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
