- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You're going to find Haneyl adorable when I pick her up four or five sessions from now.
General Exalted Thread
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
I checked out Shyft's art thread, and now I have the strangest urge to see the Senshi as Green Sun Princesses. Past Life Five would explain a lot wouldn't it.
Nah, the Senshi are Sidereals. Even the Caste markings of the Chosen of the Maidens is inspired by them, never mind their Arcane Fate. Who the Infernals match up to best is Queen Beryl; a exceedingly powerful Sorceress who was seduced to the dark side after failing to win the heart of her love, and who now commands legions of demonic servants who lay siege to the world.
Nah. The Inner Senshi are Dragonblooded. Elemental themes, teamwork themes, bodyguard themes, and the fact that Usagi-the-Solar is far more important than the others, that they exist to serve her, and her power makes them increasingly meaningless in later series just hammers home the similarity.
(Tuxedo Husbando is naturally the Lunar there)
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
Admittedly, it was almost entirely for the whole Past Life Five.
Can you tell I've been reading Earthscorpian's Infernal!Louise fic?
Can you tell I've been reading Earthscorpian's Infernal!Louise fic?
Fortuna
Graceful Topiary Artist
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So, for various poorly-thought-out reasons mostly having to do with boredom, I'm experimenting with writing up an Exigent of Xaos for a 2.5 game I'm sort of playing in. My intention is to base the whole thing around a Limit track, with higher Limit corresponding to more power as well as less sanity. The trouble I've been having is that I'm not sure how to best implement the 'less sanity' part of the equation. I figure it works best if Limit is divided into four or five discrete brackets (possibly actually just as a scale with only four or five points).
Bracket A: You're on holiday, pretending to be a mortal and enjoying having some vestige of sanity. Any powers you might have are no more impressive than small mutations.
Bracket B: You're keeping yourself under tight control, caring more about your mental health than power. Your powers tend to fall in the range of strong mutations or weak spirit/TMA Charms.
Bracket C: You're drawing deep, risking your immediate integrity for material gain. Your powers are strong Dragonblooded or weak Celestial level.
Bracket D: You're cutting loose, existing and reveling as an avatar of mad knowledge. Insanity is beginning to significantly impair mission functionality. Your powers are firmly Celestial, and strong examples.
Bracket E: You've screwed up and are properly mad, at least as much a danger to yourself as any situation you might have found yourself in. Your powers can rival those of Solars, at the cost of being too insane to use them effectively. This is to be avoided.
Bracket A may or may not exist, and if it does then it may be an optional effect at Limit 0 where you become effectively mortal for a while - I don't expect it to come up in play much. Bracket E mostly needs attention in terms of being highly undesirable without completely destroying the character and the game if it's hit once in a while. I figure bracket D is the hardest to lay out mechanically.
So, I'd be glad of any help, advice, or musing. Any thoughts?
Bracket A: You're on holiday, pretending to be a mortal and enjoying having some vestige of sanity. Any powers you might have are no more impressive than small mutations.
Bracket B: You're keeping yourself under tight control, caring more about your mental health than power. Your powers tend to fall in the range of strong mutations or weak spirit/TMA Charms.
Bracket C: You're drawing deep, risking your immediate integrity for material gain. Your powers are strong Dragonblooded or weak Celestial level.
Bracket D: You're cutting loose, existing and reveling as an avatar of mad knowledge. Insanity is beginning to significantly impair mission functionality. Your powers are firmly Celestial, and strong examples.
Bracket E: You've screwed up and are properly mad, at least as much a danger to yourself as any situation you might have found yourself in. Your powers can rival those of Solars, at the cost of being too insane to use them effectively. This is to be avoided.
Bracket A may or may not exist, and if it does then it may be an optional effect at Limit 0 where you become effectively mortal for a while - I don't expect it to come up in play much. Bracket E mostly needs attention in terms of being highly undesirable without completely destroying the character and the game if it's hit once in a while. I figure bracket D is the hardest to lay out mechanically.
So, I'd be glad of any help, advice, or musing. Any thoughts?
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
...not really. The Senshi never really have a time when their past lives overwhelm their current personalities or otherwise have a conflict betwen them. We actually know almost nothing about their Past Lives in the anime and the manga is only slightly more detailed.
That said, the Inners are clearly Dragonblooded, Moon is a Solar and the Outers are clearly Sidereals right down to "the Greater Good" speechs. Heck, the Outers do clearly have a "past lives overwhelming current lives" Past Life kind of deal going on.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Live Action Usagi and Ami beg to differ.
Yes, they can.
Martial Arts Charms are subject to all of the usual restrictions on cross-Ability combinations, with the additional restriction that REFLEXIVE Martial Arts Charms cannot enhance attacks or parries based on other Abilities unless specifically noted, and vice versa.
That is, if a Martial Arts Charm references an attack or parry as part of its conditions or effects, it is to be implicitly understood that the Charm is referring to a Martial Arts attack or parry unless it explicitly says otherwise.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
That's what I was referring to, yes.
- Location
- Gladstone, OR
A Brief introduction to Solar Occult
To be the Occultist in Creation is to be the sage, wise one. The learned master in the arts of the world. To know the secrets of Thaumaturgy, the thousand arts and sciences that make up every day living. Occult is knowledge and understanding of Spirits, of Magic, and of things Other than You. It is the domain of the Sorcerer, the Demonologist, and the Savant.
The Solars bring back the greater truths of the world, they're the ones who with luminary genius, divine the untold secrets of spirits and other mysteries.
Occult the Ability
Like with a lot of things in Exalted, Occult has come under fire for lack of clear definition. At it's core, Occult is the hard-sciences of Creation: Thaumaturgy, Sorcery, and so on. Solar Lore handles the manipulation of Essence, but Lore the ability is actually the Humanities, History, General Technology, with a bit of Math.
Occult covers the 'Magic Math' of the setting as well as Spirit Politics and Identifying Magic. You use occult to identify gods, demons and raksha, to know now to bargain with raksha, and so on.
Thaumaturgy
Thaumaturgy is a highly specific form of Specialty, that uses an alternative cost scheme compared to normal specialties.
Thaumaturgy is divided first into Arts, which are large categories of actions like Enchanting, Geomancy, Warding, Summoning, Exorcism, and so on. After that, they are divided into Degrees, which reflect your level of mastery. There are 4 levels of Degree, 0-4. Lastly, there are Procedures- specific rituals that you can learn by rote without understanding the full scope of a Degree.
It costs 10xp to learn a Degree, or 8xp if favored. Mortals learn a given level of an art in [Degree Months], while Exalted learn them in Weeks. A given degree will have 4-5 or more rituals however,and it is a fair assumption that you can know most of the immediately, just by having a Degree. So a 1st degree Enchanter can enchant a whole different swath of items, while a blacksmith who learned a steel-hardening procedure can only do the one thing.
Degrees also count as Specialty dice, which is important for how thaumaturgy works- more dice makes it easier~.
0th level, or Apprentice level Procedures only require a single dot of occult, and no actual experience spent on a Degree or Procedure, and these are ever present facts of life in Creation. Corebook only has two printed apprentice level procedures, Compile Chart under art of Astrology, and Essence Sense under Art of Geomancy. A 0th level procedure is barely even passively magical.
