Mage the Ascension Discussion, Homebrew, Worldbuilding, and Game finding.

[MJ12 Commando]

Coldheart
6 pt Talisman
Arete 4

A shard of a twisted devilish mirror that was once owned by a powerful faery troll who sought to challenge the heavens, Coldheart demonstrates the creativity and cruelty of humanity when applied to war. And the Ascension War is the war to end all wars, the war for humanity and its future. When House Janissary acquired the mirror frame from a Chorister soon after the formal formation of the Council of Nine Traditions, they immediately realized that the shards of the mirror were valuable, and spent decades gathering them from the ones who had been stung when the troll had failed and his mirror shattered. Not out of mercy, no-for those were the times when the Traditions were still callous wizard masters seeking a return to their towers and kingdoms, and the Order of Reason still knights in shining armor who had not yet become so like what they had sought to overthrow. Those were not the times where the Traditions had gained the mercy of youth and the Order of Reason hardened with the cruelty of age and become the Technocratic shadows who set the world spinning to their desires.

But because the shards could be changed, improved, applied as a tool. A tool to regain what the knights and cannons of the Order of Reason had taken from them. For what does someone who can see all the cruelty of the world care about mercy? Why would one such as that hesitate to maim or kill or torture? And with a minor change to the nature of the shards, they could give their victims knowledge all the cruelties that could be inflicted, provide them with preternatural viciousness and lethality.

The Order of Hermes still makes limited use of these human weapons today, even after the fall of House Janissary. However, most of the time Coldheart is used by the Nephandi, whose worldviews are often nihilistic enough that they see the altered perceptions it provides as a benefit, not a curse.

System:
Coldheart is a needle-shard of black glass which burrows into the heart of a human being. This talisman is implanted by stabbing a willing character above the heart with this mirror shard (doing 1 lethal level of damage that heals normally and removing a dot of permanent Willpower as the character adapts to the shattering of the facade over the unspeakable cruelty of the world)-although the original shards of the mirror would work even upon the unsuspecting, the changes which transformed Coldheart into a weapon have limited its use only to those willing to accept the sacrifice of all beauty in the world. Typically, these shards are temporarily implanted into a young adult who has been taught for years in the belief system of House Janissary, loyalty indoctrinated until it is a matter of instinct rather than conscious thought-for the implantation of Coldheart rapidly degrades lesser forms of loyalty.

A character who has accepted a Coldheart is immune to love, empathy, or other appeals to their better nature as a Mind 3 effect. Appeals to mercy against the character automatically fail, and the character never has to roll or spend Willpower to steel their nerve before inflicting any cruelty. Similarly, the character is immune to Delirium, because they have already seen the horrors of the world and are no longer fazed by a mere wolf-man with delusions of grandeur. Finally, a character whose heart has been pierced by this black-glass thorn may not regain Willpower-their dreams are no respite from the cruelty of the world, and any accomplishments they make are meaningless to them.

In exchange for these sacrifices, Coldheart whispers into the character's ear about what ugliness and evil they could inflict on others, and guides the character's eyes to see the cruelties that others might suffer. A character whose heart has been impaled by this faery shard reduces the difficulties of all combat rolls-both attack and damage-by 3 as a Mind/Entropy 1 effect, and suffers no wound penalties whatsoever. Their mere existence is already agony, with nothing redeeming. What care do they have for pain?

Characters may have Coldheart removed via surgery. This surgery requires the character to be sedated or restrained and demands 5 cumulative successes on an Int + Medicine roll, with the surgery inflicting a level of Lethal damage per roll. Coldheart may also be exorcised from a character via a conjunctional Life 2/Spirit 2 effect. Technocrats must use Mind 3/Dsci 2 instead, as they see the world in materialistic terms and see this as an EDE malady disturbing the mind of an individual, not a thorn of faery glass piercing a human heart.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

Something related to the Exalted versus the World of Darkness Fun Times (it's surprisingly good I mean what the literal fuck) because sometimes you want something that you can punch which isn't a Qui La Machinae rocking 30 dice of soak, 10 dice of extra soak against magical attacks, and 100 health levels plus guns that deal dozens of health levels of damage per shot and multiple mages but is absolutely dangerous enough that it will ruin your day

Also this is @ManusDomine's fault so blame him

Project ICONOCLAST
To Fight Monsters, We Created Monsters of Our Own

In 1999, the Technocratic Union faced a strategic-scale threat that despite its ability to cause widespread devastation was merely human in size and shape. Such a threat was a rude awakening to a Union used to dealing with combatants of that power via warships and nuclear weapons. The augmented commando teams of the Shock Corps were not powerful enough to stop certain hostiles, while voidships and nuclear weapons had an undesirable footprint. And worse yet, the threat had appeared on Earth, past the Gauntlet. Immediately, action was taken to create a weapon capable of going toe-to-toe with an enemy which had the sensors signature and size of a single human being yet could throw down strategic devastation.

This weapon would have to be compact, yet capable of bringing the destructive energies of a Void Engineer warship into the fray. Such a requirement seemed nearly impossible-early sketches were of 30-meter tall war machines or 10-meter wide floating spheres festooned with weapons and defensive systems-until a team of Iterators and Void Engineers took a different approach-with the availability of mat-trans systems, warp drives, and all the other metric-altering technologies the Union had access to and could reproduce, why did the weapons have to be integral to the user? It would render them far more vulnerable to hostile disruption by the Traditions, but the ICONOCLAST project had never been designed to directly combat Traditions action.

