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Survival charms

Unnatural Selection

• Cost: 1 mote per die
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Supplemental
• Minimum Survival: 2
• Minimum Essence: 1
• Prerequisite Charms: None

All of the Infernal’s surroundings lend themselves to his aid; predators ignore him, deer nestle down fearlessly at his side, and plants grow fruit and nuts at the expense of all other things. The Exalt may add one die per mote spent to a Survival roll to survive in hostile environments or support others, but cannot more than double his pool. This does not come without consequence – over the course of a season, predators will starve to death, prey animals will be killed by their own acquiescence and plants will die from the strain of producing so many fruit, nuts and buds. An Infernal living off the land must be nomadic, for they create death all about them.

Treachery Of Foot

• Cost: 2 motes per die
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Supplemental
• Minimum Survival: 2
• Minimum Essence: 2
• Prerequisite Charms: Unnatural Selection

Pouring malady in ripples of corrupt Essence behind him, an Infernal using this Charm becomes almost impossible to track. His pursuers tread on his footprints, trample broken twigs and otherwise do a perfectly good job at covering his tracks for him. The Exalt may steal die from an opponent's Survival pool to add to his own, solely for the purposes of tracking. If nobody is following him at the time, he may still enhance his own pool (as wild animals mar his tracks), but doesn't decrease the dice pool for future efforts to track him.

Rapacious Avalanche Technique

• Cost: 5 motes
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Simple
• Minimum Survival: 4
• Minimum Essence: 2
• Prerequisite Charms: Unnatural Selection

Siphoning ambient Essence through his anima, the Infernal taints his surroundings with the cancer of his own soul. Parasites know no bounds, and run rampant across all landscape within a mile of the Exalt. Within a week, the area will be a morass of ivy, carrion feeders and biting insects, inhospitable to all other life.

Brutal Geometry Prana

• Cost: 5 motes
• Duration: One day
• Type: Simple
• Minimum Survival: 4
• Minimum Essence: 3
• Prerequisite Charms: Treachery of Foot, Rapacious Avalanche Technique

Bending and pinching geometry around him in an imitation of Malfeas himself, the Infernal makes even the most clearly-marked trail into a bewildering maze. An area up to a mile across centred on the Exalt becomes a labyrinth of confused trails, requiring a Perception + Survival roll at a difficulty equal to the Infernal's Essence to successfully navigate, although no obvious physical changes are made. The effect of this Charm on busy market squares is predictably chaotic.

Deviation Warding Attitude

• Cost: 10 motes
• Duration: One day
• Type: Simple
• Minimum Survival: 2
• Minimum Essence: 2
• Prerequisite Charms: Unnatural Selection

The Infernal channels foulness through his anima, creating an instinctual antipathy toward him. All natural animals recognise the Infernal as something tainted and corrupt, and shirk or ignore him. Magical animals, people and other sentient creatures are less affected, and may overcome the compulsion with a successful Willpower check. Regardless, they suffer from +1 difficulty to any attempt to directly interact with the Exalt (this explicitly includes attacks, but not defences).

Baleful Instinct

• Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Simple
• Minimum Survival: 4
• Minimum Essence: 3
• Prerequisite Charms: Deviation Warding Attitude

As the Infernal hones his manipulation of basic responses further, he may imbed an instinct of his choice into creatures’ minds. Upon activation of this Charm, the Exalt rolls Manipulation + Survival, with a difficulty equal to the complexity of the instinct; “red things are tasty” would be difficulty 1, whilst “buildings with triangular spires, when the sound of a bell is ringing, are enemies and all within them must be attacked” would be difficulty 5. If successful, all creatures aware of the Infernal gain that instinct, and will pass it to their offspring. This has no effect on animals with an Intelligence above 1, and the Storyteller is the final arbiter of what can and cannot be understood by the animals in question.

Clever-Fingered Neomah Method

• Cost: 8 motes, 1 Willpower, 1 experience point
• Duration: One week
• Type: Simple
• Minimum Survival: 4
• Minimum Essence: 3
• Prerequisite Charms: Unnatural Selection

Some say the Games of Divinity are the embodiment of all life – through use of this Charm, an Infernal can parody their immortal enemies. The Exalt takes a specimen of one creature, and using desecrated tools and wisps of his own lifeflow splices in an element of another – something might be given the ability to fly, generate poison, gain an attribute point, change an emotional trait, breed twice as fast or some similar benefit with each application of this Charm. Such changes are cumulative, and passed down generations to the hybrid’s offspring.