In context of Creation, trying to measure something's volume by immersing it in water- that's a 0th level procedure, because in Creation, water's displacement is a thaumaturgical process. So is washing your hands- you appease the disease gods of common ailments, and they refuse to infect you out of respect.
Now, the thing about thaumaturgy, is that it is the product of the scientific method. It actually is repeatable, consistent rituals and actions with results. You might get regional variances, but they all hinge on the same basic concepts.
1st degree procedures are minor magic, cantrips really. Baking Soda volcanoes under the art of Alchemy, or being able to anoint one's eyes with Blood and thus see Immaterial Demons (and only demons). These procedures often take time, ranging from a few seconds to minutes, hours, days or more.
2nd degree procedures are modest workings of mortal artifice. You could summon a demon from hell with a 2nd degree beckoning procedure, but you would have no way to bind them with just that knowledge!
3rd degree procedures take a lot of inspiration from old stories and myths of real history. It's a Difficulty 7 procedure to alchemically transmute lead to gold, for example! A mortal could even conceivably create something approaching a 1-dot artifact, with a huge amount of work invested beforehand and even during the procedure.
Lastly, you can make new procedures if you have sufficient time- months really, but the utility of thaumaturgy cannot be ignored.
One thing to note however- Exalted do not get necessarily Thaumaturgy-enhancing Charms. They don't need them. They don't need magic that makes a given ritual better or faster, save for an Excellency. There is an exception in that you could probably make a charm that lets you develop a ritual faster, which would also apply to all kinds of research related actions.
Solar Occult
Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Occult 3, Essence 3
I could write an entire Essay on Sorcery in general, so I'll just hit the high notes here.
Also known as First Circle and Emerald Circle, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery is the most easily accessed tier- Enlightened mortals can learn it, as can most spirits unless completely incompatible with their natures for some reason or another.
Now here's a question for you: Why do people need to learn a Charm to cast Sorcery, before learning any spells? The answer is pretty simple: Sorcery isn't an inherent quality of Essence-Wielders or their Charms. It's an external, metaphysical bolt-on they have to internalize with the purchase of the relevant Charm.
The important things about Sorcery are as follows:
One: Sorcery is not pew-pew DnD blaster magic. It's biblical miracles. There are explicit allusions and references in Sorcery to things like the Wall Of Jericho, the Ten Plagues of Egypt, and Parting the Red Sea. Sorcery is strategic effects first and foremost, with a lot of their more immediate 'fast/combat speed' effects being still very clunky.
Two: Sorcery is not something that has a 'Splat' emphasis or anything. What I mean is that there's not supposed to be a difference between a Dragonblooded casting a spell, and a Solar casting a spell. The sorcerous initiations of the Yozis are deliberate exceptions to this model.
Three: It's important to remember this, but in context of the setting, hardly anyone knows this in character- Sorcery is the Primordial Control Language of Essence. Terrestrial Circle is simply the lowest possible level.
It's actually easy to take it like, Terrestrial Circle and Celestial Circle aren't even things Primordials did, but what the Exalted figured out post-war and categorized the way they did.
Four: The Essence Scale of Sorcery is subjective, and actually splat-neutral. You know how in a lot of Solar trees, you see effects at Essence 3 that other splats get at Essence 4 or 2-4 charms in? That doesn't apply to Sorcery. Everyone gets Terrestrial Effects at Essence 3. Essence 3 Solar Charms are equivalent to really strong Terrestrial Spells, or really focused Celestial Spells.
Five: Sorcery is not very well written currently- a lot of the spells are copied from First Edition without much editing, or for various reasons are just poorly balanced. Related to this is how a lot of Sorcery is in some way various kinds of Bad-touch effects; things that you need specific keyword defenses to defend against. That in of itself isn't a bad thing- the issue is that like with a lot of things in Exalted, the 'cool idea' an ST has to challenge their players also usually means they'll use something they don't understand how to ensure doesn't autokill their players.
Celestial Circle Sorcery
Occult 4, Essence 4
Also known as Second Circle, Sapphire Circle. I covered the basics in the TCS blurb! Celestial Exalted, Celestial Gods and other high level spirits can learn CCS.
Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, for comparison, can build a small fort or knock down a huge castle wall. Celestial Circle can build you an entire castle, or utterly destroy an entire fortress.
Solar Circle Sorcery
Occult 5, Essence 5
Also known as Third Circle, Adamant Circle, Primordial Circle…Seeing a pattern? Only Solars and Infernals learn this, at least as per 2e corebook. Abyssals cannot learn Solar Circle Sorcery.
Regardless, Solar Circle is the domain of effects that reshape whole nations to your whim. Like I said- I'd need an entirely separate essay to cover Sorcery!
Spirit-Detecting Glance
Occult 2, Essence 2
Alright, so we're back to the Charm-Charms. Spirit-Detecting Glance is a perception booster. It lets you percieve Immaterial beings like most Spirits. If you didn't have SDG active, Spirits would be inapplicable for most actions you can take in the scene. This includes things like 'Hearing, Seeing, etc'.
Note that SDG doesn't let you touch spirits, though.
Now it's an Occult 2, Essence 2 Charm, and is a Reflexive Step 1 or Step 2 charm- this means it's meant to be put into a combo, and can be activated in response to another characters actions- not necessarily attacks, but that's usually what happens.
For Storytellers: There is almost no such thing as a truly undetectable attack at least, not without extensive magic. Exalted relies on combat transparency, so an immaterial being attacking a character prompts some kind of response, even if it's limited. Spirit-Detecting is meant to remove some of those limits.
For Solars: So here we let you see gods! Obviously the implication is you're supposed to easily deal with Spirits as Solars, far more than Mortals, who have to bow and scrape or fight off gods with less effective techniques.
Spirit-Cutting Attack
Occult 2, Essence 2
Another easy-to-combo charm, this is a Supplemental, so if you put it in a combo, you WILL be activating it on every legal attack you can, even if you aren't attacking spirits. It explicitly lets you combo it with other abilities as well (Normally all supplementals in a combo must come from the same ability you're rolling).
Regardless, this Charm lets you hurt spirits, even intangible Immaterial ones! In fact, it deals Aggravated Damage, which Spirits cannot magically heal up super-fast like they can Lethal or Bashing. It's very much a 'Yes, we put the hurt on something that is in all conventional senses, Immortal.'
If a spirit is Materialized, they can be hurt by regular attacks, but not all spirits are going to be material all the time! Note that trying to attack an Immaterial Spirit without being able to see it incurs a -2 external penalty on the attack roll.
Ghost-Eating Technique
Occult 4, Essence 3
Ahhh, this terror-inducing charm. Here we have the first big thematic statement of Solar Occult, tied into Spirit-Detecting and Spirit-Cutting as well.
You can see the unseeable. You can hurt the unhurtable, you can kill the unkillable.
This is actually something people coming fresh into Exalted have trouble with, expecting the more classic game design model of 'Rewarded by Difficulty', where the 'Next Boss' is always going to be harder than the last boss. That's not true in Exalted, where everyone is, roughly speaking, an actor with their own agenda and assets. Sure there's adjustment happening behind the scenes, but the next antagonist- Joe Banker Eclipse - isn't supposed to magically going to have 1000xp of combat charms just because you just killed Mask of Winters.
Anyway, Ghost-Eating! This is a Reflexive Step 10 charm and it costs 2 motes. You activate it as you apply any inflicted HLs to a spirit. You gain your Permanent Essence x2 in motes from the action, so at Essence 3, hitting a spirit for even 1 HL of damage gets you 6 motes back minus the cost of Ghost-Eating Technique.
