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Shattering Urn Style

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Ravelled together from the labyrinth's whispers and stirring in the body and mind of the deathknight Smiling Martyr, the Shattering Urn Style is an element of the Malfeans themselves : the nature of a thing that destroys even in its own destruction. Practitioners hone not only their bones and muscles into weapons, but even their blood itself. They are as breaking urns of pyreflame, ever more radiant as their forms sunder apart.

When calculating the character's wound penalty for the purposes of Charms of this style, take the unmodified penalty from the health levels taken, before the use of Charms or influence of poisons or other agents.

Shattering Urn Style does not teach the use of martial arts weapons of any kind. The Style is incompatible with the use of armour both mundane and formed of the five magical materials. Armour sculpted from the artist's own anima through use of Charms (such as Crimson Petal Armour), however, works perfectly with the Style.

Gourd Filling Meditation

• Cost: None
• Duration: Permanent
• Type: Special
• Minimum Martial Arts: 2
• Minimum Essence: 2
• Prerequisite Charms: None

The Exalt engorges his blood with necrotic Essence in a long and agonising ritual. Bloated by the foul energy running through it, the Exalt's blood runs under fierce pressure; even the slightest cut elicits a bloody streamer. As a consequence, the Exalt never suffers from bleeding (his blood is near-endless) and gains a bonus die on all attempts to resist poison. Furthermore, the difficulty of all efforts to alter the nature of his blood (such as Blood Of Boiling Oil) is increased by one.

Spitting Caldera Strike

• Cost: 2 motes
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Supplemental
• Minimum Martial Arts: 3
• Minimum Essence: 2
• Prerequisite Charms: Gourd Filling Meditation

With a quick and brutal sweep of his arm, the Exalt drives spilt blood to his fingertips and away, hardened by Essence into a knifing crimson lash. An unarmed attack enhanced by this Charm deals (+ wound penalty L) damage, adds the Abyssal's Essence to its accuracy, and reaches an extra (wound penalty x 5) yards before dropping to the floor in a crimson streamer. If the Exalt has not taken at least one level of lethal damage before activating this Charm, it inflicts one immediately before the attack is made.

Spattering Shrapnel Rebuke

• Cost: 3 motes
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Reflexive
• Minimum Martial Arts: 3
• Minimum Essence: 2
• Prerequisite Charms: Gourd Filling Meditation

Blood sprays from the Exalt's fresh wounds in a shower of Essence-laden slivers. This Charm may be activated whenever the Exalt takes one or more levels of lethal damage from an attack, and allows him to make a reflexive counterattack empowered as though by Flashfire Fingered Strike.

Cracking Clay Stigmata

• Cost: 3 motes, 1 aggravated health level
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Reflexive
• Minimum Martial Arts: 4
• Minimum Essence: 2
• Prerequisite Charms: Spitting Caldera Strike, Spattering Shrapnel Rebuke

The Exalt loosens the subconscious control of his Essence patterns, causing his skin to split in bizarre patterns as streams of gore pour out from the gaping wounds. The affirmation and release offered allows him to replenish a point of temporary Willpower, provided it does not bring it above his maximum.

Shattering Urn Form

• Cost: 6 motes
• Duration: One scene
• Type: Simple
• Minimum Martial Arts: 4
• Minimum Essence: 2
• Prerequisite Charms: Cracking Clay Stigmata

As the Exalt makes a series of sharp and vicious moves, his blood ignites into vermillion pyreflame, red fire dancing sickly across the scores in his flesh and running off onto the floor. Though all he touches burns away to chill ash, he and his possessions remain unharmed. Shrouded in dark incandescence, the attacks supplemented or given by the Charms of this Style deal aggravated damage. Anyone striking him barehanded in combat takes a single die of aggravated damage.

Other Celestial Exalts mastering this Charm find their blood transmuting in differing ways; Solars to liquid sunfire, Lunars to quicksilver, Sidereals into brightly-hued poison, and Infernals to vitriol. The mechanical effects remain the same, however.

