Chronicles of the Camarilla's Deathknight (Exalted/World of Darkness)

[Amazing Abzan]

Title: Strider of the Maelstrom of Life and Death

Exalt: Abyssal

Spoiler: The Great Curse

The Abyssal Exalted are forever denied a place among the living, and are often overcome by their deathly natures. When the Great Curse triggers for an Abyssal, it frequently results in some sort of obsessive behavior regarding death: enforcing hierarchies that place the dead above the living, studying ghosts and corpses, mourning in graveyards, etc.

For an Abyssal, the Great Curse has the following triggers:

• Whenever you act against your major virtue, you trigger the Great Curse.
• Whenever you act against one of your major intimacies, you trigger the Great Curse.
• Whenever you attempt to exist among mortals as a member of the living, you trigger the Great Curse.
• Whenever you acknowledge the name you had in life or a similar aspect of your mortal life, you trigger the Great Curse.

Caste: Dusk

Spoiler: Essence: 1

Essence is a measure of your raw power. Higher essence gives you more motes, more hardness, and allows you to learn more powerful charms.

Spoiler: Motes: 4/5, 1 committed to Flow Like Blood

Motes are spent or committed to fuel charms. Spent motes are gone until you restore them, committed motes are gone until you end the committed effect. You gain 1 mote at the beginning of any non-combat scene and at the end of any combat scene, and regain half your motes after a scene spent resting, meditating, etc. You also regain 1 mote per turn in combat.

Spoiler: Anima: 6/10 (Burning)

Anima is how brightly you're currently glowing. There are different thresholds of anima. Different anima effects activate at these different thresholds.

Your passive anima effect is aways on. This means you can slay up to your Essence in trivial characters on your turn. Against nontrivial targets, your decisive attacks that hit always deal at least 1 damage.

Your active anima effect activates at 3 or more anima. When you flurry influence actions meant to intimidate, demoralize, or otherwise frighten a foe, you reduce the flurry penalty by two on each action. You may intimidate even mindless targets, such as zombies or robots.

Your iconic anima effect activates at 10 anima. Once per turn, you may respond to an attack with a counterattack. If successful, you gain your Essence in bonus successes to damage during your next attack against the target.

Spoiler: Health

[ ] -0 [ ] -0 [ ] -1 [ ] -1 [ ] -1 [ ] -1 [ ] -2 [ ] -2 [ ] Incapacitated

The above are your health boxes. They fill with damage from left to right. The number next to each box is your wound penalty: at that level of damage, you take that penalty in lost dice to all actions.

Spoiler: Soak: 3

Soak allows you to cancel damage from decisive attacks. 1 soak = 1 point of damage canceled

Spoiler: Defense: 5

Defense is the number of successes that an opponent must meet or exceed to accrue power (on a withering attack) or do damage (on a decisive attack)

Spoiler: Hardness: 3

Hardness is the amount of power an opponent must have in order to perform a decisive attack against you. More Hardness means you are harder to get a good hit against.

Spoiler: Resolve: 3

Resolve is your defense against social influence. When a character attempts to persuade you, instill an intimacy, etc. they have to beat your Resolve. Your Resolve can be modified by your virtues and intimacies.

Spoiler: Virtues and Intimacies

Major Virtue: Courage

• Minor Intimacy: Trish (Best Friend)

Minor Virtue: Justice

• Major Intimacy: Leila Harrow (Love)
• Minor Intimacy: "I'm addicted to Vitae"

Spoiler: Attributes

Force 4
Finesse 2
Fortitude 3

You use one attribute in every roll. The different attributes correspond to different ways to approach a problem: do you brute force it? Do you try and handle it cleverly? Or do you tough it out?

Generally, I will simply use the highest rated Attribute you have for a given roll unless I simply cannot justify it.