Secondly, if you manage to fill a spirit's Dying Levels as you activate this Charm, they are permanently killed. Normally, most Spirits, when killed, will just reform in their Sanctums or domains after a year, maybe a decade, or some uncountable length of time. Ghost-Eating just says 'Nope you dead-dead'.
At Essence 3, Solars get to turn off the systemic immortality of Spirits. All of them, with almost no exceptions. I'll explain that in a sec. Getting back to a previous point, new players often come in to Exalted thinking they need to arms race, to create the next big Un-Fooable-Effect to counter the inevitable bullshit that will define their next encounter.
That's not how Exalted works. If it's a spirit, Ghost-Eating can permakill it. That's the point. The whole chain of immortality versus kill-ability ends right here.
A character-advancement (xp) arms race isn't the crux of the game or setting. Instead you're focused on the idea that these things you're fighting have vast empires or quests to cut through before you can apply your Ghost-Eating Technique to them.
The exceptions exist largely because of poor editorial control or misunderstandings on the part of the writers over the course of Exalted 2nd edition- of note is the much maligned 'Deathlord Immortality'. Basically what they were going for was 'these superghosts are so super, you should have to go on a secondary epic quest to permanently kill them!'
I am fairly certain that the original intention of Ghost-Eating was that yes, you can kill Mask of Winters- in fact, the returning Solars might be the only hope of doing so without paying some awful price, not unlike whatever price was paid to activate the Realm Defense Grid, or author the Usurpation. This isn't to say that only Solars can kill Deathlords, it's just that Solars get a Deathlord-killing Charm at Essence 3.
Note that you're not expected to try and fight a deathlord at Essence 3, but if one does try to kill you, you have perfect defenses that don't care if the thing fighting you is a mortal or a Deathlord- it works. (It's more complicated than that, but I hope these essays are helping).
Looking at the Deathlord Invulnerability, I'm reminded of Morrowind's 'secret path' to completing the game… Anyway. The other 'exception' to permakilling are Third Circle Demons, which was detailed in Roll of Glorious Divinity 2. I can't say it's a comprehensive statement on the setting, because it was written under the assumption Storytellers would adjust to fit their game- and at that point in the game line, Third Circles were woefully under-described, giving no real baseline for how they worked.
My recommendation to players and storytellers, is to take a good hard look at the kind of game you're aiming to run or play, and ask if requiring a secondary quest to defeat a Deathlord or 3rd Circle fits their game. Same with anything else that is questionable, interesting or otherwise of note.
Spirit-Repelling Diagram
Occult 5, Essence 2
THE POWER OF THE SUN COMPELS YOU.
That's pretty much what this charm is. By Committing 10 motes, you can create a space equal to the Solar's Essence in yards that Dematerialized Beings will want to immediately vacate, or willingly Materialize in response to the Solar's presence.
A note about Materialize/Dematerialize. When a spirit activates these Charms, they pay a scaling cost based on their traits (usually about 40-80 motes), and then they're set in that mode until they return to their natural state. So a god who goes Material is probably going to spend a lot of time taking care of matters before heading back to immaterial.
So, you activate Spirit-Repelling Diagram. Any Dematerialized Spirit that takes actions in the scenes now has a choice- it can move out of the boundary defined by the Solar, and stay Dematerialized. It can Become Material at a fairly high cost to itself, or it can spend [The Solar's Essence] in Temporary Willpower to resist the Charm's compulsion effect. This also applies for any new spirits who want to enter into the circle later on in the scene.
What does this do for you though? Well, suddenly, you have a safe zone where spirits have to give up one of their great advantages to try and act against you. Or you can force them to stop baring your way. The earlier quip about Power of the Sun- Gods can body-jack,and they count as Dematerialized when they do that! So if a god or demon is possessing someone, you can use Spirit-Repelling to get them out!
Now, note that the charm specifies 'Spirits who take actions'. Strictly speaking, Creation is full of spirits who take dramatically inconsequential actions or are otherwise 'Inactive' by system standards. Least gods or animating intelligences in particular- this charm doesn't force them to vacate the premises.
Regarding Solars and their themes: This charm is one of their miracles, something that they can attain relatively easily compared to Mortals who they spend most of their time around. Mortals who have trouble dealing with exploitative or predatory spirits, be they god or demon. This charm does need Occult 5, but it speaks to the skill of the Solar that they can declare a space around them sacrosanct against any spirit not willing to show proper respect, or pay the price offered for their continued luxurious existence.
All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Occult 5, Essence 2
Ahh, wonderful diagnostic magic. AESS gives you a whole lot of utility for it's base effect and cost of 6 motes. When you activate AESS, all Magical Effects are now rendered Obvious.
Now, Obvious doesn't mean "You automatically spot them as if you rolled successes on an Awareness Roll to see them." it means that you can at a glance, understand their intended effect or nature. It's like being able to recognize Solar Hero Form as a Combat Charm or a Form Charm, without exactly knowing it's Solar Hero Form, or knowing what it actually does. (Solar Hero Form is already Obvious anyway).
Magical Effects include any nearby Demesne, (and you can usually passively sense one from miles away before this charm). Wyld pockets, Dematerialized Spirits (AESS does cover what you get from Spirit-Detecting, yes). Artifacts, Manses, Sorcerous Workings and so on. you also can automatically treat any being with an Essence of 4+ as Obvious as well. Essence 2-3 Exalts need a specific action to spot casually.
You also simply see the world in terms of Essence- White for Earth, Black for Water, Blue for Air, Green for Wood, and red for Fire. Gold, Silver and Rainbow hues for Solar, Lunar and Sidereal Essence as well. It's a very psychedelic kind of experience, being able to peer past the veil of normal perception and see the very patterns of Essence itself!
Now, AESS specifically declares that being able to spot magical things does not make you automatically see through invisibility or lets you spot someone by seeing their worn artifacts. Think of it like- a charm makes someone invisible, and you're thus seeing 'Essence that says this is invisible', but lots of things are already invisible, like the air itself.
So what AESS does in terms of 'stealth' and the like, is it adds the Essence or Artifact rating of what you're looking at to the awareness roll to spot it. So if I had an Essence 3 invisibility charm,and you were looking at me with AESS, you'd get 3 extra dice to see me because of my charm- but if you failed, you wouldn't spot me.
So, that's all the passive benefits of turning on AESS, it's quite a lot! Here are the active benefits: If you take an active, conscious attempt to analyze what you're seeing (I'd call this a Miscellaneous Action myself, but the charm doesn't say) you can roll Intelligence+Occult to comprehend what you're seeing.
It's Difficulty 2 to gauge the Essence Level and Nature (Aspect/Essence Type) of a given being, and their type- if they're a god, demon, elemental, Exalted, etc. This also applies to gauging the rating of an Artifact, Demesne or Manse.
Identifying a Charm or Spell you've never seen before is Difficulty 5. If you succeed, you know the targeted thing's Exact Mechanics.
Sorcerer's Burning Chakra Charm
Occult 5, Essence 4
Here's an interesting charm- it's an upgrade of All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, but it's a unique, conditional one.
Basically, SBCC connects AESS to your Anima's apparent level. If your caste mark is at the 4-7m level of visiblity, you automatically gain the use of AESS as a non-charm effect. For clarity, here's the exerpt from Corebook that describes what the 4-7m level looks like.
