I considered putting an image at the start of this post but it is already very long, so I'll spare you that and just have you all see this huge essay I wrote.
Solar Investigation and Lore
A brief introduction to Solar Investigation
One thing that I was informed of very early in my experience with Exalted 2nd edition, is that it was trying very hard to derail 'traditional' plots you'd find in games like Dungeons and Dragons. What I mean by this is like the standard 'whodunnit' plot, or is the king's advisor a backstabbing betrayer, and so on.
These plots were not meant to be interesting for Solars. What was meant to be interesting for Solars was the aftermath, the "Suddenly, the king is without an advisor- you having just derailed a 20 year conspiracy to oust the king, You the Solars are now the King's new advisor!"
Or, if more aggressively minded, you put yourselves in power after such a public relations/military/economic/social coup, and started running the show!
This was at the core, the statement of Solar Investigation: The grunt work of finding evidence, telling truth from lies, and all that such was fussy sidequesting, and served as padding for games like Dungeons and Dragons- and were strictly speaking, Not Exalted.
I bring this up, because a lot of people come into Exalted expecting these plots, thinking they need to happen, or that they're inherently more interesting than the results or consequences. That expectation, the desire to have fun, is not wrong exactly, but it does run head first into the statement that Solar Investigation was trying to to make.
Conversely, Storytellers might initially rely on these plots, not knowing how to pace and plan for Exalted levels of ability.
Investigation the Ability
This ability covers fact-finding, locating of evidence, interviewing people for information, and deriving conclusions based on 'social' knowledge as opposed to strictly academic knowledge. (Though there is overlap.) Investigation is focused on Motives, while Lore could conceivably be presented as 'Draw a conclusion based on general knowledge- it's simply not the primary ability for such tasks.
Of note, is that Investigation itself is not actually used for interrogation. That's actually under Presence, because by system definition, an interrogation is an attempt to Compel your target to generate an Answer. Investigation instead is about interpreting information your target gives you- either by how they act and move, or by what they say.
I will be specifically adding some Storyteller Advice to each charm, simply because this tree, more than most, upsets plots like little else.
Now without further ado, the Charms!
Solar Investigation
Three of the initial charms in this ability require an Excellency, so we'll start with those.
Crafty Observation Method
Investigation 3, Essence 2
At the 'professional investigator' ability level, we have this introductory charm. It, like many Solar Charms, takes a regular action and vastly truncates it, granting the Solar an incredible faculty compared to other people.
Without magic, it takes about 15 minutes to pour over a scene looking for clues, and you'll likely ransack the space, leaving tons of traces as to you looking things over.
Crafty Observation Method lets you accomplish the same action in six seconds, and without touching anything. As long as you're in the scene/room to investigate, you can do so.
Now, I should stress that COM is focused exclusively on the corebook description of a Dramatic Investigation Action, detailed on page 136 of the 2nd edition core book. This limits the scope of the charm slightly, but a clever player will get all kinds of mileage out of it.
So, theoretically, we accept that Solars do things quickly, efficiently. This charm costs 5 motes, and while Simple, itself is six seconds long. It's the Sherlock Scan. The charm itself doesn't waive the need for an investigation roll, but it does ensure you can take that roll and waste no time on other matters.
Further, you will impress people around you with the speed of your conclusions and discovered evidence.
For Storytellers:
Crafty Observation Method shines, allowing players to feel clever that they can scan a room without touching it. Or, at the very least, scan a room and leave no hint that anything is out of place.
Remember though- aside from being Fast and Miraculous, it doesn't actually generate any more information than a regular 'investigate the scene' action.
Evidence-Discerning Method
Investigation 4, Essence 1
Here we have a very strange charm, one that uses a similar format as we've seen in Solar Presence as well. Interestingly, it's Investigation 4, or 'well known within your professional capacity', and a notable personage for same.
Evidence Discerning Method, or EDM for short, is a wide-applicability penalty negator. By spending 5 motes and 1wp, the charm itself generates a difficulty 1 [Attribute+Investigation] roll to create a personality profile of a given target.
If the target is throwing out misleading cues, the roll is itself penalized by the target's [Manipulation + Socialize] /2 as an External Penalty (subtracted successes). So someone with a relevant pool of 10 will apply a -5 external penalty to your diff 1 roll. Penalties can also be levied for lack of information or other factors surrounding the role.
But If you succeed, you generate the profile, and negate X points of external penalties on subsequent War, Social and Dramatic Actions taken against that opponent. X is capped by your permanent Essence, for the record.
So if I'm say, Essence 3, facing off against someone with Manip+Soc 4, so that's Diff 1 and -2 external penalty. I roll my pool and earn 6 successes. As long as I keep motes committed to the charm, I negate 3 successes worth of external penalties on all not-swording-him-in-the-face actions.
That's like, negating the penalty for trying to play a game of chess by mail, or the penalty of having the guy talk to you through intermediaries at all times.
Now, here's the trick: EDM itself generates no information whatsoever.
You are getting no new information when you activate EDM. It however, makes subsequent actions much easier.
So what does this say about Solars? It's the 'get inside your head charm', it's the 'I read your actions so well, I account for all factors I don't control, leaving it down to just You and Me. I don't worry about the weather, I don't worry about this third army bearing down on us. I got all that stuff handled- You though, you, I have your number.'
But what does that mean?
Well, reading this charm, re-reading it, I came to the realization that a lot of people who come into Exalted- came into Exalted, did so from say, Aberrant. Or were sold on it from some other source. They came into Solars, especially, expecting or wanting superpowers.
