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Cross-posted from the WW Exalted forum so I don't lose it...

One thing I've been recently considering, since I have a couple players making noises about DKs for their next characters, is taking a page from the V:tM playbook. Since the Paths are very reminicent of Disciplines, I am inspired by Vampire's cross-Discipline powers to make something similar for DKs.

For example, Blade of Stone and Vine (requires Path of Growing Wood ** and Path of Solid Earth ****) allows the DK to spend 5m and 1 Willpower and touch the earth as a Simple action to draw out from it a weapon unique to the DK, with stats equal to any variety of mundane weapon and a number of addition pluses equal to the total of the DK's Path of Growing Wood and Path of Solid Earth ratings. No stat could be raised by more than the higher of the two Path ratings. This power would cost, say, 9 xps.

This would allow quite a bit of additional character development while not requiring entirely new Paths (about which I am very skeptical), and give DKs the kind of custom Charm flexibility I think they deserve. Between new powers such as these and Combos, DKs would be able to slowly fill in the gaps of their current powerset without having to go outside the 5 elements, which I believe ought to be able to handle anything in Creation with sufficient development.

Heroic Merits

I'm not really sure why, but I've always had an urge to try Exalted as a classic, hack-n-slash fantasy RPG. The system, as it relates to the unExalted, anyway, is fairly brutal and realistic (jumping distances notwithstanding), and I think things might work out well with it.

The trick, of course, is that character differentiation becomes a bit of a pain, and advancement runs into some obstacles fairly quickly. I mean, once you have Str 5, Dex 5, Melee 5 (Swords +3), where do you go from there? (Okay, I admit it - I'm exaggerating. It would take quite a while for even a heroic mortal to get up to that level. Bear with me here.) The usual solution to this dilemma, based on what I've seen on the Wiki anyway, is some kind of Charm scheme... but for me that feels iffy too. Where are normal mortals getting Charms, anyway? Other than Martial Arts (which is, of course, too funky for words), there's never been the slightest canon suggestion that mortals have an innate ability to perform Charms, whether they have Awakened Essence or not.

On the other hand, there is a very Charm-like Merit...

Thus, my idea. Awakened Essence may not be to everyone's taste, so I'm going to ignore that for now. It's not going away, it's just not relevant here. Instead, I want to build off of the one innate "dice-adder" mortals get: Virtue channels. It begins with the following three Merits, which may be taken by any heroic character:

Virtuous Pursuit of Ability</b>

<b>Cost:1 bonus point or 2 experience points

This is not actually 1 Merit, but 100 - one for every combination of Virtue and Ability. When the Merit is taken, select a Virtue and an Ability. Whenever the character channels that Virtue to give a bonus to that Ability, it does not count as one of her or his Virtue channels. Each combination of Virtue and Ability is a separate Merit, and must be bought separately.

Fourfold Passion Flame</b>

<b>Cost: 2 bonus points or 4 experience points

The character's strength of will draws equally from all four of their Virtues. When rolling to regain Willpower, the character may substitute their highest Virtue for their Conviction if desired.

Manifest Will of Heaven</b>

<b>Cost: 5 bonus points or 10 experience points

Every heroic character, no matter whether they are Exalted or not, carries within them the potential to reshape the world. Some few, however, realize this and draw strength from it, sercure in the knowledge that they are meant for something greater than those around them. Whenever the character achieves 5 successes (that is to say, rolls a number of successes equal to the difficulty + 4) on an action without expending Essence to do so, they may immediately roll their Conviction to regain Willpower, just as if waking up in the morning.

The last two Merits are primarily intended to make the first one functional. Virtuous Pursuit of Ability can be used as the ground-level entry into Merit trees, for which I draw inspiration from both Charms and d20's feat trees. This development can occur in two directions: Ability based, for specific and slightly stronger effects, and Virtue based, for broader but less effective ones. Some ideas for Merits that could build off of this groundwork:

Blade of the Self

Cost: 2 bonus points or 4 experience points
Prerequisites: Virtuous Pursuit of Melee

In a sense, every weapon is but an extension of its wielder. Understanding this, the character may channel the Virtue(s) associated with their Virtuous Pursuit of Melee to add the Virtue rating to the damage of a successful strike.

Faith's Unconquerable Might

Cost: 4 bonus points or 8 experience points
Prerequisites: Convicted Pursuit of Ability

What must be done, shall be done. This is the mantra of Conviction, and the character has taken it into her soul. Whenever the character channels Conviction for an Ability for which has Convicted Pursuit, she automatically converts one of her Conviction dice to an automatic success.

Hidden Sting of the Watchful Eye

Cost: 2 bonus points or 4 experience points
Prerequisites: Temperate Pursuit of Stealth

By waiting pateintly for the perfect time to strike, the assassin is assured of success. The character may channel his Temperance when making an attack roll from hiding (this counts as a Virtue channel unless the character possesses the Temperate Pursuit of his attacking Ability); the Temperance dice are added to both the character's attack and damage rolls, and the character's damage becomes piercing if it was not already.

Corpse-Blooded, or Elysian Exalts

There is a tale told of great tragedy in Lookshy, a tale of a mighty Realm force camped outside the gates of the city, a force too large to be defeated in straightforward combat. The tale tells of how the force was destroyed, the souls ripped out of their bodies and shredded by a powerful First Age artifact. The next day, the tale says, the camp was empty of all life, and the shadowland had already begun to grow. The tale is a national sorrow of Lookshy, and it is a lie.