The character's caste mark burns and will shine through anything placed over it. It is impossible to mistake the character for anything but what she is. Stealth Charms and other such magic, including the Night Caste's ability to mute sensory impressions, fail. A character may use the Stealth Ability to hide in natural cover, but all such attempts incur a +2 difficulty.
It's important to remember that Celestial Caste Marks are almost like crazy-burning holograms, not merely stickers that glow on the forehead. Abyssal marks are the exception, as they start as bruises before gradually becoming open bloody wounds that automagically carve themselves into their foreheads.
Anyway, if you're willing to show off your caste mark in an undeniable fashion, or are just throwing out a lot of motes for whatever reason, you get AESS on for free. Remember though that AESS has passive benefits and active ones, so it doesn't actually give you a reflexive roll to understand incoming magic, unless your ST gives you one.
Alternatively, you SBCC lets you commit 1 mote to activate AESS as a non-charm action, exchanging the normal cost for having your caste mark glow at the 4-7m level.
Note that you can still activate AESS for 6 motes- the main reason for doing this is stealth, because the base Charm isn't Obvious, and if you commit the cost from personal motes, you can analyze magic and observers will be nonethewiser!
Of note, is that SBCC is an Essence 4 charm- it's actually a very wide-ranging effect, automatically upgrading your capabilities in nearly any situation where you're actively spending Essence anyway. It evokes the idea that a Solar is naturally inclined to glean information from the world in the process of accomplishing other things.
And that concludes Solar Occult!
To be the Occultist in Creation is to be the sage, wise one. The learned master in the arts of the world. To know the secrets of Thaumaturgy, the thousand arts and sciences that make up every day living. Occult is knowledge and understanding of Spirits, of Magic, and of things Other than You. It is the domain of the Sorcerer, the Demonologist, and the Savant.
The Solars bring back the greater truths of the world, they're the ones who with luminary genius, divine the untold secrets of spirits and other mysteries.
Occult the Ability
Like with a lot of things in Exalted, Occult has come under fire for lack of clear definition. At it's core, Occult is the hard-sciences of Creation: Thaumaturgy, Sorcery, and so on. Solar Lore handles the manipulation of Essence, but Lore the ability is actually the Humanities, History, General Technology, with a bit of Math.
Occult covers the 'Magic Math' of the setting as well as Spirit Politics and Identifying Magic. You use occult to identify gods, demons and raksha, to know now to bargain with raksha, and so on.
Thaumaturgy
Thaumaturgy is a highly specific form of Specialty, that uses an alternative cost scheme compared to normal specialties.
Thaumaturgy is divided first into Arts, which are large categories of actions like Enchanting, Geomancy, Warding, Summoning, Exorcism, and so on. After that, they are divided into Degrees, which reflect your level of mastery. There are 4 levels of Degree, 0-4. Lastly, there are Procedures- specific rituals that you can learn by rote without understanding the full scope of a Degree.
It costs 10xp to learn a Degree, or 8xp if favored. Mortals learn a given level of an art in [Degree Months], while Exalted learn them in Weeks. A given degree will have 4-5 or more rituals however,and it is a fair assumption that you can know most of the immediately, just by having a Degree. So a 1st degree Enchanter can enchant a whole different swath of items, while a blacksmith who learned a steel-hardening procedure can only do the one thing.
Degrees also count as Specialty dice, which is important for how thaumaturgy works- more dice makes it easier~.
0th level, or Apprentice level Procedures only require a single dot of occult, and no actual experience spent on a Degree or Procedure, and these are ever present facts of life in Creation. Corebook only has two printed apprentice level procedures, Compile Chart under art of Astrology, and Essence Sense under Art of Geomancy. A 0th level procedure is barely even passively magical.
In context of Creation, trying to measure something's volume by immersing it in water- that's a 0th level procedure, because in Creation, water's displacement is a thaumaturgical process. So is washing your hands- you appease the disease gods of common ailments, and they refuse to infect you out of respect.
Now, the thing about thaumaturgy, is that it is the product of the scientific method. It actually is repeatable, consistent rituals and actions with results. You might get regional variances, but they all hinge on the same basic concepts.
1st degree procedures are minor magic, cantrips really. Baking Soda volcanoes under the art of Alchemy, or being able to anoint one's eyes with Blood and thus see Immaterial Demons (and only demons). These procedures often take time, ranging from a few seconds to minutes, hours, days or more.
2nd degree procedures are modest workings of mortal artifice. You could summon a demon from hell with a 2nd degree beckoning procedure, but you would have no way to bind them with just that knowledge!
3rd degree procedures take a lot of inspiration from old stories and myths of real history. It's a Difficulty 7 procedure to alchemically transmute lead to gold, for example! A mortal could even conceivably create something approaching a 1-dot artifact, with a huge amount of work invested beforehand and even during the procedure.
Lastly, you can make new procedures if you have sufficient time- months really, but the utility of thaumaturgy cannot be ignored.
One thing to note however- Exalted do not get necessarily Thaumaturgy-enhancing Charms. They don't need them. They don't need magic that makes a given ritual better or faster, save for an Excellency. There is an exception in that you could probably make a charm that lets you develop a ritual faster, which would also apply to all kinds of research related actions.
Solar Occult
Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Occult 3, Essence 3
I could write an entire Essay on Sorcery in general, so I'll just hit the high notes here.
Also known as First Circle and Emerald Circle, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery is the most easily accessed tier- Enlightened mortals can learn it, as can most spirits unless completely incompatible with their natures for some reason or another.
Now here's a question for you: Why do people need to learn a Charm to cast Sorcery, before learning any spells? The answer is pretty simple: Sorcery isn't an inherent quality of Essence-Wielders or their Charms. It's an external, metaphysical bolt-on they have to internalize with the purchase of the relevant Charm.
The important things about Sorcery are as follows:
One: Sorcery is not pew-pew DnD blaster magic. It's biblical miracles. There are explicit allusions and references in Sorcery to things like the Wall Of Jericho, the Ten Plagues of Egypt, and Parting the Red Sea. Sorcery is strategic effects first and foremost, with a lot of their more immediate 'fast/combat speed' effects being still very clunky.
Two: Sorcery is not something that has a 'Splat' emphasis or anything. What I mean is that there's not supposed to be a difference between a Dragonblooded casting a spell, and a Solar casting a spell. The sorcerous initiations of the Yozis are deliberate exceptions to this model.
Three: It's important to remember this, but in context of the setting, hardly anyone knows this in character- Sorcery is the Primordial Control Language of Essence. Terrestrial Circle is simply the lowest possible level.
It's actually easy to take it like, Terrestrial Circle and Celestial Circle aren't even things Primordials did, but what the Exalted figured out post-war and categorized the way they did.
Four: The Essence Scale of Sorcery is subjective, and actually splat-neutral. You know how in a lot of Solar trees, you see effects at Essence 3 that other splats get at Essence 4 or 2-4 charms in? That doesn't apply to Sorcery. Everyone gets Terrestrial Effects at Essence 3. Essence 3 Solar Charms are equivalent to really strong Terrestrial Spells, or really focused Celestial Spells.