This has several drawbacks. Each alteration carries some unusual drawback with it, such as an unusual allergy, dietary requirement or mental fixation that cannot be predicted or controlled by the Infernal. The changes are physical, requiring the spliced animals in question – giving a monkey the ability to hover like a hummingbird, for example, would require an awful lot of hummingbirds’ wings. Additionally, the Charm has no effect on supernatural, Wyld-mutated or Exalted beings – such things are not the toys of the gods.

Survival Of The Foulest

• Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
• Duration: One month
• Type: Simple
• Minimum Survival: 5
• Minimum Essence: 4
• Prerequisite Charms: Rapacious Avalanche Technique, Clever-Fingered Neomah Method

Through use of this Charm, an Infernal can lend another species his miraculous ability to survive, altering his surrounds to their prosperity. The Infernal first selects a given species, whether it be poison ivy, wasps, or something of his own making. This species must be present within a mile and capable of producing offspring. All land within a mile of the Exalt subtly shifts, the balance of ecosystems changing until all remaining life protects or serves as fodder for the chosen species. This, predictably, causes a massive population explosion; the land will continue to foster more and more until, at the end of the month, all nutrients are gone and the land becomes barren. This, predictably, causes a mass exodus of the chosen species.

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Feedback

It was tricky coming up with the inspiration for these Charms and I've been left with a few less than I'd hoped for, but I'm pretty happy with the overall effect...DeathBySurfeit

No 'Evade Tracking' Charm? I find that a little surprising, considering the need to flee would hardly be unusual. Perhaps a Fools Walk in Circles Technique that adds dice or successes or difficulty to evade tracking...? Just a thought... - nikink Ooh, another thought, perhaps a Charm that works like your other Charms that adds dice to the Survival roll to evade tracking by stealing the dice used to Track? Now, this would be awkward, because you might never know if you are being tracked and thus may not have a dice-pool to steal from - however, what if it worked in a way that the Infernal spends the motes on the Charm, but doesn't get any tangible benefit. If and When the Infernal is being tracked, the tracker then loses that many dice and has them rolled to generate added difficulty, before they begin. Whaddaya reckon? Too complicated?

Nice one! Not at all complicated, either. I've added one in, complete with your own choice of name. It also inspired a follow-up Charm, Get Lost...DeathBySurfeit

Added Death Of Innocence Method as an afterthought - any thoughts? ...DeathBySurfeit

Nice flavour, but as it stands I can't see a point as those things that can be eaten are almost certainly harder to get in the first place... I'd link this to a specialty essence pool, in the same manner as Blood-Feast Technique... So buy this Charm up to Something times and gain an additional Essence Pool of 10 each time that may only be refilled by the consuming of some purity or innocence. That something could be as straightforward as Suvival, but I reckon it'd be cooler to be the Infernal's Lowest Sin (or Virtue, if you want to view it that way...) as that would encourage great sinning and defilement... B-) - Nikink

An Infernally-inspired idea if there ever was one. Implemented! ...DeathBySurfeit

Cool, I'd have each morsel of innocence and purity give the Infernal essence equal to the morsel' Virtue total. Thus encouraging the absolute corruption of the most pure and virtuous people. - Nikink

..Virgin's menstrual blood? The tears of children? This isn't psychopathic servant-of-evil villainy, this is shitty-horror-novel villainy. I have nothing to say about the mechanics of it, but the concept is poor, in my opinion. - Will

Thanks for the opinion, Will. It was implemented to foster a sense of alien-ness amidst the Infernals (the Yozis themselves are much stranger still, including their diets); I would suggest people not liking the idea not implement it or just not take that particular Charm, but if public opinion is that it undermines the rest I'll consider removing it. And I like the idea, Nikink, but it creates problems when trying to work out the Virtues of flowerbuds...DeathBySurfeit

Nahh, easy. Non-sentient/non-living things get assigned between 1 and 3 'virtues' depending on the quality and size of the thing. Most objects will only have 1, a plant (due to being alive) could have 2, and a particularly fine example of something 'innocent', say a collection of pretty rocks and flowers gathered by a five-year-old for his dying mother could have the 3. Of course, more satisfying for the Infernal would be to consume the boy, and more satisfying still to slaughter the boy's sister in front of him and feed chunks of her to him whilst collecting the tears of innocence defiled... but I digress... - Nikink