Eternal Ember Defence

• Cost: 5 motes
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Reflexive
• Minimum Martial Arts: 4
• Minimum Essence: 3
• Prerequisite Charms: Shattering Urn Form

The Exalt subsumes flesh, muscle and bone into his blood in a flicker of an eye, and so his opponents' attacks cannot harm him; even if crushed to a gorily-spattered veneer, he forms up once more with little but lost blood for it. This Charm immediately reduces the post-soak damage die of an attack made against the Exalt to 1. This Charm is only effective against material attacks that the Exalt is aware of.

Flashfire Rekindling

• Cost: 4 motes, 1 Willpower
• Duration: One scene
• Type: Reflexive
• Minimum Martial Arts: 4
• Minimum Essence: 4
• Prerequisite Charms: Eternal Ember Defence

Broken beyond hope of repair, the most horribly maimed Exalt can spring back into life in a maelstrom of blood and bone. For the duration of the Charm, the Exalt gains an additional -4 health level. This Charm may be activated a number of times equal to the user's Essence score, and the effects stack.

Dark Candle Visage

• Cost: 3 motes, 1 Willpower
• Duration: One scene
• Type: Simple
• Minimum Martial Arts: 4
• Minimum Essence: 3
• Prerequisite Charms: Shattering Urn Form

Runnels of seething blood roiling across his flesh, the Exalt radiates scathing glow painful to behold. Anyone wishing to approach or attack the Exalt whose Valor is lower than his Essence must spend a point of temporary Willpower to do so; they may then act normally unless Dark Candle Visage is activated again, in which case further Willpower expenditure is necessary. Multiple activations of the Charm in the same scene require equal points of temporary Willpower to be spent by a new approacher or attacker. If Shattering Urn Form is active, all must do this regardless of Valor scores.

Smouldering Crimson Corona

• Cost: 3 motes
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Extra Action
• Minimum Martial Arts: 4
• Minimum Essence: 4
• Prerequisite Charms: Dark Candle Visage

Blood from the Exalt's wounds sprays out in gobbets, coalescing in clouds of gore that slowly wind their way about him. Should any approach, the drops of blood burn into them as though made of acid. An Exalt may activate this Charm at the beginning of his initiative, up to a number of times equal to his wound penalty. For each invocation, he may make a reflexive attack against one person within (Essence) yards with an accuracy equal to his Essence and damage of (+ wound penalty L).

Flame-Consuming Touch

• Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Supplemental
• Minimum Martial Arts: 5
• Minimum Essence: 4
• Prerequisite Charms: Smouldering Crimson Corona, Flashfire Rekindling

Gory fingertips flickering alight, the Exalt plunges them into the flesh of his foe, and so sets their blood aflame. When an attack supplemented by this Charm successfully deals a level of lethal or aggravated damage, the Exalt makes a reflexive Stamina + Martial Arts roll, dealing the resultant successes in unsoakable die of Aggravated damage. Exalts are resistant to this altercation, and reduce the number of successes on the initial check by an amount equal to their Essence.

Feedback

Gourd Filling Meditation is too powerful.

Ignore bleeding, yes. Protection from transmutation, no, no, no. Remeber, anyone can (if they coerce the deathknight who invented/learned/was told it) learn this... and just learning a single 2/2 MA charm to make all forms of blood transmutation utterly fail, for no cost, permanantly (some of which are equivalent to celestial circle sorcery) is just wrong. That's my opinion anyway, but I strongly urge you to consider it.

I'm also editing out the paragraph on the splatter-counter stating that it might inflict a lethal wound. You've already stated you can't use it unless you've just taken a lethal wound level.

I suggest you clear up the wording/intent/mechanics on smouldering crimson corona as well, I've no idea what multiple invocations do, whether you need to use the charm once per attack, whether you can pay 4 times the costs if you have 4 wound levels and get 4 effects, or whether you need to spend 4 turns (as it's simple).
-- Darloth

The Form is also too powerful. All your attacks deal agg? wut? That said, the imagery is great. - willows

Thanks for the feedback, and I've modified the mechanics accordingly. Gourd Filling Meditation has been brought back within the limits of reason, offering a small bonus rather than total immunity, the text (and mechanics) on Smouldering Crimson Corona has been modified to make more sense, and I managed to catch a really tremendously silly mistake I made when determining the mechanics for the Form Charm. Furthermore, the Form's effects have been somewhat nerfed. Sleep deprivation and Charm building do not a merry couple make...DeathBySurfeit

Wow, how...gory. Interesting. Honestly, having an Essence score makes you immune to Blood of Boiling Oil anyway, so I'm not worried about it. Specific comments:

Spattering Shrapnel Rebuke: Is this a counterattack? Or does it allow you to make an attack when you take damage? The second seems rather powerful.