Five: Sorcery is not very well written currently- a lot of the spells are copied from First Edition without much editing, or for various reasons are just poorly balanced. Related to this is how a lot of Sorcery is in some way various kinds of Bad-touch effects; things that you need specific keyword defenses to defend against. That in of itself isn't a bad thing- the issue is that like with a lot of things in Exalted, the 'cool idea' an ST has to challenge their players also usually means they'll use something they don't understand how to ensure doesn't autokill their players.
Celestial Circle Sorcery
Occult 4, Essence 4
Also known as Second Circle, Sapphire Circle. I covered the basics in the TCS blurb! Celestial Exalted, Celestial Gods and other high level spirits can learn CCS.
Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, for comparison, can build a small fort or knock down a huge castle wall. Celestial Circle can build you an entire castle, or utterly destroy an entire fortress.
Solar Circle Sorcery
Occult 5, Essence 5
Also known as Third Circle, Adamant Circle, Primordial Circle…Seeing a pattern? Only Solars and Infernals learn this, at least as per 2e corebook. Abyssals cannot learn Solar Circle Sorcery.
Regardless, Solar Circle is the domain of effects that reshape whole nations to your whim. Like I said- I'd need an entirely separate essay to cover Sorcery!
Spirit-Detecting Glance
Occult 2, Essence 2
Alright, so we're back to the Charm-Charms. Spirit-Detecting Glance is a perception booster. It lets you percieve Immaterial beings like most Spirits. If you didn't have SDG active, Spirits would be inapplicable for most actions you can take in the scene. This includes things like 'Hearing, Seeing, etc'.
Note that SDG doesn't let you touch spirits, though.
Now it's an Occult 2, Essence 2 Charm, and is a Reflexive Step 1 or Step 2 charm- this means it's meant to be put into a combo, and can be activated in response to another characters actions- not necessarily attacks, but that's usually what happens.
For Storytellers: There is almost no such thing as a truly undetectable attack at least, not without extensive magic. Exalted relies on combat transparency, so an immaterial being attacking a character prompts some kind of response, even if it's limited. Spirit-Detecting is meant to remove some of those limits.
For Solars: So here we let you see gods! Obviously the implication is you're supposed to easily deal with Spirits as Solars, far more than Mortals, who have to bow and scrape or fight off gods with less effective techniques.
Spirit-Cutting Attack
Occult 2, Essence 2
Another easy-to-combo charm, this is a Supplemental, so if you put it in a combo, you WILL be activating it on every legal attack you can, even if you aren't attacking spirits. It explicitly lets you combo it with other abilities as well (Normally all supplementals in a combo must come from the same ability you're rolling).
Regardless, this Charm lets you hurt spirits, even intangible Immaterial ones! In fact, it deals Aggravated Damage, which Spirits cannot magically heal up super-fast like they can Lethal or Bashing. It's very much a 'Yes, we put the hurt on something that is in all conventional senses, Immortal.'
If a spirit is Materialized, they can be hurt by regular attacks, but not all spirits are going to be material all the time! Note that trying to attack an Immaterial Spirit without being able to see it incurs a -2 external penalty on the attack roll.
Ghost-Eating Technique
Occult 4, Essence 3
Ahhh, this terror-inducing charm. Here we have the first big thematic statement of Solar Occult, tied into Spirit-Detecting and Spirit-Cutting as well.
You can see the unseeable. You can hurt the unhurtable, you can kill the unkillable.
This is actually something people coming fresh into Exalted have trouble with, expecting the more classic game design model of 'Rewarded by Difficulty', where the 'Next Boss' is always going to be harder than the last boss. That's not true in Exalted, where everyone is, roughly speaking, an actor with their own agenda and assets. Sure there's adjustment happening behind the scenes, but the next antagonist- Joe Banker Eclipse - isn't supposed to magically going to have 1000xp of combat charms just because you just killed Mask of Winters.
Anyway, Ghost-Eating! This is a Reflexive Step 10 charm and it costs 2 motes. You activate it as you apply any inflicted HLs to a spirit. You gain your Permanent Essence x2 in motes from the action, so at Essence 3, hitting a spirit for even 1 HL of damage gets you 6 motes back minus the cost of Ghost-Eating Technique.
Secondly, if you manage to fill a spirit's Dying Levels as you activate this Charm, they are permanently killed. Normally, most Spirits, when killed, will just reform in their Sanctums or domains after a year, maybe a decade, or some uncountable length of time. Ghost-Eating just says 'Nope you dead-dead'.
At Essence 3, Solars get to turn off the systemic immortality of Spirits. All of them, with almost no exceptions. I'll explain that in a sec. Getting back to a previous point, new players often come in to Exalted thinking they need to arms race, to create the next big Un-Fooable-Effect to counter the inevitable bullshit that will define their next encounter.
That's not how Exalted works. If it's a spirit, Ghost-Eating can permakill it. That's the point. The whole chain of immortality versus kill-ability ends right here.
A character-advancement (xp) arms race isn't the crux of the game or setting. Instead you're focused on the idea that these things you're fighting have vast empires or quests to cut through before you can apply your Ghost-Eating Technique to them.
The exceptions exist largely because of poor editorial control or misunderstandings on the part of the writers over the course of Exalted 2nd edition- of note is the much maligned 'Deathlord Immortality'. Basically what they were going for was 'these superghosts are so super, you should have to go on a secondary epic quest to permanently kill them!'
I am fairly certain that the original intention of Ghost-Eating was that yes, you can kill Mask of Winters- in fact, the returning Solars might be the only hope of doing so without paying some awful price, not unlike whatever price was paid to activate the Realm Defense Grid, or author the Usurpation. This isn't to say that only Solars can kill Deathlords, it's just that Solars get a Deathlord-killing Charm at Essence 3.
Note that you're not expected to try and fight a deathlord at Essence 3, but if one does try to kill you, you have perfect defenses that don't care if the thing fighting you is a mortal or a Deathlord- it works. (It's more complicated than that, but I hope these essays are helping).
Looking at the Deathlord Invulnerability, I'm reminded of Morrowind's 'secret path' to completing the game… Anyway. The other 'exception' to permakilling are Third Circle Demons, which was detailed in Roll of Glorious Divinity 2. I can't say it's a comprehensive statement on the setting, because it was written under the assumption Storytellers would adjust to fit their game- and at that point in the game line, Third Circles were woefully under-described, giving no real baseline for how they worked.
My recommendation to players and storytellers, is to take a good hard look at the kind of game you're aiming to run or play, and ask if requiring a secondary quest to defeat a Deathlord or 3rd Circle fits their game. Same with anything else that is questionable, interesting or otherwise of note.
Spirit-Repelling Diagram
Occult 5, Essence 2
THE POWER OF THE SUN COMPELS YOU.
That's pretty much what this charm is. By Committing 10 motes, you can create a space equal to the Solar's Essence in yards that Dematerialized Beings will want to immediately vacate, or willingly Materialize in response to the Solar's presence.
A note about Materialize/Dematerialize. When a spirit activates these Charms, they pay a scaling cost based on their traits (usually about 40-80 motes), and then they're set in that mode until they return to their natural state. So a god who goes Material is probably going to spend a lot of time taking care of matters before heading back to immaterial.
So, you activate Spirit-Repelling Diagram. Any Dematerialized Spirit that takes actions in the scenes now has a choice- it can move out of the boundary defined by the Solar, and stay Dematerialized. It can Become Material at a fairly high cost to itself, or it can spend [The Solar's Essence] in Temporary Willpower to resist the Charm's compulsion effect. This also applies for any new spirits who want to enter into the circle later on in the scene.
