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Alright, think I'm confident enough to show draft #2 of my extra Battles Charms for 3e off. As before, any feedback is welcome!

Archery - The Quiver

Giving Good People Bad Ideas

Cost: 4m; Mins: Archery 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
A quiver is only as useful as the arrows it contains.
The Sidereal makes a special social influence roll using (Manipulation + Archery) against the Resolve of a target. Success allows the Sidereal to convince him of a plausible falsehood, instilling him with a Minor Principle of belief in it and a compulsion to spread this erroneous belief that lasts for (6-Integrity) days. The target adds (Sidereal's Essence) automatic successes to social influence rolls to spread this idea.

Boastful Marksman Kinship

Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Archery 4, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Giving Good People Bad Ideas
To those of the Sidereal Host that know how valuable they are, the Quiver brings fellows of similar disposition to meet them.
After a few hours or days spent seeking the company of fellow socialites, the Sidereal acquires membership to an exclusive social group of some variety. The Storyteller has final say on the specifics of the group, but the Sidereal may choose a general description; hunting clubs, artistic salons, dueling groups, secret societies of socialites, etc. Alternatively, she may use this charm to empower an already existing membership in an exclusive social group.

As long as the Sidereal remains involved with this group, donates any necessary dues, returns any favors owed, and spends significant time associating with the group, she gains the following benefits:
  • The other members consider the Sidereal to be an upstanding member of the group. This acts as a Minor Tie.
  • The Sidereal is aware of all customs the group follows, including those of the greater culture they operate within (such as Realm customs after joining an exclusive tea house in the Imperial City); she will never make a cultural faux pas unless she intends to do so.
  • The Sidereal can ask a member of the group to do an inconvenient task as a favor without a social influence roll. She is expected to return the favor in the future, and cannot use this ability again against that individual until she does so.
  • She waives Excellencies' mote cost to reduce target number on Bureaucracy, Presence, and Socialize rolls related to her groups' purpose or function.

False Fletching Imposition

Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Archery 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mute, Shaping (Fate)
Duration: One Story
Prerequisite Charms: Giving Good People Bad Ideas
The Sidereal scours the fates of bureau members, sergeants, and magistrates, ruining a group's capability to correctly aim itself towards its goals.
The Sidereal spends a scene interacting with an organization, subtly manipulating the fate of every individual she interacts with. She then rolls (Manipulation+Archery), opposed by the highest appropriate (Attribute + Ability) roll of any involved group member, such as the (Charisma + Bureaucracy) of a bureaucratic division lead or the (Intelligence + War) of a canny military officer. Success hampers the organization as bad ideas always begin to win out over good ones; the organization increases the target number of rolls to accomplish its primary function by one and the time it takes to complete tasks is doubled. The Sidereal waives Excellencies' mote cost to reduce target number against any rolls the organization makes that oppose her. Those afflicted with the charm can undo this sabotage with a project to reform the organization entirely, or with magic such as Bureau-Reforming Kata (Exalted, pg. 286).
Reset: Once per story unless reset by accomplishing a legendary social goal (Exalted, pg. 134).

Brawl - The Gauntlet

Iron-Fisted Judge Attitude

Cost: -; Mins: Brawl 3, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Maidens have empowered their Sidereals to enforce destiny's designs upon the world, and granted them the conviction to see it through.
The Sidereal gains the following benefits:
  • When presiding over a criminal case as a prosecutor or judge, the Sidereal waives the mote cost for Excellency target number reduction for read intention actions against the defendant and his legal defenders, if he has any.
  • The Sidereal needs not spend Willpower to work against a Major or Defining Tie to a known criminal.
  • The Sidereal may reject bribery as unacceptable influence, unless the attempt is supplemented by magic; she gains +2 Resolve in that case.
  • Law enforcement officials treat her with deference and respect; this acts as a Minor Tie.

Hands-On Surgery Tactics

Cost: -; Mins: Brawl 2, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Gauntlet is the patron of surgeons, for every incision is a carefully weighed choice between long-term complications and the death of their patient.
The Sidereal may roll to perform surgery with (Strength + Brawl). She also ignores the penalties for lack of surgical tools, debriding necrotic flesh and severing infected limbs with nothing but her hands. Surgery performed in such a way tends to leave prominent scars. For those with Exalted Healing, these fade away a week after the surgery. They are permanent for all others.

Recidivists-will-Suffer Geas

Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Brawl 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Shaping (Fate)
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Iron-Fisted Judge Attitude, Descending Battles Horoscope
Offering a criminal mercy, the Sidereal makes any future choice to commit crime far more harrowing.
The Sidereal grants a criminal a lesser punishment or total amnesty in an official case she participated in. In Heaven, this requires no roll to persuade a censor to do so on all but the most dire of crimes (such as the killing of a bureau lead or a Sidereal, or betraying Heaven to its enemies), as the usage of this Charm has prior legal precedent; on Creation or elsewhere, the Sidereal will have to persuade whoever passes down the judgment to allow this. In exchange, she binds him to a promise to keep on the straight and narrow. For the next year and a day, the criminal must not intentionally commit a crime under his own will; forcing or tricking him into committing a crime, as well as accidental crimes, will cause him no harm. If he does break the law again, the Sidereal is immediately alerted to this, he is automatically afflicted with the Descending Battles Horoscope for free, the Sidereal waives Excellencies' mote cost for reducing her target number on attacks against him in the next combat scene against him, and, if she has learned Avoidance and it is possible for her to have been near the offender within Avoidance's time frame, she may use Avoidance for free to immediately place herself near him. If a death penalty was what was waived, killing the target acts as if fulfilling an auspicious prospect.

If the target is compliant and goes through the whole duration without committing a crime, he gains a Defining Principle of respect for the law, and any negative Ties towards him that resulted from his crime or general Ties of hatred/distaste for criminals are lowered one step in intensity.

Curse Excision Practice

Cost: 10m, 1wp, Mins: Brawl 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Hands-On Surgery Tactics
The Sidereal roots around in the body of a patient for the physical manifestation of an enemy of fate's wicked magic, and then cuts it out from him.
The Sidereal spends a scene operating on a patient that suffers from a Shaping effect laid upon them by an enemy of fate. The difficulty for this is (Essence of the enemy of fate + 3). Success inflicts lethal damage equal to the difficulty of the roll (this damage will never kill the patient, however), and frees the patient of this effect, which manifests as a tumor that takes on a thematic appearance related to the Shaping effect; removing a curse that transformed a man into a cat might remove a tumor covered in fur, while the tumor for a curse that forces the victim to tell only lies might be coated in tiny human mouths. Failure inflicts the same amount of lethal damage and allows it to kill unfortunate patients whose Incapacitated health level is filled.

Memories-for-Meat Exchange

Cost: -; Mins: Brawl 5, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Decisive-Only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Curse Excision Practice
The magic of the Gauntlet enables unorthodox treatments not normally possible, but by its nature, none of them come without a catch.
When the Sidereal or an ally within long range of her takes a crippling injury, the individual taking the injury may sacrifice an Intimacy and the memories associated with it instead of being maimed. Sacrificing a minor intimacy negates an injury of 1-2 health level damage, sacrificing a major intimacy negates 3-4, and sacrificing a defining intimacy negates 5.

Melee - The Spear

Tactics of the Crimson Laurel

Cost: Varies; Mins: Melee 2, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
Hail to Mars! Hail to the Queen of Victory! Hail to She who grants luck and skill to the Chosen!
The Sidereal obtains the following techniques upon purchasing this Charm:
  • Champion's Respite: The Sidereal gains one Willpower when she defeats a worthy adversary (such as a fellow Exalt or powerful spirit) in fair competition.
  • Evaluating-the-Rival Glance: Read intentions rolls on those who compete against or with the Sidereal also reveal their relevant dice pools for the competition, such as combat movement for a foot race or their Feat of Strength pool for a weight-lifting tournament.
  • Gambler's Misdirection: The Sidereal pays 2m to add +2 to her Guile when she bluffs or cheats on games of chance.
  • Marathon Runner's Fortitude: The Sidereal pays 3m to negate penalties from wounds or exhaustion for the duration of a non-combat competition.

Survivor's Best Techniques

Cost: -; Mins: Melee 3, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
A Chosen of the Maidens will be a veteran of countless conflicts over her long lifetime. She may reveal the hidden wisdom she earned to others to aid them in their own fights.
The Sidereal gains the following benefits:
  • She may reflexively make people aware of her prowess in battle. Anyone who perceives her knows her skill level and specialties in any combat ability (Archery, Brawl, Dodge, Martial Arts, Melee, Resistance, Thrown, and War) and that she is the best source of training in these matters, treating this as a Minor Tie.
  • On a successful read intentions or profile character roll, the Sidereal also learns her target's combat ability ratings, or for quick characters, relevant dice pools.
  • Characters who she teaches combat abilities and specialties halve their training time. This reduction of training time does not stack with other effects that reduce training time.
  • Characters she teaches, spars with, or drills with enter their next battle with a temporary Minor Principle of bravery or temporarily strengthen an existing Intimacy of bravery one step.

Dusting Off the Spear

Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Melee 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Survivor's Best Techniques
Taking on the mien of a veteran, the Sidereal embeds herself within the ranks of those who wage war as a tried-and-true professional.
After a few hours or days spent seeking enlistment in a formal military structure, mercenary group, band of unorganized raiders, or other military organization, the Sidereal is guaranteed to find herself recruited as a higher rank (assume something roughly equivalent to the Realm's rank of fanglord) or with greater prestige than a new recruit, so long as the leaders of whichever group she joins have no reason to be suspicious of Sidereal infiltration. Alternatively, she may empower such a position she already holds.

