General Exalted Thread

[Parabola]

I finally got around to fixing and tuning everything that had been bothering me about Laughing Monster style. I'm a bit sleep-deprived right now so I probably messed up somewhere. Please let me know what you think.

Spoiler: Laughing Monster Style v2

Laughing Monster style is an alien martial art occasionally used by the Fair Folk, who ride into Creation from the Wyld. Perhaps the style is just a 'natural' imitation of some of the rakshas' behaviors and narratives, developed by some lost savant. Or perhaps, even the bizarre denizens of the lands beyond Creation found it in themselves to learn the discipline of martial arts and for whatever reason created their own; the truth of the matter is unknown, and probably beyond the boundaries of this world.

The Laughing Monster is a demonic child ruled by impetuosity and wicked humor, a merry prankster who takes inordinate joy in the humiliation of his rivals. The Laughing Monster mocks the idea of society, and those who follow this path abandon all pretense of diplomatic solutions. A martial artist who plays the role of the Laughing Monster adopts the persona of a childish and rude trickster. Many, however, take pleasure in using this style to mock cruel dictators and humble the proud and haughty.

Laughing Monster Weapons: Laughing Monster style utilizes unarmed attacks, staffs, swords and spears. Laughing Monster utilizes elegant, sweeping movements meant to draw the opponent's attention and cut through stalwart defenses. Any unarmed strike or staff attack enhanced by a Laughing Monster charm can be always stunted to deal lethal damage.

Armor: Laughing Monster Style is compatible with light armor.

Complementary abilities: All Laughing Monster stylists have some expertise with at least one social Ability. True masters, however, benefit from all three of Presence, Socialize and Performance.

Furiously Stalling Destiny
Cost: 5m; Mins: Laughing Monster Style 2, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Counterattack, Uniform, Stackable
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None

The Laughing Monster turns every attack back against his attackers, mocking their every effort. This charm may be used either after the stylist has been targeted by a decisive attack, or after someone has attempted to influence him socially in combat. In the former case, the martial artist may attempt a normal decisive counterattack. In the latter case, the martial artist may roll (Charisma + [a social Ability]) to instill or inspire her target with an emotion related to anger, frustration, or distraction. Either way, if successful, the opponent faces a -1 penalty to attempting to attack or socially influence the stylist for the rest of the fight. The penalty imposed by this charm is cumulative, up to a rating of the user's Essence.

Using Furiously Stalling Destiny while Laughing Monster Form is active allows the stylist to respond to an attack with a withering counterattack.


Deeper into Trouble Technique
Cost: 3m; Mins: Laughing Monster Style 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Uniform
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Furiously Stalling Destiny

The Laughing Monster's tomfoolery drives her enemies to distraction and rage. Deeper into Trouble Technique supplements a physical attack or an attempt at inspiring an emotion related to anger or distraction. If successful, the Laughing Monster's mien is so infuriating that, those affected must pay 1 wp and 2i to target anyone other than her with their attacks or attempts at social influence for the rest of the fight. Enemies who pay this cost become immune to the effect for the rest of the scene. Affected enemies may still choose to attack other targets if the stylist is considerably out of reach, nowhere within sight, or incapacitated.


Laughing Monster Form
Cost: 6m; Mins: Laughing Monster 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form, Mastery
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charm: Deeper Into Trouble Technique

The martial artist infuses her body with the essence of the dweller in the between, the laughing monster that twists oaths and intentions against their holders. While this Form is active, enemies suffer a penalty of (the stylist's Charisma) to read her intentions, and the stylist automatically knows when someone fails to read them. Additionally, opponents with a negative Tie towards the stylist along the lines of anger, frustration or distraction within short range of her lose (Essence/2) extra points of Initiative upon attempting to use the Disengage, Withdraw, Full Defense, or Delay actions. People with a positive Tie along the lines of love, friendship or protectiveness towards the stylist ignore all the effects of this Form; the Laughing Monster's narrative is broken through by those who genuinely like her. Those with Ties of obedience or loyalty, be they positive or negative, are affected only by the penalty to read her intentions.

Special activation: The stylist may activate Laughing Monster Form as a Reflexive charm if she intentionally makes an enemy out of someone who bore no hostility towards her, or if she manages to sway a hostile enemy to be her ally.

Mastery: Opponents within short range of the stylist with a negative Tie towards her instead lose (Essence/2)+1 extra points of initiative when attempting the aforementioned defensive actions.


Inauspicious Moment for Attack
Cost: 2m per target; Mins: Laughing Monster 5, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Mastery
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charm: Laughing Monster Form

With the arts of distraction and omen, the laughing monster slows the enemy's advance. This charm may only be used at the beginning of a battle; the martial artist spends two motes per target to be affected, and then rolls (Charisma+Presence). Each opponent whose Resolve is beaten by the result of this roll is rendered unable to target her with an attack for (Essence/2) turns, or until they have been attacked by her. Battle groups count as a single target, and the stylist cannot target enemies she is not aware of, or that are not aware of her.

Mastery: Opponents are instead unable to target the stylist for (Essence) turns.


Thieves Fall Out
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Laughing Monster 5, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Perilous, Terrestrial
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charm: Inauspicious Moment for Attack

Before the Laughing Monster's trickery, alliances fail and bonds of friendship shatter. Upon successfully defending against a physical attack or an attempt at socially influencing the martial artist in combat, the stylist may attempt to redirect the attack or social influence to a viable target. The attacker rerolls his attack or influence against the new target's Defense or Resolve, applying the same Charms in effect. An appropriate stunt or explanation is necessary to explain how the stylist redirects certain attacks (particularly ranged ones) or attempts at social influence that do not target an appropriate Intimacy of the new victim's, or else the attempt automatically fails. In the latter case, some raksha stylists recommend making sly allusions towards Intimacies she knows the new victim to have and passing it off as something the original attacker would say; i.e. saying uncouth things about someone's heritage.

Terrestrial: The attacker of the redirected attack or influence instead uses his failed roll's result.


Subtle Hammer
Cost: 2m; Mins: Laughing Monster 5, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charm: Laughing Monster Form

Those who carefully observe the Laughing Monster's intentions must take care to realize whether they themselves are being carefully observed. When someone fails to read his intentions, he may roll (Charisma+Socialize) against that person's Guile. If successful, the martial artist may cause the attempt to instead 'reveal' any other motivation he desires. It costs 1 wp to see through this deception.


Poisoned Whispers
Cost: 8m, 1 wp; Mins: Laughing Monster 5, Essence 3
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Psyche, Terrestrial, Mastery
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charm: Thieves Fall Out

Lies and dissimulation permit the Laughing Monster to turn his enemies against one another. Like a demented child, he exults in their discord. This Charm supplements an instill attempt to weaken one of the target's Intimacies. If successful, the martial artist is able to immediately invert a positive Intimacy into a negative one with a connotation of her choice, or viceversa. This change of heart lasts only for the rest of the scene, but can be immediately rejected by spending 2 wp.

Terrestrial: This effect instead requires 1 wp to resist.

Mastery: If the target does not immediately resist the effect, they are so taken in with the stylist's deception that their change of heart is indefinite, until they remember the original context of their Intimacy, at which point they may pay (the stylist's Essence) wp to shake off the effect. Said cost may be paid in different installments.


Unitary Being Forge
Cost: 5m; Mins: Laughing Monster 4, Essence 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charm: Laughing Monster Form

The Laughing Monster is ever ready for awkward silences and social faux pas and can seize upon such moments to humiliate his rivals and heap scorn upon them. The stylist attempts to inspire ill will and aggression to an audience within short range through a mix of short words and subtle body language, rolling (Charisma + Performance). As with all inspire actions, how the affected target wishes to express their ill will or aggression is up to them, ranging from petty gossiping to outright violence. For the rest of the scene, the stylist may treat anyone whose Resolve was beaten by his roll as though they possessed a negative Minor Tie along the lines of distrust, hate, or antipathy (target's choice) towards another individual or party within short range (stylist's choice). If one whose Resolve has been beaten possessed a Minor Tie with a negative context towards the chosen target, the stylist may instead choose to treat them as though said Tie was Major.

Some raksha use this Charm to map unfamiliar social environments in which they find themselves; others find it an amusing way to pass a slow afternoon.


Shuffling the Pieces
Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Laughing Monster 5, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Psyche, Terrestrial
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charm: Unitary Being Forge

The Laughing Monster's works revise the world, rendering the pounding march of armies into simply another opportunity to expand the ranks of her retinue. After successfully incapacitating or killing an opponent, the martial artist communicates a simple idea: "Follow me." She may roll (Charisma+Martial Arts) to attempt to persuade or threaten an enemy target to not just abandon the fight, but to switch sides to the stylist's. The target must have seen both her and the opponent she disabled, and they must already be participants in the battle. Battle groups count as a single target. The stylist also gains two non-Charm successes on this attempt if the target is under the effects of Inauspicious Moment for Attack, Poisoned Whispers, or Unitary Being Forge. Any character whose Resolve is overcome by this roll fight along or for the stylist against her enemies for the rest of the scene. Characters must enter a Decision Point to resist the influence, calling upon an Intimacy that represents loyalty, valor, or their stake in the fight, to resist. A character that resists this influence is immune to successive uses of this charm for the rest of the scene.

The stylist's new retinue, if any, will almost always need further motivation to remain loyal to her after the scene concludes.

Terrestrial: A Dragon-Blooded stylist may only activate Shuffling the Pieces to attempt to convince a battle group to switch to her side.