The project quickly took shape after that. A single heavily augmented individual, whose augmentations primarily existed to power an entanglement link to an armored citadel where munitions and power could be directly teleported to the user. Without need to optimize for space constraints, even a human-scale weapons platform could carry and fire a warship particle beam or launch barrages of BVR hypervelocity missiles. Nearly totally dependent on their citadel-construct for constant infusions of Primal Energy and most of their firepower, a rogue ICONOCLAST would rapidly exhaust their internal batteries and either destroy themselves via systems malfunction or be brought down to earth-they'd still be a dangerous foe, but one vulnerable to ARCs and plasma cannon-armed commandos. But when fully powered they would be mythological figures wrought from quantum-computing metamaterials and sculpted in Primium-immortal gods of war leashed into willing servitude.

An ICONOCLAST is a sacrifice. Becoming one requires the loss of an Enlightened Scientist, permanently altered on a physical and psychological level by the pinnacle of Union technology to become something far more and less than human. ICONOCLASTs rarely advance in Enlightened Science-the conditioning used to keep them under control slows the growth of their enlightenment, their godlike powers blunt the need to hone human skills, and their conduit to the citadel is both a crutch that they can rely on and a tool that they must rely on to survive. Additionally, they are very rarely deployed, and living their lives in VR simulations outside of brief combat sorties is hardly conducive to gaining the experience needed to grow as a person and an Enlightened Scientist.

Only three ICONOCLASTs, and three citadels exist in the Technocratic Union. They are only deployed sparingly, and rarely is more than one deployed. Anything that requires a multiple-deployment can often be handled more efficiently with other weapons, such as Qui La Machinae, antimatter bombs, and nuclear strikes.

ICONOCLAST Traits:
An ICONOCLAST is a bespoke war machine, built by taking an Enlightened Scientist and modifying them into the pinnacle of martial prowess, an individual capable of challenging a war-god to a duel-and winning. Everything of an ICONOCLAST is weaponized. An ICONOCLAST is an avatar of the Technocratic Union's industrial and scientific might, an individual who acts as a conduit for thousands and thousands of tons of armaments and reactors thousands of kilometers distant and buried deep within the Earth. An ICONOCLAST is an expensive tool of last resort, used only when there is no choice or their deployment can be justified and their victory can be guaranteed. An ICONOCLAST is a vulnerable construct that trades flexibility for brute force, dependent on its entanglement link for most of its firepower and protection.

An ICONOCLAST candidate is a veteran soldier of the Technocratic Union, always Enlightened (but generally not particularly skilled in the Enlightened Sciences)-someone that provides the core strength of will and tactical knowledge to harness the potential of the ICONOCLAST systems. Most candidates will likely come from Iteration X or the Void Engineers, although it would not be absurd for a NWO commando or Syndicate Enforcer to choose this particular path. These candidates will almost never exceed Enlightenment 4 or have any spheres at the 4-dot level or above-the Union has more efficient uses for such personnel than sacrificing them to become the core of a god-weapon and stunting their long-term development.

ICONOCLASTs all possess these traits:

