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Lunar Virtue Flaws

Compassion

Conviction

Temperance

Curse of the Starving Wolf - A Lunar's self-restraint can be a fragile thing, but a thin line separating the bestial hunger in her heart from the beings around her. High self-control may lock away this bestial nature for a time, but eventually it will slip her bindings of will and temperance. When Limit of a Lunar with this flaw breaks, she can no longer control this inner beast, and it comes forth to feed its terrible hunger. For a number of hours equal to her Temperance, the Lunar will seek to hunt and consume the Heart's Blood of any being it finds interesting that it can perceive. On sensing such a creature, the Lunar becomes focused on following it and eating it. The Lunar may be stealthy in its pursuit, but it will feed, and will only hide if that seems to be a more productive way of hunting. The Lunar will hunt anyone or anything while under the effects of this curse -- even loved ones, and even those more powerful than she is. The Lunar's player may opt for her to make a reflexive Willpower roll, difficulty equal to (15 - her Compassion) for those friends and family, or equal to (15 - her Perception) for those with an Essence higher than hers. If she succeeds on this roll, she may restrain herself from attacking for one hour. The Lunar is explicitly unable to spend temporary willpower or channel virtues to succeed on this roll. The one mercy in this flaw is that the Lunar may be distracted by other prey. If the Lunar encounters another potential target for her hunger, she may instead focus on that target if she succeeds on the aforementioned rolls. This does not prevent the Lunar from later returning to hunt her original target, but it may cause her to hunt long enough that she will end her Break before consuming the original target. In no way is this to be used to deliberately avoid hunting a loved one. The horror of this Curse is that the Lunar will eventually consume anyone she becomes too close to, if she is given enough time. The Lunar remains perfectly aware of what she is doing, and is aware afterwards of what she has done.

Valor

Comments

Re: Starving Wolf - Sentients only? That seems a little harsh, even for a virtue flaw. How about only creatures that the lunar, in their bestial way, only hunt those who they find interesting. This can include animals the lunar doesn't have in their library yet, as well as people they find interesting. This way, the luanr will tend to eat people - who they, being former humans themselves, find more interesting - and at that, tend to eat people they know, but they don't have to immediately go hunting after every sentient they see. Like, for example, the NPCs who were carrying your plot. -Seraph

Good call. I was looking for a way of expressing that, but, due to a bit of block, fell back on the "sentience" concept. I've changed the Flaw accordingly. I like the way this works better. <Picturing the rancher, coming out of his house in the morning, terrified because his herd of prize bloodstock mares has been torn apart and their hearts eaten by some obviously huge, powerful monster. Then he turns around, and sees the stranger he let stay in the chicken shed emerge, covered in blood...> ^_^ -Suzume

So, I admittedly know next to nothing about Lunars and their Virtue Flaws, but I know they don't work on an individual basis like the Solar ones. Are you changing the mechanics at all to go with the new individuality?
~ Shataina

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "individual" in this context. All of the Curse effects for all exalted have a personal aspect (though the Sidereal version is, as with everything else about them, deliciously twisty). I haven't noticed any particular non-individual nature to the four Curses presented in the Lunar fs, but if there's a passage that you have in mind I'd love to see it, as I really would like to make this sort of thing work. Thematically, this sort of Flaw seems to play right in to the old legends and types dealing with wolves, werewolves, and other monsters of the forest in a number of cultures, and so it seemed like a "good" direction for the Great Curse to take in the Lunars. Yes, they have a bestial nature partially superimposed on their own, and "modern" Lunar culture tends to more "barbarian" approaches. One very standard rule for living in any society is that you don't eat your neighbor (at least, avoid doing so unless the proper ritualistic requirements are met...), but a Lunar who has Lost control of their ability to act within any sort of societal framework could potentially be susceptible to this sor t of effect. In that sense, this could be considered a non-individual, or rather a societal, issue. I don't know. I'd appreciate clarification! ^^ -Suzume

Well, like I said, I could very well be wrong, but the impression I received of the current Lunar flaws is that there's a "generic" flaw that a Lunar gets, attached to whichever virtue is most important to the Lunar in question -- that's why there's only one flaw for each Virtue for Lunars. That is, that Lunars don't get "personal" flaws the same way Solars do; the Great Curse acts the same way in every Lunar with a particular valued Virtue (I don't like this, by the way, and I think it's a terrible idea, but it is the strong impression that I got.) "Mechanics" was the wrong word, sorry about that; I more meant ... well ... flavour. Are you changing the background flavour at all to reflect the new individualization of Lunar Virtue Flaws (assuming it is new and I'm not confused)? For example, are you going in a direction like the one hplovescats took over here, where the elders of the Silver Pact basically decided that the Great Curse could be used to help the Pact? or are you trying to reflect a different fashion in which the Lunars had their "greatest strength" go against them ...? I'm not sure if I'm making myself clear, but I did my best.
~ Shataina

Ah. Now I get what you're saying. I guess I can see where it would look like there would be a generalizaation of the curse across Lunars. But after reading the passage on pages 109-110 closely, I don't see any direct reason why those would be the only Flaws to afflict the Lunars. In fact, having those four only greatly limits the potential... Creativity... of the dying Primordials in a way that I find dubious in setting. Besides, this is, as per the prime rule of Exalted, a really cool effect. So, to answer your original question, I am Absolutely in favor of allowing individuation of Great Curse effects on individual characters.
Regarding hplc's concept, it's interesting, but misses one major point. Namely: Almost nothing in Creation knows about the Great Curse. I realize that he phrased it as "the top Elders of what would later become the Silver Pact became aware of 'something' infecting their Essence". Nonetheless, I dislike allowing even that degree of knowledge into the mix. The Lunars have been on the fringes of reality for around a millenium and a half, nowhere near where they would need to be to discover anything about the Great Curse. Those that have come in closer have had a lot of other things on their minds. Might they have discovered that they were all going bonkers? Possibly. However, Lunar culture as outlined in the fs seems to me to be counter-conducive to admitting weaknesses or problems, and if someone is going around doing something as nasty as eating people they don't need to, or completely backing away from leadership or anything resembling it, they aren't going to be trumpeting it themselves, and the other Lunars are more likely to look for and convince themselves of Wyld influence than on anything else. So, I don't like that premise. His idea as a mechanical system sounds interesting, and certainly worth more than one look, but not the premise that he seems to have built it on.
That said, I'm going to continue to write virtue specific Flaws, because I see no need for everyone to jump ship on the established mechanic. It works. But if someone doesn't like the idea of what hplc characterized (incorrectly, in my opinion) as "...Solar Limit breaks with animal themes...", then they should consider using a system like his. The more power to them. -Suzume <Who likes the idea of the serene No Moon who one full moon snaps and starts hunting down the scholars she's been trying to get information from...> ^_^