Like, why isn't Evidence Discerning method a 'read Minds Charm'? That's cooler, right?
I suppose it might be, but it's not Solar. Giving yourself the ability to read minds, actually read minds, is an unnecessary step. Solars don't need to give themselves new super-human, post-human/trans-human abilities to do what they do. They instead do the opposite. They remove more and more narrative restrictions on what a given action needs, and then do it.
The Essay before last, with Solar Survival- Food Gathering Exercise never once mentioned where and how you found food. It didn't care- it just said you found food. It didn't waive the need to eat, but it guaranteed you could eat.
Even the perfect defenses, like Seven Shadow Evasion, do not actually grant you a new and comic-book style superpower. You Dodge. You dodge so well you can dodge the undodgeable, and there is no chance for failure.
The other thing to remember, especially with these early corebook charms, is that most of them rarely obviated the core system. Trackless Region Navigation and Unshakable Bloodhound Technique both continued to use the core rules for wilderness navigation, without supplanting them or overwriting them under chunks of mechanical exceptions.
EDM is one of the few exceptions-that-creates-an-exception, similar in format to Worshipful Lackey Acquisition and various Solar Bureaucracy and Socialize Charms. EDM removes the conceptual requirement of interacting the information surrounding a character, abstracting the difficulty for doing so as the [Manip+Socialize]/2 penalty.
Everyone else needs to either take regular Investigation actions, or confront the subject of their investigation and contend with their Mental Defense Values directly.
But, that exception itself then reminds you to take regular actions at increased capacity, because its a penalty negator!
So what I hope you'll take away from this, is that a Solar does not solve plots with single charms, but instead removes restrictions on when, where and how they solve plots with their charms. They remove the obstacles of Time,Tools, Outside Factors and so on, until all that is left is the Solar, and the task they are attempting.
For Storytellers
This charm, like a lot of others, is your reminder that external penalties exist. The kind that subtract successes after a roll, before being compared to Difficulty. You are fully within your rights to assign penalties, and then expect them to be negated because of this Charm. If your players refuse to, ignore the clue, and so on, you are within your rights to give them a 'gotcha' with your harder-than-normal tasks… for a time
However, once they do grind away at the problem, you should remind them of this charm and the others like it, and how useful they are. The point of Evidence-discerning method, is to pace engagements. It is itself a Simple Charm, an Action you take before actually holding court or busting out an epic speech.
And again, EDM itself generates no information, but it makes gathering information much easier.
Judge's Ear Technique
Investigation 2, Essence 1
What ho, an Investigation 2, Essence 1 Charm? You know what this is telling me? This is telling me that this charm is meant to be a low-hanging fruit, something you can cherry pick at character generation or shortly after with great ease! Even the base Investigation Excellency it requires will be fantastically useful in the long run, what with how broadly applicable dice are.
But what about Judge's Ear? Well, it lets you know if people are Lying, or telling Half Truths. you spend 3 motes, and for the remainder of the scene, you have the best lie detection in the core rulebook, and quite possibly the game line until you start seeing things like Eye of the Unconquered Sun, or some of the late-line additions.
Now, this charm will only tell you if a person really is lying deliberately, not that they're relaying false information they believe is true. In the case of deliberate half-truths, it merely pings that a half-truth was stated, not which part was true.
But again, it's Essence 1. This is a thematic statement of Solars that lie detection of this level is the most minor of magic, to the point of being nearly invisible. Yet, if contested by perfect lying effect, the Solar adds their Essence in automatic successes to the roll-off to detect the magically enhanced lie!
For Storytellers
Judge's Ear is not meant to be fought. You as a Storyteller are not trying to be an adversary to your player's Charms. There will be people who can deflect the lie detection (and force the Charm Rolloff), but they are the exceptions, not the rules.
Instead, Judge's ear is meant to expedite, to inspire. "This person just told a half-truth. You're not sure which part is the lie though…" This, more than anything, will get people sniffing after plot hooks, and that is the beauty of Judge's Ear.
Irresistible Questioning Technique
Investigation 4, Essence 2
Now this charm needs Judge's Ear as a prerequisite. It costs 4 motes, and is a speed 6 simple charm with the Compulsion, Social, Obvious and Combo-OK keywords.
The way it works is you activate it, and roll [Social Attribute + Investigation] against the defender's MDV. If you beat their MDV, they fall under a Compulsion Effect to answer the Solar's questions honestly.
It does not compel the target to actually answer, which is what throws a lot of people for a loop. The way this charm works, is you activate it, and on your next action, immediately continue on with Investigation-based social attacks, or presence-based ones. In either case, you're expected to continue to beat their MDV each time- this charm simply removes the filter that lets them not tell the truth.
Now, the defender can resist the effect for 5 minutes by spending 1 willpower. Since social attacks as written are in Long Ticks, that basically immunizes them to the Solar's social attack for the action. Spending the willpower means they can lie or keep quiet. Now once they spend 3 willpower, the charm's compulsion is broken- so there is a potential limit on how many questions can be asked- and you can spread them out over the course of a scene instead of immediately after using the Charm.
As a closing note on the charm's mechanics- using it or charms similar to it on the same person within the same Story gives them a persistent +3 boost to their MDV against those kinds of Charms. So you basically are encouraged to spread your questioning around instead of going to the same stooge over and over.
Something I must also restate- Willpower is not spent frivolously. It's basically assumed that NPCs do not have intimacies based on maintaining the sanctity of their minds, and their Motivations are intended to be ruled as such as to not stall out every possible incoming mental influence. Even other Exalted are not compulsively inclined to spending willpower unless it significantly trips one of their Intimacies or their Motivation.