As long as the Sidereal maintains her rank, obeys her commander's orders, and spends a majority of her downtime plying her trade as a soldier, she gains the following benefits.
  • Those below her in rank or prestige in the military group treat her with great respect, understanding that she earned her position and is competent. Those above her rank or prestige treat her with great trust, knowing that her advice will be useful. These act as Minor Ties.
  • She gains Backing 2 within this group, if she does not already have it.
  • She waives Excellencies' cost to reduce target number for Presence, Socialize or strategic maneuver rolls involving her military organization, similar groups, or their current military campaign or goals.
  • She gains +2 Resolve against outside attempts to make her betray her group.

Glory-and-Dishonor Orchestration

Cost: - (10m, 1wp); Mins: Melee 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Tactics of the Crimson Laurel, Ascending Battles Horoscope or Descending Battles Horoscope
The Chosen of Destiny control all manner of conflicts; card games, chariot races, and more are often just as important as a literal battle in the Bureau's eyes.
When the Sidereal bears witness to a non-combat conflict, she may spend ten Motes and one Willpower to apply a Ascending (Caste) Horoscope Charm or Descending (Caste) Horoscope Charm on all competitors. She may apply these Charms as she wishes for no extra cost, blessing one player and cursing the rest, or any other manner of arrangement she so chooses. She must engage them in a social interaction, behavior, or ritual related to one of the constellations whose blessings or curses she knows for that Charm. If a competitor with an Ascending (Caste) Horoscope knowingly cheats or acts in an unsporting manner, it immediately changes into its corresponding Descending (Caste) Horoscope.

False Fletching Imposition is the one I'm iffiest on, being as its a little too similar to the Lunar Charm I based it off of (Gnawing Mouse Malaise), but I figured Sidereals needed at least one charm to wreak utter havoc on an organization's ability's to do something that isn't a Prophecy. Glory-and-Dishonor Orchestration is my attempt at a more Battles-focused version of Auspicious Voyage Omen. Curse Excision Practice is one I'm half-sure about: removing a shaping effect at E2 is strong, but my stipulation is that it has a price beyond just the motes for its patient and it only works on enemies of fate, which is within the theme of Brawl (note how nasty Horrific Wreath and Sever the Thread are towards enemies of fate).
 
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SunnySprings said:
Alright, think I'm confident enough to show draft #2 of my extra Battles Charms for 3e off. As before, any feedback is welcome!

Archery - The Quiver

Giving Good People Bad Ideas

Cost: 4m; Mins: Archery 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
A quiver is only as useful as the arrows it contains.
The Sidereal makes a special social influence roll using (Manipulation + Archery) against the Resolve of a target. Success allows the Sidereal to convince him of a plausible falsehood, instilling him with a Minor Principle of belief in it and a compulsion to spread this erroneous belief that lasts for (6-Integrity) days. The target adds (Sidereal's Essence) automatic successes to social influence rolls to spread this idea.

Boastful Marksman Kinship

Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Archery 4, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Giving Good People Bad Ideas
To those of the Sidereal Host that know how valuable they are, the Quiver brings fellows of similar disposition to meet them.
After a few hours or days spent seeking the company of fellow socialites, the Sidereal acquires membership to an exclusive social group of some variety. The Storyteller has final say on the specifics of the group, but the Sidereal may choose a general description; hunting clubs, artistic salons, dueling groups, secret societies of socialites, etc. Alternatively, she may use this charm to empower an already existing membership in an exclusive social group.

As long as the Sidereal remains involved with this group, donates any necessary dues, returns any favors owed, and spends significant time associating with the group, she gains the following benefits:
  • The other members consider the Sidereal to be an upstanding member of the group. This acts as a Minor Tie.
  • The Sidereal is aware of all customs the group follows, including those of the greater culture they operate within (such as Realm customs after joining an exclusive tea house in the Imperial City); she will never make a cultural faux pas unless she intends to do so.
  • The Sidereal can ask a member of the group to do an inconvenient task as a favor without a social influence roll. She is expected to return the favor in the future, and cannot use this ability again against that individual until she does so.
  • She waives Excellencies' mote cost to reduce target number on Bureaucracy, Presence, and Socialize rolls related to her groups' purpose or function.

False Fletching Imposition

Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Archery 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mute, Shaping (Fate)
Duration: One Story
Prerequisite Charms: Giving Good People Bad Ideas
The Sidereal scours the fates of bureau members, sergeants, and magistrates, ruining a group's capability to correctly aim itself towards its goals.
The Sidereal spends a scene interacting with an organization, subtly manipulating the fate of every individual she interacts with. She then rolls (Manipulation+Archery), opposed by the highest appropriate (Attribute + Ability) roll of any involved group member, such as the (Charisma + Bureaucracy) of a bureaucratic division lead or the (Intelligence + War) of a canny military officer. Success hampers the organization as bad ideas always begin to win out over good ones; the organization increases the target number of rolls to accomplish its primary function by one and the time it takes to complete tasks is doubled. The Sidereal waives Excellencies' mote cost to reduce target number against any rolls the organization makes that oppose her. Those afflicted with the charm can undo this sabotage with a project to reform the organization entirely, or with magic such as Bureau-Reforming Kata (Exalted, pg. 286).
Reset: Once per story unless reset by accomplishing a legendary social goal (Exalted, pg. 134).

Brawl - The Gauntlet

Iron-Fisted Judge Attitude

Cost: -; Mins: Brawl 3, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Maidens have empowered their Sidereals to enforce destiny's designs upon the world, and granted them the conviction to see it through.
The Sidereal gains the following benefits:
  • When presiding over a criminal case as a prosecutor or judge, the Sidereal waives the mote cost for Excellency target number reduction for read intention actions against the defendant and his legal defenders, if he has any.
  • The Sidereal needs not spend Willpower to work against a Major or Defining Tie to a known criminal.
  • The Sidereal may reject bribery as unacceptable influence, unless the attempt is supplemented by magic; she gains +2 Resolve in that case.
  • Law enforcement officials treat her with deference and respect; this acts as a Minor Tie.

Hands-On Surgery Tactics

Cost: -; Mins: Brawl 2, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Gauntlet is the patron of surgeons, for every incision is a carefully weighed choice between long-term complications and the death of their patient.
The Sidereal may roll to perform surgery with (Strength + Brawl). She also ignores the penalties for lack of surgical tools, debriding necrotic flesh and severing infected limbs with nothing but her hands. Surgery performed in such a way tends to leave prominent scars. For those with Exalted Healing, these fade away a week after the surgery. They are permanent for all others.

Recidivists-will-Suffer Geas

Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Brawl 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Shaping (Fate)
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Iron-Fisted Judge Attitude, Descending Battles Horoscope
Offering a criminal mercy, the Sidereal makes any future choice to commit crime far more harrowing.
The Sidereal grants a criminal a lesser punishment or total amnesty in an official case she participated in. In Heaven, this requires no roll to persuade a censor to do so on all but the most dire of crimes (such as the killing of a bureau lead or a Sidereal, or betraying Heaven to its enemies), as the usage of this Charm has prior legal precedent; on Creation or elsewhere, the Sidereal will have to persuade whoever passes down the judgment to allow this. In exchange, she binds him to a promise to keep on the straight and narrow. For the next year and a day, the criminal must not intentionally commit a crime under his own will; forcing or tricking him into committing a crime, as well as accidental crimes, will cause him no harm. If he does break the law again, the Sidereal is immediately alerted to this, he is automatically afflicted with the Descending Battles Horoscope for free, the Sidereal waives Excellencies' mote cost for reducing her target number on attacks against him in the next combat scene against him, and, if she has learned Avoidance and it is possible for her to have been near the offender within Avoidance's time frame, she may use Avoidance for free to immediately place herself near him. If a death penalty was what was waived, killing the target acts as if fulfilling an auspicious prospect.

If the target is compliant and goes through the whole duration without committing a crime, he gains a Defining Principle of respect for the law, and any negative Ties towards him that resulted from his crime or general Ties of hatred/distaste for criminals are lowered one step in intensity.

Curse Excision Practice

Cost: 10m, 1wp, Mins: Brawl 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Hands-On Surgery Tactics
The Sidereal roots around in the body of a patient for the physical manifestation of an enemy of fate's wicked magic, and then cuts it out from him.
The Sidereal spends a scene operating on a patient that suffers from a Shaping effect laid upon them by an enemy of fate. The difficulty for this is (Essence of the enemy of fate + 3). Success inflicts lethal damage equal to the difficulty of the roll (this damage will never kill the patient, however), and frees the patient of this effect, which manifests as a tumor that takes on a thematic appearance related to the Shaping effect; removing a curse that transformed a man into a cat might remove a tumor covered in fur, while the tumor for a curse that forces the victim to tell only lies might be coated in tiny human mouths. Failure inflicts the same amount of lethal damage and allows it to kill unfortunate patients whose Incapacitated health level is filled.

Memories-for-Meat Exchange

Cost: -; Mins: Brawl 5, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Decisive-Only
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Curse Excision Practice
The magic of the Gauntlet enables unorthodox treatments not normally possible, but by its nature, none of them come without a catch.
When the Sidereal or an ally within long range of her takes a crippling injury, the individual taking the injury may sacrifice an Intimacy and the memories associated with it instead of being maimed. Sacrificing a minor intimacy negates an injury of 1-2 health level damage, sacrificing a major intimacy negates 3-4, and sacrificing a defining intimacy negates 5.