• Base Frame Augmentation: The core of an ICONOCLAST is a radical cybernetic and nanotechnological transformation of the subject, leaving basically nothing unchanged. Bones are replaced with Primium equivalents reinforced with exotic metamaterials and impregnated with electronic networks. Muscles are restructured to use fullerene actuators and woven with strands of intelligent alloy. Organs are removed to fit microreactors or computing systems. The brain is vitrified and augmented by radical neurosurgery. And the chest cavity is entirely emptied, the 'blood' of the ICONOCLAST self-circulating nanotech, so that the armored fortress that was once a human ribcage can contain the entanglement generator that powers the true potential of the ICONOCLAST. However, even without the benefits of that power source, the ICONOCLAST is a fearsome combatant capable of taking on most foes one-on-one and prevailing-even if the ludicrous inefficiency of doing so prevents this from happening.
  • An ICONOCLAST has an equivalent to the following augmentations: Musculoskeletal CNT Augmentation, Skeletal Reinforcement, Combat Bionano Transfusion, Cognitive Clockspeed Enhancement(always considering the ICONOCLAST subject to be Enlightenment 5 no matter their actual Enlightenment), 4 dice of Primium Countermeasures (for a total of 6 dice of innate countermagic), and the Forces/Mind/Matter/Correspondence/Dimensional Science versions of the Extrasensory Access biomod. ICONOCLASTs generally have a handful of additional Enhancements, based upon their personal taste and mission profile. Common ones include stealth systems, defensive or social enhancers, additional countermagick, or implanted weapons.
  • An ICONOCLAST has their pre-augmentation physical attributes increased to 4 if they were lower than 4 through an extremely effective (Life 3/Mind 3) training regimen.
  • An ICONOCLAST has their Perception and Wits increased to a minimum of 3 and their Intimidation increased to 5 (God of Death).
  • An internal targeting computer allows the ICONOCLAST to benefit from a single turn's worth of aiming with any ranged weapon it uses. The ICONOCLAST rarely misses.
  • An ICONOCLAST has an additional 20 points of Prime Energy storage integrated into their body.
  • An ICONOCLAST has the 5-point Resistance Merit (weakness: aggravated damage), meaning that they halve all non-Aggravated damage before soak, rounding down. The ICONOCLAST may soak even attacks which would normally ignore soak and its innate armor is immune to armor-piercing effects. ICONOCLASTs suffer no wound penalties from Bashing damage and do not fall unconscious when Incapacitated from Bashing damage, but Bashing damage can roll over to Lethal against an ICONOCLAST.
  • The ICONOCLAST deals Lethal damage from hand to hand attacks because of its reinforced body and when rolling Willpower to enhance their Feats of Strength rolls at Difficulty 4 instead of 9.
• The Harbinger: An ICONOCLAST is the Union's most dangerous executioner, and every part of them is designed to make their menace palpable. It surrounds them like an aura, causing people to fall to their knees in fear-or perhaps in futile attempts to mollify the machine-demigod in worship. Once per turn, the ICONOCLAST may reflexively roll Charisma + Intimidation at Difficulty 6 to intimidate everyone who can see or hear the ICONOCLAST. Victims of this effect may roll Willpower at Difficulty 6 to resist. Each success reduces the victim's dice pools by 1 until the next turn. Add a mage's Countermagic dice pool to their resistance roll, and each success on a Mind 1 Mind Shield effect or equivalent directly adds 1 success to relevant resistance rolls.
• Hypermovement: An ICONOCLAST moves so fast they're often little more than a blur. The ICONOCLAST may reflexively 'teleport' up to 100 meters in addition to normal movement by spending a point of Prime Energy, although it must be able to reach the destination by moving in a straight line. The ICONOCLAST may move through most obstacles while doing so, powering their way through brick or concrete walls like they were cardboard-but substantial defenses, like the magically reinforced walls of a fortress-chantry or a dozen meters of solid rock-will prevent it from doing so. If it is necessary to determine how much damage this does to a structure or vehicle, assume the ICONOCLAST's movement deals 10 levels of damage, which ignores 10 points of Durability or successes on a Soak roll-and so long as it deals at least 5 levels of damage, can penetrate the building or vehicle to attack anyone inside. Without spending any additional Prime Energy, an ICONOCLAST can run alongside-or straight up-walls and even on the surface of water without difficulty, and can jump up to 2 meters vertically or 5 meters horizontally per dot of Strength.
• Dynamic Stability: An ICONOCLAST has a 30-Paradox capacity Matrix for operation during times when power flow may be temporarily interrupted or disrupted, and to absorb the incidental wear and tear that its operations generate. Considering how fast an ICONOCLAST accrues Paradox, this is a necessity. Because of the value of the ICONOCLAST, it will generally retreat if the Matrix contains 5 or more Paradox outside of very desperate situations.
• Enlightened Neuromods: One of the major innovations of the ICONOCLAST is their proprietary neuromod architecture which emulates the properties of Enlightened drugs, augmenting the ICONOCLAST's ability to perform Procedures. This neuromod architecture gives an ICONOCLAST access to the Enlightened Drugs Cognition (-1 difficulty to all Enlightened Science rolls) and Tweak (perform Procedures reflexively without using an action). The ICONOCLAST is not immune to the side effects, but given that they are rarely deployed for more than short periods, the crippling crash that results from such deployment is rarely more than a minor inconvenience. Activating Cognition costs 1 Prime Energy for a scene while Tweak costs 1 Prime Energy per turn (and deals 1 level of unsoakable Aggravated damage, as normal).