Dancing Wind Monster Transformation
Cost: 10m, 2wp; Mins: Laughing Monster 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: Perilous, Mastery
Duration: One turn
Prerequisite Charm: Shuffling the Pieces, Subtle Hammer, Poisoned Whisper

The Laughing Monster is a creature of divisions, who enters or leaves the story at his own pace. By concentrating until his next turn, he fades away, leaving only the sound of his mocking laughter and the enraged bellows of his beaten foes, or he appears unexpected, astonishing his impromptu hosts.
This charm may be used to escape any confined space in which the martial artist finds himself in, depositing him just outside such boundaries, but only if such a space poses danger to the martial artist (such as a large prison full of angry inmates looking to tear the martial artist apart, a clock tower full of monsters, or even a sealed coffin underneath the earth in which the martial artist has been buried alive). This charm may alternately be used to enter inside one such nearby confined space, but only as long as there is something within that poses danger to the martial artist (such as a Solar tomb full of automatons, a sealed city which a government has declared a quarantined area, or even the inside of the Imperial Manse1​.

In either case, the charm will never immediately kill or injure the martial artist for using it - if the nearest exist to a high tower is an open window on the seventh floor of a tower, he will appear outside of the front door on the bottom floor. If he is entering the secret volcano lair of a local god, he will not suddenly appear in a pit of lava. However, the Charm does not account for any guards or traps nearby that might feel hostile towards him. The narrative of the Laughing Monster leaves the rest of the stylist's escape or infiltration up to his own cleverness and skill.

This Charm may only be used once per story, but may be reset when the martial artist goes out of his way to get himself into or out of trouble, after spending a considerable amount of time trying to do the opposite.

Mastery: The martial artist may take along (Essence) other consenting characters in short range with him into or out of trouble.

1​ It would be worth noting that such an attempt at entering such highly-protected locations is likely to backfire somehow, but if a stylist has progressed enough in this style to achieve this technique, they probably don't care about common sense or their own self-preservation that much.

The charms I'm most insecure of are the rewrites of Unitary Being Forge and Shuffling the Pieces. The latter in particular seems very strong, but I think it's balanced out by how it's going to be incredibly hard to get someone to switch sides to yours unless you've already softened them up a lot with things like Poisoned Whispers or such. And if you didn't need to soften them up first, they probably weren't that loyal to their side in the first place, in which case Shuffling the Pieces just simplifies the process.

I guess in general I'm also a bit afraid it's too much like Black Claw's Outrage Kindling Cry.

 

[Aleph]

Revlid doesn't - that I know of - have a single doc in which all his homebrew is gathered, I'm afraid. I've asked him about it before, though I can't recall much more than "nope, there isn't one".

On another note, crossposted from the SB Exalted thread; a thing on Artifacts.

Honestly, the easiest way to deal with the Artifact thing is just to say that MM-steel alloys aren't Artifacts.

Because they're not, frankly. They're a tax. Everyone and his dog has a 2-dot daiklave or a powerbow [1], usually with no special powers to slice the land and sky asunder with its edge, or sing a hypnotic dirge as it cuts through the air, or shed feathers of purest gold in the wake of its arrows. Most often, Joe Blogg Solar spends two dots on an orichalcum daiklave because a two-dot orichalcum daiklave has better stats than an Exceptional quality steel sword [2], and is indestructible. So you're an idiot for not getting one, and everyone does, which means that there are thousands of supposedly unique and legendary wonders lying around the setting and "I have an Artifact weapon!" becomes "psshh, yeah, whatever".

So stop them being Artifacts. Your "basic" Artifacts; the "two-dot powerbows" and "standard reaver daiklaves" are just normal-sized weapons made of special materials. They might sometimes made to have special effects when socketed with the right hearthstone or made to be used by the right Exalt, but overall, this approach aims not to have Exalts be so much defined by their bling. So it demythologises that most basic level of artefact entirely. A jade-steel blade is one of massively better quality than even the steel of the Age of Sorrows. It was likely made by a Dragonblood if it is modern, or dates back 700 years to the Shogunate. But that's all it is. It's an incredibly good sword. It's almost unbreakable with Second Age technology. But anyone could pick it up and use it. It's the narrative equivalent of the "knight's armour" or the "bronze of the Greeks and Trojans"; it's not a "magic item" [3].

So yes, most Exalts will try to arm themselves in this really good stuff. And if they can't get jade-steel, they'll go for steel, and if they can't get that, they'll go for bronze or iron. But they have the really good stuff because they're Exalts and so can more easily get [4] the leftovers of the Shogunate or the incredible crafts of the modern age, not because they're the only ones who can use it. And this means that the "Excaliburs" (like the Eye of the Fire Dragon) really stand out. They're the ones that have real magical effects; the Kusanagis, the Gugnirs, the Brahmastras [5]; made from pure magical materials and which add mythic capabilities and wonder to the basic weapon they transcend.

Most current "magical material" weapons just become advanced special materials, to steel as steel is to bronze. So, for example, the Realm's heavy infantry wears jade-steel breastplates because the Realm retains the capacity to make it [6]. It's literally just "very hard metal which is very good at holding an edge, which doesn't rust and so which tends to get reused and reforged and repurposed". A lot of Scavenger Land "daiklaves" are, in fact, literally reforged combine harvester blades. Pure jade things are the actually-magical ones. Jade-steel is a hard-to-forge alloy which requires similar levels of steps above steel as steel requires above iron. It's mostly iron, with traces of jade dust in the same way that steel is mostly iron with traces of carbon - the Shogunate loved their jade-steel, and used tonnes of it. Chiaroscuro glass is one example; scavenged from the wreckage of somebody's glass arcology. It means the city is a lot more important than it's portrayed as simply for the raw material. A shard of that in a strong vise and you have a lathe that'll never wear out, etc.

And there are other "lesser magical materials" too - tumbaga; a lesser cousin of orichalcum made by melting pure gold and raw copper together, hammered, beaten, forged, immersed in strong acid and then boiled down by the heat of magma or the summer sun, accompanied by the proper rituals; then repeating the process nine times more. Three pounds of raw materials make one of tumbaga, and an error in a single step can ruin the entire forging, leaving it good only for jewelry. This is something mortals can make - but only just, at the highest tech levels of the Age of Sorrows - and which requires Shogunate-level infrastructure to produce on any kind of scale.

You can invent the fluff for them as you like - iskarite; an impure alloy of lead, silver and quicksilver whose mirror-like surface is broken up by matte grey patches. Elinvar; hardwood grown on soil saturated with starmetal from a fallen star; the wood run through with pale streaks and a natural finish that seems to ripple in the light, so tough that it needs jade-tipped tools to work it. Diamond; a relative of adamant made by crushing raw gemstone to a fine powder and treated with caustic acid, enormous pressure and intense heat and cold to purge it of its elemental nature, leaving a lightweight, clear material with little elemental nature and astonishing hardness - the fainter the remaining traces of colour, the higher the quality. The important qualities are always the same - they're nearly (though not completely) unbreakable, they're superior to normal materials, they're right on the edge of human ability to make (mass-producible only at a Shogunate tech/infrastructure level [7]), and they're pretty uncommon. And as a result, everybody wants them.

And then you make these uncommon-but-not-rare weapons; these things made from the lesser cousins of the magical materials, which will be fought and clamoured over and which might have a single blade of lesser-jade "celestrium" be the prized possession of a city's standing military; held by its highest captain or most skilled champion - you make them into Resources. Expensive resources, because they're still rare and valuable like hell, but not something you need to pay background points for. Because if you make people pay background dots for something everyone is going to get, you're basically just saying "you start with two or three background dots fewer than normal; screw you".

And with this, the Artifacts - the true wonders, the shining impossible works of art and craft and war that shake the world when they're drawn and bestow divine and terrible power upon their wielders? The spear that unfolds to a dozen yards in length, its elinvar segments linked by chains of pure starmetal or moonsilver, which seeks and strikes at its wielder's foes like a living thing? The golden sword which glows with the light of the sun and can be brought down with such force as to expand its cutting edge beyond the physical; slicing through rock and stone and steel and flesh in a rent through the world that keeps going for two-dozen bladelengths through anything in its path? The bow of black jade that can fire a bolt of rippling water into the a tainted pool or poisoned river - or even the body of a foe - and purify the liquid within to clean, fresh water?

They suddenly become something worth noticing again.

[1] Admittedly, the dog struggles somewhat to use it.
[2] Though honestly, even there the line blurs in terms of raw stats - that's why they removed Perfect equipment.
[3] Well okay, it is, but only in the sense that fucking everything in Creation is magical, and this happens to be made out of slightly-more-magically-awesome-than-other-stuff material.
[4] Read: Steal, pillage, plunder, extort or craft themselves. Or, yes, fine, 'buy'. But come on, who does that anymore?
[5] No, not that one. Well, probably not. Fucking First Age.
[6] Lookshy too, to an extent, and so they're a complete OCP to most Scavenger Land armies. Yeah, okay, so you have guys in chainmail and breastplates. Well every Lookshyian soldier (as opposed to their auxilaries) is in full jade-steel, as armoured as a person in full plate. Their pike formations are almost invulnerable to second age bowfire; you need to hit them in a joint to wound (hence, getting up close and bashing in their skulls works better), and they're armed with light and strong spears which never break and which can change in length. And a lot of their ranged troops have Shogunate-design crossbows, with Essence battery servos pulling the too-strong-for-men-to-draw limbs. Fight that, mortal army.
[7] One of the Realm's prides and joys is the partially intact civilian docks from the Shogunate, where they slowly and painfully build Shogunate container ships that they use as the flagships of the Realm Navy. Each can carry two whole Legions and is functionally invulnerable to anything except firestones in catapults. Enemy ships can normally just be rammed out of the way, and the flagship isn't even damaged.

