Latest revision as of 13:57, 27 March 2010

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Infinite Masks Style

The Sutra of the First Maiden
Once there was a Maiden...
...who woke up and said 'I am.'
As she moved, everything moved with her,
So great she was, she felt herself everywhere.
With her siblings, she wove beauty, and ruled over it.
And among them, she was infinity, unique and grand!
All of beauty changed for her, as she passed, in joy,
And every part of her was welcome in it.
But beauty, greedy, resented her rule,
Breaking her in jagged betrayal and lying lights,
Hurting the Maiden and holding her within her own rage.
'To Create is to Hate', she said.

Infinite Masks Style represents the understanding of the nature and the physical emulation of those who created all in the shaped worlds, the Primordials. As she proceeds in the steps of the Infinite Masks Style, an adept learns how to understand the Primordials, to attempt to think, act, and be, like an infinite creature shaped from endless Wyld, creator of worlds. It is a limited understanding but still an unsettling one... for as the Style progresses it follows the Primordial progression into the Yozi, which brings insights into the minds of these terrible creatures. This style is favored of Infernal Exalted and those who seek to understand and walk within the Demon Princes of Malfeas.

The Form Weapons of Infinite Masks Style are Chains, Fans and Wild-Fire Wheels, represending an entity that spreads or blossoms into infinity.

Student Charms

Spreading into Infinity
Cost: 4 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
Spreading her arms and her anima with it, the adept feel herself spreading into the world in a thousand grains and motes, able to perceive it from above, to see it all and act with fleet and might towards the mere ants beneath! Using this Charm, the adept adds her Awareness score to her Initiative, and does not suffer penalties from defending against attacks from behind in the turn it is activated. This Charm may only be activated once per turn.

Wrath of the World
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Spreading into Infinity
To fight a Primordial is to face the wrath of the world! Worlds and weather patterns into themselves, they hurl fire and ice and rain upon their opponents, breaking down their conviction! Ripping weather out of her anima and enveloping an enemy like the river that once enveloped Creation, The Adept imposes a dice penalty equal to her Essence on any physical action she can percieve. This is an environmental penalty.

Beyond the World
Cost: 4 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Martial Arts: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Spreading into Infinity
The Primordials are beings from beyond the world, greater than it. What one perceives as a Dragon of Shadows is merely an avatar of a world of shadows around oneself, and the true Primordial is everywhere, able to strike at any angle, from any place, claws and fangs existing anywhere within her infinity! Following this principle, the adept strikes an oponent from behind even as the opponent perceives the adept to be in front of him! This Charm supplements a close combat attack. The attack is treated as coming from behind, reducing the target's base defensive dice pool to 0 before dice-adding Charms. This applies to both Charm-inspired actions as well as normal dice actions. Opponents with the ability to see Essence-currents, such as those using All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, are immune to this Charm's effects.

Firstborn Rules Over All
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Beyond the World, Wrath of the World
Firstborn of Creation, the Primordials created all that is upon the land, and the world still remembers it's creators, and the Exalted who seeks to imitate their grandeur first learns to imitate their steps. With this charm, all of Creation recognizes his place in the Ordained Hierarchy of Things and seeks bow before the Exalted, giving sway to the revereance all things feel for their creators. When this charm is activated, opponents who seek to stop the adept find themselves suddenly hindered by the world - Grass seems to conceal stones that would bar their way, branches fly over their faces, birds sing ancient songs that warp the air, butterflies sway on their way, the geometry of winds and earth shifts to keep them away. Activating this Charm in response to a hostile action against herself, the adept rolls her Essence+Performance, with each success on this roll accruing an Enviromental Difficulty Penalty to the opponent's action. Should this Charm alone cause the action to fail and the opponent have rolled any 1s in his roll, he is considered to have botched his roll. This Charm cannot be used against any foe father than the adept's Essence x5 yards.

The Form

Infinite Masks Form
Cost: 7 motes
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Firstborn Rules Over All
The adept enacts the kata of the infinity, her Essence burning upon her face and anima in a haze of brass, forming the mask of a Primordial, edges reaching to infinity and taking the adept's Essence with it! This mask is a lattice of Brass or Lead, Sapphire or Emerald, the perfect visage of one of the great Yozis, the Martial Artist's Anima and Essence reshaped on the Yozi's own image! When the Exalt learns this Charm she chooses one Yozi Anima and receives that Anima Power in addition to her own. For the duration of this Form her Anima Banner receives the colors and aspect of the Yozi she has shaped herself as. Further, all interactions of the adept with Demon Souls of that particular Yozi receive a number of dice equal to the adept's Permanent Essence score. Upon enacting the Face of an Yozi the adept receives additional weaponry to Infinite Masks Form, depending on the Yozi's Mask...

• Malfeas favors Swords of all stripes, allowing the adept to receive the Orichalcum Material bonus from Brass Swords.
  
• Oramus favors Tiger's Claws, which adepts name Dragon's Claws, allowing the adept to receive the Moonsilver Material bonus from Gossamer Claws.
  
• Adorjan favors bows, receiving the Blue Jade Material bonus to ash-coated arrows.
  
• Cecelyne favors shuriken, allowing the adept to receive the Starmetal Material bonus from glass weapons.

This is a Celestial-level Martial Arts Form-type Charm. This Charm is incompatible with armor.