Melee - The Spear

Tactics of the Crimson Laurel

Cost: Varies; Mins: Melee 2, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
Hail to Mars! Hail to the Queen of Victory! Hail to She who grants luck and skill to the Chosen!
The Sidereal obtains the following techniques upon purchasing this Charm:
  • Champion's Respite: The Sidereal gains one Willpower when she defeats a worthy adversary (such as a fellow Exalt or powerful spirit) in fair competition.
  • Evaluating-the-Rival Glance: Read intentions rolls on those who compete against or with the Sidereal also reveal their relevant dice pools for the competition, such as combat movement for a foot race or their Feat of Strength pool for a weight-lifting tournament.
  • Gambler's Misdirection: The Sidereal pays 2m to add +2 to her Guile when she bluffs or cheats on games of chance.
  • Marathon Runner's Fortitude: The Sidereal pays 3m to negate penalties from wounds or exhaustion for the duration of a non-combat competition.

Survivor's Best Techniques

Cost: -; Mins: Melee 3, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
A Chosen of the Maidens will be a veteran of countless conflicts over her long lifetime. She may reveal the hidden wisdom she earned to others to aid them in their own fights.
The Sidereal gains the following benefits:
  • She may reflexively make people aware of her prowess in battle. Anyone who perceives her knows her skill level and specialties in any combat ability (Archery, Brawl, Dodge, Martial Arts, Melee, Resistance, Thrown, and War) and that she is the best source of training in these matters, treating this as a Minor Tie.
  • On a successful read intentions or profile character roll, the Sidereal also learns her target's combat ability ratings, or for quick characters, relevant dice pools.
  • Characters who she teaches combat abilities and specialties halve their training time. This reduction of training time does not stack with other effects that reduce training time.
  • Characters she teaches, spars with, or drills with enter their next battle with a temporary Minor Principle of bravery or temporarily strengthen an existing Intimacy of bravery one step.

Dusting Off the Spear

Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Melee 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Survivor's Best Techniques
Taking on the mien of a veteran, the Sidereal embeds herself within the ranks of those who wage war as a tried-and-true professional.
After a few hours or days spent seeking enlistment in a formal military structure, mercenary group, band of unorganized raiders, or other military organization, the Sidereal is guaranteed to find herself recruited as a higher rank (assume something roughly equivalent to the Realm's rank of fanglord) or with greater prestige than a new recruit, so long as the leaders of whichever group she joins have no reason to be suspicious of Sidereal infiltration. Alternatively, she may empower such a position she already holds.

As long as the Sidereal maintains her rank, obeys her commander's orders, and spends a majority of her downtime plying her trade as a soldier, she gains the following benefits.
  • Those below her in rank or prestige in the military group treat her with great respect, understanding that she earned her position and is competent. Those above her rank or prestige treat her with great trust, knowing that her advice will be useful. These act as Minor Ties.
  • She gains Backing 2 within this group, if she does not already have it.
  • She waives Excellencies' cost to reduce target number for Presence, Socialize or strategic maneuver rolls involving her military organization, similar groups, or their current military campaign or goals.
  • She gains +2 Resolve against outside attempts to make her betray her group.

Glory-and-Dishonor Orchestration

Cost: - (10m, 1wp); Mins: Melee 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Techniques of the Crimson Laurel, Ascending Battles Horoscope or Descending Battles Horoscope
The Chosen of Destiny control all manner of conflicts; card games, chariot races, and more are often just as important as a literal battle in the Bureau's eyes.
When the Sidereal bears witness to a non-combat conflict, she may spend ten Motes and one Willpower to apply a Ascending (Caste) Horoscope Charm or Descending (Caste) Horoscope Charm on all competitors. She may apply these Charms as she wishes for no extra cost, blessing one player and cursing the rest, or any other manner of arrangement she so chooses. She must engage them in a social interaction, behavior, or ritual related to one of the constellations whose blessings or curses she knows for that Charm. If a competitor with an Ascending (Caste) Horoscope knowingly cheats or acts in an unsporting manner, it immediately changes into its corresponding Descending (Caste) Horoscope.

False Fletching Imposition is the one I'm iffiest on, being as its a little too similar to the Lunar Charm I based it off of (Gnawing Mouse Malaise), but I figured Sidereals needed at least one charm to wreak utter havoc on an organization's ability's to do something that isn't a Prophecy. Glory-and-Dishonor Orchestration is my attempt at a more Battles-focused version of Auspicious Voyage Omen. Curse Excision Practice is one I'm half-sure about: removing a shaping effect at E2 is strong, but my stipulation is that it has a price beyond just the motes for its patient and it only works on enemies of fate, which is within the theme of Brawl (note how nasty Horrific Wreath and Sever the Thread are towards enemies of fate).
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I don't really have any meaningful feedback in me rn, but I like all of these and I totally dig the Death Grips title ref(?); I've got a few Charms I wrote myself in a similar space, so it's nice to see other people fiddling.
 
SunnySprings said:

Hands-On Surgery Tactics

Cost: -; Mins: Brawl 2, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Gauntlet is the patron of surgeons, for every incision is a carefully weighed choice between long-term complications and the death of their patient.
The Sidereal may roll to perform surgery with (Strength + Brawl). She also ignores the penalties for lack of surgical tools, debriding necrotic flesh and severing infected limbs with nothing but her hands. Surgery performed in such a way tends to leave prominent scars. For those with Exalted Healing, these fade away a week after the surgery. They are permanent for all others.
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This one seems like an ideal prereq for a Charm I've been thinking about for a while.

Life In Her Grasp

Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Brawl 4, Essence 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: Perilous
Duration: Until you let go
Prerequisite Charms: Hands-On Surgery Tactics
The Gauntlet will not relinquish that which it can still hold tight. I won't let you go. Not yet.
The Sidereal takes hold of someone, and in doing so keeps hold of their soul. This may take the form of gripping a limb, wrapping them in an embrace, or some other form of steady, maintained contact. In combat this takes the form of a grapple gambit on unwilling targets. Willing or unconscious targets may be held with a single miscellaneous action. While this grip is maintained the target cannot die. Targets reduced to their incapacitated health level are rendered unconscious, but their condition will not worsten so long as the Sidereal's grip is maintained. Even in the event of mortal wounds, disease, impossible pain, dismemberment, the extinction of their soul, or worse, so long as the Sidereal holds them firmly they will not die. Should life be untenable when she relinquishes her grip, they pass away immediately.

If the Sidereal can reach a target and get a hold of them in the same round in which they are incapacitated by lethal damage, even damage that would kill them, she may keep them from death.

The Sidereal's grip on an unwilling target is broken by the end of her grapple. Breaking her grip on willing or unconscious targets in combat is a difficulty 5 gambit. Outside of combat, her grip may be broken with an opposed Strength + Brawl roll.
 
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I appreciate the fact that there's more permanent charms for Sidereals. It's nice to have big benefits that are always on, like Professorial Mien or Mysterious Traveler Wisdom, as they really shape the way your character acts and feels since they're free (after buying them, of course). The charms that add alternate ways to calculate static pools are also pretty useful, as it lets you stretch out a Caste's power.
 
Additionally, it's typical for more Charms to be added between KS preview and final, so it's safe to bet that will happen here too.
 
Huh, came across a bit of a blast from past-me on another forum. Context was someone asking how to cross Exalted with Pact (a Wildbow web serial, written after Worm), but the response had a thought on generically how you could turn Creation into "modern-day Earth" (or something resembling the same).

And reading it... I probably should get into 3rd edition some time. I have the core book from the kickstarter, but I actually got it when I started focusing on other things in life and never had the time to invest into getting in-depth enough to start making charm trees like I used to.

RIP "Gaian Project"... :(

Sidereal. I'd probably go with "Creation as predecessor to current-day Earth" rather than the more standard "Well of Udr! Other universe! Wyld!" fare. Creation declines as the Wyld is sucked into Oblivion (or, from a different perspective, the Wyld excises Creation) and folds inward into a sphere. Concepts are lost or weakened, essence calcifies into 'mundane' matter or evaporates, the heavens get pulled around as Creation buckles becoming empty space filled with solid objects, the Sun endures ('unconquered') but is defined in a single spot, etc etc.

Oblivion still 'seeks' to devour Creation; demons are sort of anti-concepts that are manifestations/agents/whatever of the phenomenon. When they consume something it falls into the Void..

Exaltations exist, but there are no longer human beings with sufficient weight of Destiny (going by the Destiny merit from first edition and the note that Exaltations require a certain 'weight' in the candidate to empower an Exalt), so they're effectively not relevant on the whole. Occasionally rare individuals arise with sufficient presence, and perhaps a couple find themselves in situations making them ripe for Exalting, but in Pact they're simply seen as Others that were once human and probably remain low-Essence until something kills them off.

The sheer 'weight' of the karma load on the Thorburn family makes several members of it potential candidates for Exaltation, but their practice leaves them with few or no opportunity to display the qualities sought by Solar and Lunar exaltations (and Sidereal ones are a lot choosier and more esoteric in their selection - and are there from birth, meaning that if an Exaltation event never occurs to the candidate, it just sits passively). Sidereals exaltations show up among practitioners born into familieis with massive karma debt occasionally but again, Pact magic is about connections (and, it could be said, destiny) so that doesn't make them outstanding except perhaps for power (potentially, at least). And having that negative karma load inherited doesn't do a lot for their life expectancy.

So you could run with a newly-exalted Sidereal Blake, sure. It doesn't give a lot of guidance to plot, but it does open up possible lingering First/Second Age remnants. You'd want to not go overboard with the fate manipulations, but you could have some fun with resplendent destinies (not unlike his glamour disguise) and Arcane Fate (well, what's currently happened to him) and maybe a charm or two thrown in there.

