Aether Charms
Aether Charms are the secret and powerful techniques
usually known only to those who have learned the Aether
Initiation Charm, described below. The concept of Aether
and its overall nature is discussed in Chapter 3.
Note that Aether Charms are not intended to be
balanced with a character's native Charmset. They are
powerful secret techniques which draw on the force that
the primordials used to create the world. They are
intended to offer huge advantages, and each one should
require significant effort to obtain.
Aether Initiation
Cost: - Minimums: Essence 3, Willpower 7; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Enlightening
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisites: None.
This Charm allows a character to learn and develop Charms
with the Aether Keyword. However, much like learning Sorcery
or advanced Martial Arts, it has special requirements.
First, this Charm has no standard training time. When
Priestesses of Gaia learn it, they are isolated in the wilderness
with a group of specialized trainers. These tutors then subject
ordeals, designed to strain their body, essence and will to
breaking point. Thus, by being pushed right down to the
doorway of death, an individual may perceive the deepest desire
to live and strive that marks the presence of Aether in their
own soul. Or, so it is hoped: the danger of the test must be
legitimate, or at the least the inductee must be convinced it is.
Mechanically, the character must expend all their virtue
channels, essence and willpower down to zero and suffer
enough damage to inflict a -4 wound penalty, and then continue
to spend willpower every action (regained through stunting or
Motivation) until their player succeeds in describing an
appropriate three-dice stunt to tap into the power of Aether.
The character then expends the experience points to learn this
Charm immediately. As a one-time effect, the character
immediately regains all their essence, willpower and virtue
channels and is healed of all damage.
The manner in which the Priestesses do it is not the
only path: theoretically, a character who fulfills the mechanical
requirements could achieve Aether Initiation without training, if
their circumstances are dire enough. The flood of Aether into
their body is extraordinarily Obvious, as pure yellow-white
essence surges out of their anima and a chorus of Aether's
harmonious Voice resounds through their surroundings.
Regardless of the method, unless given special dispensation, a
player must always play through the initiation with their
Storyteller; it is an incredibly profound spiritual event for the
character, on par with Exaltation itself.
Characters with the Aether Initiation Charm are marked: for
the rest of their lives, their voice has a subtle resonance that can
be recognized by anyone familiar with the Charm's effect. Such
characters also "sound" different to anyone who has the the
Whispers Background, both Abyssal and Faroran versions. For
Dragon-Blooded, learning this Charm also grants the requisite
enlightenment to learn Celestial Martial Arts. Finally, as a
primordial-level effect, a character with this Charm cannot ever
become a ghost or be consumed by Oblivion.
Side Effects
Aether is not really supposed to be used in Creation.
Everything born from the First Element carries a
deep, unconscious longing to return to that unity, even
the land itself. Other realms of existence also react
strongly to Aether: it consumes the energies of the
Wyld, reacts violently with the essence of the
underworld, and the primordials desire it for its
potential to become whatever they will it to be.
The result of this is that any use of Aether, even if not
Obvious, creates some secondary effect in the world
around the character. A sigh of wind, a brief increase in
light as if a cloud had passed from the sun, or the
creaking of trees are all the type of subtle signs that
Aether brings. Characters who have seen this several
times can recognize that something odd is happening
with a difficulty 3 [Perception + Awareness] roll.
Heart to Heart
Cost: 5m; Mins: Linguistics 5, Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Aether, Avatar (2) Social, Touch
Duration: Skin contact
Prerequisite Charms: Speech Without Words, With One Mind
Though their words are different, or even non-existent, all living
things share a common language of conception, emotion and
sensation, and all are connected to each other. When that
connection is made closer still by the touch of form to form,
characters with this Charm can open the way between the
spark of life that all creatures possess, and communicate
through the direct touch of one spirit to another.
This Charm allows communication with all Creatures of Gaia
and any creature that has or is a spirit or soul, regardless of
whether they and the user share a language or if the target has
any capacity for language at all. This can continue so long as the
character and their target remain touching. Such communication
is incredibly quick, allowing Social Combat to be played out in
normal Ticks instead of Long Ticks: any social attack made based
on Charisma, by either participant, gains 5 successes due to the
perfect expression of thought. However, because it is utterly
impossible to lie using this method, even by omission or
misdirection, no Manipulation-based social attack or defence can
be made; both participants become instinctually aware of this
innate honesty upon forming the connection. Additionally,
characters using this form of communication for social combat
use their Compassion ratings in place of their Appearance to
modify DVs. At Essence 6 and above, the character can bring
[Essence - 5] additional creatures into this link.
Finally, forming this bond makes both parties instantly aware of
the other's current emotional state. As well as social combat,
this Charm can be used simply to share natural and
supernatural senses.
Melding Mind Meditation
Cost: 4m+, 1wp; Mins: Linguistics 5, Essence 3; Type: Simple
Keywords: Aether, Avatar (2), Touch
Duration: Touch, or earlier (see text)
Prerequisite Charms: Heart to Heart
All souls climb a path that leads, in the end, to reunion with the
great sea of thought, the Aetherworld. With this dangerous
Charm, a character can attempt to blur the boundaries between
themselves and another, and in so doing pass knowledge,
memory and emotion through the divide.
Placing her hands over the target's heart or beside their eyes,
the Dragon-Blooded activates this Charm and commences
rolling their [Essence + Linguistics] to attempt to forge a link.
The target, if they wish to resist, must roll their [Essence +
Integrity] rating to subtract their number of successes from the
Exalt's; the user of the Charm, however, can reflexively expend
essence to reduce their pool at 3m per dot. A resisting
character who gains 5 successes above the Charm's user can
end it; they can also attempt to return the Charm's effects on
the user. Virtues may be rolled and Willpower spent as
appropriate by both sides to gain additional dice or successes.
This roll is continued every 5 ticks the contact is maintained, as
the Exalt attempts to achieve their goals. Actions possible using
this Charm include: Perceiving one memory or piece of desired
information from the other character's mind or impressing
upon them information from one's own knowledge (Difficulty
1); removing information completely from the other mind
(Difficulty 2); temporary suppression or transfer of emotions in
the form of Intimacies and altered Virtues (Difficulty 3 for 1
scene's length +1 for every extra day); removal/transfer of
mental effects such as mental influence or a Derangement
(Difficulty 4 for 1 scene's length +1 for every extra day); and
removal or transfer of Motivation (Difficulty 5 for 1 scene's
length +1 for every extra day). The players involved should feel
free to attempt other mental effects in line with these, with
Difficulty decided by the Storyteller as for any dice action.
The Charm also has unintended side effects. Every time
the roll is made and fails to achieve more than 2 extra successes
than required for the intended action, the Storyteller chooses
one unexpected mental effect to occur: a particular memory, an
emotion, or an Intimacy are all likely to be unwittingly passed,
but creativity is encouraged. If the mental contact extends
beyond five rolls, the unintended effects from that point on can
become permanent, though usually on a lesser level than during
the initial temporary duration. Intimacies and Motivation can
eventually be changed using normal methods. On the subject of
unintended effects, using this Charm on a character that is
experiencing a Limit Break will cause the user to immediately
experience the same Limit Break themselves.
The effects of this Charm and the dice rolls made during its use
are explicitly not forms of social attack or defense.