So, even though this charm is Obvious: "Observers can tell that the Exalt is using a Charm, and they have a rough idea of its effects"; does not mean that people compulsively spend willpower to fuck the player characters over. Nor should the players feel the need to spend willpower against every possible incoming Unnatural Mental Influence.
My advice, to both players and Storytellers, is to ask if the Charm is Obvious or Not, because that will usually give you a reasonable idea of what it expects of everyone. In the case of Irresistible Questioning Technique, does the military-leader Dawn really have much to fear for his mind and body, truthfully answering economic questions a rival Eclipse poses to him?
Courtier's Eye Technique
Investigation 3, Essence 1
One thing Solars have an abundance of in their social suites, is diagnostic magic. Charms that are intended to gather information and let the players make informed decisions.
This Simple Charm generates a [Perception+Investigation] roll with the intent to evaluate a target's wealth and importance. If they're sending misleading cues (like dressing down, not overspending, grossly overspending, etc), they apply an external penalty to this roll equal to their [Manipulation+Socialize]/2, just like Evidence-Discerning Method.
While strategically, Courtier's Eye is less useful in the long run, we now see the symmetry of Evidence-Discerning Method, and it's function as a penalty negator. Subsequent Solar charms derive penalties from an opponent's traits, which other Solar Charms then negate!
Anyway, if you succeed on the above roll, which is difficulty 1 before penalties, you are informed of the target's traits such as their Resource Rating, any Allies they might have in the scene, and the power derived from distributed backgrounds like Backing or Followers.
Conceptually, this is the charm that lets you decide if you want to cozy up to the big moneylender or the crimelord. Or if you can prove the prince is swanning around in borrowed clothes and doesn't actually have an obol to his name.
For Storytellers
This charm is something you might have to get practiced at making something up on the fly, because I'm pretty sure not everyone has all the listed traits made out for every character in every scene.
Courtier's Eye Technique works best when handled by an experienced storyteller (and you need to ST a lot to get that experience, I'm aware). It allows you to play with the expected average of Creation, 1-2 dots in the various backgrounds, and create plot hooks and interesting npcs out of their implied status.
Consumer-Evaluating Glance
Investigation 3, Essence 1
Building off of Courtier's Eye, Consumer Evaluating Glance is a strange charm, and possibly suffering from some of the early corebook wording issues.
You're supposed to use it immediately after interacting with a target (which can be but need not be a Social Attack). You roll [Perception+Investigation], and like with Courtier's eye, you have a derived external penalty to contend with that Evidence-Discerning can in turn help negate.
If you succeed, the target's player, (usually the storyteller) must describe what the target's interaction was intending.
Like, if a random woman comes up and starts flirting with a Solar, they can use Consumer-Evaluating to ask the gal's player if she's legitimately interested in the Solar (which is totally possible), or if she's plotting to assassinate him in bed a few hours later. Or maybe a salesman is trying to unload a sword, and after checking his pitch, you realize the weapon is stolen from a Dynastic Scion and the House will want it back.
This is a pretty big, blatant effect! It does have the Compulsion Keyword, so strictly speaking, this is Unnatural Mental Influence. It's not listed, so the standard assumption is that it costs 1wp to resist the Influence.
Now, on a Borgstromantic interpretive note, this charm does not actually qualify as a Social Attack, because it never checks against MDV. The defender cannot respond to it with any of their traditional social defenses, as it never runs through the Ten Steps.
So what does that mean? I can't say with any certainty, but I can interpret it a few ways- perhaps this means that it's not something the target can feel or respond to? It doesn't tell you anything information-wise, as 'Intention' usually lacks context. "I want to X' rarely comes paired with 'Because'.
For Players and Storytellers, I encourage you to carefully evaluate the use of this charm, for no other reason than being consistent with your rulings.
Know the Soul's Price
Investigation 4, Essence 2
Here we have the Investigation capstone. Note that there are no Essence 3 or Investigation 5 Charms in the tree- corebook ends at Invest 4, Essence 2, with this charm. KtSP requires Courtier's Eye Technique and Judge's Ear as prerequisites.
Know the Soul's Price is split into two halves. The first half shares the template with Courtier's Eye and Consumer-Evaluating, starting with a difficulty 1 roll and deriving external penalties from the target's [Manipulation+Socialize]/2. As before, Evidence-Discerning can negate the penalties on this roll.
If the Solar succeeds, they compel the target's player to name their character's price- the thing they would do anything for, and logically, this usually means their Motivation. It's not explicitly their Motivation however, so the Storyteller has some leeway in describing what they actually say.
Now, in context, what a lot of people want in the world is much much easier to attain than what a given Exalt wants. The vast majority of mortals, magical beings, spirits, Dragonblooded and so on have fairly understandable desires and motivations.
If the Solar then meets that price- actually provides it either as a completed feat or a promise of ongoing assistance, the target of KtSP falls under a Servitude Effect, generating a relevant intimacy towards the Solar and magically enforcing the Commitment to them. The subject now is Loyal, at a systemic level, and must spend 1 willpower per scene to act in a knowingly disloyal fashion.
This is a fantastic, relentlessly powerful effect. The servitude effect itself lasts until the Solar either betrays the bargain (by taking what they offered back, somehow), or the subject spends a total of 10 willpower to act disloyally.
So I should stress here, that the '1wp to act disloyal' is not a foregone conclusion- if you already did them a solid, they're naturally inclined to not fuck you over. But, as with all things in epic wuxia narrative, there are ways that loyalty can be subverted.
