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The fourth theme is Servitors

Paljak's Precocious Poppets</b> (TedPro)

<b>Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Cost: 20 motes

Developed by a very lonely Wood-Aspected Dynast who never married or had children, Paljak's Precocious Poppets requires that the caster personally craft a wooden marionette. Making a poppet of sufficient quality requires a week's work, materials worth Resources 2, an Intelligence + Craft (woodwork, toymaking, or similar) with a difficulty of 2. The Poppet comes to life, taking on the characteristics of a playful, childlike dancing thing, its strings held up and moved by unseen magic. It is loyal to the caster, and truly loves the caster, but does not always understand or obey the caster's commands, especially if it is feeling playful. The poppet does not require committed Essence, but the sorcerer can only have as many poppets as its Essence score. Multiple poppets will develop relationships between themselves. The poppets cannot speak and are not violent by nature, but they are capable of expressing themselves well by gesture, and can be taught to read and write. A poppet's Appearance score is equal to the number of successes the caster generated on the Intelligence + Craft check (maximum 5). The creator can decide on the Nature and basic personality of a poppet when creating them, and divide 8 dots among the puppet's virtues accordingly (with a minimum of 1 in each Virtue). Poppets do not age and will potentially outlive their creator, and aren't affected by poisons or disease, but can be easily damaged. The tiny wooden fingers on their hands are surprisingly nimble and they can hold things without penalty. They heal like living things.

Poppets: Strength 1, Dexterity 4, Stamina 4, Charisma 3, Manipulation 1, Appearance * (see above), Perception 2, Intelligence 1, Wits 3. Nature and Virtues: see above. Willpower: 2. Abilities: Resistance 2, Endurance 2 (Dancing +2), Performance 3 (Dancing + 2), Presence 2, Athletics 2 (Jumping + 3), Awareness 2, Stealth 3, Dodge 3, Larceny 2, Socialize 2 (Gestures +2) Health Levels: 0,-1,Incapacitated,Broken. Soak 4L/4B. No attacks.

Binding of the Obedient Household (AntiVehicleRocket)

Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Cost: 10+ motes

A relatively simple bit of ritualistic sorcery, Binding of the Obedient Household has become popular among Dynasts in charge of a large retinue of servants, because it creates a greater sense of loyalty within servants and thus strengthens the caster's control of a household or business. Its casting requires a quiet place in which the caster burns incense and meditates on the nature of loyalty, responsibility, and Essence for his permanent Essence rating in hours; at the end of this time, he stands up, and from his body project invisible Essence-filaments in a web over his environs, bringing the spell to bear. Binding of the Obedient Household has a base cost of 10 motes, which allows the caster to affect a number of servants up to twice his permanent Essence; he may pay more Essence to increase the number of servants he affects, at a cost of 5 motes to affect a number of additional servants equal to his Essence, with no limits on the Essence he may spend to power the spell.

Under the effects of Binding of the Obedient Household, the caster's servants become more loyal and well-disposed to him. (The "servants" of this spell can be anyone who is directly under the caster's authority, including household retainers, employees, bureaucratic subordinaries, and soldiers under his command, but cannot include those he relates to in a capacity other than official; barring extraordinary circumstances, he cannot use this on friends or family members.) Indifferent servants will become fond of their masters and loyal to their positions, and already loyal employees will become stalwarts; even those hostile to the caster will become grudgingly willing to accept his authority and do his bidding. All servants retain their free will and cannot be compelled to do anything exceptionally dangerous or bizarre, but they are generally more open to their master's requests and will do more to fulfill them. Furthermore, servants under this spell must succeed at a Willpower check (at a difficulty of the caster's permanent Essence) to seriously consider leaving for non-emergency reasons, doing the caster harm, or betraying the caster. Mortal servants will always be affected by this spell, but servants with an Essence greater than 1 may resist it with a Willpower roll, at a difficulty of the caster's permanent Essence.

Binding of the Obedient Households lasts for a season (three months). When the effects of the spell end, the magically-created loyalty fades from the minds of those servants affected, but they retain a knowledge of their emotions and actions during the spell's duration. If they were treated well, these memories may engender lasting loyalty; if their trust was abused, though, it is possible that the servants may become enraged and lash out at those who mistreated them.

Reward of Loyalty (TedPro)

Shadowlands Circle Necromancy
Cost: 20 motes

Requires a truly loyal and faithful mortal servant with a Compassion of at least 2, who loves and believes in the necromancer, named during the casting of this spell. Within a day after this spell is cast, the necromancer approaches the servant. The necromancer orders the servant to commit suicide, with no visible benefit or reason, in a particularly painful and humbling fashion. If the servant obeys this order, he will rise as a ghost, still loyal to the caster, with five Arcanoi, including Nemissary's Ride. However, if the servant balks, refuses or asks why, the Essence of the spell backfires - the servant becomes permanently blinded, and the necromancer loses two health levels of lethal damage - this damage cannot be soaked.