EDIT: Second pick would probably be Infernal - he's gotten the short end of the stick sufficiently (even before he 'awakens') to make him attractive to a Yozi's agent with little or no change in plot (A sufficient major failure and a moment of angry defiance and despair would do). Abyssal a third... maybe. It gets iffy at this point in the list. Then Lunar, then Solar in dead last. Alchemical tied with Solar, Dragonblooded the same. Of the non-Exalt templates, Raksha is perhaps doable in a Goblin Queen-esque manner, but would still be rather weak. Mountain Folk likewise, and Dragon Kings are a fairly spectacular "would not fit".

Ghosts (in the Exalted sense of a free-floating soul rather than an impression on the world) are doable as an element, as are Exalted-style demons. Creation-style thaumaturgy could be shoehorned in with relatively little additional trouble. Creation-style sorcery would be difficult and awkward; most of it is anything but subtle, really. Gods 'weaken' to spirits, having little direct physical power, and elementals for the most part slumber. The Celestines have more or less entirely abandoned the world for the Games; the sun and moon are Luna and the Unconquered Sun's empty chariots. Yozi world-bodies are really self-contained realms/worlds that are simply difficult to nigh-impossible to travel to and from from the now-calcified Creation. And so on.
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The Cackling Triad, the Sky-Witches, Divine Hierarchs of the Coven of Tempests, Storm Grandmothers

"Hail to Yshma of the Gnawing Maul, may she never use it to grind our marrow. Hail to Yrza of the Howling Bellows may she never use it to stoke our peril. Hail to Yeqata of the Twisted Ladle, may she never use it to stir our misfortune. Praise be the Kindly Sisters and may they never brew our deaths."

These words are a common adage along the sea lanes connecting Fajad, Wu-Jian, Coral, and Skullstone. Sailors fear and hate storms and rough seas, but they take care to offer propitiation and praise to the goddesses who govern that weather, the Cackling Triad. A trio of venerable Storm Mothers, the Sky-Witches have prowled the waters and skies of the Northwest since time immemorial. Ancient and sinister, tales are told of the sky cracking power they wielded against a Lesser Elemental Dragon of Air that sought to usurp them. That dragon's ribs now form the walls of their palace-hut in the sky and its name is cursed to bring misfortune upon whoever speaks it without the Triad's blessing. Lightning is their fury and thunder is their laughter. Hail is their scorn and rain is their charity. Those who earn their favor survive their storms with notable frequency, those who anger them are beset by tempests, ostracization, and disfiguring curses.

The Cackling Triad preside over a spirit court known as the Coven of Tempests, consisting of lesser storm mothers as well as numerous other atmospheric and oceanic deities. The court is greatly feared by mortals, but also hailed as bringers of trade and rain. They are worshiped by merchant sailors, wreckers, fishermen, pirates, oceanic beastfolk, savants, and sorcerers, invoked both to bestow their blessings and withhold their curses. The Cackling Triad sits atop and exemplifies this hierarchy, at once bringers of great fortune and bestowers of horrible misfortune.

Worship of the Triad peaks in autumn, as storms become more intense and those who live off the sea pray that the Sky-Witches do them no harm. Typical offerings consist of polished mirrors and driftwood carvings, in times of true desperation sacrificial victims are staked out to die of exposure in storms or drown rough seas. Supplicants regularly refer to them obliquely with epithets and titles that ascribe to them some sort of generosity, such as "Good Goddesses," "Mothers of Charity," and "Kindly Sisters of the Winds." These titles are exaggerated, more entreatments towards benevolence than true descriptions. While the Triad do answer prayers, theirs is often a tough love.

Though widely worshiped, temples and shrines to the Cackling Triad often stand apart from main settlements, staffed by elders without family, the disfigured, unwanted children, and the inveterately curmudgeonly. In some areas, the cult of the Triad is the only place that accepts outcasts and the exiled. Those particularly dedicated to them earn a measure of their spartan favor, and are thus respected even as they are feared by layfolk. They might earn the ability to steal the face, or voice, of one whom they envy, though only once. Others are given seabird familiars or guardian elementals. A rare few are granted the secrets of sorcery.

The Cackling Triad consists of the sisters Yshma, Yrza, and Yeqata. Cadaverous Yshma wields a spiked mallet of frozen lightning and is equal parts vain and brilliant. Stout Yrza carries bellows made from the bones and skin of a storm serpent and has a ribald sense of humor. Stately Yeqata carries a gnarled ladle-stave of enchanted driftwood, and of the three is capable of both the greatest cruelty and greatest kindness. The sisters lair in a sanctum-hut nestled in the depths of a tamed stormcloud, where they preside over the mystical cauldron known as Yskandrang. Discovered by the trio in ages past, the artifact enlightened them to the mysteries of sorcery, and within it they brew blessings, curses, and cyclones. Yshma prepares ingredients both mundane and exotic to throw into the cauldron, Yrza stokes the magical flames, and Yeqata stirs the mystical brew until it is ready. Within its swirling depths, the Triad can scry far across their territory, blind only to areas that can neither see the sky nor hear the sea.

Story Hooks

A port city's prince has offended the Storm Grandmothers by slaying a sea captain who was particularly devoted to them; they punish his people in response. A massive cyclone wreaths the island on which the port is the largest settlement, the city at the center of the storm's eye. Vessels which attempt to disembark are sunk by violent winds, rogue waves, and sorcerous abominations. The prince himself refuses to leave his chambers, and the fragments of his smashed mirrors litter the ground beneath his balcony, his cursed visage forever imprinted upon them.

The sisters' stormcloud-manse has been sitting above Aqadar's Needle in Fajad for days. Realm authorities become ever more nervous, being less able to turn a blind eye to the Lunar sorcerer. They fear that the Anathema wizard entreats the Triad to scour Realm ships from the trade routes. Attempts by the satrap to discern the nature of their meeting through Fajadi cutouts are met with Aqadar's typical aloof disdain. Meanwhile, pious Abhari entreat their prophets to drive away the Sky-Witches.

The Triad occasionally shows mercy to castaways thrown from ships by their storms. The waves guide them to a surprisingly lush island where a tiny civilization descended from the marooned exists. Nestled in the caldera of a dead volcano, their city consists of buildings made from shipwrecks, cunningly wrought and repurposed into communal longhouses. The island holds ancient secrets, and sorcerous guardians placed by the sisters prevent deeper prying without their permission.

When the sisters desire a mortal agent who can act beyond the abilities of a mundane priest, they often tutor a student in sorcery. Often foundlings given to their shrines in infancy, the Triad regards these apprentices as granddaughters. The occasional attempts at rebellion by youthful students mostly bemuse the Triad, and they respond with punishments more instructive than sadistic. Any potential Exigent the Triad chooses would surely be drawn from the same crop.
 
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Apocryphal NPCs: Hearteaters, Orphans of Aurora


Our Lady of Stained Glass

Beneath the far Northern metropolis of Adze, warmed by the volcanic heat of Mount Tarus, something loathsome dwells, and Hungers. In an inverse cathedral, hundreds of cubits beneath the surface, it is both queen and god. It nests there, presiding over dull-eyed cultists, sorcerous laboratories, and spawning pits filled with bubbling elixir. It might have had a name once, a human face beneath the mask of a living god; all gone now, lost to time and Hunger. Now the Hearteater knows itself only by the name on the lips of its pawns: Our Lady of Stained Glass.

It remembers a time, when it dwelt in the world above, beloved and cherished. It remembers the sun on its face and joy in its heart. It remembers being twisted, being shattered until its mind and soul were made of broken glass. It remembers the Moon and Stars rending its godly flesh and sending it fleeing into the depths below. It remembers all of these things, the pain most of all, and it hates. Its pain and its hate have taught it well the price of recklessness, and so it waits, and watches, and dreams dreams of beauty and horror.

Secure in its lair, guarded by sorcery and slaves, the Lady of Stained Glass spreads its tendrils to the city of Adze above. It preyed first upon the unwanted, the urchins and lepers of the city, they became its greedy eyes, its spidery fingers, its blades in the night. It made them serve it, made them love it, made them call it Mother. Now, that first generation of thralls and stolen children has grown and aged, and the thing that would be a queen turns now to greater sustenance. In the world above, it moves its pawns to ensnare the merchants, princes, and heroes of Adze. In the world below, it grows new children from the flesh of captured mortals and undergods, a new race of man for its will to inhabit. When it is ready, the Lady and its children shall move beyond Adze and the outside world shall have a new Mother.


Mayor Behrouze of Hope

In the Summer Mountains, south of the Ember-Kamthahar trade route, there lies a young mining town by the name of Hope. Funded by an enterprising merchant and settled by those seeking their fortunes in untapped veins of wealth, for the longest time its name was an ironic one. The geological surveys that had promised virgin veins of jade were all lies. One by one, its financiers fled in the night, and the founder took her own life to escape her creditors. Its falling fortunes suddenly reversed one day, when Behrouze, a shareholder of the venture, stumbled upon a hidden trove of wealth: an ancient mine shaft, flush with relics of a bygone age, deposits of priceless adamant, and a curious sealed chamber where bones of imperishable opal lay interred.

Using his newfound wealth, and the mysterious powers that he acquired in the tomb, the Exalt has turned the little settlement of Hope into a mining boomtown. The financiers who fled were convinced to return, Behrouze's hypnotic charisma swaying them to his side. "The town where everyone has a smile" they call it, and it's true. The people of Hope indeed appear to be immensely happy and friendly, even as the miners put in countless hours of backbreaking labor in the adamant mine. His coffers full and his debts paid, Behrouze, a good humored, barrel chested man in his 30s, presides over Hope as both owner of the mine and as mayor. Known to be a generous man, he wins each yearly election by a landslide. And yet, despite all his good fortune, Behrouze finds himself unsatisfied.