About Solars though- what does KtSP say about them. It says that to them, securing the fealty and possibly life-long loyalty of others is easy. You satisfy their grandest desires and ensure they are yours, magically reinforcing the loyalty you earned by gifting them their wildest dreams.
It says that Solars do things, and by doing things, attract grand and powerful allies and lackeys to their cause.
For Storytellers:
Know the Soul's Price does not mandate the target explain their Heroic Motivation. That's usually a good starting point though. As mentioned above, it is both a diagnostic effect- finding what target wants most, and if you meet the price, securing you a most loyal servant.
A Brief Introduction to Solar Lore
Solar Lore is the ability of the Teacher, the Sage, the Philosopher King. It is the Science-Math Ability of Essence. The Solar uses their mastery of Lore, of Known and Knowing Things, to impose Reality upon the formless chaos.
Unlike Solar Investigation, which had a pithy, implicit statement about the kind of games Exalted was meant for, Lore aimed higher in some ways, and lower than others. Lore is, like War, an 'Uplift' ability.
Lore as an Ability
Lore, in context of Exalted and Creation, is a mix of Book Learning, General Academics, Math and a fair amount of Science. It is the 'Tech Use' ability, like understanding how to handle a given piece of lost Magitech, or the various formulae and such for artifacts and the like. It shares science with Occult, which is usually closer to a mix of 'Hard Sciences' as well as Political Science of Spirits.
You use Lore to find a nation on a map, and to remember-from-school what fork to use at a dinner party there. (Sociaize by contrast lets you read other people and take cues from them, perhaps). You use Occult to find a spirit-court on a map, and what prayers to say before eating. You use Presence and Socialize to be good at either of those things.
It is also, especially in context of 2nd edition, the 'Essence Manipulation Ability' of the Solar Exalted.
This implicit definition has inspired numerous debates, but they all come down to one core truth. What people want Lore to be, versus what Lore currently is. You as readers all must understand where you're coming from, or any arguments you make won't hold water. I myself have my own horse in this race, yes, but I'm not writing these essays to make it.
Solar Lore
For good or ill, in the design annals of 2nd Edition, a handful of Solar Lore charms require Two Lore Excellencies- notably Harmonious Academic Methodology, and Wyld-Shaping Technique. If, for some reason, either of those charms required the investment/utility of two Lore Excellencies, we wouldn't complain, but we can now safely say they were included as speed bumps, experience gates on the Charms.
Now, I firmly believe, writing this, that the charms are at the right depth in the tree- they just needed to be behind things that weren't Excellencies. That however, is not something I feel the need to get further into right now. Today, we are focused on what is and what was intended.
Essence-Lending Method
Lore 2, Essence 1
So here we have the first Lore charm of the Essay- but not the first Lore charm you see in the core book. I'm starting here because it's the simplest- Essence-Lending Method is essentially 'I give my fellow essence-wielders motes'. You spend 3 motes to activate the charm as a Speed 4 Simple Action, then donate up to [Essence x3] motes to the target character.
The charm specifies this as an Obvious Effect (so casual observers can tell you're transferring magic, roughly speaking). It also specifies that the transferred motes do not flare your anima. The 3m to activate the charm might, but not the 3-15 motes you transfer at Essence 1-5 respectively.
The rest of the charm goes on to specify it's limits, but let's talk about what it means for Solars instead. This is as previously mentioned, the initial step into a Solar's mastery of Essence as an instinctive science, of being able to easily and effortlessly transfer motes from himself to his ally. In the grand scheme of things this is a niche effect, but I am fairly certain no other Exalt can do this. The Abyssals only drain motes.
Will-Bolstering Method
Lore 3, Essence 1
Using almost the exact same template as Essence-Lending, Will-Bolstering Method is "I transfer my temporary willpower channels to my friends and allies!" It costs 5m+1wp to initiate the transfer (and is a touch effect, like ELM). you can then give up to [Your Essence] in temporary willpower dots.
Now I'm going to state it outright- this charm is not useful in combat, and probably was never meant to be. I can see places where it could be useful, but they're very niche and the nature of the game does not lend itself well to them.
A good example offhand though, is bolstering someone as they recover from torture- if you recall in social combat mechanics, being tortured to the point of breaking implies someone's been reduced to temporary willpower 0 as well as permanent willpower zero. Restoring even a single temporary channel has a huge effect at that stage.
Unfortunately, it's so niche, it took me several minutes to even think of it.
Another example is of course, acting as a willpower reserve for a Sorcerer, who if you don't know, must spend at least 1 willpower per circle of sorcery- for Solar Circle Sorcery, that's 3 willpower right there.
Be that as it may, this charm says that Solars can channel will into their allies and underlings, with the power of science
Power-Awarding Prana
Lore 4, Essence 3
At Lore 4, this charm requires roughly the equivalent of a top-flight university education. You must know much science and history to use this magic.
As for what it does? It lets you create a magically empowered, essence-channeling minion. More specifically, it lets you teach a mortal Solar Charms.
You specifically target a mortal with Essence 1, and commit 15m+1wp to raise the target's Essence to 2. They gain an initially empty 15 mote pool, and the ability to respire Essence like a Solar Exalt. They can then learn Solar Charms for 10 experience points each and the normal training times.
The subject of this charm only has access to the magic for as long as you keep the motes committed, but once learned, the charms never fade. The anointed Mortal can learn Essence 2 charms- and there are several that are incredibly potent. They can't ever make Combos, but that's not as big a deal as you might think.