No one died on that horrible day, and the shadowland was not a terrible side effect of so many unavoidable deaths. In truth, the "weapon" was a necromantic artifact from the First Age, designed by powerful and mentally unstable Twilight artificers to create shadowlands at will. The power to create the shadowland, however, came from the wills of those nearby when it was used, all of whom would be thrown into the Underworld when the artifact was activated. The shredded souls of the poor wretches so used on that day still wander the Mourning Field to this day, but their bodies, some with minds still clinging to a half-mad existence, were shifted complete into the Underworld...

...and there collected by the Deathlord known as the Mask of Winters.

At the time, the Mask resided within the powerful Abyssal Manse called the Oubliette of Roots and Sorrows, deep within the Bayou of Endless Regret. He was therefore the closest Deathlord to the Mourning Field as it came into existence, and the first to discover the massive army of mad and dying Dragon-Bloods that had appeared in the Underworld. He quickly arranged for them to be taken back to the Oubliette and housed with as much care as could be arranged for them. Most still died, of course, but some few he managed to nurse back to a kind of health. It might seem out of character for a Deathlord to undertake such a seemingly beneficient action, but it was not, for upon learning of the Terrestrials Fate had planted on his doorstep, the Mask had concieved a plan.

The surviving Terrestrials, through application of Charms, Celestial Circle Sorcery and plain manipulation, were induced to sire or bear children with ghosts loyal to the Mask. The Ghost-blooded offspring were bred again to the Terrestrials, and the few Exalts that were born were bred to more ghosts and to their ghost-blooded cousins as well. For centuries this process continued, as the Essence of death was comingled with the Exalted bloodline of the Dragon-Blooded. Later generations produced a number of Exalts, all of whom were raised to be loyal to the Mask and willing participants in his grotesque eugenics program. These Dragon-Bloods were instrumental in assisting the Mask to claim the corpse of the behemoth Juggernaut. Though almost all the Deathlords had some small numbers of Dragon-Blooded outcastes among their followers, a large part of the Mask's recent military success can be laid at the feet of his much larger cadre of loyal Exalts.

Then, at last, some 60 years ago, the breeding program produced its first real fruit, and the Elysian Exalts, also called the Corpse-Blooded, were born. Terrestrial Essence at last polluted by necrotic influence to such extent that they were aligned to the corpse-elements rather than to the elements of Creation, the Corpse-Blooded would have been a mighty weapon in the arsenal of the Mask... had not the Abyssals appeared just as the Elysians were reaching the flowering of their power. The Mask has not been wasteful of the Elysians, regardless of their relative standing with his Abyssal servants. He has given control over the Oubliette to the eldest of the Elysians, and they serve him faithfully still. Several of his deathknights have taken on Corpse-Blooded squires, establishing a tortured parody of the Solar-Terrestrial relationships of the First Age.

The Elysian Aspects are:

• Blood - Subtlest of the Aspects, Blood Elysians focus on essentials most of all. They favor the Abilities of Brawl, Bureaucracy, Investigation, Larceny and Sail.
• Bone - The most vital of the Corpse-Bloods, the Bone Aspects remind the dead of what they have lost - and what gained - in their transition from life. They favor the Abilities of Archery, Medicine, Performance, Ride and Survival.
• Ghost Flame - The rampaging destruction of the Abyss and the powerful restlessness of all the undying dead, the Ghost Flame Elysians favor the Abilities of Athletics, Dodge, Melee, Presence and Socialize.
• Jade - Masters of the crafting arts and the most stable of the Elysians, Jade Aspects favor the Abilities of Awareness, Craft, Endurance, Martial Arts and Resistance.
• Prayer - Prayer Aspects turn their attention to more ephemeral concerns than their cousins, favoring the Abilities of Linguistics, Lore, Occult, Stealth and Thrown.

Dragon King Excellencies

Path-Ability Associations:

Celestial Air

Archery

Linguistics

Occult

Clear Air

Awareness

Thrown

Yielding Earth

Craft

Lore

Medicine

Solid Earth

Integrity

Martial Arts

Blazing Fire

Performance

Presence

War

Flickering Fire

Athletics

Melee

Shimmering Water

Investigation

Larceny

Sail

Flowing Water

Dodge

Stealth

Growing Wood

Bureaucracy

Ride

Socialize

Shaping Wood

Resistance

Survival

Hapushet/MySandBox/MySandBoxArchive - for old ideas I'm not working with any more.

Comments

I like your idea for Dragon King cross-path powers. I was actually thinking of creating a Dragon-blooded Crafts Charm that did something much like the power you presented as an example, actually. ~ Seiraryu

As you can see at the top of the page, I've played with creating new Paths before, but they just don't feel right to me. Internal and external expressions of the Five Elements seem like they should cover all that is in Creation, and I don't really like the idea of going outside Creation with DKs. It just doesn't seem to fit their schtick. Besides, if they needed them, why don't they have them already? These guys ruled Creation for hundreds if not thousands of years. Didn't they have time to make more than 60 powers if they needed them? (There's something like 180 Solar Charms in the core alone, and Solars are generally Exalted within the last five years, right?) So I think that certain Dragon Kings - possibly certain Dragon King souls, even - developed their own specialty powers "in between" the Paths. I'm still playing with guidelines, costs and power levels, though. - Hapushet, who wants to make a joke about people "playing in my sandbox" but won't, because it sounds dirty

Any thought about expanding your heroic Merits into a full page on their own? I stumbled onto them while Orphaning, and they are very neat. - FrivYeti