The trove of adamant, the love of the people, the power and fame, the little slice of paradise that is the town of Hope, none of it is enough. There has to be More, he tells himself, just as he tells himself that his powers are only giving his most willful subordinates a nudge in the right direction, that he's simply helping them realize their own fortunes. In secret, the mayor ventures by lamplight into the deepest explored shaft of the mine, passage forbidden to all but him for reasons of "safety concerns." There, Behrouze takes counsel from a ghost with lapis lazuli eyes that appeared when he found the opaline skeleton. The phantom agrees with him: it's not enough, a great man naturally has great appetites, and some Hungers have to be fed.


Poem Rain

At the far eastern edge of the Hundred Kingdoms, they tell tales of Poem Rain, a wandering heroine-youth who shines with sapphire light. A dormouse perches on her shoulder and a tamed direwolf, docile as a lamb, trots at her side. Her face is angelic and her gaze fearless. Her blows can crack walls and her songs can melt hearts. The young woman saves the helpless, rights wrongs, and defeats villains, then moves on, claiming that she can only stay so long when there are other people to help. Though this is true, it is not the only reason for her departure. If she were to stay, she might be tempted to feed, and she is very, very Hungry.

Poem Rain grew up in a caravanserai along the Golden Road, her childhood defined by a cavalcade of visiting travelers from far away places coming to her family's rest stop. That life came to an end when an empty thing arrived from the distant East, wearing the skin of the master of a wandering troupe of performers. A few weeks later, Poem Rain and everyone else at the rest stop were part of that creature's caravan. The next few years were a blur, the Hearteater using Poem Rain's singing talent to lure in more prey, at times it fancied her its understudy. Her enslavement ended when a Wyld Hunt descended upon the Hearteater's caravan, an elemental purification that slew the glass-hearted abomination that had been Poem Rain's master, along with many unfortunate pawns in the proximity. The Dragonblooded did not know that its exaltation would flee into another however, and moved on after dismembering and burning its corpse, assuming that was the end of it.

Poem Rain does not know why it was her that triumphed in that desperate battle of egos following her Exaltation. All she knows is that the thing she had called master is now dead both in body and in mind, and that she has been cursed to become its successor. Unlike many Hearteaters, she knows the true horror of what she is capable of, and she retains enough of her humanity to recoil at its possibility. Desperate to escape this fate, she throws herself into heroics, in defiance of her predecessor's legacy. She takes Pawns when she must, to feed the gnawing Hunger within, but she often abandons them soon after, leaving them addled in alehouses or temples when she can bear their presence no longer. Her only permanent Pawns are the dormouse and wolf she keeps by her side. She simultaneously fears and craves the presence of other Exalts, knowing that for all the danger they pose to her, they also represent some of her few chances at genuine companionship.
 
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HamSandLich said:
Apocryphal NPCs: Hearteaters, Orphans of Aurora


Our Lady of Stained Glass

Beneath the far Northern metropolis of Mattock, warmed by the volcanic heat of Mount Tarus, something loathsome dwells, and Hungers. In an inverse cathedral, hundreds of cubits beneath the surface, it is both queen and god. It nests there, presiding over dull-eyed cultists, sorcerous laboratories, and spawning pits filled with bubbling elixir. It might have had a name once, a human face beneath the mask of a living god; all gone now, lost to time and Hunger. Now the Hearteater knows itself only by the name on the lips of its pawns: Our Lady of Stained Glass.

It remembers a time, when it dwelt in the world above, beloved and cherished. It remembers the sun on its face and joy in its heart. It remembers being twisted, being shattered until its mind and soul were made of broken glass. It remembers the Moon and Stars rending its godly flesh and sending it fleeing into the depths below. It remembers all of these things, the pain most of all, and it hates. Its pain and its hate have taught it well the price of recklessness, and so it waits, and watches, and dreams dreams of beauty and horror.

Secure in its lair, guarded by sorcery and slaves, the Lady of Stained Glass spreads its tendrils to the city of Mattock above. It preyed first upon the unwanted, the urchins and lepers of the city, they became its greedy eyes, its spidery fingers, its blades in the night. It made them serve it, made them love it, made them call it Mother. Now, that first generation of thralls and stolen children has grown and aged, and the thing that would be a queen turns now to greater sustenance. In the world above, it moves its pawns to ensnare the merchants, princes, and heroes of Mattock. In the world below, it grows new children from the flesh of captured mortals and undergods, a new race of man for its will to inhabit. When it is ready, the Lady and its children shall move beyond Mattock and the outside world shall have a new Mother.


Mayor Behrouze of Hope

In the Summer Mountains, south of the Ember-Kamthahar trade route, there lies a young mining town by the name of Hope. Funded by an enterprising merchant and settled by those seeking their fortunes in untapped veins of wealth, for the longest time its name was an ironic one. The geological surveys that had promised virgin veins of jade were all lies. One by one, its financiers fled in the night, and the founder took her own life to escape her creditors. Its falling fortunes suddenly reversed one day, when Behrouze, a shareholder of the venture, stumbled upon a hidden trove of wealth: an ancient mine shaft, flush with relics of a bygone age, deposits of priceless adamant, and a curious sealed chamber where bones of imperishable opal lay interred.

Using his newfound wealth, and the mysterious powers that he acquired in the tomb, the Exalt has turned the little settlement of Hope into a mining boomtown. The financiers who fled were convinced to return, Behrouze's hypnotic charisma swaying them to his side. "The town where everyone has a smile" they call it, and it's true. The people of Hope indeed appear to be immensely happy and friendly, even as the miners put in countless hours of backbreaking labor in the adamant mine. His coffers full and his debts paid, Behrouze, a good humored, barrel chested man in his 30s, presides over Hope as both owner of the mine and as mayor. Known to be a generous man, he wins each yearly election by a landslide. And yet, despite all his good fortune, Behrouze finds himself unsatisfied.

The trove of adamant, the love of the people, the power and fame, the little slice of paradise that is the town of Hope, none of it is enough. There has to be More, he tells himself, just as he tells himself that his powers are only giving his most willful subordinates a nudge in the right direction, that he's simply helping them realize their own fortunes. In secret, the mayor ventures by lamplight into the deepest explored shaft of the mine, passage forbidden to all but him for reasons of "safety concerns." There, Behrouze takes counsel from a ghost with lapis lazuli eyes that appeared when he found the opaline skeleton. The phantom agrees with him: it's not enough, a great man naturally has great appetites, and some Hungers have to be fed.


Poem Rain

At the far eastern edge of the Hundred Kingdoms, they tell tales of Poem Rain, a wandering heroine-youth who shines with sapphire light. A dormouse perches on her shoulder and a tamed direwolf, docile as a lamb, trots at her side. Her face is angelic and her gaze fearless. Her blows can crack walls and her songs can melt hearts. The young woman saves the helpless, rights wrongs, and defeats villains, then moves on, claiming that she can only stay so long when there are other people to help. Though this is true, it is not the only reason for her departure. If she were to stay, she might be tempted to feed, and she is very, very Hungry.

Poem Rain grew up in a caravanserai along the Golden Road, her childhood defined by a cavalcade of visiting travelers from far away places coming to her family's rest stop. That life came to an end when an empty thing arrived from the distant East, wearing the skin of the master of a wandering troupe of performers. A few weeks later, Poem Rain and everyone else at the rest stop were part of that creature's caravan. The next few years were a blur, the Hearteater using Poem Rain's singing talent to lure in more prey, at times it fancied her its understudy. Her enslavement ended when a Wyld Hunt descended upon the Hearteater's caravan, an elemental purification that slew the glass-hearted abomination that had been Poem Rain's master, along with many unfortunate pawns in the proximity. The Dragonblooded did not know that its exaltation would flee into another however, and moved on after dismembering and burning its corpse, assuming that was the end of it.

Poem Rain does not know why it was her that triumphed in that desperate battle of egos following her Exaltation. All she knows is that the thing she had called master is now dead both in body and in mind, and that she has been cursed to become its successor. Unlike many Hearteaters, she knows the true horror of what she is capable of, and she retains enough of her humanity to recoil at its possibility. Desperate to escape this fate, she throws herself into heroics, in defiance of her predecessor's legacy. She takes Pawns when she must, to feed the gnawing Hunger within, but she often abandons them soon after, leaving them addled in alehouses or temples when she can bear their presence no longer. Her only permanent Pawns are the dormouse and wolf she keeps by her side. She simultaneously fears and craves the presence of other Exalts, knowing that for all the danger they pose to her, they also represent some of her few chances at genuine companionship.
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I know nothing about Hearteatees, but now I want to
 
Gazetteer said:
They have a charm tree for lounging around villainously on thin air and gliding over the ground in a sinister fashion, presumably because the lady in their corebook art kind of looked like she was doing that.

Now you know one thing about them!
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This is exactly the kind of nonesense I want in my exalted so now I'm even more on board
 
That's one recurring theme with the charms we have, but there's also like... Crystals, beautiful-horror, light-but-in-a-creepy-way, insidious control... Also, obviously, hunger and predation are the biggest ones.

Some examples, with no context or explanation for what they do, in no particular order:

  • Life-Annihilating Aurora
  • Hunger Breeds Haste
  • Scintillating Veil Illusion
  • Beautiful Monster Transformation
  • Bureau-Consuming Monstrosity
  • Devouring Broken Minds
  • Mind-Battering Intrusion
  • Elegant Languor Ascent
  • Soul-Fisher's Lure
  • Will-Siphoning Victory Smirk
Lovely people, as you can see.
 
