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Sidereal Exalted

Advisors and teachers of the other Celestials, the Sidereals ultimately fractured over the course that the First Age was taking, and enacted a plan to overthrow and murder the Solar Exalted. Their plan more or less successful, they retreated into the shadows, to quickly guide the course of the Terrestrial Exalted.

General Revisions

• As Celestial Exalted, Sidereals have very long lifespans, but generally have the shortest of any Celestial Exalt - their lives are based not on their physical constitution, but on their connection to the Loom of Fate. Sidereals do not begin to roll for age effects until they reach 1500 years of age. At that time, they must make an Essence roll at difficulty 1. This roll is repeated every twenty years, with the difficulty increasing by 1 each time, and no Virtues, Willpower, or other effects may be used to boost its chances of success unless they specifically say that they can.
• In order to reach Essence 6+, a Sidereal Exalt must both follow the age guidelines listed in the Exalted corebook, and fulfill a Motivation. Sidereals may raise their Essence up to a maximum rating of 9.

Anima Modifications

Sidereals

Sidereals are slightly stranger than other Exalt types; they do not have Caste Powers. Instead, they have access to the Lesser Sign and the Greater Sign. All Lesser Signs normally cost 10 motes to activate; if the Sidereal's anima is active at the 11+ mote level, this cost drops to 5 motes, and if it is active at the 16+ mote level, the cost drops to 1 mote. Greater Signs are far more dangerous; most Sidereals use them with great reluctance, if at all. They require the expenditure of 10 motes and one Willpower, and cause an automatic Pattern Bite (as per taking 10 points of Paradox) which cannot be avoided by any effect, which triggers at the end of the scene. Character mays only activate the Greater Sign once per scene, and activating the Greater Sign is a Simple, Speed 5 action. Both the Lesser and Greater Signs last until the end of the scene.

Multiple Lesser Signs triggered next to each other add the combined Essences of the Sidereals involved to determine the total range of the effect, but are not otherwise modified. The same applies if multiple Greater Signs are triggered.

Chosen of Journeys:

• Lesser Sign Of Mercury: The character, and all allies within (Essence x5) yards, add the character's Essence to her Move, Dash, and Jump rates.
• Greater Sign Of Mercury: The character, and all of her allies within (Essence x10) yards, may immediately teleport to any location within fate that is not warded against teleportation.

Chosen of Serenity:

• Lesser Sign Of Venus: The character, and all allies within (Essence x5) yards, add the character's Essence in dice to all of their Performance rolls.
• Greater Sign Of Venus: All enemies of the Sidereal who are within (Essence x10) yards of her must spend an additional (Essence) motes per action in order to activate any Charms that action, and must pay 1 additional Willpower in order to activate a Combo.

Chosen of Battles:

• Lesser Sign Of Mars: The character, and all allies within (Essence x5) yards, reduce damage dealt to them by 1 die in the post-soak stage.
• Greater Sign Of Mars: The character, and all allies within (Essence x10) yards, may reflexively co-ordinate any attacks made on a given tick against the same target at full effect. This lasts for the duration of the scene.

Chosen of Secrets:

• Lesser Sign Of Jupiter: The character, and all allies within (Essence x5) yards, add the Sidereal's Essence to their MDPV and MDDV scores.
• Greater Sign Of Jupiter: All creatures and locations normally outside of fate that are within (Essence x10) yards of the Sidereal are considered to be inside of fate for the duration of the scene.

Chosen of Saturn:

• Lesser Sign Of Saturn: The character, and all allies within (Essence x5) yards, increase their post-soak damage of any attack that deals post-soak damage by 1 die.
• Greater Sign Of Saturn: All allies of the character who are within (Essence x10) yards of her deal aggravated damage with their attacks for the duration of the scene.

Caste Abilities

The following Caste Abilities are altered:

• Integrity is now a Journeys ability, under the Constellation of the Mast
• Resistance is now a Battles ability, under the Constellation of the Shield
• War is still a Battles ability, but under the Constellation of the Gauntlet
• Presence is still a Battles ability, but under the Constellation of the Banner
• Athletics is now an Endings ability, under the Constellation of the Rising Smoke