• Citadel Entanglement: The true power of an ICONOCLAST, however, comes from their entanglement link with an armored fortress buried deep in the Earth. These citadels are where the majority of an ICONOCLAST's expense comes from, where the majority of their power comes from, and are cavernous structures filled with munitions and reactors and manned by a staff that includes multiple powerful Enlightened Scientists, at least one of whom is always a master of Prime or Primal Utility. Citadels are built on powerful nodes and have extremely high-power reactors and extensive power storage, providing the ICONOCLAST nearly limitless energy and flexibility. These citadels, although heavily protected and shielded by powerful anti-surveillance and ECM systems, are an ICONOCLAST's Achilles' Heel-if the citadel is destroyed or cut off, almost all of the ICONOCLAST's tools become far less effective. Cutting the connection can be done through a 10-success Correspondence Ward, requiring Correspondence 3-and the connection is the ICONOCLAST's Achilles' Heel. But as long as the connection is not blocked, an ICONOCLAST gains the following benefits:
  • Self-Repair Matter Feed: The body of an ICONOCLAST is a furnace which burns matter and energy at a prodigious rate. A constant feed of smart matter is needed to run the ICONOCLAST at peak capacity. While connected to the citadel, the ICONOCLAST heals 1 level of aggravated damage per turn and mitigates 3 Paradox per turn.
  • Ammunition and Power: As long as the ICONOCLAST is connected with the citadel, it has infinite ammunition for its weapons and gains an additional 3 Prime Energy a turn to either recharge its own power sources or use on various effects.
  • Flight: While the ICONOCLAST is being powered by external sources, they may fly at up to 2000 kilometers per hour. If the ICONOCLAST's citadel entanglement is threatened, it is likely to use this function to retreat rapidly for self-preservation reasons.
  • Kinetic Amplifiers/Kinetic Barriers: While powered, the ICONOCLAST has a six-success pool of Forces successes that they may either assign to regenerative shielding or kinetic amplification. Each success assigned to regenerative shielding provides the ICONOCLAST with a temporary 'extra' health track of 2 health levels per success that absorbs damage before soak is rolled and regenerates fully every turn, while each success added to kinetic amplification adds 1 health level of damage to all non-magical attacks the ICONOCLAST makes in the turn, such as with an Assault Ram, with its own fists and feet, or with a machine-gun or rifle. The ICONOCLAST may reassign this pool as desired at the start of its turn.
  • External Enhancement: An ICONOCLAST is often provided additional external Procedural enhancement from its citadel. Common additional benefits include additional Forces soak enhancement or speed boosts, additional sensory effects, healing Procedures, and/or Dimensional Science effects to optimize weapons against typical threats.
  • Weapons Systems: Many of the ICONOCLAST's weapons systems require a constant connection to their citadel to function, particularly its most powerful offensive features, as the firing mechanisms and ammunition are stored in the citadel.
• Conditioning: An ICONOCLAST is heavily mentally conditioned to become the ultimate weapon.
  • ICONOCLASTs are heavily shielded against subversion and heavily loyalty conditioned, to the point where many consider them to lack any free will, being less capable of autonomy than even a HITMark straight off the production line. An ICONOCLAST is considered Conditioning 10, even if not using the Conditioning optional rules. The Technocracy was wary of making false gods to rule them, and has installed safeguard after safeguard so they cannot go rogue and are dependent on the Union's resources and goodwill. In a game where Threat Null exists, the Void Engineers have modified this Conditioning to create loyalty to the earth-bound Technocracy, rather than Control and Threat Null, making ICONOCLASTs immune to direct subversion by Threat Null. This Conditioning also provides an ICONOCLAST the Iron Will merit.
  • ICONOCLASTs have an additional permanent 5-success Mind shield above and beyond all their other effects that applies to both resisting Mind effects, static magic that affects the mind, and adds automatic successes to rolls to resist mundane mental influence.
  • ICONOCLASTs have their mind rewired so they see the world entirely differently. To an ICONOCLAST, combat mode is where individual senses meld into a cohesive whole of probability fields and oracle-hack predictions as past, present and future all blur together into predictions of firing lines and threat vectors, their alien senses enmeshing them in the beauty of destruction. In combat an ICONOCLAST can be graceful, almost seeming to dance through gunfire and sword blows, or efficient and sparse with their movements, dodging attacks by slight cants of their body or almost ponderous-seeming single steps. ICONOCLASTs attack and defend at -3 Difficulty.
• Paradox and Mitigation: An ICONOCLAST is a Paradox magnet to an absurd degree. The cost of running one is only slightly lower than the cost of running a Qui La Machinae, and they spend a lot of their time in VR coffins for that reason. So long as the ICONOCLAST is connected to the citadel, though, it can offload Paradox to the citadel's own Matrices while Prime Energy feeds ensure that most of the Paradox it suffers is mitigated. An ICONOCLAST is considered to have 8 points of permanent Paradox, and gains additional Paradox from the following actions:
  • Simply existing outside of a Technocratic Construct generates 1 Paradox per scene or 2 Paradox per day for the ICONOCLAST.
  • Every turn the ICONOCLAST engages in combat generates 1 Paradox.
  • Each turn the ICONOCLAST flies or moves at inhuman speeds it generates 1 Paradox.
  • Every time the ICONOCLAST survives an attack that deals more than 10 levels of damage, it generates 1 Paradox.
  • Every time the ICONOCLAST rolls more than 10 successes on a single roll that did not benefit from autofire rules, it generates 1 Paradox.
  • Every time the ICONOCLAST uses a vulgar weapons system, it generates 1 Paradox.
  • The ICONOCLAST gains Paradox from vulgar Procedures as normal. However note that many of its vulgar Procedures are likely attributed to other, off-site mages, and the ICONOCLAST themselves will likely use coincidental Procedures due to their lack of power (and for fairly obvious reasons).
  • Double these Paradox gains if done in an area with Sleeper witnesses.
  • So long as the ICONOCLAST is connected to the Citadel, it mitigates up to 3 Paradox a turn and can transfer up to 3 Paradox per turn to off-site systems. The citadel has multiple Matrices with 20 Paradox capacity each and is designed so the damage from their self-destructing can be contained. An ICONOCLAST will generally withdraw after burning through more than 2 Matrices (i.e. gaining 40 unmitigated Paradox).