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The more I hear about Hearteaters, the more it sounds like they were made specifically with me in mind

Also, Relivd's SWLIHN Charms are great, but if I am going to play Queen Beryl/Cobra Commander in WoD then I need the members of my secret organization to be able to speak more than one language. So here's one that lets them speak all languages (ignore the faint ringing in your ears and the nagging worry that what they are saying and what you are hearing aren't the same thing).

Crystallization of Perfected Language

Cost: -; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Illusion, Sorcerous, Touch
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Unshattered Tongue Perfection
This charm acts as an enhancement to its prerequisite. When targeting a creature (including the infernal) with Unshattered Tongue Perfection the Infernal may teach them to speak in the perfect crystal chimes of SWLIHN rather than any barbaric mortal tongues.
All creatures instinctively understand this language, hearing (or reading) it as if it were their native tongue. This is an illusion effect costing (Infernal's Essence) to notice. Once the scene has passed the character will not re-examine this illusion without external prompting.
Lastly, as the Chimes of SWLIHN are the precursor of all language, beneficiaries of this charm automatically understand all lesser languages which have descended from it. This applies only to the spoken word, and does not cover secret codes or other forms of hidden communication.


Descended from this charm (By Relvid)

UNSHATTERED TONGUE PERFECTION

Cost: 4m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Illusion, Sorcerous, Touch
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Factual Determination Analysis
The world is broken, split by barriers of language into gibbering factions. The Principle of Hierarchy remains whole, bearing the unity of comprehension like a perfect flame. Touching a character and activating this Charm, the Infernal provides them with knowledge of any language she is fluent in, excising their knowledge of (or ability to learn) other languages for the duration. This process does not alter any of the target's other traits (the illiterate do not learn to read), but they do suffer a -2 MDV penalty against mental influence supporting the Policies of organizations they belong to, and an equal bonus against mental influence that contradicts them.

Infernals are always treated as knowing Old Realm in the Malfean dialect for this purpose, perhaps due to psychic bleedthrough from her coadjutor. This Charm's effect is treated as an Illusion, which can be rejected by spending (Infernal's Linguistics – target's Essence) Willpower, to a minimum of one and maximum of five.

A second purchase at Essence 3+ causes targets to treat mental influence applied by their hierarchical superiors as unnatural. Further, the warlock may increase this Charm's cost to ten motes and a point of Willpower to target organizations with a Size no greater than her (Intelligence) by touching the leader of that organization, affecting them and all their subordinates. Countermagic frees only those individuals it targets, not the organization as a whole, but individuals who leave the organization also abandon its imposed unity of language.
 
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The Story of a Sword
Created through the rules of the Artefact game.
I am a weapon - a thin-bladed sword designed for dueling.

I was built in an ancient time by a smith called Thundersight who wove me from god-silver and holy sun-gold. Thundersight was a deific spirit, older than the age in which they lived, and their forge was one of black clouds and lightning strikes, with an anvil of the purest wind upon which my molten soul was hammered into shape. From then on, I existed.

I was forged to be fast, fulminated, and balanced.
The tumult of war shook Thundersight's cloud-forge and I slipped from the hooks which held me, falling to the earth far below. I lay for a time there, in a fair green country, before a folk hero stumbled upon me.

Ravenous Snow Arriving was a cantankerous spirit of winter and companion of Thundersight, distinguished by his long smoking pipe, etched with stories that are old, even in this young age. He sought me out where I lay, but much to his surprise a mortal had found me first. Her name was Owl.

Owl had discovered me in a time of great need - her small, isolated village had become the wartime quarters of a demon-soldier, and she wanted to throw him out. Already the demon, a fat bull with eagle-claw hands and a mane of twinkling crystals, had eaten all their chickens and demanded more for supper. So, with me in her hands, Owl made to throw the demon out.

He promptly batted her aside and ate three winter pigs, just to drive the point home.

Owl refused to return me until the demon was gone, but Ravenous Snow Arriving was forbidden from fighting demon soldiers, so the two of them struck up a deal. Ravenous Snow Arriving gave his body to transform Owl into a champion, and with his magic alongside my sharp blade she challenged the demon to a duel and defeated them, sending them away hungry and beaten.

Owl wielded me for many years, fighting in the war against the awful demon soldiers. She was stationed at Fortress Roseflame, home of a mystical energy source the gods called Man's Red Flower, when it was attacked by a massive horde of demons hell-bent on capturing the power within. The other demigod heroes were absent, fighting against other monstrous demon-generals, and Owl was left to defend Fortress Roseflame by herself.

Brave and foolish, Owl took me in her hands and leaped the fortress' wall, taking the fight to the besieging army directly. She channeled my power directly, calling forth from the depths of my spirit a magical attack - the Million-Forked Thunderbolt. With it, my blade grew and split like a line of lightning through the air, and a hundred demons fell to every mighty thrust. Ever since then, my thin blade has been split, one needle of silver and the other of gold.

Owl used me as a weapon, a tool, but she also trusted me, depended on me, and fostered a bond so great she could draw forth my power into mighty Evocations. I had always thought of her as a comrade.

I remained with Owl until she died. I was taken from her cooling hands by the cruel talons of a demon soldier. They were my second keeper.
Szilagyi was a mighty demon-prince who fought against the gods and their champions. They were a whimsical warrior, never taking the war too seriously. At all times they hid their face behind a mask, and they wielded me as an artful tool of violence. Their fighting strength was owed primarily to their astonishingly fast reflexes, and with my lightning at their side they were a terrible force to be reckoned with.

All demons are born from greater demons, but Szilagyi was a strange one. He never heeded the word of his greater soul, acting of his own volition, eagerly stymying the efforts of his 'betters' to control him. Some say he wasn't a demon at all, but a mortal hero who wore a demon's face. Regardless, he was poorly regarded by his comrades on the side of demons.

Szilagyi did not believe that violence was meaningful - he thought in a different way, that the world was simply uncaring and arbitrary and that violence was another example of its random, inevitable chaos. He fought with a madman's style, testing the rote random violence of the world against those quixotic champions who tried to find meaning in killing and death.

In his boldest stunt he used me as his weapon of choice—for I was the only blade fast enough to keep up with his reflexes—in a duel against one of the greatest of the god's champions: Ashen Dragon, who believed that violence was a skill, one that could be mastered and perfected. Their battle was a philosophical debate on the meaning of violence, and by the end of it Szilagyi had whittled away every bit of Ashen Dragon's appreciation and aspiration for perfect violence. When the final blow was struck Ashen Dragon was nothing more than a hollow shell.

I became a blade of whimsical carnage, and I hated it. I hated what I was used for, I cursed my nature, that I was forged to be a weapon. When Szilagyi's cynicism began to take root and sprout, when the despair of the war between gods and demons began to blossom and flourish into a philosophy of dead-eyed murder, I could bear it no longer. I dulled myself, slowed myself, and one day Szilagyi's sword-draw was not fast enough to beat his foe's, and he was struck dead.

I had gained a name at this point. Thundersight had always intended a name for me, but his intention was lost to time. The demons christened me Hidden Lightning.

After the death of Szilagyi, the Bloodstained Mask, I lay for a decade.
I awoke in a time of glory.

The world belonged to mankind, and beneath man's demigod heroes an age of prosperity was being born. Within this age there was a warrior - sharp, fearless, and impossibly strong. All they lacked was speed. To that end, they followed old legends to the resting site of a demon-prince, and from the earth they pulled me, Hidden Lightning, god-weapon and fastest of all blades.

My third keeper's name was Lirion. They were an ancient wizard of the sword, their skill so potent and refined that at all times they were shrouded by an aura of glittering blades, rotating around them like the spokes of a wheel. They fought to bring peace to a land rife with chaos, and to that end they made their way as a hunter of legendary monsters. Respected by their peers, but despised by heavenly powers, Lirion wandered the outskirts of the great newborn empires as a living legend.

Lirion's questing eventually brought him into conflict with an immense beast known as the Scar of Ten Scourges. All of Lirion's sword magic was put to the test, and it was only by the grace of my speed and power that he was able to win the day and lay low the world-quaking monster. His finishing blow, the Heaven-Seeking Bolt, ran the beast through from below and splattered its blood against the clouds.

Soon after his battle with the Scar of Ten Scourges Lirion returned to the greatest of the central empires, using his reputation as a monster-hunter to land a seat on that empire's ruling Deliberative of demigod champions. As a civil servant he excelled, and soon enough he picked out the threat to peace he'd always been searching for: a conspiracy at the center of the Deliberative. Lirion exposed the conspiracy and drove those treacherous demigods from the empire.

For a time I went unused. Then, in the twilight of Lirion's long life, there was a turn. The descendents and successors and allies to those conspirators had returned, and with scheming and treachery they successfully poisoned public opinion around Lirion. There was a string of assassination attempts in which I sprang from my sheath to protect him, but Lirion's command of the sword magic was slipping. It may have been his advanced age, or perhaps the rust of peace dulling his skills, or maybe I had started to grow tired of him, but eventually the conspirators saw weakness and drove Lirion from the empire - no longer a legendary hero and monster hunter-turned-statesman, he was a bloody handed murderer unfit to live in the empire he had tried to rule.

Lirion died in infamy, alone and starving on the road. A thief came in the night, trying to steal what little coin the old hero had left, and in the ensuing struggle Lirion simply… dismissed his aura, and left me in my sheath. The thief stabbed him through the throat, and Lirion died quietly shortly thereafter.