... I am satisfied with the number of footnotes I have managed to include in this post. : 3

 

[EarthScorpion]

Pre-Human Races


Once, when men were young, Creation was filled with many bountiful forms of life. The young Primordials made the world into a garden, and spawned countless races out of art, The great deva of the third circle built new forms of life in art, and at a whim they would set these fledging species against each other.

But the countless songs have almost all fallen silent, even the memory of their existence erased by the choral babble of mankind. The Primordial War was a bloodbath beyond comprehension, and the Exalted were not kind in victory. Now all that can be heard are the mourning songs of the dragon-kings, the maker-chained rhymes of the mountainfolk and a faintest echo of the Lintha that were, drowned out by their own human blood.

At the dawn of the First Age, the victors put all who had remained loyal to the titans to the sword. They spared none - save those few specimens they kept as pets and trophies as their triumph. Their cities were razed and their wonders burned or stolen. Some of the elder races were taken to Malfeas by their lords - and there they discovered that the magnamity of the titans had been excised by the swords of the Exalted and that the spiteful Yozis would extract the price of every failure from their servants. Others fled into the darkness beneath the world and down in the lightless depths they degenerated, becoming monstrous mockeries of what they once were. If the Exalted Host had not turned on the People of Adamant, the devoted of Autochthon would surely have exterminated these bastardised remnants by now.

Now only a few remnants of the bounty of life before the Primordial War can be found by those who know where to look. Even during the Late First Age, the knowledge of these creatures was slipping out of the annals of history. Time births distance and the Host of those latter years felt vague shame for the extermination of the non-humans. "Perhaps," young golden princelings said, "it might have been better to take them and teach them a better way of life than service to the Yozis - for it was surely not beyond our power to redeem such creatures." But that was not done, and so much was lost.

Such are the fates of these once-proud creatures - death at the hands of men, suffering at the hands of their tormented creators or degeneration in eternal dark. Even death was not the end for them, for many exist within the memories of the murdered Neverborn and mockeries of their form wail endlessly within the nightmares of dead titans.

The Tusk-Giants

Long before the birth of the sun, it is said that the demon-boar Isidoros once thought to challenge a titan whose name is now lost to history. Long was their struggle, and though the boar was successful in his endeavour one tusk of his was broken and the splintered remnants fell to earth. Now, as occultists know the demon-boar ruptures the world around him, smashing mirrors and tearing the light of Ligier - and so his tusk plummeted through the earth and embedded deep within Creation.

From this hole crawled forth the tusk-giants, whose skin was horn and whose blood was magma. They were truly giants, for their heads rose above the clouds and even the smallest of them broke a mile in height when fully grown. Such size made them slow of thought and gait, but their strength was stupendous. They fed upon the living rock of the continent of Galgamo, which is no more, and so they cultivated mountains as men might grow crops.

The tusk-giants were too slow of thought to survive the Primordial War. Men came upon them as they slept and carved out their eyes. Blinded, the tusk-giants listened to the lying songs of the Chosen of the Moon and so they fell upon the lands of the alluan and the lintha and the rhyneomkae in a rage. The songs of the Lunars filled their ears and they could not hear the wailing of their allies and in the end Kimbery reached out and drowned Galgamo to save her beloved lintha.

In the depths of the Western Ocean, the remnants of the flooded continent of the tusk-giants lies buried in sediments. Their titanic architecture sometimes breaks the surface, and modern men think that their ruined buildings are island-chains. Three of the tusk-giants survive within Malfeas. Two of them, blinded and crippled, lie chained within the jails of one Third Circle or another. The third has given herself to the worship of Cecelyne fully and strides the desert wastes with new iridescent eyes and an endless hatred of all mankind. Her footsteps cause sandstorms and her bellows of rage trigger earthquakes - and the Endless Desert laughs when the tusk-giant is a tribulation upon those who would seek to pass across her.

The Lintha

What can be said about the lintha that has not been said before? Brother-race to men, blessed by the Demon Sea with all the gifts denied to humanity - yet fallen from their grace and doomed to a painful dying lasting millennia. Much as men, the lintha have two souls; their po, sleek and powerful; their hun strong and prideful. Their blood carries their kinship to Kimbery, but also their kinship to men. One might question which of these two ties has brought them more misery over the years.

Of the sorry state of the modern lintha, much has been written elsewhere. The tales of their former glory are folklore at best among them - and often less than that, mere braggart of pirates jealous of the fortune of others. Their tales do not recall the height of their empire, where living ships carrying their own blood dominated the West. Their culture is withered and neutered, and their arts and their music are lost - for all the modern lintha know how to do is fight and steal and sail. They make nothing that does not serve these ends and this is as the Demon Sea wills it, for she wishes them to suffer for their sins.

The suffering of the lintha of the South-West are nothing compared to those denizens of Malfeas, however. Twenty proud fleets of their race were taken to Hell when Kimbery was bound inside and once they had grand plans for venturing forth from their hellish sanctums to strike against the gloating Exalted. Then the Demon Sea grew wrathful and extracted the full measure of her vengeance against them for flesh-eating of their Creation-locked compatriots. Within her waters float iceberg palaces, where mewling pieces of living art document their betrayal of her laws. The mercy of Kimbery is cruelest of all, for when one dies she crafts a new lintha from their soul, fair and beautiful and seemly - and then starts all over again.

The Daughters of Cytherea

The children of the Mother of Creation were the elder siblings of the world, for the first of their race predated time itself. They were nebulous beings, creatures of dust and gas hundreds of yards across with a brightly burning core in place of their heart. The Daughters could arrange their dust and gas as they saw fit and - if they compacted themselves down far enough - could even assume a form that could pass as mortal creatures.

Before the Incarnate Rebellion, the Daughters of Cytherea dwelt in the skies and looked down upon the gods from on high. Prideful and arrogant, they took learning from all the lesser races and gave nothing in return. They scrawled their theorems upon the dome of the heavens and the wisest of them were even permitted entrance to Yu Shan when the divinities were not. Perhaps it is no surprise that the gods of the wind and the sky and the weather took particular joy in hunting them down when their grand betrayal came.

Still, the Daughters of Cytherea inherited their mother's fire and fought with burning celestial fury. The might of the Sun drove them from the sky, but their magics called down great firestorms upon the soldiers of the gods. They warred to the very end and did not surrender even when the Primordials laid down their arms, retreating to lightless places to continue the fight against the victorious Exalts.

In the darkness their burning souls gave light and hope to the other refugees from the victor's justice of the sun. They were queens of the deep and they burned brighter in their hubris. When the People of Adamant were chained by the Exalted too, the Daughters of Cytherea laughed and rushed through the depths in pyroclastic flows. The lessened newborn People of Jade could not withstand them.

But that last war was their undoing. The iron and heavy metals of the earth poisoned them, quenching their fury. They became dense and base and material, losing their transcendent enlightenment. Even their dust was tainted by the broken jade they had burned. They could not sustain themselves and collapsed into dense coalescences of metal and stone. Now the Daughters were chained by their own forms - and so it is said, they still dwell upon the darkbrood to this day, towering metal figures who glow a faint red through the cracks in their heat-forged shells.

It is said by some that before the end of the war, some of the Daughters turned traitor and approached Lady Jupiter offering fell secrets on the nature of their mother - and perhaps even knowledge of sorcery itself. The tales differ as to their eventual fate, though. Some say that the Maiden honoured their deal and to this day flashes of bright light can be seen on the surface of Jupiter, like lightning through thick clouds. The Daughters of Cytherea - so the tales continue - serve the Maiden of Secrets, slipping into Malfeas to shepherd the dying stars of the Malfean sky according to her dictates. Others, however, say that the Maiden reached out her hand and slew them all, for they offered her nothing that she did not already know.

Regardless, in the heavens, some of the equations of the Daughters of Cytherea can still be seen during Calibration when there are no stars to obscure the patterns of dust. A would-be savant who wishes to investigate the faint gleams in the Calibration sky must be wary, though, for many of their symbols now reveal glimpses of the hellish realm of Malfeas if gazed at too long. In Varang and many other states, there are hidden Yozi astrologer-cults instigated by too much curiosity about the sky during the five days darkness.

 

[EarthScorpion]

How do people feel about the Mountain Folk?Are there any details about them you've added or changed?

Are they dwarves? I'm not a huge fan of dwarves.

Click to shrink...

How did I put it before?

Oh yes.

Hmm, let me try to remember the exact details.

Firstly, and probably critically, they're de-PCised. Without the chains of "having to be constructed as a PC group despite the fact I've never even heard of anyone playing a Mountain Folk game", they can be built from the ground up to enable their use as interesting narrative tools for the games people actually play.

Secondly, and almost as importantly, they're de-dwarfised. Dwarves as a "separate race" can fuck right off. If I wanted bearded short hard drinking people in Exalted, I'll go and put some humans with the Small mutation (and Cosmetic (Female Beards)) in some area. Yes, even the mountain-dwelling bits of dwarves. LotR dwarves are humans in Exalted. And then we can have weird sects of humans living in Shogunate mines that they've turned into cities, keeping themselves separate from others, and if they and other people consider themselves a separate race, that's just good ol' racism. "Humans" in Exalted are way, way broader than most fantasy - so any legit non-human non-spirits need to be stranger and more distinctive. As it stands, the Mountain Folk really aren't that distinctive.