ICONOCLAST Weapons: A war god is nothing without their weapons. Ares had his sword and shield. Thor his hammer, Odin his spear. The ICONOCLAST has all of these, and more. The ICONOCLAST's weapon is a deceptive slim-line rifle that can fold out into a variety of kinetic and directed energy weapons, or transform into a Primium-edged vibrospear or vibroblade to cut a vampire-god in half. Secondary weapons arrays such as CBRN emitters and missile projectors often appear and disappear from the ICONOCLAST at will, and the ICONOCLAST themselves has a handful of internal weapons systems, including their own programmable smartblood. Weapons or weapons applications marked with an asterisk (*) require citadel entanglement to use and may not be used without the citadel connection.

• EXCALIBUR Emitter Array: The primary weapons system of the ICONOCLAST is a smart-matter hand weapon that can deploy virtually any kinetic or directed-energy solution, from a precision rifle to a warship-grade particle lance. Most of the mass of the EXCALIBUR is contained in the citadel, with the emitter itself weighing in at an absolutely svelte 45 kilograms, made of hyperdense shapeshifting materials. Although devastating even without the citadel entanglement, its most powerful abilities require the constant connection that the citadel provides. The EXCALIBUR may shift from form to form reflexively, but may only use two different modes in a turn-and only one of those modes may require citadel entanglement. The EXCALIBUR has computer targeting innate to all its ranged functions (but keep in mind that Difficulty cannot go below 3) and has the following modes:
  • Antipersonnel/Antimateriel: The EXCALIBUR can act as an equivalent to virtually any mundane weapon that the ICONOCLAST can wield, with the only alteration being its extremely deep ammunition reserves. Generally used to save power, common antipersonnel/antimateriel forms for the EXCALIBUR are machine-guns, light autocannon, rocket or grenade launchers, and long-range precision rifles. When connected to their citadel, the ICONOCLAST's ammunition is infinite and the weapon does not need to be reloaded. When not entangled, an ICONOCLAST must reload their weapon normally, although it may print one magazine's worth of ammunition if not fired in a turn.
  • Plasma Cannon: The EXCALIBUR may act as a light plasma cannon with Enlightenment 6 (or dealing 7 levels of Aggravated damage on average). This costs 1 Prime Energy per shot, but the weapon has its own 20-Prime Energy battery for use in this mode.
  • Impact: The EXCALIBUR can transform into a powerful melee weapon with equivalent stats to the warship Assault Ram (16A damage), but uses Dexterity + Melee instead of Wits + Melee to attack. Wielding the EXCALIBUR Impact requires a minimum Strength 8.
  • Area Suppression*: The EXCALIBUR can sweep an area indiscriminately with devastating hypervelocity flechettes. Treat this as a KKV barrage save that it uses Dexterity + Firearms instead of Dexterity + Helmsman, and deals a base of 7 levels of lethal damage rather than 9.
  • Particle Beam*: The most powerful and indiscriminate of the EXCALIBUR functions, and the offensive application that gives the weapon its codename, the EXCALIBUR may fire any of the warship particle beams while connected to the citadel. It may fire the Alpha up to twice per turn, the Beta once per turn, and may take 1 turn to charge up, making no offensive actions with the EXCALIBUR, to fire a single Gamma particle beam blast.
  • Neutron Disruptor*: For softer targets or concealed targets, the EXCALIBUR may fire a sweeping beam of ionizing high-penetration radiation, dealing 5 levels of aggravated damage to up to 5 targets in a single attack. The Neutron Disruptor may not be fired more than once per turn.
• Missile Array*: An ICONOCLAST may deploy a swarm of short-range HEX missiles to engage nearby enemies, firing either 1 standard HEX missile (9 levels of Lethal damage) every 2 rounds or 1 micro-missile (3 levels of Lethal damage) per round as a reflexive action. These missiles lack the range to be used in void combat, being limited to a few dozen kilometers for their engagement range, but are otherwise identical to the warship equivalents. Smart missiles are launched reflexively and always use a 10-dice pool to attack, attempting to strike once per turn until they hit something, are destroyed, or the scene ends. The Missile Array is vulgar, as it involves disposable hot-launch systems manifesting around the ICONOCLAST's shoulders-seemingly out of nowhere. Due to concerns with AI confusion and fratricide, no more than six missiles can be deployed at any time.
• Combatant Suppression System: An ICONOCLAST can deploy a cloud of lethal cytolytic nanomachinery that literally eats through the cells of anyone nearby, causing internal injuries and death. The ICONOCLAST may take an action to activate the system, creating a cloud of vicious nanoweapons that kill nearby living beings, dealing damage equivalent to a Rating 3 (L) toxin cloud to targets within 10 meters. Living beings caught in the area of effect without full body armor coverage (a normal hazmat suit is insufficient because the nanotech can eat through it) and some form of breathing equipment suffer the effects of this toxin once per round until they leave the area or die. The ICONOCLAST can choose whether to indiscriminately harm all nearby living things or to target this effect on certain parties, sparing others. While connected to their citadel, an ICONOCLAST may continually deploy the Combatant Suppression System, but otherwise the ICONOCLAST may only deploy it for one turn per dot of Stamina in an entire day. The Combatant Suppression System is coincidental if used in its indiscriminate mode, as its effects could be emulated by many forms of poison gas. It is otherwise vulgar.
• Point Defense System: The ICONOCLAST is studded with directional flechette dispensers, microbomblet projectors, and other weapons that make it dangerous to be close to them. The ICONOCLAST may choose to reflexively activate it to deal the damage of a small artillery shell (20L) to everyone within range of the blast radius, the point of impact centered on the ICONOCLAST themselves. Upon activation, the PDS also adds +2 difficulty to all ranged or melee attacks made against it for the rest of that turn as projectiles are blasted out of the sky, energy weapons have their force blunted by microchaff and the ICONOCLAST's energy-dissipation systems, and melee attackers are literally blasted away. While connected to the citadel, the ICONOCLAST has infinite ammunition for its point defense system, but while disconnected it may only fire the system once before requiring a reload. The ICONOCLAST does not take any damage from activating the PDS and may use it only once a turn.
• Concussive Shout: An ICONOCLAST can shout very, very loud, shattering glass and rupturing eardrums. This effect acts like a concussion grenade centered on the ICONOCLAST, but it is unsoakable by normal armor and deals 12 dice of Bashing damage rather than 8. A character who suffers more than 3 health levels of Bashing damage from the attack may be rendered deaf. Roll Stamina at difficulty 8-success means that the character is deafened for the scene, while failure means the character is permanently deafened until the damage to their ears is healed. Anyone with a Stamina greater than 5, more than 10 health levels, or the ability to soak lethal/aggravated damage with full Stamina is immune to this deafening effect. The ICONOCLAST is immune to its own attack.
• Smartmatter Claws: An ICONOCLAST can deploy smart-matter claws from their body to deal Str + 3 Lethal damage.
• Smartblood: Finally, even wounding an ICONOCLAST is dangerous. When an ICONOCLAST suffers Lethal or Aggravated damage, they may reflexively roll Stamina + Science to spray anyone within 5 meters with a gout of the high-pressure programmable nanotech that makes up their blood. This nanotech can be programmed to eat through most matter, dealing 5 dice of Aggravated damage plus 1 additional die for every level of Lethal or Aggravated damage the attacker inflicted, but it does not gain additional damage from extra successes on the attack roll. Smartblood may hit 1 target per level of Lethal or Aggravated damage taken in an attack. The ICONOCLAST does not need to allocate successes from its attack roll to multiple targets-each target must defend individually and takes full damage unless their defensive maneuver rolls more successes than the ICONOCLAST's smartblood counterattack.

Running an ICONOCLAST: ICONOCLASTs are not designed to engage hostile mages-an ICONOCLAST is far too dependent on Correspondence effects that can be disrupted, and even their immense arrays of countermagic and Procedure reinforcement cannot fully mitigate this threat. Even a small cabal can cripple it and given the sheer expense of deployment a crippled ICONOCLAST getting killed would be a huge loss to the Union. A fireteam of exojocks in power armor can shoot a mage to death just as well, isn't a beacon of ridiculous power visible to anyone with almost any sphere within a hundred kilometers, and if lost is merely a tragedy rather than a crisis. The ICONOCLAST exists to defeat gods and other creatures with inflexible but powerful tools that allow it to take advantage of offloading firepower, protection, and power generation onto external sources rather than contained in a single body.

