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Contents
Desire: The Vermeil Snare of Perfection
A Sidereal Martial Art by DeadManSeven.
Introduction
Whee, haven't done one of these in a while. I hope there's still enough people about who care about that old boring version of Exalted without ticks and Charm keywords and such to give this a looking over.
Anyway, this style is a lot of things I've wanted to mess around with for a while - clinches, possession, making Appearance awesome, a style using ropes. Please read it and pick out all the horribly broken things down the bottom. :)
Background
The Vermeil Snare of Perfection is a style for those who care about only one thing: themselves. Martial artists who focus their energies upon this style often call themselves Cardinals, not only for the robes of deep red they favour, symbolic of the raw emotions they shape and carve, but also to call attention to the ego one develops upon delving deeper into this style’s techniques; they are the first and the most important, and all others are playthings for their amusement. The Cardinal’s signature weapon is a rope (treat as a fighting chain); often these ropes are woven out of materials so fine that the stylist’s captive never realises he is bound until it is too late - at which point, he ceases to care.
None of the Charms of this style may be used in armour.
Charms
One-Thousand Flirting With
Suitor Meditation the Room
\ /
Mask-of-War
Invocation
/
Sibilations Velvet
Born in Binding Venus’
Darkness Ropes Insight
\ | /
Vermeil Snare of [one complete]
Perfection Form ----- [Martial Arts]
/ [ style ]
Cloaked in Heavenly
the Zeitgeist ---- Flesh Ideal
/ \ \`
Winding of Deeper-Than-Skin Searing the
the Coils Defences Beholder’s Eye
\ | /
--- A Reunion of ---
Old Lovers
/ \`
Light of Shadow of
the Soul’s the Heart’s
Beauty Poison
\ /
Heartstring
Puppeteer
Manipulation
|
Glimpsing An
Abyss Beneath
the Skin
(For a non-ASCII Charm tree, click here.)
The Student Sutra of Desire: Once, there was an ardent Maiden...
One-Thousand Suitor Meditation
- Cost: 7 motes
- Duration: Instant
- Type: Simple
- Minimum Martial Arts: 5
- Minimum Essence: 3
- Prerequisites: none
- aware she was desired.
Experience leaves a maiden rich with knowledge of the many suitors that pursue her; eventually, she learns there are only a handful of lovers, and they merely wear a multitude of disguises. Piercing the lies they tell her, she sees through to their intentions, and right to their hearts. She may evaluate an individual and know his ratings in his Virtues, along with any other effects which may make his Virtues weaker or stronger. She may also use this Charm to select a single suitor from the thousand, and instead learn the location of the nearest person with Virtue ratings she specifies.
Flirting With the Room
- Cost: 10 motes
- Duration: One Scene
- Type: Simple
- Minimum Martial Arts: 5
- Minimum Essence: 4
- Prerequisites: none
- Her allure was her core,
With a careful tip of the head, the savvy Cardinal can win the whole room to her favour. While she charms the crowd, the reactions of others seem slow and awkward, and they find her difficult to oppose. Every enemy attacking the character increases the difficulty to hit her by her Appearance, and subtracts her Appearance from their initiative. Since this is a purely visual distraction, her enemies are able to close their eyes and fight the Cardinal blind to avoid the effects of this Charm.
Mask-of-War Invocation
- Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower
- Duration: Instant
- Type: Supplemental
- Minimum Martial Arts: 5
- Minimum Essence: 4
- Prerequisites: One-Thousand Suitor Meditation, Flirting With the Room
- driving crowds to frenzy,
Fists have been raised and wars have been fought, all for something simple and base as desire. Ever the clever manipulator, the martial artist can twist the appeal she has to others into an insidious weapon, making them fight - and die - for her.
The character embraces her opponent and, as she holds him prostrate, whispers promises and lies into his ear. He rolls his [highest Virtue + Willpower] against a difficulty of her Appearance. If he gains more than three successes, there is no effect, and for the moment he is free of the Cardinal’s influences. If he rolls between one and three successes, his mind is clouded by the character’s visage, and may take no hostile actions against her for the next [character’s Essence] turns. If he should fail the roll, he is completely overcome by her beauty, and will fight to defend her, even to the point of attacking his staunch allies, for the rest of the scene. This Charm can only be used while in a clinch (or a similar intimate embrace), and cannot be used on beings of equal or greater Essence than the character.
Sibilations Born in Darkness
- Cost: 2 motes per +1 difficulty
- Duration: Instant
- Type: Reflexive
- Minimum Martial Arts: 5
- Minimum Essence: 4
- Prerequisites: Mask-of-War Meditation
- to madness;
Having heard (and spoken) many lies in the darkness of bedchambers, the Cardinal may steal these lies from others the second they are to be spoken, and instead use them as her own to convince her enemies of her sincerity. For every 2 motes she spends, she may increase the difficulty of a roll her target makes using his Willpower or his Virtues by one.