What does this do for you though? Well, suddenly, you have a safe zone where spirits have to give up one of their great advantages to try and act against you. Or you can force them to stop baring your way. The earlier quip about Power of the Sun- Gods can body-jack,and they count as Dematerialized when they do that! So if a god or demon is possessing someone, you can use Spirit-Repelling to get them out!
Now, note that the charm specifies 'Spirits who take actions'. Strictly speaking, Creation is full of spirits who take dramatically inconsequential actions or are otherwise 'Inactive' by system standards. Least gods or animating intelligences in particular- this charm doesn't force them to vacate the premises.
Regarding Solars and their themes: This charm is one of their miracles, something that they can attain relatively easily compared to Mortals who they spend most of their time around. Mortals who have trouble dealing with exploitative or predatory spirits, be they god or demon. This charm does need Occult 5, but it speaks to the skill of the Solar that they can declare a space around them sacrosanct against any spirit not willing to show proper respect, or pay the price offered for their continued luxurious existence.
All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight
Occult 5, Essence 2
Ahh, wonderful diagnostic magic. AESS gives you a whole lot of utility for it's base effect and cost of 6 motes. When you activate AESS, all Magical Effects are now rendered Obvious.
Now, Obvious doesn't mean "You automatically spot them as if you rolled successes on an Awareness Roll to see them." it means that you can at a glance, understand their intended effect or nature. It's like being able to recognize Solar Hero Form as a Combat Charm or a Form Charm, without exactly knowing it's Solar Hero Form, or knowing what it actually does. (Solar Hero Form is already Obvious anyway).
Magical Effects include any nearby Demesne, (and you can usually passively sense one from miles away before this charm). Wyld pockets, Dematerialized Spirits (AESS does cover what you get from Spirit-Detecting, yes). Artifacts, Manses, Sorcerous Workings and so on. you also can automatically treat any being with an Essence of 4+ as Obvious as well. Essence 2-3 Exalts need a specific action to spot casually.
You also simply see the world in terms of Essence- White for Earth, Black for Water, Blue for Air, Green for Wood, and red for Fire. Gold, Silver and Rainbow hues for Solar, Lunar and Sidereal Essence as well. It's a very psychedelic kind of experience, being able to peer past the veil of normal perception and see the very patterns of Essence itself!
Now, AESS specifically declares that being able to spot magical things does not make you automatically see through invisibility or lets you spot someone by seeing their worn artifacts. Think of it like- a charm makes someone invisible, and you're thus seeing 'Essence that says this is invisible', but lots of things are already invisible, like the air itself.
So what AESS does in terms of 'stealth' and the like, is it adds the Essence or Artifact rating of what you're looking at to the awareness roll to spot it. So if I had an Essence 3 invisibility charm,and you were looking at me with AESS, you'd get 3 extra dice to see me because of my charm- but if you failed, you wouldn't spot me.
So, that's all the passive benefits of turning on AESS, it's quite a lot! Here are the active benefits: If you take an active, conscious attempt to analyze what you're seeing (I'd call this a Miscellaneous Action myself, but the charm doesn't say) you can roll Intelligence+Occult to comprehend what you're seeing.
It's Difficulty 2 to gauge the Essence Level and Nature (Aspect/Essence Type) of a given being, and their type- if they're a god, demon, elemental, Exalted, etc. This also applies to gauging the rating of an Artifact, Demesne or Manse.
Identifying a Charm or Spell you've never seen before is Difficulty 5. If you succeed, you know the targeted thing's Exact Mechanics.
Sorcerer's Burning Chakra Charm
Occult 5, Essence 4
Here's an interesting charm- it's an upgrade of All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, but it's a unique, conditional one.
Basically, SBCC connects AESS to your Anima's apparent level. If your caste mark is at the 4-7m level of visiblity, you automatically gain the use of AESS as a non-charm effect. For clarity, here's the exerpt from Corebook that describes what the 4-7m level looks like.
The character's caste mark burns and will shine through anything placed over it. It is impossible to mistake the character for anything but what she is. Stealth Charms and other such magic, including the Night Caste's ability to mute sensory impressions, fail. A character may use the Stealth Ability to hide in natural cover, but all such attempts incur a +2 difficulty.
It's important to remember that Celestial Caste Marks are almost like crazy-burning holograms, not merely stickers that glow on the forehead. Abyssal marks are the exception, as they start as bruises before gradually becoming open bloody wounds that automagically carve themselves into their foreheads.
Anyway, if you're willing to show off your caste mark in an undeniable fashion, or are just throwing out a lot of motes for whatever reason, you get AESS on for free. Remember though that AESS has passive benefits and active ones, so it doesn't actually give you a reflexive roll to understand incoming magic, unless your ST gives you one.
Alternatively, you SBCC lets you commit 1 mote to activate AESS as a non-charm action, exchanging the normal cost for having your caste mark glow at the 4-7m level.
Note that you can still activate AESS for 6 motes- the main reason for doing this is stealth, because the base Charm isn't Obvious, and if you commit the cost from personal motes, you can analyze magic and observers will be nonethewiser!
Of note, is that SBCC is an Essence 4 charm- it's actually a very wide-ranging effect, automatically upgrading your capabilities in nearly any situation where you're actively spending Essence anyway. It evokes the idea that a Solar is naturally inclined to glean information from the world in the process of accomplishing other things.
And that concludes Solar Occult!
At least if you do so a inter edition comparison is easy.I'm half tempted to go through all the Sorcery in the core and the White Treatise now and see what I can say about them.
Giygas
Cutest Sawk i could find. Lucario is a nice extra.
And after that you can also start reading Graceful Wicked Masques to tell us what you think about it!I'm half tempted to go through all the Sorcery in the core and the White Treatise now and see what I can say about them.
I am sure your mind will be perfectly capable of understanding it, especially after comprehending all the sorcery.
hell no
Giygas
Cutest Sawk i could find. Lucario is a nice extra.
Psaw, pusillanimous.
It isn't like you will have any sanity to lose after understanding the confusing world of sorcery.(I would have put hellish instead of confusing, but it isn't probably malfeas fault that sorcery is so screwed up.)
Also you won't be able to discover that you can spam sorcery with Style if you are a raksha! Wait shit, ignore the previous phrase: i didn't say anything about sorcery and raksha, understood?
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Eh it encourages optimization in a way that is basically at right angles to the rest of the line, was far too easy to munchikin and required stupid amounts of cross referencing to work out all the shennigans a player might get up too!
Giygas
Cutest Sawk i could find. Lucario is a nice extra.
In fact the GWM isn't that incomprehensible: it is ony full of XP-Tax(There is a charm that you need to buy to buy a background, if you hadn't bought it in character creation. And its Style, which is quite an important background for the raksha!), confusing charms, and a battle engine which has four possible way of being solved.
Plus other things. Like the fact that the errata is longer than the sidereal one, modifies the battle engine(Which has now five possible ways of being solved) and the way most charms work.
Plus other things. Like the fact that the errata is longer than the sidereal one, modifies the battle engine(Which has now five possible ways of being solved) and the way most charms work.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
This is actually my favourite part of it, I should note.
I mean, Shaping Combat is incredibly overwritten and has no place being grafted onto Exalted's existing system, but as a system in itself it has the potential to be really cool. You could build a very neat teamwork-focused RPG out of that.