In other words, they're antagonists for high-XP Exalts (for Exalted versus World of Darkness), Methuselahs and Antediluvians, and other things that would otherwise require saturation nuclear bombardment to fix as problems. They're not player characters or antagonists so much as plot generators-they're things you try to bring online in time to fight the big bad after traitors sabotage the citadel they rely on, or convince their controller to leave you alone, or a distraction to the angry world-ending demon that the Nephandi summoned in while the PCs do the important work of banishing it back to hell. Even depowered, their combination of high offensive power, very high soak and health levels, regeneration, and high dice pools will make them a challenge for all but a party of heavily prepared and combat-focused mages.

Because of their nature and lack of free will, their personality and opinions matter, but more important are the people who administer the citadel they are reliant on. These high-ranking Technocrats are powerful, proud, and can vary as much as you want-and you might engage in a tense negotiation with one of them, speaking through their artificial god-slave, or might just want to assassinate them when they're not in their citadel. If used in a Mage game as a direct antagonist, make sure there are plenty of other dangerous people other than the PCs for an ICONOCLAST to shoot at-and remember that an ICONOCLAST is expensive and generally will try to use minimum necessary force. They won't be firing Gamma Particle Beam blasts at a PC when a dozen assault rifle bullets will do, and because they're expensive they'll generally retreat when they face a serious threat unless it's literally world-ending.

As a Technocrat, you're probably not going to be playing one of these as your main PC-although some players might want the chance to cut loose and feel ludicrously overpowered and the ICONOCLAST more than gives them that power. Union PCs who interact with them will probably instead be their support staff, trying to preempt problems and prepare the field for their use. NWO agents trying to evacuate an area so that the ICONOCLAST can fight at maximum efficiency, Iterator special ops teams assassinating the enemy mage so that they can't sever the fragile connection between the ICONOCLAST and its citadel-or even a high-end tactical team trying to desperately reconnect a disconnected ICONOCLAST to its citadel so it can defeat the threat looming against them.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

For the people making games in @hls's ExWoD stuff who just hard-bounced off of having to remember yet another unique set of rules for Linear Sorcery (or ended up using my hack anyways), let me repost a somewhat modified version of my Linear-Sorcery-As-Rotes homebrew. I've made some changes here for simplicity and clarity, so use the quoted version below (I have it as a quote linking to the old version as reference).

It makes linear sorcerers (and by extension Exalts with that merit) somewhat more powerful, but less flexible. For Exalts you may need to watch out for the people who buy combat-related (or anything-related) difficulty reducers for 2 XP a dot as a note. I specifically didn't cut these out of the stable of effects a sorcerer can access so you can have your NWO white-suited men wearing shades using dual pistols and gun kata or your Akashic consors fighting like Donnie Yen ("There's ten Germans with rifles, one with a machine gun, and all I have are three knives and one guy who barely knows how to shoot a rifle. Sounds like the Germans are in trouble.") I'd just suggest that Exalts get to either benefit from their own Excellencies or the linear sorcery difficulty reduction on any given roll, choose one.

Some ExWoD-specific commentary is in brackets.

Linear Sorcerers
Linear Sorcerers bridge the gap between the Awakened and Sleepers, capable of learning some level of magical ability. Unlike a true mage, a linear sorcerer cannot improvise magic-they are limited to a generally relatively small set of 'spells.' In fact, many linear sorcerers know only a bare handful of spells-a doctor trained by the Progenitors might know the Life 3 Heal Others rote, but nothing else, while a consor trained by the Akashic Brotherhood may learn how to target their blows with Entropy 1, and sense incoming attacks via Forces 1. Linear Sorcerers, unlike Awakened mages, buy spells rather than spheres-singular rotes which they learn to master.

Prerequisites
Linear Sorcery is difficult at the best of times and only exceptional Sleepers can reliably learn linear sorcery. To learn Linear Sorcery, a character must have either at least 4 dots in two relevant Abilities governing their sorcerous tools, or a supernatural trait (e.g. Enhancement) which justifies their use of linear sorcery. The relevant Abilities do not have to be 'classically' associated with the occult-an Akashic consor can learn linear sorcerery due to their mastery of Do and Athletics, a NWO Watcher might base their sorcery on Academics and Investigation, while a Shock Corps door-kicker will probably base their sorcery on their Firearms and Alertness.

[Since an Exalt already has a relevant supernatural trait by virtue of being Exalted, they should get to waive any other requirements. On the other hand, a ST might want to enforce these restrictions because the prerequisites define what a sorcerer's 'paradigm' is for lack of a better word, and not everyone's paradigm is or should be "I have a glowy bit of sun-god stuck on my soul, reality must obey me."]

Tools
The tools used by a linear sorcerer define them in the same way mages are defined by their paradigm. Linear sorcerers, unlike mages, never transcend their paradigm. All linear sorcerers choose a focus to use to cast a spell with which they must use whenever they seek to cast that spell. A tool can be used for multiple spells (such as Hermetic linear sorcerers and their wands), but each spell must use a tool. Some linear sorcerers may use tools that are internal to themselves such as 'psychic powers,' 'implanted cybernetics,' 'genetic engineering,' or 'martial arts styles' to channel their spells-these tools are harder to master, but make it much more difficult to prevent a sorcerer from accessing their magic.

New merit:

Our Tools Shape Us (1 or 3 pt Merit): The linear sorcerer uses spellcasting tools which are difficult to remove, such as psychic powers, knowledge of martial arts, implanted cybernetics, genetic augmentations, or their own voice. At the 1-point level, the linear sorcerer uses something like singing or martial arts katas to cast spells. They cannot have their spellcasting tools removed without surgery, but the tools can be temporarily denied to them (e.g. by gagging someone who casts via singing or binding someone who must cast via martial arts kata). At the three-point level, the linear sorcerer always has access to their spellcasting tools, and the only way to deny the linear sorcerer their spellcasting tools is by invasive surgery (e.g. lobotomizing a psychic or ripping the augmentations out of a cyborg).​

Spells and Casting
Linear sorcerers learn spells, rather than paths or spheres. Spells are glorified rotes and are constructed identically to rotes.