Charm Modifications

• Sidereals pay only 8 XP for favoured Martial Arts Charms, and 10 XP for non-Favoured Martial Arts Charms.
• The Sidereal First Excellency adds up to (Essence + 1 + any internal or external penalties the Sidereal is suffering from) dice to a roll. It does not count external penalties from static values such as DVs.
• The Sidereal Second Excellency does not add successes. Instead, the Sidereal may spend 1 mote per point to reduce target numbers of her die pools by 1 each. She may spend up to (Essence +1) motes. A character who would reduce her target number below 3 (at Essence 4+, usually) may instead spend a total five motes and a Willpower to convert the entire diepool to successes. Sidereals may combine the First and Second Excellencies, but add together motes spent on both to determine their Charm caps.
• In addition to their mote-reducer, Sidereals have access to Essence Auspicious as a Fourth Excellency. This is a Permanent Charm that may be purchased only once for each Ability. It permanently reduces the Sidereal's target numbers for a specific Specialty-breadth task within that Ability by 1. It requires Ability 4, Essence 3.

In addition, the Sidereal Charmset is screwy. As such, the following Charm revisions are in place (hang it, it's a long ride):

Journeys

• (Integrity) Virtue Essence Replenishment: This Charm is Type: Permanent. The usual rules about not regaining more than 20 motes per action apply to these Charms. This Charm does not require an Integrity Excellency.
• (Integrity) Creation-Preserving Will: This Charm requires only Unwavering Well-Being Meditation as a prerequisite.
• (Integrity) Preservation of Resolve: This Charm is of Indefinite duration.
• (Integrity) One Direction Invocation: The cost of this Charm is 10 motes, 1 Willpower, and 1 hl. Upon activating this Charm, the character chooses one goal as listed in the book. While under the effects of this Charm, the character gains three benefits. First, she adds one automatic success to any action that directly further her goal. For actions which indirectly further her goals, she takes no benefit or penalty, and for actions irrelevant to her goals she must spend a Willpower. Secondly, no effect can truly stop her in her actions. The character may ignore all internal penalties and up (Essence) points of external penalties to any action that directly furthers the goal. Finally, the character's identity is replaced by the need to complete her task. Her Motivation changes to “Complete this goal”, she removes all of her Intimacies for the duration, and she may freely violate her Virtues in order to accomplish the goal. Any effect that would cause her to violate this new Motivation is considered to be an unacceptable order, including her own Charms. If the character spends a total of (her own Essence) worth of Willpower resisting this Charm, it ends. Doing so reduces the character's Permanent Willpower to 1 and removes her new Motivation without restoring her former Motivation and Intimacies; each morning, instead of rolling to regain Willpower, the character may recover one dot of Permanent Willpower and one Intimacy. When all Willpower and Intimacies are regained, she may recover her Motivation. If the goal named in the Charm becomes impossible, the Charm ends and the character's identity becomes shredded, only recovering slowly as listed above.
• (Ride) Yellow Path: The roll for this Charm is Essence + Ride.
• (Ride) Ordained Bridle of Mercury: This Charms costs 2 motes per point that the chosen animal would require (ex: a sparrow would could 2 motes and a Willpower, while a strix would cost 10 motes and a Willpower). It grants animals the basic traits of familiars, but does not provide additional points unless the character spends experience.
• (Ride) Spirit-Shape Companion: This is a Permanent Charm. When purchased, if the character does not possess a familiar, she must immediately spend 4 experience and create a 2-dot Familiar with Awakened Essence (she can spend more experience and create a more powerful familiar if she chooses, or may spend experience to increase an existing Familiar's rating as high as she likes). The character's Familiar increases her Essence rating by 1, as well as the maximum Essence rating that the Familiar is capable of. She gains all the advantages and disadvantages of being a god, including a naturally dematerialized state, the ability to materialize, a larger Essence pool, and so forth. She also gains one spirit Charm (which cannot be an Excellency) and the ability to tranform between a humanoid-animal form and a pure animal form. She cannot purchase further spirit Charms, although she can use her increased Essence to qualify for Sidereal Charms.
• (Ride) Godly Companion: This is a Permanent Charm that upgrades the effects of Spirit-Shape Companion to make her Familiar a Heavenly functionary. First, the character may raise the familiar's rating with experience points as high as she wishes. The character's Godly companion then gains the ability to summon the Calibration Gate, a divine Sanctum within Yu-Shan rated at 2 dots, and a Panoply rated at 2 dots that cannot be taken from them - both Sanctum and Panoply can be raised with experience as usual for Backgrounds, up to a maximum rating of the familiar's Essence score. They also gain two additional Spirit Charms and ten bonus points that can be spent on Attributes, Abilities, or Virtues.
• (Sail) Walls of Salt And Ash: Resisting this Charm requires one Willpower per action. A creature must spend Willpower equal to the Sidereal's Sail rating to overcome the effect entirely.
• (Survival) Adopting The Untamed Face: This Charm replaces the Illusion keyword with the Compulsion keyword.
• (Survival) Dreaming The Wild Lands: This Charm adds the Shaping and Combo-Basic keywords.
• (Survival) Sky And Rain Mantra: This Charm adds the Fate keyword, and thus can only be used in places touched by the Loom. The character may not apply more than (Essence +1) successes to the mantra.
• (Survival) Sky Spirit Demand: This Charm replaces the Servitude keyword with an Emotion keyword.
• (Thrown) Life Gets Worse Approach: Botched attacks can be redirected without cost.