..Man, that's horrible. And not horrible as in 'oh my, that's an awful thing to do!' horrible, but 'that is *so* lame' horrible. It tries *way* too hard, goes past the boundaries of good taste, and enters the realm of disgusting stuff that makes for a really unpleasant gaming atmosphere. Furthermore, it really doesn't seem to fit with the wilderness despoiling/mutating theme going on here. It's just.. bad. - Will

Personally, I'd completely re-work Death of Innocence into a group of Death of [Virtue] Method charms, taken a max times equal to survival or the corresponding sin. Corruption pools (mote pools from this charm) refill when someone in range fails a roll on the corresponding virtue (maybe with motes equal to the number of dice that came up failures). It's more complex but.. damnit, I like complex! -Vaegrim

That doesn't actually influence the Infernal to do anything, unlike the Sidereal and Abyssal Essence-regain Charms; I'd make it when the Infernal makes someone fail a Virtue check. - willows

I like that, though it might be a good idea to split the charms up into other abilities, the way the Sidereal version is done -Seraph

PS: Will... you're only a little more new here than I am (I think) but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that calling other people's stuff "shitty," "lame," and "just bad" isn't really constructive criticism, and it's bound to lead to hurt feelings. Maybe you should find a different way to point out the flaws - even the fatal flaws - of someone's ideas.

Cool stuff, but what makes Survival of the Foulest worth taking, when Tip the Iceberg really achieves the same thing, that is, ruining a patch of land? - Seraph

I apologize for my word choice; I admit, my feelings on this are fairly strong because I like everything else so much and this seems very out-of place.. anyway, Survival of the Foulest seems to be something that allows you to kill off a patch of land *and* allow a species to overrun the surrounding land after it's been despoiled, which could start a chain reaction. I think. - Will

My two cents: I'm rather split on a lot of this. The Charm names, in particular, bother me -- some of them are nice, but then you have things like "Get Lost" and "Unnatural Selection" that sound like jokes and would personally take me right out of the flow. Also, on the (apparently controversial) subject of Death of Innocence method: I have to agree with Will, although not in terms so strong. The tone os very "mwah-hah-hah-hah-hah" slasher-villain evil, not the unnatural evil that's been the focal point of the Infernal Charms so far. It just seems gratuitous, and I think Will is right that it bears the potential to take games to really unpleasant places. (On the other hand, the opposite could be true -- since flower buds are so much more common than, say, babies' skin and require almost no effort to harvest and eat, why would you ever eat anything else for this Charm, besides flavor? The idea of an Infernal who subsists on flowers is just sort of hilarious.) Finally, Playing Gods doesn't strike me as a particularly Survival-like Charm; I would put it under Lore, Occult, Medicine, or possibly Craft. It fits with the tree sort of poorly, IMHO. (The name bugs me, too -- I would call it something else. Maybe "Clever-Fingered Neomah Method?") -- AntiVehicleRocket

I was thinking about these (the project's in general) Charm names too. I think, as a general rule, the off-putting ones are either too casual, or use English idioms in them, which makes them stand out from the others—you'll notice that the Solar Charms incorporate Book of 5 Rings swordsmanship terms, and the Dragonblooded Charms are very much Chinese poetry material, but no Charms lean heavily on English figures of speech. Except Lunar Charms, which are just bad. - willows

Yeah, I think that's what it is for me, too. Charms with names like "Unnatural Selection" just clash with all the other Charm names, in the printed material and fan supplements; that, and they sound a whole lot like the sort of joke-Charms that get thrown around during non-serious moments of sessions ("Yeah, I'm gonna use Totally Hit Him A Lot Prana!"). Very much a mood-breaker in a project that otherwise has some excellent flavor text and tone. -- AntiVehicleRocket

Maybe it's just me but killing someting for food no matter how gruesome isn't slasher movie psychovillian it's plain scary.Ok now before i'm blasted for my opinion here's why i think this way. 1)as humans we create prepare and eat kosher meat. 2)We also eat and Enjoy veal.3)have you seen a slaughter house.and as far as getting out of hand that's where in game consequenses come in. that was my 2cent. -- Issaru

Um, I don't really want to get into an entire discussion on the revulsion factor and/or moral equivalency of meat-eating, but what does this have to do with anything? -- AntiVehicleRocket

Woah! Nice to see such controversy surrounding my work. Thanks for taking the time to espouse your thoughts, all of you, and I'll do my best to address as many as I can.