A spell is cast using the Mage: the Ascension rules for casting magic effects, with the exception that the number of dots in the Spell replaces the character's Arete for all casting purposes. If using a rules variant where characters cast via (Arete + Sphere), replace this with either (Spell + Spell), (Spell + Attribute), or (Spell + Ability) as you wish [in Exalted vs WoD you'll probably want to use Spell + Spell, to minimize the amount of shenanigans that can be done via Exalted excellencies]. Spells can be enhanced with Mana use, at the rate of -1 difficulty/point of Mana spent. If the character botches a spell, bad things generally happen. Either inflict an appropriate dramatic penalty that is related to the intent of the spell being cast or look up the Paradox generated by the botched spell and subject the sorcerer to a backlash of intensity sufficient to completely burn off the paradox generated by the botched effect.

Unlike a true willworker, linear sorcerers may not freely make extended magic rolls in combat time. If a linear sorcerer wishes to cast instantly, they may only make a single roll on the spell and let the dice fall where they may. If a linear sorcerer wishes to make an extended roll, they must engage in a ritual, taking a minimum of ten minutes per roll (and often significantly longer). This ritual takes an appropriate form to whatever tools the sorcerer works with. The maximum number of successes that a linear sorcerer can accumulate on any single spell is equivalent to (Willpower). There is no additional cost for a sorcerer to enact a ritual-learning a spell allows the sorcerer to cast it as either a ritual or an instant effect.

Vulgar effects are more difficult for linear sorcerers. If casting a vulgar spell, a sorcerer must pay 1 Willpower to cast at all, plus 1 additional Willpower or Mana (in any combination) per point of paradox the casting would normally incur.

Higher-ranked effects cost Mana to even attempt. Any effect using 4-dot spheres costs 1 additional Mana to cast per 4-dot sphere. If the spell requires more than 1 sphere rated at 3 dots or more, add an additional 1 Mana to the cost. Linear sorcerers may learn spells which require 5 dots in a Sphere, but may not cast them independently. Instead, they may only use these spells to assist a willworker casting the same effect, using the normal rules for multiple mages collaborating on a single effect. For these reasons, linear sorcerers generally prefer to learn lower-level spells that have day to day usability. Linear sorcerers who learn Adept-level or Master-level effects generally only use them in concert with true willworkers-such as the drive technicians working on Voidship engines or the alchemists who provide the Euthanatos' Omega Protocol with draughts and infusions to achieve superhuman combat prowess.

Countermagic & Unweaving
Linear sorcerers do not have access to either countermagic or unweaving by default-but can learn it. Linear sorcerers must buy countermagic on a per-Sphere basis-if a linear sorcerer wishes to counter Correspondence effects, they must buy Countermagic (Correspondence). The sorcerer must only possess the ability to Countermagic one of the spheres which went into an effect. For a linear sorcerer, 'narrow' countermagic-countermagic that only works against someone with a similar paradigm (e.g. a psychic who can counter other psychics, but can't shut down a plasma cannon or a flaming magic sword) is costed as if it was a 1-dot effect. Broad countermagic, which works on all effects using that sphere no matter the paradigm, is costed as a 2-dot effect.

Linear sorcerers cannot unweave effects without the following merit:

Magefray (3 pt Merit): The linear sorcerer may Unweave effects like an awakened mage. The linear sorcerer may unweave any effect as long as she possesses a Countermagic spell for every sphere which the effect incorporates, using the highest dice pool out of all applicable Countermagic spells instead of Arete to unweave the effect.​

Spell Cost
The first dot of a spell costs XP equal to the sum total of all the dots in every sphere used in the spell, plus 1 (e.g. a Forces 3, Prime 2 effect would cost 6 XP base). A Linear Mage pays (current rating x [highest required sphere]) to purchase a new dot in a spell.

Linear mages may not purchase more than 5 dots in any spell and may not purchase spells which require 6-dot spheres or above.

Buying spells at character generation costs 1 freebie point per 3 XP or fraction thereof for the first dot and 3 freebie points per additional dot.

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[MJ12 Commando]

Direct damage from magical attacks is extremely weird. Most of the time it's not all that optimal, but the game treats it as some sort of mega-powerful thing that you get huge benefits out of. Higher sphere level attacks are basically never worthwhile, so you never see anyone use, say, Prime 5's ability to directly eat someone's pattern for Quintessence. And although they're normally completely useless in combat, they're ridiculously overpowered out of it, so getting rituals to bzort people from half the globe away is ludicrously powerful.

This is me sketching out something that might help reduce the issue a little bit.

Magical Damage Rework:
Normally, damaging magical effects do 2 health levels of damage per success, with Forces magic dealing 1 additional health level of damage per success. Here, magical damage deals a certain fixed amount of damage depending on the number of successes on the effect and the sphere used to inflict damage. For most effects, this reduces the amount of damage that can be dealt with extended casting, but significantly increases the amount of damage dealt with 1 or 2-success effects.

The table below lists the amount of damage a magical direct attack inflicts, based upon the successes rolled on the effect itself. This damage can be further boosted by spending more successes on the effect's damage. No more than 5 additional successes can be used to increase damage.

Countermagic adds directly to a character's soak against all magical attacks on a 1-1 basis. Because this increases the damage of higher sphere levels and creates a bit of 'eggshells-with-sledgehammers' problem in mage fights, especially when using Adept-level or Master-level effects, a ST using these rules may allow mages to reflexively use countermagic to soak attacks directly targeting them, adding their Arete to soak against magical direct damage effects if they have an appropriate Sphere. A Mage with Prime 3 or above can add their Arete to their soak against any direct magical attack, no matter what Sphere it uses.