Cracking Clay Stigmata: This is nasty in the presence of regeneration effects, especially out of combat. If you made it an agg level, it would probably be ok.

Shattering Urn Form: Still really nasty. I'd make it: The form allows the charachter to spend 3 motes and 1 willpower to make any attack with this style deal agg damage.

Eternal Ember Defence: This is very powerful. Reducing dice to 1 generally negates the entire attack. I'd make it reduce damage levels take to 1. It also should probably be restricted to attacks the attacker is aware of.

Dark Candle Visage: Is WP expenditure per attack or just the first time(per turn, per scene?). The first seems pretty powerful, especially given Eternal Ember Defence makes each attack not that useful. Even just once per turn seems pretty powerful, given that there are defences in the style. Maybe have it be 'per activation of the charm?'.

Smouldering Crimson Corona: Ouch! Note this gives multiple free attacks per turn! This is broken under power combat as soak won't stop it. It's still pretty nasty otherwise. If it was a reflexive charm that allowed on to do this during a turn, that would probably be ok.

Interesting concept. -FlowsLikeBits

Nice suggestions, FlowsLikeBits, and I've tried to incorporate as many as possible. Eternal Ember Defence I've tweaked in a different fashion, so that it instead is restricted to material attacks the Exalt is aware of; this hopefully balances it at its Essence expenditure to bring it into line with other supersoakin' Charms. SSR I've clarified further to make it clear it's a counterattack. CCS now deals aggravated damage to the user, which I would agree is an effective means of avoiding exploitation. DCV is now per-activation as the clearest means of making it functional, and the essence cost has been reduced slightly to increase viability. I've taken up your suggestion for SCC, making it a slightly more conventional extra-action Charm instead (but still not very conventional)...DeathBySurfeit

Very cool, DeathBySurfeit, definatly want to build a character around this now. Sadly, I don't have Abyssals. (Not that I'm sure my DM would be too happy if I did...) Also, I feel that Eternal Ember Defence is a little more powerful than Flashfire Rekindling... Lets look at it: 5 Motes to reduce an attack to 1 die of damage? Vs. 4 Motes and a WP for an extra -4 HL? Yeah, I think I'll just stick with EED, thanks... Especially given that FR requires Essence 4! Maybe FR is a little underpowered? Compared to, say, Ox-Body Technique?

In all honesty, I think that Eternal Ember Defence is still too powerful. What about having it reduce post-soak damage to the attackers essence? Or 1 in the case that the damage comes from a source without an essence score (i.e. Falling Walls, etc). -ipsi

The benefit of FR is more evident when you consider that the Style uses the practitioner's wound penalty as the damage bonus on many of its attacks; with more -4 health levels, a practitioner will typically become progressively more deadly as the fight progresses. I would argue that EED is in line with existing soak charms, considering its high Essence expenditure and restriction on attack types, but your point is valid nonetheless...DeathBySurfeit

I can't really consider FR to be on par with any other essence 4 charm, though I will admit I forgot about the fact that the Exalts wound penalty is often actually a damage bonus. But even so, it still seems woefully underpowered. Perhaps a number of -4 HL's equal to essence? Or something? I'm sorry, but I just feel that an Essence 4 charm should give something slightly more than 1HL, and a few other, IMO, fairly minor benefits. Now, I've obviously not seen this style used in game, so I could be missing something vital here, but right now, it just doesn't seem worth it. I don't suppose you've any actual experiences using this charm in game?

Hmm.. with regards to EED, cool. It seems about on par. Not quite a perfect defence, but quite close, and useable outside of combat, it seems. *Shrug* Without playtesting, it seems fine.

