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White Sword of Summer Style

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This Martial Art assumes that you use Power Combat, think Mail & Steel is lame, and, resultantly, use Sword-shaping as your mass combat system of choice. It also assumes that you are using the Casteless Ability Martial Arts system. If you aren't, then replace all instances of "Fu" in this text with "Essence," and all instances of "Presence" with "Martial Arts."

The form weapon of this Style is the army. It is, in one sense, a Celestial Martial Art.

What this means for the user is that the standardised weaponry of a rank-and-file member of whatever army he is a part of is treated as unarmed for the purposes of Charms of this Style. For Sword-shaping attacks, the Charms of this Style may only affect uses of the Entanglement, Extras and Personal Prowess shaping weapons, and the Peony-Heart Duelling Ground, Gandharva Legion, and Everpresence Diadem classes of Artifact shaping weapons, described at Artifacts/FourWillowsWeeping and duplicated below.

Each Charm in this Style can be learnt twice. One version is a shaping Charm, which enhances Sword combat. The other version is a martial arts Technique which affects physical combat. Notice that the Charms have different prerequisite orders depending on what version is in question. When using a combo containing these Charms, the user must decide upon activating the Combo what version of the Charms to use; he must use them all as shaping Charms or all as martial Techniques.

The White Sword of Summer Style is the signature fighting style of the being Three Bars of Incredulity, who is a Southern warlord of unclear provenance. It is suspected by some that it was once a Lunar Exalted, but now it is hard to tell. Three Bars appears on the battlefield as a strange twinned entity, a man and woman holding hands. Blood flows from their palms; from the woman's right hand, it turns to lumps of coal before hitting the ground. The blood from the man's left hand turns into spheres of ambergris. That from their two hands held together turns into red flower petals, which fly away in every direction.

New Sword-shaping Weaponry

Peony-Heart Duelling Ground

Artifact •

Attunement: 3m (glamour)

Stats: Spd -5, Acc +0, Dam +4L, Def +3, Rate 1

The ground is flat and white in the centre of this arena; it is sand raked in fine patterns of waves, or flower petals strewn over steel, or marble polished glassy-smooth. Horrified soldiers look on silently at the two luminaries battling there.

To use this weapon is to invite a contest for honour and glory; it is a form of entanglement.

Gandharva Legion

Artifact ••

Attunement: 4m (glamour)

Stats: Spd +10, Acc +2, Dam+9L, Def +3, Rate 3

A Gandharva Legion is at once an army of six-armed celestial musicians, armed with lute and sword, and a blind tiger with one hundred wings. Wealthy raksha enjoy leading these beings into battle. Their praise songs bring a smile to every noble's lips.

Everpresence Diadem

Artifact •

Attunement: 3m (glamour)

Stats: Spd +3, Acc +4, Dam +4L, Def +1, Rate 6

A raksha wearing this diadem cannot be escaped. Every warrior wears his face. His shadow is behind every tree; his voice on every tongue; every elegant curve of a woman's breast is suffused with his scent. The Everpresence Diadem is a tool of awful domination.

The Charms

Awaiting Seasons of Leisure & Bloom

Cost: 3 motes

Type: Supplemental

Shaping

Duration: Instant

Minimum Sword: 1

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: None

A wise general waits for the right time to strike. This Charm tracks the passing of years until the most perfectly opportune moment; his army rages out of fields strewn with flowers and grain. For each initiative tick that the raksha delays a Sword-shaping attack, he adds 3 dice to his pre-soak damage pool. The maximum number of ticks the raksha may benefit from in this manner is his Valour. He is able to delay his action further, but does not accrue additional damage bonuses for doing so.

Martial

Duration: Instant

Minimum Presence: 5

Minimum Fu: 3

Prerequisite Charms: Cut Divides Time, Continent Separating Refrain

This Charm converts a preexisting action into an unarmed counterattack; the adept may invoke it immediately after an attack roll against him. It removes the dice pool penalty for delaying an attack, and the counterattack functions identically to Solar Counterattack, being resolved fully before the damage roll of the attack that provokes it. Furthermore, the adept adds 1 die to his pre-soak damage pool per initiative tick delayed.

Cost: 4 motes

Type: Reflexive

Shaping

Duration: Instant

Minimum Sword: 3

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Awaiting Seasons of Leisure & Bloom

In one cold gesture, the raksha makes a discontinuity. It makes him difficult to perceive; for one attack, he adds his Essence to the success penalty for attacking blind.

Martial

Duration: Instant

Minimum Presence: 5

Minimum Fu: 3

Prerequisite Charms: White Sword Stance of Summer Form

Moving with an attack, the martial artist infuses a weapon with the languor of the days after first harvest. This reduces the weapon's Rate by 1. This effect is cumulative with multiple applications, but can only be used once per attack, and cannot reduce a weapon's Rate below 1. Each turn on his initiative, the bearer of a weapon thus slowed may reflexively roll his Perception + Athletics to shake off the torpidity and restore 1 unit of Rate. Further attempts to do this are dice actions, limited by the weapon's current Rate.