Velvet Binding Ropes
- Cost: 6 motes, 1 Willpower
- Duration: One Scene
- Type: Reflexive
- Minimum Martial Arts: 5
- Minimum Essence: 4
- Prerequisites: none
- her every move perfectly choreographed
Desire constricts like the rope; knowing this, the martial artist focuses her skill at binding emotions to aid her in snaring her enemies physically. When employing the techniques of Velvet Binding Ropes, she has a number of points equal to twice her Appearance to augment her unarmed clinches; these may be added to Speed, Accuracy, Defence, and Rate in any combination, but cannot be changed unless the Charm is reactivated. She may also make clinch attacks up to a range of [Essence + Appearance] yards.
Venus’ Insight
- Cost: 4 motes
- Duration: Instant
- Type: Reflexive
- Minimum Martial Arts: 5
- Minimum Essence: 3
- Prerequisites: none
- and expertly timed
Knowing the hearts of her opponents allows the insightful Cardinal to be prepared for anything they may confront her with, appearing to others as though she always exhibits a perfect sense of timing. She automatically detects any ambush, and may set her initiative to any value lower than [Speed + 11]. This Charm can be used after initiative is rolled, but before any actions take place; use of Venus’ Insight means the character does not get to roll initiative.
Vermeil Snare of Perfection Form
- Cost: 15 motes
- Duration: One Scene
- Type: Simple
- Minimum Martial Arts: 5
- Minimum Essence: 5
- Prerequisites: One complete martial arts (all Charms), Sibilations Born in Darkness, Velvet Rope Binding, Venus’ Insight
- to captivate her devotees.
The martial artist’s anima flares a deep crimson as she assumes the Vermeil Snare of Perfection Form. Her skin shines with an ethereal light, and blood-red flecks of essence surround her, dropping to the ground and leaving marks in the shape of rose petals where she walks. She has taken the form of the First and Only Rose, and she will not be denied.
If the character successfully parries an attack, a ring of bright red essence surrounds the wrists and ankles of her opponent, and her attacker is bound as if she had succeeded in making a clinch attack, scoring her Appearance in successes. This clinch is maintained with the same degree of success, until her opponent is able to break free. She is able to target any opponent so bound with effects that would work on an enemy being clinched. Also, she gets a number of automatic successes each turn equal to her Appearance to distribute among rolls where she herself is either initiating or maintaining a clinch, provided it deals no damage.
This Form makes the martial artist’s beauty and radiance overpowering, so much so that often her enemies will fall in love with her, desiring to follow her wherever she goes. Successful use of the prior Charm Mask-of-War Invocation will affect the target permanently. Those that follow the martial artist are part of her Entourage; she may have up to [Essence x Appearance] individuals of Essence 1 in her Entourage, and [Appearance] beings of Essence 2 or higher. Often Cardinals will seek out especially appealing elite warriors to act as their personal bodyguards, but rarely is an Entourage comprised entirely of soldiers and warlords; more common is a collection of flunkies the martial artist has taken particular pride on controlling. All members of the Entourage are magically compelled to love the martial artist, but this love is not absolute; it may be broken through other effects, or wear away over time if the character treats a member of her Entourage poorly. While this effect is not explicit grounds for a warning from the Heavenly Bureaucracy, Sidereals that insist on their flock of admirers attending every function they appear at soon find themselves on the end of a remarkably severe audit.
This is a Martial Arts Form Charm, and cannot be used while other Form Charms are active.
Cloaked in the Zeitgeist
- Cost: 1 lethal health level
- Duration: Instant
- Type: Reflexive
- Minimum Martial Arts: 5
- Minimum Essence: 5
- Prerequisites: Vermeil Snare of Perfection Form
- The Elder Sutra of Desire: Many tried to mimic the Maiden,
A Cardinal’s beauty is revered far and wide, so much so that her admirers attempt to copy that which makes her so perfect. Her direct followers are especially obvious examples, reflecting each little change in her style until it is almost impossible to tell who leads and who is led. Shrouded in a beautiful tapestry of imitators, the martial artist can be almost impossible to find.
If the character is attacked and wounded, she may choose to activate this Charm, swapping herself and a member of her Entourage (who must be present at the time). The assailant is clearly mistaken in his attack, and strikes down one of the character’s followers instead of his true target.