Thirdly, the "endless war in the darkness and without them Creation would be dooooooomed" aspect needs to go, too. It's one of those too-large, all-consuming things and thus should be attacked in the shower with a knife while memorable violin music plays. That means breaking the Darkbrood's role up into smaller bits, and that also means that the Mountain Folk can be much more Balkanised and vary by region. A GM can totally just drop a small city of Mountain Folk into their campaign as a thing that's in the area without touching any greater plot or larger scale organisations.

(Also, as a 4th personal preference, any use of them as "lol lol lol Celestials have super-crafting mooks just waiting for you to show up" can fuck right off. I hate plot elements that basically only exist to hand free things to 'the glorious returning Solars' or 'the Alchemicals are here, here's lots of allies for them'. Any reworked Mountain Folk have to primarily stand alone as an independent plot element with any utility they provide strictly secondary at best.)

So, within those constraints you've got quite a way to go in whatever direction you like.

Click to shrink...

What I was leaning towards is the idea that, effectively, the "shape" of a Mountain Folk doesn't matter. They're almost a golem-race, so to speak; their form is set by their statue-body which their heart is placed in at 'birth'. They don't have a childhood - they're made in their adult form. And there's nothing about them which means they have to be humanoid. Sure, Mountain Folk made to interact with surface worlders are built to resemble statues of humans, but that's no more them than the spider-like mining creatures who gnaw at the rock to extract gems. They're both, equally, Mountain Folk - because they're living statues animated by the heart which is a calcified fae.

When they were the People of Adamant, they all used bodies of perfect, flawless adamant. They made no mistakes. Each progeny they crafted was perfect - taking ages to craft - and possessed their full capacity. They made no progeny who were inferior. In the Primordial War, to make up casualties they made the first "slave soldiers" - made from inferior jade, less attuned to their nature, but the jade-born were only a short-term solution to the losses of the war. They were inferior, and they were never meant to make their own progeny. Jade clouded their minds and meant that errors crept in. If the jade-born were to make progeny, they might be even worse.

Only the Exalted came to trust the jade-born more than the distant, cold, calculating adamant-born. They had fought alongside the jade-born, while they could read the actions of the adamant-born after the war and they knew that the People of Adamant would not consider themselves servants of the Exalted - only peers, at best. And they, too, were outraged by how their blood-brother People of Jade were treated by their makers.

So the Exalted Host acted, and the People of Adamant were no more. No wonder Autochthon fled.

But the jade-born realised that they were never meant to be, that they were flawed copies of the People of Adamant. Errors crept in. Within a thousand years, some jade-born were so flawed, so clumsy that they could only work in lesser materials like marble and other stones. The sickening society of the jade-born tried to stop such flawed jade-born from furthering their decline, repeating the sins of their forefathers. They forced quality controls, prevented the construction of new jade-born without vetting, and desperately tried to keep as many of the elder jade-born alive. They begged the Deliberative to try to help them make more adamant-born, to lessen the decline. But the Deliberative was overthrown and the jade-born found that they were presented once again with a choice - swear allegiance to the Shogunate, or face another pogrom.

They swore allegiance.

The Balorian Crusade and the Contagion together irrevocably shattered the Mountain Folk society. The plague wiped out most of their cities, but then the Balorian Crusade trapped vast numbers of new hearts of calcified chaos princes. In the scattered post-apocalyptic remnants of their societies, all the constraints that had maintained their standards were cast aside. Soon the jade-born were a rare elite among the stone-born masses.

Shambling, clumsy, crude - the stone-born are mockeries compared to the grace of the jade-born, and even they were just parodies of the adamant-born. Their minds are limited by their mediums. The elite caste of jade-born try to preserve and expand their ranks, but the stone-born outnumber them and there are ruined cities below the earth where stone-born shamble through, carrying crude club-shovels and following their mountain-deep instincts to make things. Their minds can still contemplate beautiful things, but much of the original savant-like genius is lost to them. Some of the brighter stone-born have learned their old magics which let them alter their bodies and they fortify their selves, but the Mountain Folk will never regain their old glory.

Narratively, the Mountain Folk can play the traditional role of fantasy orcs, dwarves or trolls as the GM sees fit - because they're all of them. Also, they can be giant stone spiders living beneath the earth. They turn to unliving stone in the sunlight, so they're certainly part troll there, but they have a genius with tools and can be cunning even when they're not that bright (somewhat orcish) and the jade-born provide the dwarf-like 'dying race' thing.

Click to shrink...

 

[EarthScorpion]

Dragonblooded Tombs

In the annals of history, the decadent and lavish tombs of the Solar Exalted hold a place in infamy. However, in truth they are outnumbered by the tombs of the Dragonblooded many times over. Even during the High First Age the mightest lords of the Terrestrials received tombs that, although lesser than the Solars, showed their power and prowess.

Compared to the Solars, however, it is far more common for many Dragonblooded to share a tomb. Dragonblooded throughout history have customarily been buried with their families, in communal sites. In other cases, a sworn brotherhood have built a tomb that their remains will share for all eternity. When Dragonblooded are buried alone, it is usually a sign of an outcaste - or an outcast. Even in the cases where a Dragonblooded lord has the hubris to want a tomb just for themselves, in most cases their children and relatives will add additional graves to the complex once their ancestor is no longer around to complain.

Compared to the grand betrayal of the Great Rebellion, few Dragonblooded have needed as much placation as the Solar ghosts. Still, there were no shortages of acts of base treachery in the Shogunate that have led the victors to decide to try to avert the wrath of the fallen with grand displays. Even in the present day, when the Realm conquers a land ruled by Dragonblooded they traditionally raise a monolith praising - albeit often with faint praise - the dead, calling them honourable foes and other such things.

However, vultures looking to pick over Dragonblooded tombs find a problem - namely, that the mightiest treasures, arms and armaments belonging to Terrestrials are seldom laid to rest with the dead. Indeed, in the modern Realm to lay a daiklaive to rest with its maker is considered to 'murder' the weapon, disrespecting its spirit and leaving it to seek betrayal. Instead, the name or icon of the former wielder is added to the treasure in some way and it is given to a young Dragonblooded who is felt to resemble the deceased. A blade that has been passed down through many Terrestrial hands is felt to gain additional power and raw force from the centuries of loyal use. It is whispered by some that the Eye of the Fire Dragon began as just a simple red jadesteel dire lance, but it was wielded by Hesiesh himself and has never once been touched by one who does not know fire.

Instead, what is buried with a Dragonblood are their personal possessions. The High Realm word for 'grave goods' is also the word for 'frivolities' - they are little things. A copy of the books one has written, one's favourite pipe, perhaps even a good meal - but only perishables. This was different sometimes in the First Age, but from the mid-Shogunate onwards there was a strong cultural prohibition against 'wasting' such things. This has only solidified in modern times, to the extent that the Immaculate Faith forbids things it considers to be 'veneration' of the dead entirely. Still, despite that an old soldier might make sure his friend takes a pinch of tobacco and a pipe with him to the funeral pyre, even if it means he has to slip it into the linen wrappings.

High First Age

Only a very few tombs purely from the High First Age remain in modern Creation. The Shogunate was a living culture and few Gens were destroyed in the Great Rebellion, so their tombs remained active and still used.

A few tombs mark Gens who remained loyal to the Solars. They were exterminated to a man and their children adopted by other families, the dead hastily interred within their family tombs. The Shogunate tried to forget about these places, because they were a marker of the Great Rebellion that told a story more bloody than the one the Shoguns wished spread.

Other tombs are for great friends and beloved of Celestials. Sometimes the lords of Creation would give their friends a personal burial, grand and splendid. Yet in many cases these tombs have been empty for a very long time. The family of the Dragonblood often stole their kin's body back from the grand resting place, laying it with their own blood. Such empty tombs were almost always picked clean in the Shogunate, for with no dead to offend there was nothing stopping an intruder.

In a hollow mountain in the far North, the retainers of the Solar queen Mudara Po stand in serried ranks, dressed in full battle armour. They were to be her honour guard and a sign of the love that Gens Mudara held for their queen, who had risen from their own ranks. She built the grandest tomb for the Dragonblooded of the First Age, for it would be her own tomb as well. She planned to rest among her own kin. Alas, Mudara Po had no grave, for she was annihilated in a grand war against another Solar. Still, Gens Mudara retained the tomb and added to it, though later burials are poorer and less ornate than the first. The tomb is lost, but there is enough jadesteel and fine weapons of the High First Age down there to equip a legion. No one has breached it - though the scattered dust-dry bones in the antechambers indicate that it is not unguarded.

There were those among the Gens that participated in the Great Rebellion who could not bring themselves to join with their kin. Torn between their loyalty to their Solar lords and their kin, they chose to die by their own hand than break either oath - or else deliberately sought death in battle. Those Terrestrials occupied a strange place in Dragonblooded culture, for on one hand they were traitors who refused to side with their kin - and yet they were model loyal soldiers who could not bring themselves to betray their oaths which was the mark of a perfect soldier. In the aftermath of the Great Rebellion, many of these dead Dragonblooded were taken from their family tombs and buried with full honours - but alone. Whether this was a mark of shame or respect, even the Gens could not say.

On the slopes of the Imperial Mountain, these is a lonely grave site. The name on the green jade slab has been worn away by the passage of years. Still, roses bloom here throughout the year in every colour known to man. A peach tree grows at the head of the grave, always bearing fruit. The tree is a clipping from one of the celestial fruit trees which grow the Peaches of Immortality, and though the fruit does not have the power of its progenitor it still imparts blessings on those who find it. The Immaculate Order says that this was where the beloved of Sextes Jylis lies. The files of Jupiter know this to be not entirely true - but not entirely false, either. Some scholars in the Heptagram whisper that this may be where one of the first Dragonblooded rests - and rests is the right word. They say the person in the grave is not dead. But this is surely nonsense, of course. No one could endure five thousand years and more.