Consider Solar Investigation- none of those charms are Essence 3. Imagine how easily a mortal could handle affairs in your absence with Judge's Ear running? Or Evidence Discerning Method? Sure you're committing 15 motes for his luxury, but Solars have the largest mote pools in the game by far, and this charm was written under the assumption that Paranoia Combat would not be as it is in modern 2e- where players can afford to commit 15 motes for stories at a time.
(Plus you can decommit it instantly, and while your buddy might ask what gives later, you can stunt your motes back.)
Now thematically, Power-Awarding Prana is something of an oddity. it's very very Solar, but most people look at it and find it wanting. It does a Solar thing- anointing and uplifting, but it's very limited.
The point of the charm is to create custodians, mortals you trust to manage your affairs while you go off on adventures. At the same time, it is deliberately meant to be inferior to securing the loyalty of an actual Dragonblooded or other Supernatural Being.
Another use is as follows: Power-Awarding Prana is very overtly meant to work with Social charms more than combat ones. The idea being, you create your own prophets and envoys. Because they make the perfect messengers, being both able to learn the most potent social effects in the Solar trees, and then go out and use them even more effectively than you would.
And, you know immediately if something has gone wrong in delivering your chosen message, because if they are killed, it instantly ends the commitment of motes for you. Which I imagine would be a declaration of war, if you sent them out for negotiations or similar.
Remember- the Solar theme is "I am never at a disadvantage or lacking for something." They don't have "Automatic Dragonblooded Minions Prana" though. A Dragonblooded is still an Exalt, and Solars do not get to create Exalts with a mere Essence 3 charm.
Also remember that this charm specifies Mortals with an Essence of 1. You can't game the system and make an ess 3 mortal essence 4 with this magic.
Solars raise civilizations, but they rarely uplift singular people without highly specialized magic. You'll also note that in Corebook, there's really nothing that lets them enhance the already magical. That is a deliberate design statement- Exalted in general, and Solars in particular, do not 'stack buffs' on each other in a direct, trait-to-trait sense.
A Solar leading a nation with Dragonblooded lieutenants isn't better because the Solar makes Dragonblooded better (though Thousand Correct Actions/DB errata tried). It's because the innate magic of a Dragonblood interacts organically and implicitly with the powers of the Solar.
Therefore, Power-Awarding Prana is the charm that lets you have a magical lieutenant when you can't afford a Dragonblooded.
Immanent Solar Glory
Lore 5, Essence 3
Needing an intense mastery of the academic world, we now have Immanent Solar Glory. This charm has two core aspects:
The first is that it grants a new way to respire Essence- Every hour you spend working to support organization you lead in some direct, visible manner (you're not supposed to cats paw as a Solar), you gain a number of motes equal to the group's Magnitude.
So sure, a Magnitude 2 group means an extra 2 motes an hour, but that adds up quick- especially if you lead multiple groups, and/or start leading very large ones!
The second part, is that each instance of this charm gives you an extra 10 peripheral motes. They're technically added to your main reserve, but it's easier to organize if you keep them separate. Motes from this pool can't be committed to artifacts, but can be committed to Charms.
You can purchase Immanent Solar Glory a number of times equal to your Permanent Essence. Since most solar games top out at Essence 5, that's an extra 50 motes.
Harmonious Academic Methodology
Lore 5, Essence 3
Those of you who were around for Solar War will find this charm familiar- it has the same basic formula and conditions, but applied to scholarly and intellectual abilities. Harmonious Academic Methodology is the Lore Teaching Charm, and it is what you use to pull people out of the dung ages.
Remember, the vast majority of Creation is a post-apocalyptic setting that regressed to where literacy is rare. You can in 4 weeks, 5 hours a week, take someone from lore 0 to lore 4- the equivalent of a 4 year degree.
The Charm itself can raise the following traits: Conviction, Temperance, Perception, Intelligence, the Five Elemental Crafts, Investigation, Lore, Lingustics, Performance, Presence, or Socialize.
Going to restate for emphasis- how would you like to learn Chinese in 5 hours? That's what this charm does for people.
You are explicitly allowed to train yourself with this charm, but you cannot raise the traits of students higher than your own or 4, whichever is lower.
Of note for player characters, is the idea of Experience Debt and the Training Keyword. Basically, if you have XP debt, you can't gain the benefit of a Training Effect (the thing that lets you learn in 5 hours). You GET xp debt by spending more than you have and needing to work it off in subsequent sessions.
Harmonious Academic Methodology is very much the Crafter's Friend charm, allowing you to train legions of skilled artisans and tradesmen, as well as farmers, clerks, courtiers and kings.
So again, Solars enrich wherever they go. They raise standards up to their level, and then reap the rewards of a grand and (intellectually) enlightened people. If you've read Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, several arcs in that series cover the tropes of Harmonious Academic Methodology.
Legendary Scholar Curriculum
Lore 5, Essence 4
This charm upgrades HAM, allowing you to cover the advanced crafts like Magitech, as well as Awareness, Bureaucracy, Integrity, Larceny, Medicine and Occult. In context, this is like saying that HAM is 'Really upscale preparatory school/private tutoring', while LSC is 'Cambridge, Eton, Yale'.
You can train your classes in any Virtue to a maximum of 4, as well as adding these attributes ot your list of trainable traits- Charisma, Manipulation, Wits, and Appearance. Remember- most mortals don't have any of these traits above 3, most of them are at 2.