A Million Slaves (TedPro)

Labyrinth Circle Necromancy
Cost: 30+ motes committed

Calls upon the ghosts of those who were slaves in life, forcing them to manual labor once again and clouding their minds into dull servitude. Each is materialized, and has very limited abilities - Strength 2, Stamina 2, all other attributes 1. Any number of slave-ghosts can be called, at a cost of 1 mote per ghost (minimum cost 30), but they require intelligent supervision to work - a foreman of some kind is needed for every ten slaves. The ghosts will labor as long as the motes for the spell are committed. They can use tools for labor assigned to them, and will labor without regard to comfort or the survivability of their conditions. None of the ghosts will use any Abilities or Arcanoi, nor will they attack or defend themselves. A single health level of damage frees the slave-ghost, and returns it to wherever it was before this spell was used. Individual ghosts cannot be called, and, because of the personality-cloaking of this spell, all of them seem to be uniform shadowy humanoids.

Favored Lieutenant's Blessing</b> (Sparrowhawk)

<b>Celestial Circle Sorcery
Cost: 20 motes (commited)

By means of this spell, a sorcerer can both ensure the loyalty of a trusted servant, and make that servant much more competant and powerful. When he casts this spell, he must make a token of some sort - usually a piece of jewelry. The sorcerer commits the essence to the token, and gives it to a henchman, who becomes a favored lieutenant. This henchman must be well-trusted by the sorcerer, and must be told the purpose of the item in order for it to work. The lieutenant in question is always a named character, a heroic mortal with an essence score no higher than 1.

As long as the lieutenant bears the token, he is empowered with some of his master's powerful Essence. He becomes more confident, and those who interact with him get the impression that he is important or powerful in some way. This gives him one automatic success on any Charisma-based roll, and increases his permanant Willpower by one.

In addition, the lieutenant can access some of his masters konwledge and skill, if he has even the smallest understanding of it. When making ability rolls, he may use his master's rating in an ability instead of his own, if both he and his master have dots in that ability.

The lieutenant also gains a bit of the puissant health of the Exalted. He gains a number of additional -2 health levels equal to his master's Essence score, can soak lethal damage with half his Stamina, and gains the infection-resisting abilities of an Exalt.

There is a cost to this blessing, however. While he bears the token, his master can use it to determine his location with but a thought. By spending a Willpower, the master can scry on the token's location as if it were a Coin of Distant Vision (Bo3c, page 33.) The sorcerer may suspend or return his lieutenant's blessing with a thought, if he feels the henchman needs a lesson. As an ultimate punishment, the sorcerer can banish his lieutenant with a word. This permanantly revokes all powers granted by this spell, and causes the token to explode, dealing a number of unsoakable levels of Aggravated damage equal to the sorcerer's Essence. The threat of this vengeance is enough to make most servants wary about betraying his benefactor. The essence committed to this spell is lost if the token is destroyed; the sorcerer must regain it by normal means. If the sorcerer dies, of course, the token becomes a mundane item, and the lieutenant loses all the powers it grants.

Corrupted Jade Nativity (Quendalon)

Void Circle Necromancy
Cost: 50 motes

This potent magic ensnares the immortal spirit of one of the Mountain Folk and binds it into a mass of jade, from which it is reborn as a corrupted mockery of its former state. This spell may only be cast at the Well of the Void. There, the necromancer slays a living Mountain Folk in a ritual that lasts for eight hours, and spills its heart’s blood upon a nodule of flawless black or white jade at least four feet in diameter. The jade nodule shivers and cracks, and the newborn Mountain Folk crawls from the debris to abase itself at the feet of its maker.

A corrupted Mountain Folk is a rough creature, crude of visage and misshapen of limb. Its skin resembles jade rather than flesh, and the darkness of the Void lingers within its eyes. Its nature depends upon the will and skill of its creator, who may attempt to determine its Caste as per the Jade’s Egg Hatched Charm (from Exalted: the Fair Folk, page 271), rolling Intelligence + Occult rather than Intelligence + Craft (Sculpture). On a botch, the spell fails and the Mountain Folk’s soul is swallowed by the Void. Otherwise, the creature thus created has the statistics of a newly created character of the appropriate caste, and may gain experience in the normal manner.

Each of these corrupted beings forever bears the mark of its maker’s Essence. It serves her with perpetual, unswerving loyalty. If the creature is killed in the Underworld, its soul will return to its creator, following her intangibly until bound again into jade; this may be done with another casting of this spell, without the need for a living sacrifice. If the creature is slain in Creation, it will return to the jade beneath the Imperial Mountain to be restored to the usual existence of the Mountain Folk, but it retains the necromantic taint. If the newborn Mountain Folk ever enters a shadowland, it falls once more under the necromancer’s sway. It takes three rebirths in the normal fashion before this taint completely fades.