Also, might I suggest a slight rewording of SCC? Change the cost to "3 motes/attack", and the description to "... The Exalt may not gain more attacks from this charm than the number of health levels of lethal damage he has taken each turn, at the beginning of his initiative pass. For each attack bought, he may make a reflexive attack against one person..." I think this is slightly more in line with current Exalted charms. Also note that a charm cannot be both Reflexive and Extra Action. It must be one or the other. Unless you plan on toying with the Rules, it should probably be Duration: Instant, and Type: Extra Action. Note that this requires changes to the wording, pretty much what I showed above. The wording isn't perfect, but I think you get the idea? No functional change, I believe.

-ipsi

Thanks for the further comments! I've caught the typo I made in altering SSC (the whole reflexive/extra action thing), and revamped its effect considerably to become a little more in line with conventional extra action Charms still.

Wait the... what the... you've managed to highlight another glaring omission on my part. FR should be able to be activated multiple times, and has been clarified so. Its Reflexive nature means that it can be activated instantaneously, and multiple times in one turn. If you're hit with ten levels of lethal damage and you only have six boxes remaining, twelve motes and four Willpower means you're not dead, you're still functional and on -4s. More than that, you're deadlier than ever with the aid of some Abyssal Resistance Charms. Hopefully it looks much more Essence 4 now...DeathBySurfeit

Yeah, that looks better. Now, I know next to nothing about Abyssal charms, so I've no idea how much deadlier Abyssal Resistance makes this, but I do like the style. Hmm... I think you're in luck: I don't see any other glaring errors :D Good stuff. -ipsi]

Comment! It looks awesome. Questuion! Is this form armor compatible? On the one hand, I can't see it working in normal armor, on the other, how can it /not/ work with Crimson Petal Armor? - Scrollreader who is confused, if impressed.

While armor wouldn't unbalance it, I just cannot see this style working with armor. At all. Personal opinion would be to make most of the charms incompatible with armor, except Gourd Filling Meditation. All the others have really cool visual effects, which would do bad things with armor. Actually, that's an idea: How about making normal armor dissolve when the charms are used? DeathBySurfeit? Also, what's Crimson Petal Armor? -ipsi

Thanks for the comments, and I'm really rather torn on the armour issue. My gut instinct is to make it armour-incompatible, yet the imagery of blood sluicing between rents in an Exalt's armour before igniting into blazing pyreflame and erupting as a circling geyser of burning gore is still very cool indeed. I could state it doesn't work with artificial armour, but does with Charm-given armour, as somewhat of a compromise but that's tenuous footing...DeathBySurfeit

Hmm... That is pretty cool, but on the other hand, I'm getting images of an Abyssal getting nicked on the cheek, say, and then his armor exploding as he activates some of the more... explosive charms in the tree. I'd have to say go with either not working with any armors or working with all. I just don't see any Exalt really having enough rents in their Soulsteel Superheavy Plate for the blood to effectively come out... *Shrugs* -ipsi

I'd go with the no-armor. Protecting yourself from getting cut seems contrary to the idea. It seems balanced as the form charm is really, really evil. And Spattering Shrapnel Rebuke still refrences the old name for Spitting Caldera Strike. -FlowsLikeBits

I agree with Scrollreader, it should surely work with Crimson Petal Armour, stylistically if not mechanically. Perhaps you should explicitly allow that armour (and that one only, not other charm-armours), as it's expensive and costs willpower and health-levels anyway, and is quite far down the tree, and is also blood-obsessed.
-- Darloth (PS - Note for people without abyssal book - Crimson Petal Armour is about 3 or 4 charms into their resistance tree, and costs a willpower, a health level, and some essence. Then their pores gush blood which hardens into a -0 mobility penalty suit of armour, depending how much essence they spend sets the soak, but it's generally pretty good. Then they swallow the entire thing when it's done. It's icky. But fun.)

On further deliberation, not only do the Abyssal armour Charms seem to fit nicely with the style, but if you take into account the changes in visual effect undergone by different types of celestial Exalted seem to match up with their own. Another according change...DeathBySurfeit