Serenity

• (Crafts) Elemental Vision: This Charm permanently reduces the target number of social rolls against all appropriately-elemented beings (elementals, Dragon-Bloods, raksha with Assumptions up, etc) by 1.
• (Crafts) Excellent Implementation of Objectives: This Charm is Combo-OK.
• (Crafts) Destiny-Knitting Entanglement: This Charm has the Fate keyword.
• (Crafts) World-Shaping Artistic Vision: This Charm allows Sidereals to write a small piece of their natures onto the Loom of Fate. Instead of reducing target numbers, it reduces Paradox dice by one when using Ascending or Descending astrology within the chosen limit. This Charm may be purchased three times, but a given astrology roll may only remove one die of Paradox regardless of how many World-Shaping Artistic Visions apply to it. Characters may spend 1 XP to change the specialty that this Charm affects.
• (Crafts) Implicit Construction Methodology: This Charm has two effects. First, it reduces the construction time for objects by one degree (seasons to months, months to weeks, days to hours, etc), which stacks fully with other effects. Secondly, it allows construction to proceed while the Sidereal is not actually present, so long as she leaves the Essence committed and the prayer strip in place.
• (Dodge) Duck Fate: This Charm is restored to its First Edition nature; it can dodge any undesirable effect if its roll succeeds.
• (Dodge) Avoidance Kata: This Charm adds the Shaping keyword.
• (Dodge) Trouble-Reduction Strategy: This Charm adds the Combo-Basic keyword. It affects up to (Essence) people.
• (Dodge) Neighbourhood Relocation Scheme: This Charm adds the Fate keyword.
• (Linguistics) Favourable Inflection Procedure: Resisting the effects of this Charm requires two Willpower.
• (Linguistics) Blue Vervain Binding: Instead of spending 1xp, the character can spend 1 wp to have the effect only last for one scene.
• (Performance) Heart-Brightening Presentation Style: This Charm is removed.
• (Performance) Defense of Shining Joy: The addition of the character's Performance to her Dodge DV counts as bonus dice gained from Charms. The character may add her full Performance even if it is higher than her Essence +1.
• (Performance) Song of Spirit Persuasion: This Charm requires 4 Willpower to resist, and replaces its Servitude keyword with a Compulsion keyword.
• (Performance) Ice and Fire Binding: Instead of binding elementals to domains, this Charm binds elementals to their Virtues. For one season, the elemental cannot violate one of either the Virtue of Compassion or Temperance (chosen at the time that the Charm is activated). Doing so requires spending two Willpower per action.
• (Performance) Harmonic Completion: The bonuses to the character's DVs are considered bonus successes, and thus do not count towards Charm maximums.
• (Socialize) Shun The Smiling Maiden: The initial target of Shun defends against it as a Shaping attack. Any potential lovers defend against it as an Emotion effect if the initial target does not counteract it.
• (Socialize) Cash And Murder Games: This Charm replaces its Servitude keyword with a Compulsion keyword.
• (Socialize) You And Yours Stance: Any aspect of this Charm can be resisted at a cost of 1 Willpower per action; once four Willpower is spent, a given target is immune to the effect for the scene.
• (Socialize) Fortuitous Fellowship: This Charm replaces the Shaping keyword with a Compulsion keyword. It adds the Combo-Basic keyword.