Shogunate Era

The majority of the grand Dragonblooded tombs in Creation date back to the Shogunate. The Gens ruled Creation and the Gens warred over Creation. The former gave them the wealth to build themselves magnificent resting grounds; the latter meant they needed such tombs.

Early Shogunate tomb complexes show much more cultural continuity with the High First Age than later ones. As Dragonblooded culture innovated and shifted, the lavish tombs become much less common. Indeed, anti-iconographic religious fervour can be dated by the shifting nature of graves and the way that statues of the deceased cease to decorate burial grounds. Instead, bleak and almost fortified tombs replace the fripperies of earlier times. Giant marble pagodas that loom over remote mountains and complexes built in the shape of the Gens icon show the contradictory urges of the Shogunate. They wished to deny death, pushing it away from their cities - yet they put great effort into building fortress-tombs for the dead as an expression of the power and wealth of the Gens.

The end of the Shogunate is clear for all to see. At first, those who died to the Contagion were buried like their kin, in the grand tombs. Then the tombs became places of death and disease, corpses thrown inside as the tombs became containment sites for the plague. The sick were herded into these places and sealed inside to die - and die they did. In the end, there were no more burials in the grand tombs. Bodies were simply destroyed - burned in vast pits or coated in quicklime. And so died the Shogunate - and most of its citizens along with it.

In the far Eastern jungles lies the Cenote of Imotothique. The water in that place is said to be bottomless by the natives. In truth, a black jade tomb lies in the depths, enchanted with sorcery that means that intruders who do not know the secret words are repulsed by the magic. The dead of a secret assassin society of Yozi-worshipping Dragonblooded lie in that hidden place - for it was both their tomb and their training grounds. There are jade tablets that would teach their fighting arts and tools of the demon realm that could call upon Lucien hidden in there, waiting for someone to find them and take up the blades of Imotothique once more.

Submerged in the Inner Sea rests the sunken isle of Bava. The fifth Shogun, Alibira of Gens Ragara was born on this isle, and he was laid to rest here in a magnificent tomb of white stone along with his personal library. Bava sunk in the Balorian Crusade and now his tomb is twisted by the taint of the Wyld. The books spell out hidden truths about the chaos outside the world and the stone dragon-guardians are mad and have taken on the soul-hunger of the chaos princes. Ships that go near Bava sometimes vanish and are never seen again.

Close to Chiaroscuro rests the burial grounds of Gens Atana. It is a cursed place, a shadowland hemmed in with walls of salt and swift-flowing water. The sick of Chiaroscuro were herded in here, and sealed in. Most died. Some instead turned to cannibalism, eating the flesh of the plague-dead. Such terrible succour twisted them beyond belief, until they were the dead and yet were still alive - wretched, only able to eat rotting meat, only able to drink stagnant water, only able to sleep when buried like the living corpses they are. These ghouls have crept back into Chiaroscuro over the years, looking for victims who they slay and then hang up to rot. Strange powers of the Dead seem to come easily to them and they have become figures of myth and terror among the desert tribes.

Realm Era

With the advent of the Immaculate Faith, few tomb complexes to rival the Shogunate have been built. The cultural trauma from the Great Contagion meant that the old taboos against destroying a body were replaced with new ones about leaving a body intact. To leave it in its old form risks death and disease for the living. The Faith holds that a soul, once passed from its mortal shell, should not care for its former dwelling place. To remove the temptation of a weak soul to linger, therefore, the body should be passed to the elements by one way or another. With its attachments cut, the soul will pass swiftly onto its new life.

For a life lived following the path of fire, the body should be cremated. For one whose nature was that of wood, the body should be buried wrapped in fabric and plants grown on the grave, so that they might nourish new life. For those who flow like water, the body should be cut into many places and given to the ocean or a great river. For the children of the air, the corpse should be left in a high place to be picked clean by sky-dwellers such as vultures and other such birds. And for those akin to earth, the flesh should be stripped from their bones and the bones separated so that the spirit is not tempted to linger.

However, the ties of family still hold the Dragonblooded close. As a result, it is considered acceptable to gather the remains once they have lost the seeming of their former selves. On the Blessed Isles, many of the Houses maintain their own collective sites that are more akin to memorials than cemeteries.

House Cathak maintains a great manse at the base of Meru where scarlet fires eternally burn within a great grove of carved marble trees. The ashes of family members are scattered in the flames, and their name added to the jade slabs that record the members of the house. Many elderly veterans of House Cathak make frequent trips to the House of Cinders, to remember lost comrades and mourn them. Cathak Cainan himself makes sure to visit this place at least once a year, and it is rumoured he believes he is destined to die there - something some who might send assassins have made note of.

House Ragara keeps a grand ossuary house. The bones of the dead are lovingly cleaned, and choice verses from the Immaculate Texts are carven into them. Often House members will spend their final years considering what they wish engraved, because it is rumoured to help the Immaculate Dragons decide what life one will be reborn into. However, there is a heretical sect among the family branch who maintain the ossuary that has begun to reassemble the dead, putting the bones back together. They listen to the voice of their great-grandmother, Ragara Cela, who whispers to them of the great screaming void that lies in the lands of the Dead beneath the Imperial Mountain - and who pleads with them to use the heretical rituals she teaches them to bind the ghosts of the lost to their corpses, to avoid the dread fate that awaits.

Beyond the Blessed Isle, the ruling family of the nation of Lodraca bears Terrestrial blood, and in their grand family of lords they have a dragonblooded member most generations. They reject the Immaculate Faith utterly, instead practising a peculiar ancestor cult that states that the Dragonblooded cannot truly die and that the dragons within them will rise at the ending of the world to fight the forces of Hell when they break from their eternal jail. To this end, members of the bloodline who show the gift of the Dragons are prepared for that eternal war. They are embalmed and buried in full armour - steel, sadly, for they cannot waste jadesteel like that - but to make up for that jade dust is rubbed into their skins and jade orbs are placed into their empty eye sockets. In the catacombs of Lodraca tens of dead dragons wait, gleaming in the dim light, their jade eyes ever watchful. It is said that at Calibration they rise and practice so that they may remain in shape for the end times, though the doors to that place seal at the year's end and do not open until the new year. One child thought to test the veracity of that rumour - and was found dead at the threshold, missing her eyes.

 

[EarthScorpion]

Six Second Age Tools

Adamant-Tipped Chisel

A diamond-tipped chisel is a vital part of many artificers' toolkits. However, the lesser magical material diamond has its limits. When working on raw jade, diamond shatters and chips with aggravating frequency. The great forgemasters of the Realm guard their stores of adamant with well-reasoned paranoia, because a fingernail's work of adamant is enough to make a chisel which makes a mockery of steel or which can shave away flaws in the body of jade-steel. Indeed, the main body of such a chisel is less resilient than the tip, and the smiths consider the adamant-tip to get more potent the more chisel-bodies that give way in use.

Such chisels come in many different sizes and shapes. The best - and wealthiest - smiths will have a large collection, each one serving its own purpose. Some of the widest may be a hand's width across, used to shave and cut a raw bar of jadesteel, while the finest may be no wider than a human hair and be used to inscribe tiny prayers upon moonsilver piercings.

Such adamant chisel tips see a second, unforeseen use. Within the Threshold, no small number of spear tips began life as a chisel. Smiths mourn a chisel that has been used for these purposes, for they say that once they have tasted blood, blades engraved using them become treacherous and prone to turning on their wielder.

Air-Banishing Powder

A critical component of welding and multi-layered metalwork, air-banishing powder is alchemically treated firedust. Instead of holding the essence of the flame within its core, it instead contains opposition to air-essence. When exposed to air, it binds to it, trapping free air-essence in the area. This is critical when working with folded metal, because it ensures that trapped air-essence does not throw off the balance of the earth and leave it weak and brittle. This is not such a concern when working with most magical materials, but when working with the black iron of the Underworld or the fae-slaying irons of the North it can be the difference between a honed weapon and one that shatters the first time it is used to parry.

Air-banishing powder also sees use as an assassination tool. A rag coated in it and held to the face of a victim will leave them quite incapable of breath. If ingested, the proximity of the powder to the stomach will cause shortness of breath and physical incapacity which will last until the body is purged.

Pasiap's Screw-Press

In the Shogunate, great jade blocks imbued with the weight of a mountain were used to flatten jade-steel. Only a few such presses exist - one within Lookshy, one brought to operation by the Imperial Navy, one within the cities of Al-Durad within the far South. Instead, well-equipped smiths must settle for one of the sacred screw-presses of Pasiap. These consist of two slabs of white jade, carved with prayers to the Earth Dragon. Through his favour, such a press imbues harmony and stability within a many-folded blade, making one from many. It may also grant shape and good-forming to a blade made from the magical materials, when an iron press would merely warp if used to pressure this.

Infamously, many of this style of presses are made from jade talents. Such a weapon will never - according to the best forgemasters - be a true masterpiece, for the blade will be made for pay, not for the art itself. Such a weapon will not serve its master out of love or loyalty. It will abandon him if his own fortune falls, so they say. According to other tales, a weapon so-malformed will drive its master to greed and the pursuit of more jade coinage.

Red-Jade Anvil

This anvil consists of a shrine made from red jade. Within the heart of the anvil-shrine lies a chained fire elemental. When the elemental is fed coal and incense is lit in offering, the red jade begins to heat according to an arcane formula based on the prayers offered. This shrine-anvil is both forge and anvil.