Spoiler: Abilities

Close Combat 5
Physique 4
Athletics 3
Awareness 3
Presence 3
Sagacity 2
Ranged Combat 2
Integrity 1
War 1

The list of Abilities in Exalted Essence is as follows:

Athletics: your athleticism and speed.
Awareness: your ability to notice details, spot ambushes, use your physical senses, etc.
Close Combat: your ability to fight in melee, both armed and unarmed.
Craft: your ability to create items, food, works of art, etc.
Embassy: your ability to navigate large scale or complex social structures like bureaucracies. May also be used to determine if you can understand a foreign language.
Integrity: your mental fortitude and ability to resist manipulation. Increases your Resolve at 1+ and 3+
Navigate: your ability to navigate the world and use any mode of transport, from flying a helicopter to riding a horse.
Performance: your ability to use artful expression, such as speeches, music, dance, or the written word. Your primary social skill for influencing groups.
Physique: how physically tough and strong you are. Increases Soak at 3+.
Presence: your ability to influence people, your sheer force of persuasion and personality.
Ranged Combat: your ability to fight at range with any weapon.
Sagacity: the nerd skill. This governs your knowledge of medicine, sorcery, computers, academics, etc.
Stealth: your ability to move unseen and perform underhanded or criminal acts
War: your ability to command others, as well as your tactical acumen.

Spoiler: Charms

Excellencies (add the given Ability's rating in dice to a roll for that Ability. Excellencies cost 1 mote):

• Close Combat

Close Combat Charms

• Flow Like Blood (You can commit 1 mote to increase your defense against close range attacks by 1, also stealing 1 power on successful defense)
• Many-Attacks Technique (You can spend 2 motes to make two Close Combat attacks instead of one. The first attack does not have the flurry dice penalty)
  • Iron Whirlwind Attack (Neither attack has the flurry dice penalty)
• Soul-Drinking Bite (You can drink blood to restore motes)

Physique Charms

• Ox Body Technique (x1) (You have more health. Can be purchased up to Physique times)

Spoiler: Merits

Tertiary Merits

• Contacts (Emergency Services)

Secondary Merits

• Allies (Leila Harrow)

Merits are assets like fame, wealth, an artifact, etc. They add dice bonuses to relevant rolls depending on their rating: tertiary adds 2 dice, secondary adds 3 dice, and primary adds 4 dice.

 

[Amazing Abzan]

(I'll info post about the milestones system later)

Click to shrink...

Later is now.

Progression in Exalted Essence works on a milestone system: you earn milestones at the end of each arc (each session, in the tabletop) depending on what you did and how the plot developed. These milestones are then spent to purchase upgrades to your character. The milestones are as follows:

• Personal Milestones - these are earned for achieving personal goals. Generally, you should expect to earn a personal milestone every arc. Personal milestones can be spent to learn the first point of an ability, to repurchase a charm you already know if that charm allows repurchases (such as Ox Body Technique), to unlock new modes for charms you know, or to buy a new, personal mode for a charm you know, making it more powerful or versatile.
• Exalt Milestones - these are earned by fulfilling the requirements of your caste. As a Dusk, you earn an Exalt milestone at the end of every arc wherein you engaged a significant foe in bloody combat. As such, you can earn an Exalt milestone every arc if you play your cards right. Exalt milestones can be used to buy any charm you qualify for EXCEPT for martial arts charms and evocations. They can also be used to buy spells, to repurchase charms, or to unlock new charm modes.
• Minor Milestones - these are earned for minor but significant plot events. Discovering an enemy's scheme, for example. You should expect a minor milestone every 2-3 arcs. Minor Milestones can be used to increase an ability by 1, or to buy a new charm of any variety, or buy a spell.
• Major Milestones - these are earned for major plot events, such as defeating a longstanding foe. You should expect a major milestone after 2-3 minor milestones. Major Milestones can be used to increase an attribute by 1.
• Essence - this is increased from climactic events, major achievements, and significant character growth. Becoming Prince of Boston, for example, would earn you an Essence increase. You should expect an Essence increase roughly every 2 major milestones. Increasing your essence also earns you a free Excellency or Ox Body Technique purchase.

To accommodate the milestone system, arcs in this quest will be shorter than arcs in other works. They're analogous to a session of play in the tabletop.

Note as well that it's possible to borrow a future milestone to learn a charm instantly should you need it. This uses up your NEXT applicable milestone and a set of stunt dice in order to learn a charm instantly. As a minor house rule, it will not always be a minor milestone that gets used up: if you can borrow an Exalt milestone instead, you will do so.