The story of Lirion and the Scar of Ten Scourges lingers on, in a corner of the world, as a moral tale. The hero Lirion defeats the beast in defense of his home nation, but then later in life he is cast out and killed in a dramatic duel. This story amuses me, faintly.
The thief takes up Lirion's sword for a time but quickly dies when he's robbed by a stronger, more powerful thief. This continues to escalate until, a decade after Lirion's death, I am presented to Winsome Artesa, who shall become my fourth keeper.

Artesa was a simple mercenary, a demigod of low standing who spent her life working the will of her betters upon the world. All the same, an ambition burned with her, ambition which shone through in the way she styled himself, as the queen of a mercenary queendom, with her officers as ladies and knights. She desired more than earthly royalty, though - it was her fervent wish to ascend higher, to shed her mortal nature and become a goddess, presiding over all the world as a divine empress.

Unfortunately for her, she was subordinate to her older siblings, who stood between her and the immortal empire she desired.

As seems to be common among my keepers, she had the speed and reflexes to make proper use of me, and use me she did. She wielded my arts cleverly and decisively, leading her armies to victory after victory with me as her standard. The Winsome Sword-Briar, the Thousand-Man-Skewerer, the Sūlāgrastra; these were the names her foes and her armies placed upon me like laurels. In time Artesa wielded me against her five brothers and slayed them with a five-pointed stab. In time Artesa faced down heavenly tribulations, met lightning from the sky with Lirion's Heaven-Seeking Bolt. In time she had her empire.

I sat on her hip through all these conquests, these centuries, and for a while it was good. Her armies were lightning-clad, all athunder and resplendent with power. Her people lived in praise and in terror, for Artesa was most skilled at extracting prayer through fear.

And then came the time of ascension. Artesa sought divinity through the power of her people, her armies, and me, and she was willing to sacrifice them all. Her armies put her own people to death in droves, their dying prayers rising up like a wind to lift her to heaven. Her armies then fell upon themselves for love of her, and their love was wings to catch the wind. And then there was me. I was the final sacrifice. Cast from her hip, fallen to earth, shattered upon the stone in a dozen pieces, to be the compass that pointed her to divinity.
What became of her I do not know, but I lay broken for some time.

I think… I think it must have been a hundred years. Two hundred years. Three hundred years. Half a millennium I lay, scattered, in that empire of corpses, pieces of the chrysalis left behind by an ascending soul. Perhaps, I thought, I will lay here, broken, for the rest of time, my pieces scattered by the winds, my body given over to rust and to the decay of ages.

And then came the Marching Ones.

They were not human, not in the way my previous keepers were. No, the Marching Ones were from the lands of Not, from Faerie, from the Other, wandered in from the edge of the world and given Shape. They inherited this empty dominion.

The Marching Ones were flightless birds, mottled black and grey, with long orange faces and stubby fingers at the ends of their once-wings. Here in the empty dominion that was once Artesa's empire they found resources to shelter them - the plentiful ruins still stood proud, and there was ample place to live. What the Marching Ones did not have was community - they were not organized, they lived in fractious groups and did not trust one another. They also lacked knowledge - they were strangers to the world of Shape, refugees from beyond the world. They had much to learn.

First, a quest. As small, familial communities begin to form within the lands that once belonged to Artesa, a young Marching One finds a piece of me: A sliver of moonsilver in the bottom of a creek. They recognize the power of the fragment, and when they showed it to their parents and grandparents my nature is obvious - that I am forged of mystical metal, a holy artifact, a blessing.

The story repeats. A Marching One trips over a piece of my crossguard. Fishes a chunk of my blade from a bog. Finds a cloud-curl of my basket hilt among the weeds of their garden. One lucky archeologist discovers where most of my body is located, broken before the towering ruin of Artesa's palace. Each fractious family group has a story behind their own gold-or-silver heirloom. I am a hundred holy relics.

They had intended to stay apart. Instead, they find a reason to come together.

And come together they do. Knowledge of the relics begins to spread, and in the span of a few short years one of the Marching Ones strikes upon the brilliant idea to see if they and their neighbor's relics are part of the same whole. How miraculous, how divine, when they see that their relics fit together, forming a gold sliver of one of my twin-blades.

What ensues is not conflict, not thievery, but unity. Cooperation. Runners depart, finding family after family and spreading the word. The relics are to be united. They are pieces of a whole. A tradition of messengers arises among the Marching Ones that will persist for generations. And one by one the families come together, traveling to a central site, to the foot of that great ruin, in a meeting that unites them all. There they hold a great festival of joining, with every family sending forth a representative to meet and try to puzzle out how all the pieces of this hundredfold relic fit together.

It takes days, but the representatives are able to piece my body back together. They wonder, then, how they might affix the pieces and join the relics into a cohesive whole.

And then the sky opens up, and a bolt flies from a god's forge. The holy relic is struck by brilliant shining lightning, and the heat of that bolt flies from piece to piece. I move myself, driven by the lightning, the heat, the energy of the moment, and I close the seams. The Marching Ones have put me back together, and Thundersight has christened their reforging.

The Marching Ones look on in awe at my reborn self. I am whole once more.

In time the Marching Ones grow from these humble origins, ascending into a kingdom to fill the shoes left behind by Artesa. I am no longer a weapon. I am their holy artifact, the symbol of their unity, the bridge between families. I am at peace, for centuries, as new buildings rise from the ruins of the old like green shoots peeking up from soot and stumps, and I grow to love these people. The Marching Ones change, too, taking on more and more of the trappings of Shape and shedding much of their feathers, becoming humans, of a sort.

And then, to my surprise, Owl is reborn.
 
Last edited:
Kymme said:
The Story of a Sword
Created through the rules of the Artefact game.
I am a weapon - a thin-bladed sword designed for dueling.

I was built in an ancient time by a smith called Thundersight who wove me from god-silver and holy sun-gold. Thundersight was a deific spirit, older than the age in which they lived, and their forge was one of black clouds and lightning strikes, with an anvil of the purest wind upon which my molten soul was hammered into shape. From then on, I existed.

I was forged to be fast, fulminated, and balanced.
The tumult of war shook Thundersight's cloud-forge and I slipped from the hooks which held me, falling to the earth far below. I lay for a time there, in a fair green country, before a folk hero stumbled upon me.

Ravenous Snow Arriving was a cantankerous spirit of winter and companion of Thundersight, distinguished by his long smoking pipe, etched with stories that are old, even in this young age. He sought me out where I lay, but much to his surprise a mortal had found me first. Her name was Owl.

Owl had discovered me in a time of great need - her small, isolated village had become the wartime quarters of a demon-soldier, and she wanted to throw him out. Already the demon, a fat bull with eagle-claw hands and a mane of twinkling crystals, had eaten all their chickens and demanded more for supper. So, with me in her hands, Owl made to throw the demon out.

He promptly batted her aside and ate three winter pigs, just to drive the point home.

Owl refused to return me until the demon was gone, but Ravenous Snow Arriving was forbidden from fighting demon soldiers, so the two of them struck up a deal. Ravenous Snow Arriving gave his body to transform Owl into a champion, and with his magic alongside my sharp blade she challenged the demon to a duel and defeated them, sending them away hungry and beaten.

Owl wielded me for many years, fighting in the war against the awful demon soldiers. She was stationed at Fortress Roseflame, home of a mystical energy source the gods called Man's Red Flower, when it was attacked by a massive horde of demons hell-bent on capturing the power within. The other demigod heroes were absent, fighting against other monstrous demon-generals, and Owl was left to defend Fortress Roseflame by herself.

Brave and foolish, Owl took me in her hands and leaped the fortress' wall, taking the fight to the besieging army directly. She channeled my power directly, calling forth from the depths of my spirit a magical attack - the Million-Forked Thunderbolt. With it, my blade grew and split like a line of lightning through the air, and a hundred demons fell to every mighty thrust. Ever since then, my thin blade has been split, one needle of silver and the other of gold.

Owl used me as a weapon, a tool, but she also trusted me, depended on me, and fostered a bond so great she could draw forth my power into mighty Evocations. I had always thought of her as a comrade.

I remained with Owl until she died. I was taken from her cooling hands by the cruel talons of a demon soldier. They were my second keeper.
Szilagyi was a mighty demon-prince who fought against the gods and their champions. They were a whimsical warrior, never taking the war too seriously. At all times they hid their face behind a mask, and they wielded me as an artful tool of violence. Their fighting strength was owed primarily to their astonishingly fast reflexes, and with my lightning at their side they were a terrible force to be reckoned with.

All demons are born from greater demons, but Szilagyi was a strange one. He never heeded the word of his greater soul, acting of his own volition, eagerly stymying the efforts of his 'betters' to control him. Some say he wasn't a demon at all, but a mortal hero who wore a demon's face. Regardless, he was poorly regarded by his comrades on the side of demons.

Szilagyi did not believe that violence was meaningful - he thought in a different way, that the world was simply uncaring and arbitrary and that violence was another example of its random, inevitable chaos. He fought with a madman's style, testing the rote random violence of the world against those quixotic champions who tried to find meaning in killing and death.

In his boldest stunt he used me as his weapon of choice—for I was the only blade fast enough to keep up with his reflexes—in a duel against one of the greatest of the god's champions: Ashen Dragon, who believed that violence was a skill, one that could be mastered and perfected. Their battle was a philosophical debate on the meaning of violence, and by the end of it Szilagyi had whittled away every bit of Ashen Dragon's appreciation and aspiration for perfect violence. When the final blow was struck Ashen Dragon was nothing more than a hollow shell.