What makes Survival Of The Foulest worth taking? You could create, say, wasps imbued with arrow frog poison using Playing Gods, instill them with some dark purpose with Baleful Instinct, breed them into massive numbers with Survival Of The Foulest and have a biblical plague at your command.

Get Lost has been renamed as Brutal Geometry Prana, on grounds that the original name was indeed rubbish. Inspiration for an Infernal Survival tree was difficult as I couldn't imagine them synchronising with the environment in any way. The solution was to theme them around harnessing and manipulating the forces of nature and balance of life; the genetics references stem from this idea. However, if they're undermining the Charms I'm open to suggestions for another naming method.

Death of Innocence has been removed, in parallel with public opinion. To be honest, I'm biased toward Infernals being protagonists in my stories, and the Charm was specifically designed to back up set pieces, themselves designed to show my players how unwholesome the Infernals really are. In an undirected manner, though, I can see how it can lean toward cheesy.

With regards Charm naming, I have very little grasp of many ancient texts and have consequently fallen back on my own area of knowledge, which is to say English idioms. I hadn't imagined it being a problem until now, but I see your point. I'll read a few occult texts over the weekend and see what I can come up with. I'm also considering basing them off of Book of Revelations imagery; what would people want as a naming pattern, or is the present system sufficient? ...DeathBySurfeit

You don't need a grasp of ancient texts per se, but a formal or poetic style is preferable to a casual and slangy one. Infernal Charms are the chosen princes of dark, baleful gods warping the very fabric of the universe, and titles that are dismissive of this will make readers (and your players) dismissive too. Names that are respectful of the magnificent horror being committed will likewise tend to create a more awe-inspiring mood. -Ben-San, who also wonders just how many Exalted charm-writers know what a prana is

Small vicious Amazonian fish, isn't it? ;) Nikink

Something you add to two words to turn it into a Charm name? Hee hee...DeathBySurfeit

What you get with your veal at a Steakhouse, usually covered in batter and fried. ^^ -Suzume

To get a little bit back on topic... yeah, I can see how writing an Infernal Survival tree would be really hard, since Infernals are by their very natures so contrary to the natural world. I'm not sure I entirely agree with the genetic-manipulation and ecosystem-rearrangement tack, but I can at least respect it as a reasonable interpretation of a difficult skillset. I also like "Brutal Geometry Prana" vastly better than "Get Lost," so kudos to that. -- AntiVehicleRocket

On Charm names again—I have to point out that you've got a bunch that are also completely excellent, like the Endurance ones (Shell Outlives Tortoise and Ever Finer Blades are very memorable). If it helps, the way I like to name Charms is to try and suggest a visual image with them, or alternatively, to make a reference to something irrelevant, like Exploding Crane Stance and Vermillion Iron Hrmony, respectively. Another thing that's helped me a lot with Charm names, like Orabilis' Theophanic Reinterpretation, is to think of a game-world rationalization for the Charm's existence and then pull out a thesaurus and find archaic words that fit. I'm sure other people have other Charm-naming methodologies; maybe I'll start a discussion on them later. - willows

Late night inspiration, and an accordant massive Charm name overhaul...DeathBySurfeit

Is it just me, or do alot of these charms seem very, very hard for the "forces of creation" to counteract? Even a nature based solar with all 10 survial charms could do nothing about "Rapacious Avalanche Technique" or "Survival of the Foulest" could little, nay, nothing to counteract them. SotF seems more like the dark mirror of "benefaction of arch-genisis", a solar level spell, than an actual charm. I think maybe a overhall of the rather pathetic Solar survival tree is in order, instead of changing what was obviously a very hard tree to write considering all the commentary its received.

Oh, and I think Deviation Warding Attitude should have its essence commited, it is adding 1 to ALL difficulties. Shining Mongoose

It does have its essence committed. The duration is one day, thus, the essence is committed for one day, or until deactivated.
-- Darloth

Darloth's correct on this one, and I'd hazard that to 'interact with or attack' is to cover most possible checks. Regardless, I've clarified things in that regard. Good points about the ineffectuality of Solar survival Charms; time to invent some new ones, I believe...DeathBySurfeit