"d" means that the damage is in dice, "hl" means the damage is in health levels.

Sphere Rating	Damage (1-2 successes)	Damage (3-4 Successes)	Damage (5+ Successes)	Additional Damage per Success Spent
1	+1d	+2d	+3d or +(Arete)d	+1d/2 successes
2	(2 + Arete)d	(4 + Arete)d	(6 + Arete)d	+1d
3	(6 + Arete)d	(8 + Arete)d	(10 + [Arete * 2])d	+1d
4	(4 + Arete)hl	(6 + Arete)hl	(8 + Arete)hl	+1hl
5	(6 + Arete)hl	(8 + Arete)hl	(10 + Arete)hl	+2hl

Special Effects:
Spheres have special effects when used as a damage source, as listed below:

• Correspondence: Correspondence does not deal damage until Correspondence 4, and requires a relevant conjunctional sphere at 2 dots (generally Life 2 or Matter 2). Correspondence damage is always calculated as if the sphere level was 2 lower than normal, but is always Aggravated and can only be soaked by the target's countermagic.
• Entropy: Entropy is the only Sphere which uses the 1-dot level row of damage. Entropy 1 "Target Weakpoint" effects can add the damage of the appropriate column to a non-magical attack. This damage is of the same type as the non-magical attack.
• Forces: Forces attack spells never use the "1-2 successes" column for damage. If a Forces spell rolls 1 or 2 successes, use the 3-4 successes column to calculate its damage. Forces spells can be Aggravated at 4+ without any conjunctional spheres. Forces 3, 4, and 5 add 1/2/3 free successes respectively to the area of an attack spell.
• Life: Life attacks ignore mundane armor (but may always be soaked by Stamina), deal an additional 2hl of damage against cyborgs, and can be made aggravated. Life attacks deal no damage to inanimate objects.
• Matter: Matter attacks halve non-magical soak if more than 3 successes are rolled on the effect.
• Mind: Mind attacks deal damage as if the sphere was 1 level lower (unless attacking with Mind 2), but may only be soaked using Willpower. If a mage uses Mind 2 to attack, the Mage does not reduce the effective level of the sphere, but instead the damage is illusory-treat the damage as Bashing, except it cannot go past the target's lowest non-Incapacitated health level and instantly vanishes at the end of the scene. Mind cannot deal damage to inanimate objects or creatures which lack minds.
• Prime: Prime attacks generate 1 Quintessence per 3 health levels of post-soak damage inflicted, and are always Aggravated. Prime attacks can never hit multiple targets.
• Spirit: Spirit does not deal direct damage against non-spirit targets-it may however summon spirits to attack the target, using appropriate traits. Dimensional Science deals damage to non-spirit targets as if the sphere was 1 level lower, but may ignore non-magical defenses and deal Aggravated damage.
• Time: Time cannot deal direct damage.

Yes, this means that a Forces 5 direct damage spell, cast normally, will do a minimum of 13hl damage, and that damage is probably Aggravated. A Forces 5 mage is a walking nuclear weapon, what did you expect? And if you're throwing around vulgar, high-sphere offensive magic you probably deserve the benefits of the Paradox cost.

Defensive Rework:
When used to add to soak or provide additional defenses, spheres provide protection as follows:

Sphere Rating	Soak (1-2 successes)	Soak (3-4 Successes)	Soak (5+ Successes)	Additional Soak per Success Spent
1	None	None	None	None
2	1d	(Arete/2)d	(Arete)d	+1d
3	(Arete)d	(2 + Arete)d	(4 + Arete)d	+1d
4	(Arete)hl	(1 + Arete)hl	(2 + Arete)hl	+2d
5	(1 + Arete)hl	(2 + Arete)hl	(3 + Arete)hl	+1hl

Round fractions up. Spheres adding to Dodge or granting health levels add +1d to all Dodge rolls or +2hl to the character per success. Soak granted from magic is generally much weaker than offense, because you only generally cast a single soak spell and expect it to last for an entire fight (and also supplement it with other sources), whereas you kind of don't do that with offensive spells.

Special Effects:
Spheres have special effects when used to provide protection, as listed below:

• Correspondence: Correspondence does not provide soak. Instead, Correspondence bans are all-or-nothing defenses against incoming attacks. A Correspondence ban prevents 1 non-magical attack per turn (plus 1 additional attack for every 2 successes spent on spell effect) from affecting the character, as long as the ban covers the attack and the attacker rolls fewer successes than the spell's effect.
• Entropy: Entropy 'soak' may not reduce an attack to less than 1 health level of damage and cannot stack with any other source of soak, but cannot be bypassed by non-magical means and protects against all non-magical sources of damage (and protects from all attacks, including magical ones, at Entropy 5). When a character has soak from an Entropy spell and soak from another source, roll both sources of soak and choose the result you prefer.
• Forces: Forces has no special effects when granting soak.
• Life: Life 2+ is required to grant soak to plants and simple living creatures, while Life 3+ is required to provide soak to complex living creatures. Life protects against physical and direct pattern (Prime, Entropy, Life) attack.
• Matter: Soak provided by Matter effects does not require active maintenance as long as the spell's duration lasts. However, Matter spells create actual physical armor that can be affected by armor-piercing attacks, effects which ignore or reduce armor, and effects that destroy armor. Large soak bonuses from Matter either require Matter 5 or are extremely obvious, even if Coincidental (massive suits of powered armor, heavy metal plates added onto a vehicle).
• Mind: Mind only grants soak against psychic attacks against the mind.
• Prime: Prime only grants soak against supernatural attacks, including magic.
• Spirit: Spirit only grants soak against spirits.
• Time: Time does not grant soak. However, a Time 4+ Stop Time effect can act as the equivalent of a Correspondence 'ban,' save that it works on all attacks (including magical attacks) that a mage can dodge.