Such an anvil is vital when working with materials that cannot be allowed to cool during the shaping process. A smith may work on their piece without fear of the consequences of having to move it between the heat of the forge and the cold of the anvil. This is especially important when working on wonders that manipulate the heat of a fire or which extensively use red jade.

Within lost places and old ruins, anvils such as these sit. Their elemental prisoners sometimes escape and seek vengeance on the descendents of who once used them. Time withers all memories, though, and often fire-beasts will stalk through the land, slaying any they see who remind them of figures from their past. A scavenger lord who finds such an anvil may be offered wishes by its prisoner or promises of servitude for a year if they were to be released. The honour of many fire elementals means they keep to such agreements - but when the year is done, then the elemental will rampage.

Shark-God Skin

There are few sanding materials comparable to the divine skin of a shark-god, flensed from its living essence. It does not degrade even if used to polish orichalcum or moonsilver, and when wet with blood it imparts a keen predator edge to a blade. Different gods of different species provide different grades of skin, with the best quality belonging to the siaka-gods. A wise smith will try to get many different kinds of skin, for increasing grades of polish as a work progresses. Compared to mortal sharkskin or sandpaper, the skin of a shark-god will not need to be replaced every few strokes when honing the edge of a blade so sharp that it can cut a man's voice from his throat.

Of course, obtaining it is no small measure. Those who desire it must hunt a shark-god within its own home territory. Within the West, there are a few groups of Water-aspect hunters who specialise in hunting and killing gods. Some have found another path - children of shark-gods are something born with patches of shark-skin, and they are far less dangerous to track than their parents. The Imperial Navy and the Imperial Forge have a mutually profitable arrangement where the Navy is sure to find plenty of shark-gods who deserve deaths for their crimes against the Realm. When the shark-gods are slain by the Wyld Hunt, the captains who reported such a dangerous criminal are richly rewarded by the Realm's forgemasters.

Vitriol-Etching Kit

Within many traditional schools, the use of vitriol for etching is viewed as nigh-on blasphemy, for it risks tainting the material of the gods with the nature of the demon realm. Just as many other schools consider it essential, for nothing but the acid of Hell can etch jade as mundane acid etches steel. Without the use of vitriol, there are forgings that simply cannot be done. Yet perhaps it is right to fear its influence, for slight mishandlings can warp the intent of the artisan.

In the Realm, only the Terrestrial Exalted are permitted to work in vitriol - and even then they must hold a recognised sorcerer's license and must demonstrate their knowledge of Emerald Circle Banishment. This is because the metody are the easiest source of vitriol. To hold the vitriol once it has been milked from the demon, most righteous individuals make use of a bowl made of eastern hardwoods, coated with a lacquer made of mixed amber and white jadedust. Such a vessel will degrade over time, but the superior alternative - a basin of Cecelynian glass - is illegal in most states, for it implies trade with the demon realm.

The application of such a hazardous material is no less expensive. The smith protects themselves in gold-coated armour, which is not proof against the hell-acid but does help protect them against accidental splashes. Brushes of tumbaga wire or the hair of a celestial lion are the favoured means of applying the acid.

Finally, and no less meaningfully, Realm law dictates that anyone who works in vitriol must dispose of it safely once the work is done. It is illegal to maintain stocks of vitriol without an explicit research license from the Ministry of Righteous Learning and a second license and monitoring from the Ministry of Heavenly Virtue and Public Standards. Fortunately, sorcerers typically hand their waste materials to the metody they summoned and banish it. If it pollutes Hell - well, how would one notice?

 

[EarthScorpion]

Ghouls - They Hunger!

Man should not eat man, nor woman eat woman. This is one law of Creation acknowledged by almost every culture there is. Even in the cases where ritual cannibalism is practiced, it is usually in a limited and specific way, where only part of the body is devoured and it is carried out in a ceremonial manner on bodies that have been purified for consumption. There are sound reasons for this. A dead human is diseased and spiritually corrupt. The po that rests within it taints the flesh with the stuff of the Dead. To eat such impurity is to take such impurity into one's self, where it nourishes the flesh and is absorbed by the soul. To break from these laws is usually a mark of desperation - or depravity.

And so, invariably, it happens. When famine strikes a land, when a travelling party runs out of supplies, when someone is cast out of their village and forced to live only on scraps, people eat their fallen. Sometimes, they are safe. Their flirtation with forbidden practices comes with no long term price. Sunlight and the simple natural practices of life serve to cleanse them of the taint they absorb.

But sometimes their souls welcome the corruption of the corpse-eater. Their teeth lengthen. Their nails grow sharp. A hunger gnaws in their gut for the forbidden taste of human flesh. Sometimes they force it down and repress it for the rest of their natural life, and their soul forgets the forbidden knowledge as long as they indulge no more. But many do not, and the more they feast the more their souls learn and their flesh changes. Those who spend time in a shadowland are particularly prone to this, because the world around them is already half-dead. That such soil is prone to failed harvests only makes the risk of ghouldom more frequent.

And if those poor creatures who eat the flesh of their own kind out of desperation are pathetic, the ones who do it out of choice are loathsome. Decadent aristocrats treat their servants as literal cattle and consume them in depraved feasts, only to find their monstrous deeds made evident in their bodies. Wicked warlocks devour human flesh to channel the energies of death, or to steal life from those they kill, or even to assume the form of a yidak for a night. Such magics always have their price, though the practitioner may consider it worth paying.

In some shadowlands or in remote castles, there have been generations of ghouls. The twistings of the form sometimes breed true, and a child will be born pallid, with a full set of sharp teeth. Such a babe must be weaned on blood. When a traveller comes across an isolated village where ghouls dwell, often their tales will call out a Wyld Hunt against such abominations - if they make it out of the hamlet alive.

Ghoul Mechanics

(The following uses @Revlid's mutations system.)

The mutations a ghoul has from their flesh-eating will, unless deliberately magically induced, sum out to 0 points or fewer. There is always a price.

All ghouls have the Creature of Darkness (-4) mutation. They are damned by the spiritual corruption of death they have devoured. In addition, all ghouls require some amount of meat in their diet. This is treated as Picky(0) as it is not a stringent enough requirement to qualify for Picky (-1), but leads them to fall ill if they try to maintain a vegetarian diet showing similar symptoms to sailors who spend extended periods at sea.

The following mutation packages represent various ghouls that can exist within your Creation. As can be seen, the extent of the changes that afflict them can be radically different in scale.

The Old Survivor
When he was a young man, he went on an ill-fated caravan trip. Trapped in the wastes, he did some things that he isn't proud of. He tries to forget, but sometimes he wakes in the night after a nightmare, mouth watering.

This is typical of the kind of ghoul who may not even realise he is one. He ascribes his low appetite to just being naturally lucky there, and his slight sensitivity to sunlight as just something that happens.

Positive: Slender (1)
Negative: Creature of Darkness (-4), Picky (0)

Wolfskin
It wasn't her fault... was it? She can't remember. Not really. She just runs, naked on all fours, her muzzle and teeth ready to find prey in the cold wastes of the North. She still hunts the ground around the old ruined caravan, even though the snow has long since filled in the dug-up graves. The rest of the time, she lives in a nearby village and knows nothing of what she does - even if normal food is like mud in her mouth.

Many ghouls take on animalistic features, coming to resemble a twisted version of the local dominant predators as they degenerate into a bestial form. In the snowy expanses of the North, this often means they take on the shape of a wolf or a sabre-tooth, while in the West they become shark-like mermaids and in the South big cats or even vultures. Such degeneration often produces split personalities and alternate forms. The following is a wolf-like ghoul.

Positive: Slender (4), Cosmetic (slightly canine features) (0)
Negative: Creature of Darkness (-4), Picky (Carnivore) (-1), Split Personality (Human mind/wolf-like ghoul mind) (-4)

Alternate Form (Involuntary Transformation) (linked to Split Personality) (Triggered by Hunger) 0
Alternate Form Positive: Skulker (Snow-like fur) (3), Swift (2), Natural Weapon (Oversized Fangs) (4), Deadly (said fangs) (2), Native (Northern Ice Wastes) (2)
Alternate Form Negative: Mute (-2), No Thumbs (-6)

Inbred Lord
"Of course I eat them. You eat cattle, don't you?"

In some shadowlands, the lords long ago fell to the practice of eating human flesh. They treat their human servants like animals, and consider themselves a different form of being. Some of them are growing to regret this, as at least one Abyssal has taken it upon themselves to... reeducate such men and women.

Positive: Deadly (Claws) (2), Tough (Leathery Skin) (1), Glider (Bat-like membranes of skin) (4)
Negative: Creature of Darkness (-4), Picky (Carnivore) (-1), Sensitivity (Sunlight) (-2),

The Eelman of Nexus
"Slurp slurp slurp, wriggly wriggly,
the eelman comes, higgly piggly.
He doesn't want soup, he doesn't want bread,
all he wants is your little head!"

An urban legend among the street rats of Nexus, the Eelman is said to be a pale man with a mouth like a leech. He doesn't have bones so he can crawl through the smallest gap and he can wriggle along the walls. He - so the children say - loves the taste of little boys and girls and he kills them and leaves them in the canals until they've gone all gooey so he can drink them up. He'll come for you in the night, or in dark places like the old sewers, and the only way to keep yourself safe from him is to throw salt in his face.

They're basically right.