Now I am going to take a breather here, because I have been playing 2nd Edition Exalted since 2009 or so. I have adored the Twilight Charms for nearly that entire span. I did not realize there was a last bulletpoint for Legendary Scholar Curriculum on Page 216, above Chaos Repelling Pattern. Layout problems- they're a serious thing.
Whiiiiite Wuuuuuullllf!
Anyway- that last bullet point says you can teach any specialty you yourself know in any ability you can train. (I imagine it means the same specialty in the same ability, mind you). Unfortunately, due to Thaumaturgical Arts having a different pricing and training scheme compared to regular Specialties, LSC does not implicitly or explicitly allow you to train thaumaturges on it's own. Ask your ST, or write a custom charm!
So on LSC and Solars: You can bring people up to 4-year degree in almost any social or scholarly ability.
Order-Affirming Blow
Lore 5, Essence 4
You'll again note that i've put these charms out of traditional order. OAB requires Will-Bolstering Method and Wyld Shaping Technique as prerequisites, so that's 2 Excellencies, Essence-Lending, Will Bolstering, Chaos-Repelling Pattern, and Wyld Shaping Technique. This is the 7th charm in a tree.
Ahh, an Essence 4 charm- truly powerful, a Greater Miracle. This Charm basically allows you to- with a touch, terminate any long-term Shaping Effects on the target. The cost to do so is quite high, 15 motes, and temporary willpower equal to the target's Permanent Essence. (This is likely preventing you from say, Order-Affirming Blow on a Deathlord's sorcerous panoply.)
Regardless, this is the top-shelf, no fuss Shaping Restoration Magic in the setting. Other Exalted can do things similar to Order-Affirming Blow, but in either more narrow designed niches, or with extra hoops to jump through. Solars merely pay their cost and it is done.
Remember- for most of Creation, fixing or removing a Shaping Effect like a Raksha Mutation is a epic quest in and of itself- entreating with sage gods or Dragonblooded who have caches of first age medical technology. A Solar may need a great amount of personal enlightenment to do it, but they can work a miracle more and faster than most other beings in the setting.
Now, interestingly, Order-Affirming Blow also disrupts Sidereal Astrology, which is itself a wonderful little suite of effects attached to an admittedly clunky system- which I don't need to worry about now. Storytellers use Sidereal Astrology as a plot device, and little else.
Of specific note, is using this charm on a Fair Folk while in the Wyld. A Raksha's body is itself a Shaping Effect-construct. If you've seen Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, and you recall the elf king dying and turning to a statue? That's what Order-Affirming Blow does to Raksha (sometimes).
So what does this say about Solars? It says that reality is theirs to impose or restore to people and Creation. That it is their Strong Magic, with wide-ranging effect and impact as per Essence 4. This charm might not hit a lot of people at once, but the results of removing Shaping Effects, even something so humble as Sidereal Astrology, can cause incredible ripples.
But even as I say impose, they do not control Reality with the same degree of aplomb. Even that requires a degree of preparation. Order-Affirming Blow declares "You will play by the rules." But everyone has a challenge ahead of them in declaring "You will play by My rules."
Chaos Repelling Pattern
Lore 3, Essence 3
Chaos Repelling Pattern is a purely functional charm that is intended to be a group support ability. For 5 motes, you create a bubble of Creation-Law out for a number of yards equal to your Permanent Essence. This means you respire Essence like normal (a big deal), and random Shaping Events like the Wyld's nature, or the nightmarish topography of the Labyrinth settle down around you.
Of note however, that CRP only lasts for an hour at a time, so you'll need to find a safe place to camp out, or have multiple people run the charm in shifts so everyone can rest.
What's more interesting is contrasting the 2nd edition version of this charm to it's 1st edition form- in summary, the 1e Chaos Repelling Pattern went on to specify that it did not protect your clothes or other possessions, merely your body- it had more in common with Integrity Protecting Prana, but was not by any means a perfect effect or as outlandishly dominant. 1e tried to communicate to you very clearly that the world was scary even with magic, while in 2nd edition, the tone shifted to a much more "I can head out into the Wyld and make it mine!"
Wyld-Shaping Technique (2nd Edition)
Lore 5, Essence 3
The BIG one. I'm working on it last for a reason. More internet knife fights have been started over this charm than I could count. I'm not here to start a new one. I'm here to tell you what is and what was intended, and how to use it in your games. Or, if you have to, give you the information you need to change it.
Wyld-Shaping Technique is summarized best by the following (probably paraphrased) quote; "When the Solar beheld his vast domain, he did not weep. Instead, he rode out to make new worlds to conquer'.
But that's just the start of this gigantic mess this Charm actually is. And it really is a mess.
It costs 20 motes and 1 willpower to use, and is a Simple Dramatic Action lasting 5 hours. It creates an [Intelligence + Lore] roll to shape Something from Unreality, with a difficulty based on where you are relative to the depth of the Wyld. You bank successes with each activation, but you can only spend 5 of them at a time. (There's a reason for this).
At the most real regions, Bordermarches, it is a Difficulty 10 roll to shape anything. At the Middlemarches, it is Difficulty 5, 3 in the Deep Wyld, and 1 in Pure Chaos.
Pure Chaos, FYI, is the part where those without Shaping Defenses tend to just up and pop into a radish. For reasons.
So that's the core of the charm- the mechanics themselves are very simple. The hard part is understanding all the extra stuff that comes after.
Now, here's what I want to tell you, that took me years to understand: Wyld Shaping Technique is a Charm that creates Backgrounds. It'll make sense once I get into it further.