Comments

Isn't it a little weak even for a terrestrial spell.The poor Poppets aren't even useful in any way. I don't think they'd keep the attentions of a lonley sorcerer for long because they can't even make conversation. - Issaru

I don't know, I imagine they could be useful as minor assistants. They can probably (working together) cook, clean, and otherwise keep house, and I expect it would be reasonable to even be able to make them with specially-designed limbs for such tasks. -Ben-San

Hmmm... with a Craft die-adder, these things could have ridiculously high Appearance ratings. Also note that with A Dex+Stealth of 7 and a Dex+Larceny of 6, they'd make decent creepy thieves... -szilard

thieves without opposable thumbs are a lil less than useless. - Issaru

Depends what you want to steal. Packrats, magpies, and squirrels don't have opposable thumbs either. -Ben-San

Okay, Issaru, I am convinced. I gave 'em hands. --TedPro

Yeah, this isn't the most combat-effective spell -- but you're making sentient beings, albeit not very bright ones. Using magic to create creatures capable of communication, self-awareness, and love doesn't seem like a trivial magical application to me. (Also, can these things outlive their creator if there isn't violence involved? If so, they would be an excellent encounter for a First Age wood-Manse hunt.) -- AntiVehicleRocket

Wasn't talking about a combat application (actually the last thing on my mind) but i just think they should some application to dosomething. Yes the Poppets are cute but so is a dog and it doesn't require you to bend the universe to your will to get one.i would love the spell if they had working hands or a maybe able to mature past the child stage of intellectual and emotional growth.The point i'm trying to make is that you're effectively asking Creation "make me a puppy".On the other hand i love the lil buggers they're cute (in my minds eye) and they could be fun for a while. -- Issaru (?)

I didn't write the spell, but my guess would be that they can gain XP (and thus presumably dots in Intelligence and mental-type abilities) as time goes by; "they do not age" presumably refers to just physical aging and not intellectual growth. You'd have to ask TedPro, though. -- AntiVehicleRocket

Gosh, I'd put that outside the scope of the spell. One that becomes a long-running NPC could earn XP, I guess. --TedPro

Thanx TedPro the spell is perfect now.Hands give them the chance to make use of the skills they have.BTW my comments weren't flames i loved the spell i just thought that a humanoid being without hands would get useless really quick. - Issaru

I'd seen it differently from "they can't use the skills they have because they lack hands"; I'd assumed that Larceny 2 indicated that their squirrel-style grab was deft enough to let them steal small objects and presumably perform other fairly nimble manipulations.

Truth told, the Poppets lacking hands isn't really a crucial element, and they work a lot better with hands. Plus, I got to use the phrase "tiny wooden fingers." --TedPro

Okay, throwing into the relay. I'm not sure if this is entirely balanced or redundant; I don't seem to recall a "household management" spell, though, and it seems like it'd be handy for Exalts with huge crews of retainers to manage. -- AntiVehicleRocket

Awesome spell dude!! - Issaru

You might want to be clearer with Reward of Loyalty - Nemissaries are ghosts with the Nemissary's Ride Arcanos (which requires three prerequisite Charms and a minimum Compassion of 2). I'd say this Charm only works on individuals with a Compassion of 2 or more, and turns them into a ghost upon death with four starting Arcanoi up to and including Nemissary's ride. -szilard

Thanks, szilard! Changed the mechanic as recommended. --TedPro

Hope y'all don't mind me taking seconds on the relay. --TedPro

Here's my entry. Celestial exalts who prefer to work through henchmen while staying in the background should really like this spell. - Sparrowhawk

It's like being your own Mokrelus! --TedPro

After taking another look at Favored Lieutenant's Blessing, I'm wondering if it's underpowered for a Celestial spell. The power-up is pretty neat, and the security measures are obviously useful, but is it worth 20 committed motes? Also, I wonder if limiting it to Essence 1 mortals is crippling. I don't want the mortals who are enhanced by this to outshine exalts, but I do want them to be considerably more powerful than they were before. If I had the Player's Guide, I would probably make use of the revised heroic mortal rules in designing this spell. Since I don't, I want the Wikizens to pick this spell apart. - Sparrowhawk

Drop the committed motes. Perhaps 1m or 5m committed per token, but certainly not 20. A willpower seems a bit much to scry in my opinion, but that's debatable. The heroic mortal rules in the player's guide tend to be mainly stuff about merits and flaws... the spell actually emulates a few of them pretty well as it is, and it would only make things more complicated and less parametric and interesting if you were to change to using them. I think it's reasonably powerful, mainly because of the skill-sharing. If that aspect needs to be nerfed, perhaps the bearer of the token has to spend a willpower to access his master's skills for a scene (and the master will of course be aware of this) much like accessing a whispers rating. How about that?
-- Darloth prefers the 1m committed, but you could make a lot of tokens that way

Time for a new theme, innit lads? May I propose the theme of avatars? I even have a spell for it that is rather inspired if I may say so myself. Resplendence

We don't have a Solar Circle spell for the theme yet. - Quendalon

Well isn't it your chance, you finished the theme - Jarons20