Positive: Wall Crawler (6), Creeper (4), Deadly (Leech Mouth) (2), Natural Weapon (Leech Mouth) (1), Cosmetic (Pale and fishy) (0)
Negative: Creature of Darkness (-4), Allergy (Salt) (-4), Sensitivity (Sunlight) (-2), Picky (Can only drink stagnant water, can only eat the rotten flesh of children) (-3)

Ghoul Lords

Most ghouls are only mortal. Some, however, have feasted so heavily and become so laden with corruption and necrotic filth that they have already joined the ranks of the Dead. When a ghoul feasts too deeply, his hunger grows to a level that his two souls look at each other and lick their lips. His tainted souls attack each other while he is afflicted with terrible visions of the underworld, and in the end one of them is victorious. Either his hun devours his po, or his po devours his hun - and the latter is more common, for the seat of power is stronger than the seat of knowledge.

When the po wins, the ghoul lord becomes a bestial monster. The full power of the po expands within the body, twisting it to its own image. Such monsters often become morbidly obese and grows in size, as the power of the human po within them expands into immensity. Lesser ghouls are driven to obey it out of fear, because they know that only by sating its hunger can they avoid its potency.

When the hun wins, it's worse. The hun absorbs the hunger and desires of the po, but retains a human intellect to become a true monster. Such ghoul kings often dive into the depths of the Underworld seeking the greatest meal of them all - and hopefully there they meet their end.

Either way, mechanically a ghoul lord is a Dead creature anchored to its own body. It possesses appropriate spirit charms for its own themes (which will invariably be linked to hunger and consumption of human flesh). Ghoul kings cannot be truly banished without the destruction of their body, because they are still anchored to their flesh. Use of a banishing spell on a ghoul king instead forces it to flee the presence of the sorcerer, if successful.

Some things people call "ghoul kings" are not strictly speaking ghouls - they're merely powerful Dead creatures inhabiting human corpses with a fondness for human flesh who rule over packs of ghouls. However, in practice the difference is largely academic, especially to an exorcist who finds one of these monsters profaning a graveyard and angering the ancestor spirits.

 

[Omicron]

Bunraku: Puppets of War

​

To this day legends of the warstriders live on in Creation; terrible walking titans, statue-armors, colossi of jade and orichalcum whose feet would shake the earth and whose hands could lift mountains. A few of these splendid creations remain, the secrets of their make long-forgotten: every year the Realm parades them in the streets of the Imperial City, and in the Scavenger Lands a lone Outcaste has forged a kingdom wielding his terrible armor. But more than the warstriders themselves, it is their idea that lingers in the tales of Creation's mortals, in the dreams of its warrior-kings, in the fevered inspiration of its artisans. In the bunraku has that idea found embodiment. The puppet-armors of the East are more and less than pale imitations of the warstriders of old. They are a creation that could only exist in one place and time, in an Age of Sorrrow surrounded by ruins which it cannot reproduce but can draw inspiration from, in a land suffused with the nature of Wood where grow strange trees and nest stranger animals.

A bunraku is a suit of armor too large for any human warrior; it stands easily three to four times the size of a mortal, a construction of wood, leather and iron. Its proportions are off, such that no man could mistake it for an armored giant; its legs spindly, its chest oddly bulbous, its face an ornate mask. The truth is that the bunraku is a puppet: its chest is a cavity in which a puppeteer sits, his hands and legs wearing special shoes and gloves to which are tied a multitude of silken strings. Through measured movements of the limbs and fingers, the puppeteer induces the armor to motion; a skilled puppeteer can command even the fingers of a bunraku's hands, seizing colossal weapons to cut through armies and strike down gods. When two bunraku clash on the battlefield, mortal soldiers part in awe and watch as giants decide the course of battles.

The mortals who create them do not think of the bunraku as magic, for they are surrounded by the powers which go into their creation; but the bunraku could be made nowhere else than in the lands of the East and the Scavenger Lands, where a culture has formed around their crafting and their use in war. These things are necessary to create a war titan: lightweight resistant woods native to the region, the peculiary responsive silk of the thoughtworm, lacquer made from the sap of certain poisonous trees and treated through secret procedures. The creation of a bunraku is an expensive process; its maintenance and repairs a continued burden. Small kingdoms have bankrupted themselves trying to maintain a standing bunraku force. The puppeteer herself must be of outstanding skill and dexterity and train for years to master the incredibly complex system of strings, and they tend to be powerful elites as a result, jealously guarding their skills and secrets.

It is rare to see more than a handful of bunraku fielded in any army of the East, and many do not even have one. This is not necessarily correlated to resources and military power - bunraku require access to specific trade routes and thrive based on a certain culture of specialized craftsmen and warrior-puppeteers that many states simply do not possess, or are seen as investing too much power in expensive, fragile, and above all too-concentrated units. The Realm, in particular, is notable for having largely shunned the use of the Eastern innovation; although Legions operating in the Scavenger Lands occasionally employ bunraku as auxiliaries, the Legions themselves see with distaste a weapon that is ultimately inferior to the Exalted while empowering singular mortals above their station.

Even so, the culture surrounding the bunraku is still young and growing. Craftsmen forming jealous corporations and warriors boasting their rarefied status may change as the Age of Sorrows come to an end and the Exalted of the world see in them another tool in their expanding conflicts - or else they may form the defiant challenge of mortal armies recklessly willing to stand up to gods.

Notable Puppeteers

The Dusk Dancers
Four years ago, the city of Thorns fell. On that day twelve mortal knights, raised in luxury, met the dead in the field of battle in their puppet-armors. Their stand was for nothing in the end, and only five escaped, scarred in body and soul by the horrors of the Underworld. Today these puppeteers roam the Scavenger Lands as mercenaries along with a hundred soldiers rescued from the city; they go from battle to battle and do not hesitate to loot the countryside to sustain their machines. Five bunraku are a terrible force, and kingdoms both fear them and desire their employ. When not fighting the Dusk Dancers are merry companions - too merry, some say; they drink, sing and lay with abandon to forget what they have seen and how many of their comrades have died before them. As the years grind on and turmoil rises in the Scavenger Lands, the five wonder if they should claim a kingdom of their own by force - or else find someone who can lead them to wrest Thorns from the grasp of the dead and throw their lot with them.

The Gravestrider
In life there was no greater puppeteer than the Black Shroud, a woman stunted at birth whose dreams of battle found vindication in the terrible might of her armor. She was a nightmare on the battlefield, but age eventually caught up with her; her hair was gray and her face wrinkled when her weakening reflexes allowed an opponent to slay her. Her thirst for battle was not yet quenched, however; dead that she was she kept fighting. But her decaying body was no proper vessel for her bloodthirst; and so she came to the morticians of Sijan and asked for their service, and they obliged, binding her soul into her own armor, turning its command hatch into a shrine, and adorning her frame with prayer strips. In exchange, she has promised them fifty years of service, which she pays six months at a time, seeking employ in the battlefields of the Scavenger Lands in her free time.

Mankalvar
The City of Stone and Lacquer at the edge of the northeast, Mankalvar represents the furthermost expansion of bunraku usage - and perhaps its most advanced refinement. Crippled by lack of good iron, Mankalvar has learned to rely on many subspecies of ironwood and the excellent stone of its quarries. The city itself is a sprawling maze of stone towers, granite spires looming crushingly over shadowed streets; but when it goes to war Mankalvar fields warriors in leather armor carrying swords of lacquered wood. Its bunraku are no different; using almost no metal, they are ornate and extremely intricate constructs using many different woods to achieve the lightest weights of any puppet-armor without sacrificing strength. But that expertise comes at a cost, and the ancestor-worshipping culture of Mankalvar finds it difficult to sustain its increasingly stratified society dominated by skilled elites and divided by trade secrets and espionage.


Bunraku Mechanics

A bunraku is a special suit of armor with unique features and requirements. It changes the traits of its puppeteer and precludes the use of other armor or equipment.

Requirements: To pilot a bunraku, one must possess Dexterity 3 and Performance 2, with a specialty in Puppeteering or simply in Bunraku. As an additional, more loose requirement, bunraku are usually designed with economy of space in mind, and their command hatches are cramped spaces; typical bunraku puppeteers are of short stature. Characters who cut a tall and imposing figure may find it impossible to use a bunraku not designed for them specifically, or more generously may suffer a -3 penalty to all rolls while doing so.

Benefits: Bunraku act as armor, and furthermore have their own physical attributes which are used in place of the user's own on appropriate rolls (the puppeteer still applies her own Skills). They also grant the use of special Merits. Bunraku are divided in various "frames" which provide different benefits, and enable the use of oversized weapons which have their own traits.

Health and Repairs: A bunraku's sheer size and its imposing armor make it a daunting opponent for any mortal soldier, but its inner workings are very delicate. If a blade finds its way past the plates, a cog may be blocked, a silken string may be cut, the strap of an armored greave may be slashed. Bunraku have their own health track, and suffer wound penalties; Charms which cancel a user's own wound penalties do not help with the purely mechanical damage of a bunraku. Obviously, armors do not heal on their own; repairing a bunraku requires both special expertise and valuable materials of the East. Essentially, repairing a single health box on a bunraku is a Resources purchase equal to its wound penalty. Wise puppeteers retreat from the fight before they face destruction.

Exalted and Bunraku: A bunraku does not provide direct physical feedback to its user; a puppeteer does not feel like she is moving her own arm when delivering a punch with her armor, but rather she is performing complex motions of her hands and fingers which trigger that punch. As a result, Exalts find it difficult to exert their natural excellence through this delayed medium. Ability Excellencies function normally, and Attribute Excellencies use the user's own Attributes rather than the bunraku's to calculate their dice caps. All other Charms used through the bunraku (such as most combat or Athletics Charms, but not, say, social Charms) suffer a +1m surcharge. Dragon-Bloods find that their anima flux damages a bunraku as it would any other structure, unless they possess Charms which would protect vehicles from it.