The first WST says you can make is a Demesne, which is a big deal. For those who don't know, demesnes (pronounced Dimayne, oddly enough), are common enough in Creation that most people live within walking distance of a 1-dot or even a 2 dot wellspring of Elemental Essence. 3 dot demesnes are also known in Creation and are coveted by spirits of all kinds. 4 dot and 5 dot demesnes are possible, but so fantastically rare that most of them were engineered in the First Age.
Now to actually make a demesne, you first need to make land which is the second bullet point. To make land, you spend successes equal to its Resources Rating. This is the tough part, because what is the resource value of land? Well, it's value is based in what you can pull out of it- crops? Lumber? Ore or precious metals?
The other factor is that the core book does actually tell you how much property a given amount of Resources gets you- Resources 4 for an Estate, (which implies landed elite, sharecropping or something else).
Anyway, you spend 1 success to make a blasted, desolate plane of real space. Perfectly useful! You spend 4 successes to make an Estate, that itself EARNS resources 4 per year, or 5 successes to make a lush estate. if you want to make an even better estate, you use WST again on the same terrain you just shaped (treating it like a Middlemarch from this point on, even if it had been a Bordermarch.) Remember, you're capped at 5 successes per WST invocation, but you can shape the same land over and over, so you could in theory dot the estate with dozens of fully stocked gold mines.
Regardless, you've spent some successes making land- NOW you can make a demesne! You roll WST again and spend successes to make a demesne rated 1-5. In 5 hours.
You know how long it takes to make a Demesne from scratch in Creation, without magic? 15 years, if nothing goes wrong. Fucking Solars, man.
So that covers Demesne and Land- next is Magical Things like Artifacts. Remember- this charm is intended to give you Backrounds, so this is a logical extension. Unfortunately, it basically overwrites any relevance of normal Craft- here's how it works.
You walk into the Wyld, and start rolling Wyld Shaping Technique. You add successes earned on WST directly to the craft required total, as opposed to going through the normal Difficulty =[Rating +2] difficulty process of crafting in a workshop. More importantly, you handwave any concerns like Raw Materials and Exotic Components by it's very nature.
Now, the important thing here, is that Wyld Shaping Technique is supposed to do that, but as written it is very open-ended, so much so that it's like "Okay, I can do it the longer, Right Way, or the Shorter, Cheap Way, why am I dithering?"
WST was intended to make things like Exotic Components- which are technically 1-4 dot artifacts, but not necessarily Daiklaves or Warstriders. Exotic Components made with WST were things like the laughter of a child (bottled up in a workable form), square-circles, cats footsteps, or the love of a mountain for the sky. you could ask a Raksha to get these things for you sure, but that's a hassle. Why not just make it yourself?
The next important part of crafting Magical Things with WST, is the blurb about how it can speed things up to 20 times but no faster- basically you want to ignore this and how it combines with CNNT, simply because CNNT doesn't actually work alongside WST even if they are combo-able. You can shape a Manse with WST on top of a demesne, and you just spend 5 hours at a time building up the required number of successes exactly as if you were building one normally.
Next, WST can make People! Again using Backgrounds as a Template, you can essentially make Followers or Cult with 1-5 successes. I'll leave it to you as to the ramifications of making 10,000 people in 5 hours. Making useful heroic servants as opposed to extras, takes 1 success per servant. Making an automatically organized unit requires another success (so you make two 4 dot follower backgrounds with organization and then puppydog eye at your ST to combine them into a single 5 dot).
Okay, lastly, WST can make wealth. I touched on that earlier with Land, but it again, comes back to the idea of Resources the background, not making big piles of gold or treasure to carry home. (Though You can totally do that too). You spend successes equal to the desired creation's Resources value, and are capped at 5 same as before. To give you an idea, Resources 5 is equivalent to 12 talents of jade earned per year. In the Guild Silver Standard, that's sixty talents of silver, each weighing 64 pounds each. That takes 5 hours and 5 successes to shape up with Wyld Shaping Technique.
NOW, the part everybody forgets- Anything made by Wyld Shaping Technique is not real- and as the charm states, their reality stems from Creation, from the Solars, the imperial Mountain and the Loom of Fate. As long as the shaped objects, people and such interact with Real People and the creation-wide metaphysical systems in place, they will endure indefinitely. However, just creating a big kingdom in the Wyld with no real connection to Creation except yourself means you'll have to constantly expend effort stabilizing everything against falling apart.
As far as determining when things 'unmake' due to lack of interaction, that varies from game to game. At the beginning of each Story, the storyteller rolls the creator's Essence against Diff 1 if the subject fails to interact extensively with Creation. By extensively we mean change hands, be trod upon by countless mortals, be used in daily life. A shaped Daiklave left in a stream is not being extensively used. If that same daiklave is lost in the Underworld, Malfeas, the Wyld or so on, the roll is Difficulty 2. After three failures, the subject unmakes itself.
It's clear this mechanic is very lenient on behalf of the players, intending to give them ample time to shore up their projects or collect the goods they've made with WST before it falls apart.
About Solars now, though? This is an Essence 3 charm, it is a modest miracle by the standards of the Lawgivers. Of being able to shape reality out of chaos. To create whole nations wholecloth, shouting to her glory or to lead armies from the edges of Creation into the heartlands for whatever reason she likes.