Mastery Charms

Warped Geometry Revolution
Cost: 6 motes, 1 willpower
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Infinite Masks Form
The Yozi break the world. They created time, space and fate, and may warp any of them at their whims. With their songs, up may be down, left may be right, the geometry of Creation shifts to allow them passage! As the adept enacts this kata his form blurs with Yozi-songs, and the world grants her passage where she wishes to be. For the remainder of the Scene, she adds her Performance score to her Running, Sprinting and Leaping distances, may walk on any direction and vector as long as she touches solid ground and may go through openings too small for their body to traverse normally. This Charm is incompatible with Armor.

Dance of One Thousand Souls
Cost: 7 motes, 1 willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Extra Action
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Warped Geometry Revolution
Looking inward, the Adept shapes her own Essence like that of an Yozi, his own vastness expressed into a infinite revolving spheres, her soul expressed by different impulses of love and hate both. Externalizing this lesson, the adept becomes aura about her many different souls as they walk the world to fulfill their mandate, her desires! Activating this Charm the adept becomes as five, one soul for each virtue standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her, molded in the shape of her own soul, each with their own mask, and each striking with their own whims! Each soul receives an attack this turn, each different attack receiving bonus dice equal to one of the character's corresponding Virtue. The adept's own attack receives a bonus dice equal to her Essence. As the movement finishes, the adept is one again. This Charm may explicitly be placed in Combos with Charms of other Abilities.

Heaven-Shattering Symphony
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Infinite Masks Form
The hooks of the Yozi bite deep within Creation still. The Celestial Bureaucracy was created to serve their needs, Yu-Shan as their throne, and although the Exalted were created for their liberation, the teeth of the Yozi are still sank deep within its Heavenly Harmony. Understanding the underlying order of the fallen Primordials, the Martial Artist embodies the superior edicts and orders of the Primordial, and every word and strike subvert the Celestial Order beneath his feet! An action taken against a member of the Celestial Bureaucracy with Heaven-Breaking Symphony is supplemented with a number of extra dice equal to the Martial Artist's Bureaucracy. Upon a successful attack using this Charm the adept can spend 1 willpower to leave a Primordial Edict upon the flesh of the Celestial Bureaucrat - for the remainder of the Scene it must suceed on a Conviction roll to attempt any action against the character.

Promised Suffering
Cost: 4 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Heaven-Shattering Symphony
The Yozi are not merely imprisioned in Malfeas. Each moment, each hour, each century they spend imprisioned allows them to craft more elaborate and terrifying suffering for those who imprisioned them, and as such, they do not mind. Let time pass, for time is their Creation, and their ally. Drawing on those lessons the adept may wait for his opponents, receiving no penalty for holding her action, but a damage bonus of 1L to her raw, pre-soak damage for every initiative tick spent waiting, although she may accumulate no more than her Essence+Craft damage in this way. When used against Exalted, this attack deals Aggravated Damage.

Dance of Five Inversions
Cost: 8 motes, 1 willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Heaven-Shattering Symphony, Warped Geometry Revolution
The prision of the Yozis is themselves. Malfeas, greatest of them, turned inside-out into the demon city. An endless desert to hold its own siblings. With rage at the Yozi's plight, the adept strikes at her foe and touching the five points that warp body and soul, bring upon his body the five inversions, turning body into prision! This Charm supplements a close combat attack that must connect with the opponent.

The attack does no damage, but the opponent loses his next turn as he is struck by a clinch attempt of his own Strength+the Adept's Essence, receiving the normal damage of his Strength due to the clinch, plus one die of unsoakable lethal damage dealt regardless of success or failture as his form attempts to invert itself. The victim may split his action to act in other ways, but must spend one action every turn wrestling with himself. The mechanics of this Charm allow the character to take one Extra Action aside for it even if he normally could not(for instance, if it was part of a combo). If the victim suceeds in the clinch roll a number of times equal to the Adept's Essence, the inversion is halted, and the effects of this Charm cease. If the victim is reduced to incapacitated by this Charm the inversion is complete, and his form is disfigured into a prision for his soul! The victim becomes sessile, and still, an sculpture of flesh, slowly healing into a new form, and nothing short of the Medicine power of Exalted is able to make him work like a normal person again.

The Ultimate Technique

Wrath of Infinity Unbound
Cost: 10 motes, 1 willpower, 1 health level
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 5
Prerequisite Charms: Promised Suffering, Dance of a Thousand Souls, Dance of Five Inversions
Nothing binds infinity. Nothing may bar the firstborn. Her Primordial Mask spreading in flare and light, she takes the appearance of the Yozi unbound, shattering all barriers, spreading into infinity with power and wrath! For the remainder of the Scene, the adept's grandeur ignores all enviromental penalties and may make close combat attacks up to (Essence x10) yards away, and her wrath deals aggravated damage to all Exalted, turning all bonus dice received by Infinite Masks Form and Heaven-Shattering Symphony into automatic successes, for one of such wrath has to be obeyed, at all costs.

Sidereal Exalted, and those who learn this Charm as a Sidereal Charm, can enhance it with a prayer strip marked with the scripture of the First Maiden. It coils about her face, enhancing her mask of Essence and making it a real one made of Primordial Perfection. This allows her to understand the Primordial perfectly - the Sidereal receives three Charms of that Yozi as long as she mantains the Charm of this Style. The Sidereal must have the pre-requisites for them - but can change which Charms she gains with each application of this Charm.

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