Giygas
Cutest Sawk i could find. Lucario is a nice extra.
Yeah, Shaping Combat is overwritten but has the potential to be cool. It is also one of the less confusing parts of the book, being merely too big and requiring too much dots of things to have a chance of covering all the bases.
Dark Souls, through the lens of 3rd Edition.
Those who practice miracles... are they simply practicing sorcery and casting spells after all? We have a pact with Mara and with an Ifrit Lord to serve as examples for sorcerors drawing power from spirits.
The gods stand in for those spirits. The gods themselves, in turn, might have drawn directly from the First Flame... which would answer the question of how the Flame's dimming did anything to weaken them. (If not why leaving what was left of the Flame seemed like a good idea.)
The original Fire Sorcery practiced by the Witch of Izalith, her daughters, and the demons could, again, be the gods drawing directly from the First Flame. Pyromancy, instead, draws upon the Witch's creation, the Flame of Chaos.
Seath's source is unknown, but mortal sorcerors invoke HIM for their particular shaping rituals.
One can also include some of the Phylactery rituals and merits, for the Talismans and Catalysts.
Those who practice miracles... are they simply practicing sorcery and casting spells after all? We have a pact with Mara and with an Ifrit Lord to serve as examples for sorcerors drawing power from spirits.
The gods stand in for those spirits. The gods themselves, in turn, might have drawn directly from the First Flame... which would answer the question of how the Flame's dimming did anything to weaken them. (If not why leaving what was left of the Flame seemed like a good idea.)
The original Fire Sorcery practiced by the Witch of Izalith, her daughters, and the demons could, again, be the gods drawing directly from the First Flame. Pyromancy, instead, draws upon the Witch's creation, the Flame of Chaos.
Seath's source is unknown, but mortal sorcerors invoke HIM for their particular shaping rituals.
One can also include some of the Phylactery rituals and merits, for the Talismans and Catalysts.
Gentlemen.
This will likely not be as in-depth as Shyft's things. I'm not as experienced in Exalted rules as he is, for one.
But let's get this started.
The Terrestrial Circle of Sorcery
Death of Obsidian Butterflies
We start off with what may be one of the most iconic, unique-to-Exalted spells in existence. First off, the joke to be made here is that this spell, quite literally, makes the Sorcerer a Glass Cannon. The spell devastates an area 30 yards wide, 100 yards long and 10 yards wide, with an attack roll of Perception+Occult with successes added equal to the Sorcerer's Essence. It deals damage of 8L+Threshold Successes pre-soak against each and every person in range, and THEN leaves the equivalent of caltrops in the area, even if no rules are defined for this.
Yeah. That would be a high-level spell in most systems, and Exalted places it at the bottom level. This, right away, establishes the rule of Sorcery- it's not for use in personal-scale combat, it's for use against units. Armies. A bunch of mortal soldiers will just... disappear when this spell is pointed their way.
Demon of the First Circle
Ah, demon-summoning. The other iconic act of Sorcery. First off, this is a 4-hour or so dramatic action (again- Sorcery is not a combat action except in the most exceptional of circumstances, and certainly not in the context of one-on-one combat). Once summoned, you have an extended opposed roll of Essence+Willpower to represent a contest of wills. Potential sorcerers, take heed, for the dice pool a First Circle Demon can bring to bear can be surprisingly high. If you win, you either get the personal services of the demon for a year and a day, or you bind it to a particular task until complete (which can be forever).
To be clear, they will interpret these orders... they'll try and follow the orders in spirit as well as by the letter, sure, but a demon may interpret the spirit of the order in a radically different way than you might. Potential sorcerers, be warned. And while they explicitly 1) don't spend Willpower to break the Servitude Effect involved and 2) have it as their highest loyalty, it's not their only loyalty.
Again: potential sorcerers, be warned.
If the demon wins the contest of wills, you get a chance to banish them, otherwise you've got a demon on your hands for the next few days and whoops you just spent a massive amount of motes. The roll is Wits+Occult, but at Difficulty 3.
Finally, you may choose the species of demon, or even a specific demon if you know about them. The actual uses this spell can be put to are... hugely varied. After all, if you can justify a homebrewed demon, the ST may let you summon it. Others will likely be better at picking the right demon for the situation, though. At this circle of sorcery, you may only summon First Circles (hence the name) the lowest class of demon.
Emerald Countermagic
Aka fuck your magic. For 10 motes, any spell you want to shatter acting against you personally shatters, or for 20 motes, you can shatter anything within 50 yards x Essence (minimum 150 yards, since TCS has an Essence minimum of 3). Quite apart from the fact that you can't take actions apart from casting in the middle of shaping a spell, this is the other reason Sorcery loses effectiveness in 1-on-1 combat. A lot of opponents you might want to use Sorcery against can just go 'no magic' for relatively little cost. A thing to note, the spell is shattered, not dispelled, and as such there is blowback. At this level, it's only minor burns at most, no actual Health Levels are attatched.
Impenetrable Frost Barrier
A combat spell, this, again, is something I'm not sure you'd use in personal-scale combat. It protects the Sorcerer and allies from missile attacks, diverting and freezing them so that arrows either miss or are too frozen to actually cause damage. Not too much to say about this, honestly. Missile attacks suffer an external penalty equal to twice the Sorcerer's Essence, meaning that mortal soldiers will find it flat-out impossible to hit anyone, and Exalted will require the use of Excellencies or penalty-cancelling magic to pull it off. This seems to be a recurring theme in Sorcery, it's absolutely terrifying for mortals to face, but the Exalted have options.
Infallible Messenger
And here we get (slightly) Biblical. This summons a Cherubim to deliver a message to someone you name. It's perfectly reliable unless the location of the target is 'mystically obscured'. The one major disadvantage of this spell? A Cherubim is not subtle at all. You cannot choose when the target receives the message, and people will know they have gotten a message. This is the Sorcerer sending a message to her ally, it is not the spell for communicating with infiltrators.
Invulnerable Skin of Bronze
You become bronze. You tough now. You strong now (unarmed attacks inflict an extra two dice of damage).
You also heavy now. As the spell explicitly points out, caution is advised near bodies of water or deep mud, otherwise you may meet a rather embarrassing end. This spell is interesting in the way that it compares to Iron Kettle Body, actually- +6L/+12B Soak and Hardness vs +4A/+8L/+8B Soak from IKB means it's something of a coin toss. Iron Kettle Body is faster and more reliable (also, you can still swim).
On the other hand, this Spell is compatible with armor. And with Iron Kettle Body, for that matter, so by RAW you can theoretically give yourself +4A/+14L/+20B Soak and 6L/12B Hardness. You, uh, are going to burn through a lot of motes to do this, and given how damage is often not the real danger in Exalted, it may not be worth it. On the other hand, continuing the theme I noted two spells ago- this is great for intimidation purposes, given you just made yourself almost completely immune to mortal soldiers.
Stormwind Rider
Fast travel, baby! This carries you and cargo in a dust devil (and can explicitly be used to carry entire military units). 100 miles per hour is nothing to sneeze at- but keep in mind, this is by no means subtle, and you're still not crossing entire Directions in a single day- Lookshy to Great Forks is still an 11 hour journey.
And again. Not subtle.