Battles

• (Archery) Opportune Shot: This Charm reduces the speed of an Archery attack to 3 for 3 motes flat.
• (Archery) Any Direction Arrow: This Charm costs 2 motes, and removes all penalties from cover and shields.
• (Archery) Many Missiles Bow: This Charm adds the Shaping keyword to the creation of the arrows. They themselves are still physical attacks.
• (Melee) Meditation On War: This Charm costs 2 motes per die, and has a duration of One Action. Its type changes to Reflexive.
• (Presence) Presence In Absence Technique: If the target's words are in line with the Sidereal's, use the better of their two pools. If the target's goals are not in line with the Sidereal's, the Sidereal's social attack and the target's both take place automatically, and the better social attack is the one that must be resisted.
• (Presence) Loyalty-Sacrificing Sidestep: Once this Charm is activated, the new defender may declare normal Step 2 Charms in Step 5. All effects from Steps 1, 3 and 4 remain in effect.
• (War) Training Mandates: None of these effects require the Training Keyword.
• (War) Essence-Draining Battle Pattern: The increase in enemy unit costs applies to Charms they activate to attack or defend against the Sidereal's unit.
• (War) Demon-Blocking Battle Pattern: Penalties apply only to a single enemy unit. The Sidereal can reflexively change which unit each action.

Secrets

• (Larceny) Name-Pilfering Method: This Charm adds the Shaping keyword.
• (Larceny) Dream Confiscation Approach: This Charm adds the Shaping keyword.
• (Stealth) Soft Presence Practice: This is a Permanent Charm. It allows the Sidereal to spend two additional motes of Essence when spending peripheral motes to have them not add to anima banners. If the Charm is Obvious, double the original motes must be spent.
• (Stealth) Blinding the Boar: The penalties imposed by this Charm may not exceed the character's Stealth rating.
• (Stealth) Walking Outside Fate: Any character that the user of this Charm physically interacts with can perceive her for the duration of the scene, but suffers a -1 external penalty on all affects to target her and can't identify her perfectly (they take a -3 external penalty on attempts to recognize her or remember her features).
• (Stealth) Subordinate Inspiration Technique: This Charm does not make social attacks unexpected, only their source unknown.

Endings

• (Awareness) Conclusive Wisdom: The cost of this Charm is reduced to 10 motes, 1 Willpower, and 1 hl. The user must roll Essence + Willpower, at a difficulty of the character's Essence. If the target succeeds at her Willpower roll, she loses one point of Willpower and suffers a -2 external penalty to all actions until the Sidereal's next action. If the target fails, she loses Willpower equal to the character's Essence, and (user's Essence x7) motes of Essence, losing all personal motes first, as well as suffering the -2 penalty listed above.
• (Bureaucracy) Icy Hand: Resisting this Charm costs one Willpower per action, and the resister must spend (Sidereal's Essence) in Willpower to throw off the effect completely.
• (Bureaucracy) Underling Invisibility Practice: If the user of this Charm makes herself obvious, through physical attacks at the character, massive physical changes or other, similarly intrusive effects, this Charm comes undone and ceases to function. It may then not be activated again that scene.
• (Martial Arts) Blade of the Battle Maiden: This Charm is now a Sidereal-only Charm that requires Secrets of Future Strife. It may be used with any unarmored Martial Arts attacks and defenses, regardless of form weapons.
• (Martial Arts) Horrific Wreath: This Charm is now a Sidereal-only Charm that requires Violet Bier of Sorrows Form. It may be used with any Martial Arts attacks.
• (Medicine) Peaceable Conclusion: The bracketed costs for this Charm are removed. It gains the Combo-OK keyword.
• (Medicine) Smooth Transition: This Charm's original effects are entirely removed. Against a willing ghost, it sends them immediately into Lethe. Against an unwilling ghost or risen corpse, it creates a Charisma + Medicine roll, at a difficulty of the Essence rating of the ghost or the creator of the undead creature. If she succeeds in a roll against ghosts, the Sidereal removes one dot of Fetters, chosen randomly, per success; a ghost reduced to no Fetters must gain three successes on an immediate Willpower roll or ascend to Lethe. Ghosts may spend one week in the presence of a lost Fetter to restore a dot of it. Against risen corpses, the Sidereal deals one level of unsoakable aggravated damage per success. Smooth Transition has the Combo-Basic keyword.
• (Medicine) Invocation of the Storm-Following Silence: This Charm is a Permanent Charm that modifies Smooth Transition and Peaceable Conclusion. It allows the Sidereal to spend two additional motes and a Willpower to use one of those two Charms against every target within (Essence x10) yards. The Sidereal rolls only once for this effect, and applies the results against each being's Essence separately.
• (Medicine) Deferred Wounds: This Charm allows a Wits + Medicine roll, pushing one level of damage per success into the future. The character can choose to push less than the maximum allowed amount into the future.

Violet Bier of Sorrows

This Martial Arts style is usually guarded by the Sidereals, but there is no penalty for teaching it to others except the disapproval of one's peers.