Cost: 6 motes

Type: Reflexive

Shaping

Duration: One Scene

Minimum Sword: 3

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Awaiting Seasons of Leisure & Bloom

He stands at the back of his army, impassive, directing with a fan. The raksha may activate this Charm before his initiative; it increases the distance between him and all opponents with whom he is not Entangled by one journey. He may use this in response to the declaration of an attack, but the increased distance does not apply to that attack, only the subsequent attacks. This Charm may be used repeatedly; each time, it increases the distance by one.

Martial

Duration: One Turn

Minimum Presence: 5

Minimum Fu: 2

Prerequisite Charms: White Sword Stance of Summer Form

The adept takes a step back, and the step becomes leagues. The martial artist may activate this Charm before his initiative; in his retreat, the user warps perceptions of space. For the remainder of this turn, all attackers must expend half their movement to come within hand-to-hand attack range of the user.

Cost: 5 motes

Type: Simple

Shaping

Duration: One Story

Minimum Sword: 4

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Cut Divides Time, Continent Separating Refrain

When he assumes this Stance, the raksha hangs over the land, his sight unlimited, his armies flowing without effort. He adds 1 to the waypoint range of Sword attacks, which may enable him to attack at range. Once per scene, he may make the Perception + Awareness roll to locate a distant target reflexively.

This is a Stance-type Charm. Characters cannot use more than one Stance-type Charm at a time.

Martial

Duration: One Scene

Minimum Presence: 4

Minimum Fu: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Empty City Stratagem, Journey Across Wilting Moors

When enacting this Form, the character burns with a listless heat, and his awareness expands to encompass every direction. He raises the difficulty to surprise him by his Essence. This constitutes a perfect, but not automatic, defence against automatic surprise effects, requiring the ambuscade to roll Appearance + (the relevant Ability) at a difficulty of the adept's Essence to surprise him. In addition, when he makes a successful unarmed attack, his target must roll an armour fatigue check.

This is a Form-type Charm. Characters cannot use more than one Form-type Charm at a time.

Shaping

Cost: 3 motes

Type: Simple

Duration: One Story

Minimum Sword: 5

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: White Sword Stance of Summer Form

Once, when Rainwater Jaguar was without an army, he needed to defend his home, and so he commanded all the birds and beasts of that place to disappear. His opponent, upon seeing the desolation, believed that Rainwater Jaguar was hiding some overriding power, and so he retreated.

While he is under the effect of this Charm, the difficulty to locate the raksha in the Wyld is increased by his Essence.

Martial

Cost: 5 motes

Type: Simple

Duration: One Scene

Minimum Presence: 3

Minimum Fu: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Immaculate Devastation in Daylight

The third lesson of the hot season is to appear mighty even when one has no real reason for this. Whenever the adept makes an unarmed attack, the martial artist may remove a matched set of dice - at least two dice showing the same number - from his roll before successes are counted. For each die removed, he gains a numbered boon - for instance, a 6 becomes a 6-boon. He may have as many boons such as Charisma+Essence.

By spending a boon of this type, the martial artist adds a die showing the associated number to a roll before successes are counted.

Cost: 5 motes

Type: Reflexive

Shaping

Duration: Instant

Minimum Sword: 5

Minimum Essence: 3

Prerequisite Charms: White Sword Stance of Summer Form

Sometimes the general needs to return to his bastions. The raksha may use this Charm to instantly transport himself to the bonefire, Stronghold, Glory, Fountainhead, or Throne Room of a Freehold he currently occupies, or double his waypoint movement for the scene. The Charm may be used only once per turn.

Martial

Duration: One Scene

Minimum Presence: 3

Minimum Fu: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Immaculate Devastation in Daylight

The second lesson of the sword of summer is the wise retreat. Whenever the martial artist suffers levels of damage, he may instantly move Fu + levels yards in the direction of a position of strength.

Cost: 2 motes

Type: Supplemental

Shaping

Duration: Instant

Minimum Sword: 5

Minimum Essence: 3

Prerequisite Charms: Empty City Stratagem, Journey Across Wilting Moors

With this Charm, the raksha defends his country. He draws strength from its oppression, adding one die to a Sword-shaping attack for each incumbrance set on the waypoint he currently occupies, plus one for each adjacent incumbered waypoint. This Charm may explicitly used to enhance entanglement.

Martial

Duration: Instant

Minimum Presence: 1

Minimum Fu: 2

Prerequisite Charms: None

The first technique of the white sword is the pure attack of day. The warrior adds dice to an unarmed attack equal to the Essence of the military leader whose orders he is following.

Comments

Ow! Ow! My head hurts! ^_^ I love your MA styles. Mixing it with a Shaping style, from the opposite end, no less, is just evil. I love it! ^_^ -Suzume

Hehe thanks(: - w

Even better! It arranges so neatly into a snowflake shape! Too good! ^__^ -Suzume