Universal Merits
All bunraku frames have the following Merits:

Legendary Size: The bunraku's size makes it extraordinarily difcult for human-scale enemies to engage it in combat. It does not take onslaught penalties from any attack made by a smaller opponent, although magically inflicted onslaught penalties still apply against it. Withering attacks made by smaller enemies cannot drop it below 1 Initiative unless they have a post-soak damage of 10 dice (although attackers can still gain the full amount of Initiative damage dealt). Decisive attacks made by smaller enemies cannot deal more than (3 + attacker's Strength) levels of damage to the terror with a single attack, not counting any levels of damage added by Charms or other magic.

Titan's Flight: Bunraku are of such size that even when locked in battle, they may easily opt to simply walk away. Their enemy may follow them, but they cannot simply lock them down. A bunraku that fails a disengage roll may opt to move a range band in his intended direction regardless; all enemies who defeated his disengage roll may then opt to reflexively follow him.


Bunraku Frames

Chasing Star
The lightest and quickest of frames, a Chasing Star is a peculiarly slender armor with thin legs and a high center of gravity; it tends to cut an eerie, inhuman profile, and craftsmen often enhances this aspect by endowing them with abstract facemasks. Chasing Stars can hunt down a racing horse, and are often used as scouts, but they are the most fragile of frames and do not endure extended combat very well.

Strength: 5 Dexterity: 7 Stamina: 5
Soak/Hardness: 12/5
Health Track: -0 [ ] / -1 [ ][ ][ ] / -2 [ ][ ][ ] / -4 [ ] / Incapacitated [ ]

Merits
Acute Lenses: Chasing Stars are designed as scouts, and they include a system of mirror and lenses which allow their puppeteer to zoom in on distant objects. They gain double 9s on any sight-based Awareness roll.
Light Running: For all their weight, Chasing Stars have long legs and are designed for racing. They have double 9s on all speed-based movement rolls.


Rising Tide
Often refered to as a "balanced" frame, Rising Tide puppeteers consider it much more than a middle-ground - it is a duellist's frame, designed so that its strength and skill combined may find those terrible monsters of Creation that no man can face; many puppeteers boast that they could defeat an Exalt if they faced one - on this they are thankfully rarely tested. Rising Tides typically introduce steel plates in their design, and their appearance is very human-like; their facemask often depict human features, that of a god or a revered ancestor or a folk hero.

Strength: 7 Dexterity: 5 Stamina: 7
Soak/Hardness: 14/7
Health Track: -0 [ ][ ] / -1 [ ][ ][ ] [ ] / -2 [ ][ ][ ] [ ] / -4 [ ][ ] / Incapacitated [ ]

Merits
Stand Your Ground: Designed for stability when facing opponents of great size and strength, Rising Tides are difficult to unbalance. They cannot be knocked back or prone except by magical effects and creatures of greater size, and gain double 9s when resisting a grapple.
Engagement Range: Rising Tide's combination of speed and strength allows them to lock powerful enemies into place while the rest of their army moves freely. A Rising Tide has double 9s on all rolls to contest a disengage action.


Falling Mountain
Giant among giants, a Falling Mountain is heavy with metal, broad-shouldered, long protective plates going down its shoulders and upper arms. The tallest and heaviest of frames, its power is terrible to behold, but of a moving mountain it also has the slow and steady nature. A Falling Mountain is not designed to battle singular creatures an divine opponents, but to cut through an army like a scythe through grass, for no shield wall can withstand their blows. Their facemasks often depicted terrible creatures such as dragons, demons and monsters of the Wyld.

Strength: 9 Dexterity: 3 Stamina: 9
Soak/Hardness: 16/9
Health Track: -0 [ ][ ][ ] [ ] / -1 [ ][ ][ ] / -2 [ ][ ][ ] / -4 [ ][ ][ ] [ ] / Incapacitated [ ]

Merits
Impenetrable Armor: The minimum damage of any withering attack made against the Falling Mountain is reduced by one die, to a minimum of zero.
Incredible Might: The Falling Mountain applies double 8s on any feat of strength to lift, push, or carry something.


Bunraku Weapons

By necessity and convenience, weapons designed for bunraku tend to be crudely designed - it is simply too difficult and expensive to lavishly designed a many-folded curved sword on the scale of a giant. The blades of the bunraku tend to be sharpened hunks of iron, their bows simple of make but terrible of size. The sheer weight of such weapons grant them destructive power on par with the Exalted's legendary blades, but their size makes them more unwieldy.

Melee weapons
Light: Accuracy +3, Damage +10, Defense +0, Overwhelming 3
Medium: Accuracy +1, Damage +12, Defense +1, Overwhelming 4
Heavy: Accuracy -1, Damage +14, Defense +0, Overwhelming 5

Archery weapons:
Light: Damage +10, Overwhelming 3
Medium: Damage +12, Overwhelming 4
Heavy: Damage +14, Overwhelming 5

Archery Weapon Range:
Close -3, Short +3, Medium +1, Long -1 , Extreme -3

 

[EarthScorpion]

You wouldn't happen to have a compilation of your South West stuff, would you? It would be nice to have something interesting in the South West besides the Lintha.

Click to shrink...

Yes, I do. Plunderer Princes.

Plunderer Princes - The South West

 

[Lisafication]

Made my first crack at homebrewing an artifact for Ex 3, intended for Dragonblood use. Still need to redraft the fluff, though.

Bloodstained Silver Chains

(Red and White Jade Chain Shirt, Artifact 3)
The Bloodstained Silver Chains is a chain shirt that could be considered beautiful, with its shimmering white jade catching the light in a most pleasing manner. It is not considered such, however, as it is, for lack of a better term, marred by splotches of red jade scattered among it, giving it the unsettling appearance of being stained in blood. While it remains a splendid garment, it cannot be called 'beautiful' by traditional standards.

While it is presumably a relic of the First Age, it was first recorded found by an enterprising young Dragonblood on a field of blood and war, where a mighty battle was fought the eve before. Recognising its power, he took it for his own and wore it forever after, until he fell in battle against a rival, who took it for their own. This cycle continued for many years, and by now the shirt is rumoured to curse those who wear it to fall in battle before their time, as its wearers have yet to pass it on peacefully, always succumbing to death in battle or another form of conflict.
Themes: Blood, War, Fear and Conquest

Attunement Bonus: This artifact is passed through hands by right of conquest, and that quintessential property is reflected in the wearer. When an Exalt who is attuned to this slays a non-trivial opponent, their anima flares up a level.

Bloody Tyrant's Regalia
Cost: 1a; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The bearer's anima lights up in a red blaze of terror, a visage of horrid fear taking shape behind her. When her anima is Burning or higher, she may use this charm to supplement an intimidation roll made during battle, converting (her Essence) dice to automatic successes.

Wound the Weakened Heart
Cost: 5m, 1a, 1wp; Mins: Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Decisive-only, Perilous
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Bringing the power of those she has slain into her body, the Exalt strikes with terrible surety and clarity, cutting her foe down as efficiently as possible. Feeding upon her foe's fear, provided they have an intimacy towards her relating to awe or terror, she converts [Intimacy Level] of damage dice into successes. Limited to once per scene, unless the blow reduced the non-trivial opponent's health track from full to zero in a single strike.

Glory to the Crimson Banner
Cost: 3m; Mins: Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Brotherhood
Duration: One Scene
Prerequisite Charms: Bloody Tyrant's Regalia
The vicious Essence flowing through this armour knows the tides of battle better than any other, and imbues the Exalt wearing it with the grim understanding of how to best take advantage of their foes' weakness. After slaying a non-trivial enemy, the Exalt can use her momentum against the next foe she lays low, gaining [War] bonus Initiative when they next Crash an enemy. However, her momentum can be turned against her, and if Crashed herself, she immediately loses 2 additional initiative.

Brotherhood: The Exalted's sworn brothers are emboldened by her success, and gain this effect at [War/2], without being affected by the drawback, although they lose the bonus if Crashed.

Exact the Blood Price
Cost: 5m; 3i Mins: Essence 2
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Perilous, Withering-only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Wound the Weakened Heart
The Exalt reaps a bloody harvest across the battlefield, and knows how to extract a toll from those who dare face them in battle. After making a successful withering attack on a foe, they can invoke the dread Essence that flows through them, inflicting superficial but painful injuries. Until their foe makes a successful [Resistance + Stamina] check, against Difficulty [(Essence + War)/2], rolled once per round, they act as if they had a wound penalty of -2. Usable once per scene, resetting if the Exalt undergoes Initiative Shift.

March of the Nightmare Conqueror
Cost: 10m, 3a, 1wp; Mins: Essence 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: One Scene
Prerequisite Charms: Exact the Blood Price, Glory to the Crimson Banner
The Exalt has mastered the Bloodstained Silver Chains, surpassing all who have come before in its use. By invoking its terrible power, once per season, provided they have participated in a major battle, they can summon the spirits of the fallen as war ghosts, bound to their will.

The War-Ghosts of the Bloody Fields
Essence: 1; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 10 dice
Magnitude: 11 Motes: 60
Actions: Feats of Strength: 5 dice (may attempt Strength
3 feats): Senses: 5 dice: Stealth: 4 dice: Threaten: 5 dice

Combat
Attack (Sword): 12 dice (Damage 17, minimum 2)
Combat Movement: 5 dice
Evasion 5, Parry 7
Soak/Hardness: 8/4

Offensive Charms
Chilling Touch (7m; Supplemental; Instant; Withering-only; Essence 1): The war-ghost's blade flickers ethereal for a moment, ignoring up to four points of natural or armored soak.

Size 3, Elite Drill, Might 2, Perfect Morale