I became a blade of whimsical carnage, and I hated it. I hated what I was used for, I cursed my nature, that I was forged to be a weapon. When Szilagyi's cynicism began to take root and sprout, when the despair of the war between gods and demons began to blossom and flourish into a philosophy of dead-eyed murder, I could bear it no longer. I dulled myself, slowed myself, and one day Szilagyi's sword-draw was not fast enough to beat his foe's, and he was struck dead.

I had gained a name at this point. Thundersight had always intended a name for me, but his intention was lost to time. The demons christened me Hidden Lightning.

After the death of Szilagyi, the Bloodstained Mask, I lay for a decade.
I awoke in a time of glory.

The world belonged to mankind, and beneath man's demigod heroes an age of prosperity was being born. Within this age there was a warrior - sharp, fearless, and impossibly strong. All they lacked was speed. To that end, they followed old legends to the resting site of a demon-prince, and from the earth they pulled me, Hidden Lightning, god-weapon and fastest of all blades.

My third keeper's name was Lirion. They were an ancient wizard of the sword, their skill so potent and refined that at all times they were shrouded by an aura of glittering blades, rotating around them like the spokes of a wheel. They fought to bring peace to a land rife with chaos, and to that end they made their way as a hunter of legendary monsters. Respected by their peers, but despised by heavenly powers, Lirion wandered the outskirts of the great newborn empires as a living legend.

Lirion's questing eventually brought him into conflict with an immense beast known as the Scar of Ten Scourges. All of Lirion's sword magic was put to the test, and it was only by the grace of my speed and power that he was able to win the day and lay low the world-quaking monster. His finishing blow, the Heaven-Seeking Bolt, ran the beast through from below and splattered its blood against the clouds.

Soon after his battle with the Scar of Ten Scourges Lirion returned to the greatest of the central empires, using his reputation as a monster-hunter to land a seat on that empire's ruling Deliberative of demigod champions. As a civil servant he excelled, and soon enough he picked out the threat to peace he'd always been searching for: a conspiracy at the center of the Deliberative. Lirion exposed the conspiracy and drove those treacherous demigods from the empire.

For a time I went unused. Then, in the twilight of Lirion's long life, there was a turn. The descendents and successors and allies to those conspirators had returned, and with scheming and treachery they successfully poisoned public opinion around Lirion. There was a string of assassination attempts in which I sprang from my sheath to protect him, but Lirion's command of the sword magic was slipping. It may have been his advanced age, or perhaps the rust of peace dulling his skills, or maybe I had started to grow tired of him, but eventually the conspirators saw weakness and drove Lirion from the empire - no longer a legendary hero and monster hunter-turned-statesman, he was a bloody handed murderer unfit to live in the empire he had tried to rule.

Lirion died in infamy, alone and starving on the road. A thief came in the night, trying to steal what little coin the old hero had left, and in the ensuing struggle Lirion simply… dismissed his aura, and left me in my sheath. The thief stabbed him through the throat, and Lirion died quietly shortly thereafter.

The story of Lirion and the Scar of Ten Scourges lingers on, in a corner of the world, as a moral tale. The hero Lirion defeats the beast in defense of his home nation, but then later in life he is cast out and killed in a dramatic duel. This story amuses me, faintly.
The thief takes up Lirion's sword for a time but quickly dies when he's robbed by a stronger, more powerful thief. This continues to escalate until, a decade after Lirion's death, I am presented to Winsome Artesa, who shall become my fourth keeper.

Artesa was a simple mercenary, a demigod of low standing who spent her life working the will of her betters upon the world. All the same, an ambition burned with her, ambition which shone through in the way she styled himself, as the queen of a mercenary queendom, with her officers as ladies and knights. She desired more than earthly royalty, though - it was her fervent wish to ascend higher, to shed her mortal nature and become a goddess, presiding over all the world as a divine empress.

Unfortunately for her, she was subordinate to her older siblings, who stood between her and the immortal empire she desired.

As seems to be common among my keepers, she had the speed and reflexes to make proper use of me, and use me she did. She wielded my arts cleverly and decisively, leading her armies to victory after victory with me as her standard. The Winsome Sword-Briar, the Thousand-Man-Skewerer, the Sūlāgrastra; these were the names her foes and her armies placed upon me like laurels. In time Artesa wielded me against her five brothers and slayed them with a five-pointed stab. In time Artesa faced down heavenly tribulations, met lightning from the sky with Lirion's Heaven-Seeking Bolt. In time she had her empire.

I sat on her hip through all these conquests, these centuries, and for a while it was good. Her armies were lightning-clad, all athunder and resplendent with power. Her people lived in praise and in terror, for Artesa was most skilled at extracting prayer through fear.

And then came the time of ascension. Artesa sought divinity through the power of her people, her armies, and me, and she was willing to sacrifice them all. Her armies put her own people to death in droves, their dying prayers rising up like a wind to lift her to heaven. Her armies then fell upon themselves for love of her, and their love was wings to catch the wind. And then there was me. I was the final sacrifice. Cast from her hip, fallen to earth, shattered upon the stone in a dozen pieces, to be the compass that pointed her to divinity.
What became of her I do not know, but I lay broken for some time.

I think… I think it must have been a hundred years. Two hundred years. Three hundred years. Half a millennium I lay, scattered, in that empire of corpses, pieces of the chrysalis left behind by an ascending soul. Perhaps, I thought, I will lay here, broken, for the rest of time, my pieces scattered by the winds, my body given over to rust and to the decay of ages.

And then came the Marching Ones.

They were not human, not in the way my previous keepers were. No, the Marching Ones were from the lands of Not, from Faerie, from the Other, wandered in from the edge of the world and given Shape. They inherited this empty dominion.

The Marching Ones were flightless birds, mottled black and grey, with long orange faces and stubby fingers at the ends of their once-wings. Here in the empty dominion that was once Artesa's empire they found resources to shelter them - the plentiful ruins still stood proud, and there was ample place to live. What the Marching Ones did not have was community - they were not organized, they lived in fractious groups and did not trust one another. They also lacked knowledge - they were strangers to the world of Shape, refugees from beyond the world. They had much to learn.

First, a quest. As small, familial communities begin to form within the lands that once belonged to Artesa, a young Marching One finds a piece of me: A sliver of moonsilver in the bottom of a creek. They recognize the power of the fragment, and when they showed it to their parents and grandparents my nature is obvious - that I am forged of mystical metal, a holy artifact, a blessing.

The story repeats. A Marching One trips over a piece of my crossguard. Fishes a chunk of my blade from a bog. Finds a cloud-curl of my basket hilt among the weeds of their garden. One lucky archeologist discovers where most of my body is located, broken before the towering ruin of Artesa's palace. Each fractious family group has a story behind their own gold-or-silver heirloom. I am a hundred holy relics.

They had intended to stay apart. Instead, they find a reason to come together.

And come together they do. Knowledge of the relics begins to spread, and in the span of a few short years one of the Marching Ones strikes upon the brilliant idea to see if they and their neighbor's relics are part of the same whole. How miraculous, how divine, when they see that their relics fit together, forming a gold sliver of one of my twin-blades.

What ensues is not conflict, not thievery, but unity. Cooperation. Runners depart, finding family after family and spreading the word. The relics are to be united. They are pieces of a whole. A tradition of messengers arises among the Marching Ones that will persist for generations. And one by one the families come together, traveling to a central site, to the foot of that great ruin, in a meeting that unites them all. There they hold a great festival of joining, with every family sending forth a representative to meet and try to puzzle out how all the pieces of this hundredfold relic fit together.

It takes days, but the representatives are able to piece my body back together. They wonder, then, how they might affix the pieces and join the relics into a cohesive whole.

And then the sky opens up, and a bolt flies from a god's forge. The holy relic is struck by brilliant shining lightning, and the heat of that bolt flies from piece to piece. I move myself, driven by the lightning, the heat, the energy of the moment, and I close the seams. The Marching Ones have put me back together, and Thundersight has christened their reforging.

The Marching Ones look on in awe at my reborn self. I am whole once more.

In time the Marching Ones grow from these humble origins, ascending into a kingdom to fill the shoes left behind by Artesa. I am no longer a weapon. I am their holy artifact, the symbol of their unity, the bridge between families. I am at peace, for centuries, as new buildings rise from the ruins of the old like green shoots peeking up from soot and stumps, and I grow to love these people. The Marching Ones change, too, taking on more and more of the trappings of Shape and shedding much of their feathers, becoming humans, of a sort.

And then, to my surprise, Owl is reborn.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I like this a lot. How does the system you linked work? Might pick it up
 
BossFight said:
I like this a lot. How does the system you linked work? Might pick it up
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's a journalling game, in the same vein as Thousand Year Old Vampire, where you take the perspective of a legendary weapon and interpret prompts to generate its backstory. It's a bit less involved than Thousand Year Old Vampire, but the prompts are great and there's a really beautiful music suite included with the pdf that you can listen to during the gaps where your weapon lays dormant. It was really easy to get attatched to Hidden Lightning as I was writing its story. I'd really love to write it up as a five dot daiklave at some point. Maybe once I've eased back into running 3e.

Speak of which, I've started a 3e Sidereals game and I'm having a lot of fun.
 
The answer was 17 by the way, 17 people messaged me to say that the forums were broken.

Exalted - Onyx Path Forums

The tale of a forgotten mythic age, a time when spirits walked openly among men, the world was flat and floated atop a sea of chaos, and the restless dead roamed on moonless nights.
forum.theonyxpath.com

If anyone here's actually missed them.
 
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