Oh sure she's challenged to do this- I didn't mention, but it stands to reason that Raksha will not care to have their home shaped into boring static reality, or a random behemoth could interrupt any of the 5 hour processes. You're also dumping 20 motes at a time, so I hope you brought hearthstones or had a cult handy to feed you extra Essence. And had bodyguards.
but now here's a special treat for you:
Wyld-Shaping Technique (First Edition)
Cost: 20 motes, 1 Willpower
Why am I bringing up the 1st edition WST? Because it illustrates very clearly the dramatic shift in tone from 1e to 2e, in how it treated player characters and Solars specifically. 1st Edition was, to my understanding, a much less friendly setting despite the great powers wielded by the Exalted.
The point of comparing them, is to illustrate both the good parts of 2e's more rigid, codified design, and the implicit allowances- You'll see below that 1st edition WST is actually much more fleshed out for the sake of Storytellers, intending to give them something to hang adventure hooks on as the players work with WST, instead of merely use it,
Also it attempted to stabilize WST's power-level by making it Not Easy, and plot-shaping. WST was a vector for problems and also the reward at the end of the journey, something which 2e conspicuously leaves out entirely in place of codifying the rewards for success.
There are few of their abilities that the Exalted fear using. They are, after all, the anointed of the gods. They do not command Essence, it flows to match their desire. Even the most serious sorts of negligence or mistakes are only likely to lead to wild mood swings and misbehavior, not a grisly death. But even in the days of the Old Realm, the most powerful Solar Exalted used this Charm sparingly.
Right off, we see a marked difference in how 1st edition treated WST and even Solars. Of how their very fluff text was a cautionary tale, meant to evoke risk and reward.
A character using this Charm can shape the primordial chaos, the inchoate precursor of reality, to his whim. Obviously, this Charm does not work in areas where the fabric of reality is already set - it must be used in the deepest, most fluid Wyld zones or else the edge of the world, forcing shape into the teeth of the howling storm.
This was written before we had the codified wyld influences, Border, Middle, Deep, Chaos.
To activate this Charm, the character sets foot in the unformed substance of reality and wills it to take shape as he commands. The player rolls his character's Essence. Wyld-Shaping Technique is an extended action, with the cost of the Charm paid for each roll. The number of successes required is up to the Storyteller.
Again, 1st Edition was very much a 'At the Storyteller' Mercy' game, for good or ill, even moreso than 2nd edition- with a few exceptions. They're rolling Essence, not Craft or Lore or anything they can add an Excellency to!
The character can create nearly anything - a Demesne, a giant factory that produces golem warriors, a bag of diamonds as big as potatoes - but the larger and more powerful the thing he wishes to create, the more successes the player must roll. A single success would create a bag of diamonds or a talent of gold, while three successes would create a Demesne, a keep or a talent of one of the Five Magical Materials. Five successes would create a fortress, an enchanted forest complete with magical inhabitants or the aforementioned manufactory of golem warriors.
Without a codified system, the Charm itself had to provide one.
If the player botches at any time, horrible side effects result as reality shapes to the character's subconscious whims. It may take the shape of his fears or simply coalesce in some horrifically wrong fashion - the specifics are up to the Storyteller. They are rarely pleasant and often worse than fatal.
Again, the Storyteller is the one in control here- this charm is meant to evoke risk. Of pitting your Essence 3-4 against the vagaries of the Wyld and dice odds and come out on top.
In 2nd edition Wyld Shaping, "A Solar never wants for anything". The premise behind early WST is that "the Solar never wants for Adventure-worthy prizes."
Because that is what the charm was meant to create, in the time before Borgstrom. It sets up the conditions of a very broad, general adventure-plot arc ("Survive the wyld and its beasts to reach you goal") and gives you a random-chance at not only something incredibly valuable, but the option to Pick what it could be.
Its meant to set up a Jason and the Argonauts diversion, when you want to find the golden fleece and the ST says "Nothing like that exists in this world, or if it did, it doesn't anymore," and you can come right back with, "We'll see about that!" and some wackyass wyld-adventuring later you get to say it No, It Really Does.
Objects created in this fashion are freshly minted. Lacking roots in reality, they are more subject to the gnawing of chaos than other items. This instability is really only a problem for large structures such as fortresses and cities - if such places are left unpeopled and not made part of the complex interplay of contact that makes up existence, they will slowly dissolve back into the chaos from which they sprang.
Again, for good or ill, WST in the First Edition lacks codification.
Wyld Cauldron Technology (Second Edition)
Lore 5, Essence 4
Okay, back to the 2e charms: WCT is the upgrade to WST, and it weighs in at Essence 4. This Charm improves the capabilities, allowing you to create real things- for a price.
Land/Wealth: The price in question is a sacrifice of something like Jade or Orichalcum, a Magical Material with Resources Value equal to the value of whatever you want to actually make real. You can't sacrifice functional artifacts for this purpose though. You can also spend [Desired Cost x2] in Experience Points to make something out of your own soul.
Magical Things: You can use WST+WCT as essentially a super-workshop, if you import materials from Creation (or a zone you've declared as Real with appropriate sacrifice), you can roll WST and craft things directly, using the softer reality as a sort of tool. Things made with WST and Real Materials do not lose unreality.
People: now you can change people with WST. Doing so subtracts an external penalty equal to the target's MDV from the successes on the WST roll. If the solar succeeds, she may change the target's Motivation and impose a number of points of Wyld Mutations equal to the Solar's Essence. The target can resist however, by spending 4 willpower. (Even Extras have that much). The target can alternatively spend 2wp and state a condition like 'Don't make me hideous' or 'Don't make me a traitor'.
Unlike WST, which has a lot of thematic baggage, WCT is largely a practical upgrade.
Whew, and that concludes Solar Lore! Next Essay is Solar Medicine and Occult!
