a tool and guard against the darkness. So do the blades of the Terrestrial Exalted empower them as they ward off the attacks of hated foes. The Dragonblooded gains a 5 mote Overdrive pool. Initially empty, it gains one offensive mote whenever the Terrestrial successfully uses his PDV to protect another in a Defend Other action from an attack which meant harm. An extra mote is gained if the one defended is a blood relative, a Celestial Exalt, or if the Terrestrial has a positive Intimacy towards the unrelated non-Celestial. A further extra offensive mote is gained if the Dragonblooded is protecting a direct ancestor or a member of his sworn brotherhood.
((Author's Notes:This makes it mechanically optimal for a Dragonblooded formation to rely on the person to their left to protect them, as they themselves protect the person on their right. Formations, fuck yeah.))
Cost: — ; Mins: Archery 3, Essence 2; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Overdrive, Native
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Dragon-Graced Arrow
The way of the warrior is to fire when ready, dropping hails of undisciplined arrows upon their foe. The Terrestrial Exalted know better. The Terrestrial receives an Overdrive pool of 5 motes. Initially empty, it may be filled in the following ways. Once the Exalt is already gaining the full bonus from aiming, she gains an offensive mote for each extra Aim action she takes. This is increased to two offensive motes per extra action spend Aiming if she is in proximity to a large amount of an element for which she knows Dragon-Graced Arrow for, as she draws strength from the works of Gaia. In addition, she gains two offensive motes if she uses an Archery weapon as part of a Coordinated attack which involves at least two other Dragonblooded using Archery weapons. However, if the Terrestrial aborts his Aim action to do anything other than attack his chosen target, he immediately loses all offensive motes from his Overdrive pool.
((Author's Notes: Because Dragonblooded are soldiers, not warriors, and they fire in formations after taking time to aim, not like willy-nilly savages. And it makes Dragonblooded pretending to be Robin Hood, hiding among the trees, really fucking scary if they take time to Aim.))