Winding of the Coils
- Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
- Duration: One Scene
- Type: Reflexive
- Minimum Martial Arts: 6
- Minimum Essence: 6
- Prerequisites: Cloaked in the Zeitgeist
- but her grace was flawless,
With intricate skill, the martial artist wraps her opponent’s body and heart with her velvet ropes; when the time is right, she pulls them taut: her target will move and feel only when she desires it.
The character becomes sinuous and flexible, her body bending and twisting as easily as the ropes she commands. She adds her Appearance rating to dodges she makes; this may be used to create a pool for a dodge action. She may also substitute her Appearance for Dexterity for determining her running and sprinting distances. Her movements all coalesce into a unified choreography, her every action symbolic of tying another knot in the rope; for a cost of 5 motes, she may reflexively make a clinch attack against an opponent using her full attack pool, or automatically maintain a clinch she is currently in control of. This effect may be channelled through one of the character’s Entourage, using her dice pool.
Deeper-Than-Skin Defences
- Cost: 12 motes
- Duration: One Scene
- Type: Simple
- Minimum Martial Arts: 5
- Minimum Essence: 5
- Prerequisites: Cloaked in the Zeitgeist
- her purity unblemished,
A Cardinal’s beauty is perpetual and unspoiled; any attempts to mar her flawless skin fail, never even leaving the faintest bruise. She adds twice her Appearance to her natural soak values, and gains hardness against all types of damage equal to her Appearance.
Heavenly Flesh Ideal
- Cost: 6 motes, 1 Willpower
- Duration: Supplemental
- Type: Instant
- Minimum Martial Arts: 5
- Minimum Essence: 6
- Prerequisites: Cloaked in the Zeitgeist
- her being in balance of body and soul,
As an embodiment of perfection, the martial artist gains the skill to transcend her flesh and instead fight battles with her soul; if her opponents are found lacking, they will suffer for their spiritual imperfection. She marks herself as an example to aspire to, her anima bursting to life with a malevolent red glow, while those who cannot match her brilliance manifest wounds all over their body, painful reminders of their flaws.
The character makes a martial arts attack using her rating in a Virtue, and her opponent defends with an opposing Virtue (typically, Valor and Conviction make one opposing pair, and Compassion and Temperance form the other); if the character’s spiritual attack is successful, her opponent takes levels of lethal damage equal to the rating of the Virtue she rolled. While perfect defences can prevent this attack, it has no physical component.
Searing the Beholder’s Eye
- Cost: 15 motes, 1 Willpower
- Duration: Special
- Type: Simple
- Minimum Martial Arts: 6
- Minimum Essence: 6
- Prerequisites: Heavenly Flesh Ideal
- her form almost too pure for mortal eyes.
The Cardinal can heighten her beauty for a brief moment in time, causing others to see only her and become blind to the world, unable to stand against her. She shines as a paragon of perfection, a thing beyond mortal comprehension, and those that gaze upon her will remember her in dreams for years to come, and weep for what they cannot attain.
All in the world momentarily stills and quietens as the martial artist uses this Charm. Everyone around her, friend and foe alike, must turn their heads and watch her, for she is the epitome of fascination. All those caught in the character’s radiance must succeed at a Willpower roll in order to break free, at a difficulty of the martial artist’s Appearance. The character cannot take any hostile actions while this Charm is active - a hand raised in anger will end the Charm instantly. This Charm cannot be active for longer than a scene.
Members of the character’s Entourage are immune to the effects of Searing the Beholder’s Eye, as they have a much greater insight to her beauty.
A Reunion of Old Lovers
- Cost: 12 motes
- Duration: Instant
- Type: Simple
- Minimum Martial Arts: 6
- Minimum Essence: 6
- Prerequisites: Winding of the Coils, Deeper-Than-Skin Defences, Searing the Beholder’s Eye
- She said, “My beauty summons the world.
The martial artist’s influence grows so wide, she may reach out and summon those she knew from ages past, for everyone that knows her is still tied to her. She may draw a single target that once had Mask-of-War Invocation used on him, sending him an impulse that he must seek her out. He may roll his Willpower to ignore this calling; more than three successes means he successfully suppresses temptation. Former members of the character’s Entourage cannot roll their Willpower to resist the Reunion. If he is unsuccessful, he has a vague inkling of where to find the character, and she a clouded vision of his location that grows clearer the closer he comes. The traveller is not given any special knowledge or authority with regards to surpassing hazards, but if he is sufficiently blocked in his travels, the next time he sleeps, he will receive a vision in his dreams showing how the character summoning him would bypass the obstacle.