• Secrets of Future Strife: This Charm permanently adds a character's Essence rating to her Join Battle rolls, as long as she is unarmored. These dice do not count as Charm-granted dice.
• Crimson Palm Counterstrike: This Charm moves to take the place of Blade of the Battle Maiden.
• Flight of Mercury: This Charm costs 2 motes per action, rather than one. It lasts up to (Martial Arts) actions.
• Joy In Adversity Stance: This Charm cannot be used against attacks whose final die pool is lower than the character's modified DV, or attacks that fail to score at least one success.
• Violet Bier of Sorrows Form: Lost Virtue dots also remove Virtue channels. If the character's Essence is equal to or greater than her Martial Arts rating, this Charm increases her minimum damage by one die.

• Life-Severing Blow: This Charm now uses Death-Parrying Stroke as its prerequisite. Automatic successes purchased can't be higher than half the attack's post-soak damage pool, in addition to its other restriction.
• Unobstructed Blow: This Charm now uses Violet Bier of Sorrows Form as its prerequisite. It costs 4 motes and a Willpower.
• Metal Storm: This Charm now uses Unobstructed Blow as its prerequisite.
• Conclusion-Pursuing Approach: This Charm only costs a health level when used as a prayer strip Charm.

Sidereal Astrology

Making Rolls

• If the initial prayer roll for astrology is failed, the Sidereal suffers a -1 external penalty to her effect roll due to the annoyance of the Pattern Spiders. If the roll botches, the penalty increases to -2.

Journeys

• Good Worker Spirit (Gull): This effect costs one Endurance per week.
• Strength of the Mast (Mast): This effect only multiplies the Sidereal's Strength + Athletics by 5.
• Invisible at the Center (Mast): The character may count travel time towards her occupied time, provided she does so in areas where she can also perform odd jobs each day.
• Field Mouse Rider (Messenger): This effect costs only one Paradox per day.

Serenity

• Snappy Banter Approach (Ewer): This effect allows the character or her partner to reroll any social attack that fails to connect.
• Frenzied Courtship Dodge (Ewer): This effect is redesigned. It costs one effect point and one paradox, and can be used when the character fails to defend against a social attack. The social attack can be redirected towards any person present who is not the social attacker. That person can defend against the attack normally.
• Handsome Boy Eyes (Lovers): The character may make Charisma-based social attacks using nothing but eye contact. This costs one Endurance per social attack.
• Whore-And-Virgin Stance (Lovers): This effect costs two endurance and one Paradox, and lasts for one week. During this time, the character appears to be whatever people would want her to be. This increases how much her Appearance can count towards social rolls by one success, and removes all penalties to social rolls due to the character's actions or appearance.
• Brigand-and-Carouser Attitude (Musician): This effect provides the character with fourteen hours of free time each week, rather than seven.
• Proper Plumage (Peacock): This effect costs only one Endurance per social event.
• Wife-Procuring Tailfeathers (Peacock): The character takes on the attitude of someone who can be trusted. This effect costs one Endurance and one Paradox per month, and adds the Sidereal's Essence in bonus dice to rolls to convince people that she is trustworthy.
• Best Friend's Couch (Pillar): This effect costs two endurance and one Paradox. It perfectly convinces a target that they've known the Sidereal for their entire life, and gives them a positive Intimacy towards the Sidereal that cannot be eroded for at least one week. This is an Illusion effect.

Battles

• Someone's Son Style (Spear): This effect costs one effect point, one Paradox die per week. The character may spend one extra endurance to add up to (Essence) extra people to the effect.

Secrets

• Privacy-Enhancing Gesture (Mask): This effect only lasts for one scene.
• Everywhere and Nowhere Technique (Mask): This effect costs one Endurance and one Paradox per week.
• Invincible Essence Core (Sorcerer): This effect costs one Endurance and one Paradox.
• Seer (Sorcerer): The character may not add more dice than there are Sidereals present, nor may she add more than her Essence in dice.
• Professional Mien (Treasure Trove): This effect costs one Endurance and one Paradox per month.

Endings

• Shadow of the Reaper (Corpse): This is an Emotion effect.
• Celestial Intervention Appeal (Haywain): This effect costs only two effect points, and one Paradox.
• Old Fellows' Society Luncheon (Haywain): This effect costs one effect point and one Paradox per two weeks.
• Chains of Adorjan (Rising Smoke): This effect lasts only five actions against demons.
• Style-Discerning Eye (Sword): This effect does not cost Paradox.

Comments

Razafrazan Sidereal Charms.... - FrivYeti