Summon Elemental
Demon-Summoning's socially acceptable, inferior cousin. Seriously, though, this spell's got the advantage of raising less eyebrows- on the other hand, if you mistreat your summons, their friends are more likely to be able to, uh, take notice. And care. And actually do something about it.
Also, as a special note, the Terrestrial spell is the only one. You can summon any Elemental with this spell, from that beautiful river-elemental to the Kukla (don't summon the Kukla).
Wood Dragon's Claw
This one turns your arms into... well, claws of wood, resembling those of the elemental dragons of wood. Honestly, this spell's a little underwhelming to me. You get 15 points to distribute between attributes (and can't take any above Essence+Occult). The one cool bit is that you can reflexively redistribute them at the start of each action.
Still... cool concept, kinda underwhelming.
And that's the corebook Terrestrial Spells! There's a bit of variety here. I might take a look at the Celestial spells next, see what people think.
This will likely not be as in-depth as Shyft's things. I'm not as experienced in Exalted rules as he is, for one.
But let's get this started.
The Terrestrial Circle of Sorcery
Death of Obsidian Butterflies
We start off with what may be one of the most iconic, unique-to-Exalted spells in existence. First off, the joke to be made here is that this spell, quite literally, makes the Sorcerer a Glass Cannon. The spell devastates an area 30 yards wide, 100 yards long and 10 yards wide, with an attack roll of Perception+Occult with successes added equal to the Sorcerer's Essence. It deals damage of 8L+Threshold Successes pre-soak against each and every person in range, and THEN leaves the equivalent of caltrops in the area, even if no rules are defined for this.
Yeah. That would be a high-level spell in most systems, and Exalted places it at the bottom level. This, right away, establishes the rule of Sorcery- it's not for use in personal-scale combat, it's for use against units. Armies. A bunch of mortal soldiers will just... disappear when this spell is pointed their way.
Demon of the First Circle
Ah, demon-summoning. The other iconic act of Sorcery. First off, this is a 4-hour or so dramatic action (again- Sorcery is not a combat action except in the most exceptional of circumstances, and certainly not in the context of one-on-one combat). Once summoned, you have an extended opposed roll of Essence+Willpower to represent a contest of wills. Potential sorcerers, take heed, for the dice pool a First Circle Demon can bring to bear can be surprisingly high. If you win, you either get the personal services of the demon for a year and a day, or you bind it to a particular task until complete (which can be forever).
To be clear, they will interpret these orders... they'll try and follow the orders in spirit as well as by the letter, sure, but a demon may interpret the spirit of the order in a radically different way than you might. Potential sorcerers, be warned. And while they explicitly 1) don't spend Willpower to break the Servitude Effect involved and 2) have it as their highest loyalty, it's not their only loyalty.
Again: potential sorcerers, be warned.
If the demon wins the contest of wills, you get a chance to banish them, otherwise you've got a demon on your hands for the next few days and whoops you just spent a massive amount of motes. The roll is Wits+Occult, but at Difficulty 3.
Finally, you may choose the species of demon, or even a specific demon if you know about them. The actual uses this spell can be put to are... hugely varied. After all, if you can justify a homebrewed demon, the ST may let you summon it. Others will likely be better at picking the right demon for the situation, though. At this circle of sorcery, you may only summon First Circles (hence the name) the lowest class of demon.
Emerald Countermagic
Aka fuck your magic. For 10 motes, any spell you want to shatter acting against you personally shatters, or for 20 motes, you can shatter anything within 50 yards x Essence (minimum 150 yards, since TCS has an Essence minimum of 3). Quite apart from the fact that you can't take actions apart from casting in the middle of shaping a spell, this is the other reason Sorcery loses effectiveness in 1-on-1 combat. A lot of opponents you might want to use Sorcery against can just go 'no magic' for relatively little cost. A thing to note, the spell is shattered, not dispelled, and as such there is blowback. At this level, it's only minor burns at most, no actual Health Levels are attatched.
Impenetrable Frost Barrier
A combat spell, this, again, is something I'm not sure you'd use in personal-scale combat. It protects the Sorcerer and allies from missile attacks, diverting and freezing them so that arrows either miss or are too frozen to actually cause damage. Not too much to say about this, honestly. Missile attacks suffer an external penalty equal to twice the Sorcerer's Essence, meaning that mortal soldiers will find it flat-out impossible to hit anyone, and Exalted will require the use of Excellencies or penalty-cancelling magic to pull it off. This seems to be a recurring theme in Sorcery, it's absolutely terrifying for mortals to face, but the Exalted have options.
Infallible Messenger
And here we get (slightly) Biblical. This summons a Cherubim to deliver a message to someone you name. It's perfectly reliable unless the location of the target is 'mystically obscured'. The one major disadvantage of this spell? A Cherubim is not subtle at all. You cannot choose when the target receives the message, and people will know they have gotten a message. This is the Sorcerer sending a message to her ally, it is not the spell for communicating with infiltrators.
Invulnerable Skin of Bronze
You become bronze. You tough now. You strong now (unarmed attacks inflict an extra two dice of damage).
You also heavy now. As the spell explicitly points out, caution is advised near bodies of water or deep mud, otherwise you may meet a rather embarrassing end. This spell is interesting in the way that it compares to Iron Kettle Body, actually- +6L/+12B Soak and Hardness vs +4A/+8L/+8B Soak from IKB means it's something of a coin toss. Iron Kettle Body is faster and more reliable (also, you can still swim).
On the other hand, this Spell is compatible with armor. And with Iron Kettle Body, for that matter, so by RAW you can theoretically give yourself +4A/+14L/+20B Soak and 6L/12B Hardness. You, uh, are going to burn through a lot of motes to do this, and given how damage is often not the real danger in Exalted, it may not be worth it. On the other hand, continuing the theme I noted two spells ago- this is great for intimidation purposes, given you just made yourself almost completely immune to mortal soldiers.
Stormwind Rider
Fast travel, baby! This carries you and cargo in a dust devil (and can explicitly be used to carry entire military units). 100 miles per hour is nothing to sneeze at- but keep in mind, this is by no means subtle, and you're still not crossing entire Directions in a single day- Lookshy to Great Forks is still an 11 hour journey.
And again. Not subtle.
Summon Elemental
Demon-Summoning's socially acceptable, inferior cousin.
Seriously, though, this spell's got the advantage of raising less eyebrows- on the other hand, if you mistreat your summons, their friends are more likely to be able to, uh, take notice. And care. And actually do something about it. Also, as a special note, the Terrestrial spell is the only one. You can summon any Elemental with this spell, from that beautiful river-elemental to the Kukla (don't summon the Kukla).
Wood Dragon's Claw
This one turns your arms into... well, claws of wood, resembling those of the elemental dragons of wood. Honestly, this spell's a little underwhelming to me. You get 15 points to distribute between attributes (and can't take any above Essence+Occult). The one cool bit is that you can reflexively redistribute them at the start of each action.
Still... cool concept, kinda underwhelming.
And that's the corebook Terrestrial Spells! There's a bit of variety here. I might take a look at the Celestial spells next, see what people think.
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- Location
- Gladstone, OR
Nice! Quick off the cuff comments:
Demon of the First Circle has specific timing requirements as well as duration of it's ritual.
Skin of Bronze has a notably long duration- when the Sun next hits the Horizon, which could be a rather long time! long enough that the 20m you cast on the spell is easily restored. More importantly, Skin of Bronze and similar buff spells are things you cast well before needing them.