Light of the Soul’s Beauty
- Cost: 4 motes per +1 Appearance
- Duration: One Scene
- Type: Reflexive
- Minimum Martial Arts: 6
- Minimum Essence: 6
- Prerequisites: A Reunion of Old Lovers
- It is without equal,
The martial artist continues her quest of perfection. At this stage of the journey, she is able to combine both her spiritual and physical beauty, ever closer to becoming the singular ideal being. She may increase her Appearance rating by one for every 4 motes she spends, adding up to a maximum of her highest Virtue.
Shadow of the Heart’s Poison
- Cost: 10 motes
- Duration: Instant
- Type: Reflexive
- Minimum Martial Arts: 6
- Minimum Essence: 6
- Prerequisites: A Reunion of Old Lovers
- without peer.
In comparison to the Cardinal, all others are inferior, their failings and wrongdoings obvious for all to see. In the presence of the martial artist, the weight of imperfection upon their soul becomes almost impossible to bear. The martial artist selects a target; he subtracts [20 – sum of Virtues] from a single physical action. This may reduce his dice pool to a value below 0; in which case, Charms that add dice or successes must be employed until his dice pool is at least 1 to attempt the action.
Heartstring Puppeteer Manipulation
- Cost: 15 motes, 1 Willpower
- Duration: Indefinite
- Type: Simple
- Minimum Martial Arts: 7
- Minimum Essence: 7
- Prerequisites: Light of the Soul’s Beauty, Shadow of the Heart’s Poison
- You may learn my secrets,
The martial artist’s finesse becomes so great, the rope is too clumsy an icon to represent her machinations. Now it becomes the puppeteer’s strings, manifold and imperceptible, tied to key points on her puppets. When she twitches ever so slightly, they gesture, and when she gestures, they dance.
While using the Heartstring Puppeteer Manipulation, the character may take control of one of the members of her Entourage, learning every secret recess of their minds and commanding their body completely. She may make rolls using either her own ratings or the target’s, and may use any Charms or other special abilities the target knows, as well as her own. She can use the target’s Willpower, Virtues, and motes of essence (assuming he has an essence pool), but these must be used on the target’s abilities and actions. The character is able to still take actions of her own; as this technique is being handed down from sifu to student, the two sequester themselves from the world and are not seen until the student has mastered the technique of controlling two bodies simultaneously: to do any less would be to shame the other practitioners of this style.
Heartstring Puppeteer Manipulation can only be used on a single target at a time.
Glimpsing An Abyss Beneath the Skin
- Cost: 20 motes, 2 Willpower, 1 aggravated health level
- Duration: One Turn
- Type: Simple
- Minimum Martial Arts: 7
- Minimum Essence: 8
- Prerequisites: Heartstring Puppeteer Manipulation
- but you must pay my price.”
With mastery of the Vermeil Snare of Perfection comes total authority over others. They become hollow inside, without thought or instinct. The only vestige remaining is the beauty that snared them, that they emulated, and that ultimately damned them.
The martial artist takes a member of her Entourage, and gradually removes his inner being, leaving behind only a shell of flesh. In essence, when the process is complete, he has died, and his higher soul departs his body to join the cycle of reincarnation. However, he is not one of the possessed dead, merely someone so enraptured with the Cardinal’s beauty that he has not noticed he has died. He becomes little more than a vessel for the master of the Orchid Snare, a living doll for her to command.
The character and one of her Entourage engage in an extended resisted Willpower roll, with each success gained by the character removing a point of the Entourage member’s permanent Essence. When his Essence is reduced to zero, he loses all free thought, and access to any Charms, although he still retains knowledge he has gained over his life. If the target was a spirit (or another naturally dematerialised being), he becomes permanently materialised, and loses the ability to dematerialise. He now acts as if he were permanently under the effects of Heartstring Puppeteer Manipulation. Additionally, should the character be killed, she may, in the seconds before her death, take over such an Entourage member’s body permanently. She retains her rating in all areas save one: she will have the Appearance of the new body. Some masters of this style are known to seek out Creation’s most attractive individuals and change bodies several times each decade, easily growing bored of their physical appearance.
Comments
That looks really impressive. Although balancing sidereal styles is not easily possible, I would say you've done a good job. Nice work
-- Darloth
After a quick re-reading, I believe that Flirting with the Room should not work on characters who are blind or manage to make some sort of resistance or something. It would seem to be an effect that relies on other's senses, rather than the user's own actions, and so some sort of explanation of what others can do to avoid it would be useful. It's rather powerful, after all.
-- Darloth
- Thanks for your comments. I must be getting better at keeping stuff unbroken, or something. :) I changed Flirting With The Room to allow someone to just close their eyes and ignore the effects - fighting blind is about an equal disadvantage, provided the MAist isn't alone, and it's makes sense that the first, 'I'm pretty! I'm awesome!' Charm should be easier to get around than some of the later ones. - DeadManSeven
