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Valiant Mortal Style

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Background

Once, deep in the First Age, a Dawn Caste general was standing atop the battlements of his castle, watching his soldiers fight a group of blood apes that he had summoned to train them. As he stood there, pondering essential theories of combat, his eye was drawn by one mortal soldier. Wounded and battered, he nonetheless stood against a blood ape to defend a fallen comrade. Though the general did not think the mortal stood a chance, he paused to watch, and saw the monster struck down by a lucky blow.

Thoughtful, remembering his own life so many centuries before, the general began to wonder if he had forgotten something in his rise to prominence. He secluded himself for many weeks, trying to call up his memories of his time before Exaltation, and committing them to chakras and meditations. Finally, he developed the Mortal Style.

The Style was never particularly popular, relying as it did on acceptance of one’s frailties and weaknesses. Still, a few Sidereals and Lunars practice it even in the Age of Sorrows, using the Style to help remind themselves that they are not omnipotent. No matter how strong you become, there is always something stronger.

Form Weapons

Mortal Style uses all Martial Arts weapons as form weapons, and allows the use of armour – the weak cannot be picky about their tools.

Charms

Danger Reaction Approach</b>

<b>Cost: 2 motes, Mins: Martial Arts 2, Essence 1, Type: Reflexive 
Keywords: Combo-OK 
Duration: One Scene 
Prerequisite Charms: None 

There are always those who are prepared to strike faster, and the character learns to wait and defend himself, instead of trying to race ahead of the wind. The character may activate this Charm before rolling Join Battle. Her first action for the combat takes place on Tick 3, and is not part of the standard reaction count.

Strike Recovery Method </b>

<b>Cost: 1 mote, Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1, Type: Reflexive (Step 10) 
Keywords: Combo-OK 
Duration: Instant 
Prerequisite Charms: None 

Strong blows rain down on the mortals of Creation, but they always stand again as though nothing happened. The character activates this Charm in response to any effect that causes both knockback and knockdown, before her roll to resist it. She automatically fails the roll to resist knockback and automatically succeeds the roll to resist knockdown.

Surprising Sudden Blow </b>

<b>Cost: 2 motes, Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1, Type: Supplemental (Step 7) 
Keywords: Combo-OK 
Duration: Instant 
Prerequisite Charms: Danger Reaction Approach, Strike Recovery Method 

Although injured, a mortal cannot stop, for though any blow might slay them, they are called up to battle creatures much stronger than them, and occasionally, their weakness causes creatures to underestimate them. This Charm may be activated after a successful attack against a being whose Essence is higher than the character’s. The character’s minimum damage is increased to the Essence of the target, instead of her own.

Valiant Mortal Form</b>

<b>Cost: 4 motes, Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2, Type: Simple (Speed 5, DV –1) 
Keywords: Form 
Duration: One Scene 
Prerequisite Charms: Surprising Sudden Blow 

The character shrinks in on herself and simultaneously sets herself for battle, the emblem of the Valiant Mortal. Anyone of higher Essence than the character who wishes to affect her with Charms or Sorcery must pay one additional mote for every point that their Essence is higher, or the effect fails. This includes Charms or spells that affect a group that includes the character. This must only be spent once per action.

In addition, whenever the character channels a Virtue, she gains one extra die on the channel.

Mortal Body Acceptance </b>

<b>Cost: 2 motes per dot, Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2, Type: Reflexive 
Keywords: Combo-OK 
Duration: One Scene 
Prerequisite Charms: Valiant Mortal Form 

Mortals cannot attain the levels of Essence needed for great effects, and the character learns to accept this. For every 2 motes spent activating this Charm, she reduces her Essence by 1 for the duration of the Charm. This affects all Charms and spells whose effects are modified by a character’s Essence score, but does not change Essence pools or disable access to Charms the character no longer meets the prerequisites for.

Injury-Anticipating Stance</b>

<b>Cost: 2 motes, Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2, Type: Reflexive (Step 2) 
Keywords: Combo-OK, Illusion 
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Mortal Body Acceptance 

The character, seeing an attack coming towards her that she cannot hope to defend against, simply attempts to minimize the damage against her. This Charm may be activated in response to any attack. The character’s Parry and Dodge DVs are set to 0, but the attack's post-soak damage pool is automatically reduced to minimum. The character may not use any other effects to increase her DVs when activating this Charm.

Unnoticed Insect Approach</b>

<b>Cost: 4 motes, Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2, Type: Reflexive 
Keywords: Combo-OK, Illusion 
Duration: One Scene 
Prerequisite Charms: Mortal Body Acceptance 

The character shrinks in on herself, admitting that she is not relevant to the fight, and her opponents react likewise. This Charm creates an Illusion effect that forces enemies not to consider the character a threat. Anyone whose Essence is greater than the character must fail a Valor roll in order to attack her, adding dice to the roll equal to the difference between their Essence and the character's. If the character successfully injures a valid target after activating this Charm, the difficulty of the Valor roll increases by 1. If the target succeeds on the Valor roll, they may spend one Willpower to surpress their Virtue as normal; this has all the normal effects for surpressing a Virtue.

Moment Of Weakness Strike </b>

<b>Cost: 5 motes, Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2, Type: Supplemental 
Keywords: Combo-OK 
Duration: Instant 
Prerequisite Charms: Unnoticed Insect Approach 

The character is nothing, a mote drifting across the battlefield, until her opponent stops considering her. Then she strikes suddenly, braving her own destruction in order to land a crucial blow. This Charm supplements an unarmed attack against a subject whose Essence score is higher than the character. The target of the attack must roll their Wits + Awareness, with an external penalty of the amount by which their Essence is higher, or else the attack is unexpected.

Through Weakness, Strength </b>

<b>Cost: 6 motes, 1 Willpower Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3, Type: Simple 
Keywords: Combo-Basic 
Duration: One Scene 
Prerequisite Charms: Moment Of Weakness Strike, Injury-Anticipating Stance 

Having accepted her limitations, the character transcends them. Though every foe may be stronger, there is nothing stronger than the human heart. For the duration of the scene, the character adds the difference between her Essence and her target’s to the die pool of all attacks against higher-Essence characters, and increases her DVs against higher-Essence characters by half this amount. She also increases her raw damage and Bashing and Lethal soak totals by this amount against higher-Essence characters.

Comments

It seems like Injury-Anticipating Stance, if it makes an effect do minimum damage, will cause the effect to do no damage unless the attack deals health levels of damage as well as damage dice. Kukla

Oh, that's poor wording. Allow me to rephrase. "Minimum damage dice", as in Essence or Overwhelm ping. - FrivYeti

You probably also want to change Unnoticed Insect Approach, as with the current wording, it's easier for a higher-Essence person to notice you the higher their Essence is, but it becomes more difficult if you stab them. This is because you said they notice you if they fail the Valor roll, yet you have the difference in Essence increasing the difficulty, and stabbing them decreases it. I think instead they should get bonus dice to their valor roll for having higher Essence, while the difficulty increases by one if you stab them. - IanPrice, hoping he has the right gist for this charm.

Erp, you're right. First draft of that charm required succeeding on a Conviction roll. *goes to change that* - FrivYeti

I like this style very much. I am assuming that it's a terrestrial style so mortals with awakened essence can in theory learn it?
-- Darloth

Nah, it's Celestial. The joke, such as it is, is that instead of emulating tigers, or snakes, the Solar's emulating... a mortal. And besides, the Charms are really too powerful for Terrestrial. Essence cost increasers on a Form? Scene-length accuracy, defense, damage and soak? Yikes. - FrivYeti

Besides, mortals can technically initate into the Bulb of the Perfected Lotus, though they lack the Essence to practice most styles, since few Celestial styles can be learned fully through Essence 3. They suffer all the restrictions that Dragon-Blooded do, without even the benefit when using Reflexive charms. And since it can take decades to learn such things even with a prodigy, even a human who DOES master the techniques will be well past his prime by the time he does. This is, of course, not taking the supernatural training techniques of Solars into account. - IanPrice

Do you have a page reference for that? I'm fairly sure that it's not correct, especially given the incredible amount of difficulty that mortals have initiatiating just into the Root. I can't recall ever reading a suggestion that they get better than TMA, or should. - FrivYeti

My reference is the fact that it's never stated that they can't, and it is stated that they can learn it at the root if they have mastery of their Essence, at the same costs as a Terrestrial. Therefore, it is a logical extrapolation that they can initiate even higher. - IanPrice

You're wrong. Scroll of the Monk, page 17, left column, first sentence of the second paragraph under 'Heroic Mortals'. "Heroic mortals are limited to the Roots of the Perfected Lotus, however, and the process of mastery is long, slow, and difficult." - Kukla

Also, and this is a minor point, mortals with Essence Mastery pay 15 XP each for Terrestrial Martial Arts Charms. Terrestrials pay only 10 XP each, 12 if not favoured. So right off the bat, mortals are not, in fact, learning as easily as the Dragon-Blooded. Because, y'know, they're mortal. ;) - FrivYeti

Hm. Well, since I don't own Scroll of the Monk, forgive me for only understanding things from a 1st Ed Player's Guide perspective on that. - IanPrice

It was my perspective on 1e Player's Guide that mortals could only master terrestrial styles at the roots of the lotus. But, no matter, it's still a cool style.
-- Darloth