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Graven Butterfly Style

by FourWillowsWeeping

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Useful Info

The Graven Butterfly Style is a historical fighting style, a precursor to the Immaculate methods, which shares with them a concern for fighting spirits. The form weapon of the Graven Butterfly Style is the staff. Users of this Style often festoon themselves with many different figurines representing different gods; these effigies are believed to enhance the Style's own abilities to manipulate graven images.

This Style assumes you are using Powercombat and logical extension of dual wielding to that system; for each splittable action, you may make n actions with a weapon of Rate n, and this has no impact on whatever other weaponry you are using.

In the Modern Day

Today, the Graven Butterfly Style is generally taught in a flawed form which fails to exhibit its symmetry and elegance. There are three schismatic branches; each teaches only one of the Style's three culminating Charms, Dread Freedom, I Contain Infinity, and It Was Not My Only Face, and the flawed versions of the Charms they teach generally require that all the other Charms of the Style be learned before these are available. This hamstrung and heretical approach to the Graven Butterfly Style has made it seem weak and poorly-formed, in the face of the carefully preserved Immaculate tradition.

Rules Bits

At times, I make reference to Moxiane's dual-wielding rule, the relevant portion duplicated below:

Characters wielding two weapons at once get a bonus to one of Accuracy, Damage, Defence or Rate to one weapon, called the primary, equal to 50% (rounded up) of the same attribute of her other weapon, the secondary.

If you are actually using this rule, then the improvements these Charms provide are explicitly analogous to it, not applications of it. The Charms and the rule can be stacked, to provide 50% improvements in two stats or a 100% improvement in one. The primary of all the Charms is strictly arbitrary; it need not be the primary chosen for dual-wielding.

If you're using Stephenls's new Abilities and Martial Arts rules, this Style uses the Prayer Ability.

The Charms

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v520/fourwillows/Kungfu/gravenbutterfly.gif

Polluted Floral Idol

Cost: 3 motes, 1 Willpower

Duration: Instant

Type: Reflexive

Min. Martial Arts: 2

Min. Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: None

With this Charm, the adept marks a spirit – an elemental, demon, or god, this Charm is ineffective against the unnatural material of ghosts – with a smear of vegetal defilement. This desecration of the spirit's body allows the adept to use him as a proxy for various unpleasant fates. This mark must be delivered with a touch, which can be part of an unarmed attack or as a simple contact. If it is delivered as an attack, the attack is resolved normally, and if the strike hits (it need not cause any injury), then the spirit is marked. Simply making contact with the spirit is a dice action if the spirit is trying to avoid contact; the ST determines which Abilities are appropriate to roll, and the spirit needs two defensive successes to negate one offensive success. Some Abilities that are often appropriate are Athletics or an unarmed combat Ability to simply out-maneuver the spirit, or Performance and Larceny to use sleight-of-hand.

If the adept successfully marks the target, he must commit the 3 motes used to activate this Charm. This creates a spiritual connection between him and the spirit. Whenever an attack might inflict an effect beyond damage upon the adept, that effect is inflicted upon the spirit instead, unless the spirit succeeds at a reflexive Temperance roll. The spirit has a -2 dice penalty on this roll in the East, and wood elementals and gods native to the East always automatically fail.

Stirring Among White Flowers

Cost: 4 motes

Duration: Instant

Type: Supplemental

Min. Martial Arts: 3

Min. Essence: 1

Prerequisite Charms: None

In the way a butterfly moves from flower to flower, the adept moves from one opponent to another, seeking opportune moments to strike. When he uses this Charm, the adept advances upon his opponent. For each yard he moves, he adds 1 die to an unarmed Martial Arts attack. He may not add more dice than his Dexterity + Martial Arts. While this Charm is dependent upon movement, it does not generate it!

If the adept is using two identical staves, then he may also improve the damage of his attack, by striking simultaneously with both weapons and taking advantage of his momentum. He calculates the Damage of his attack with Moxiane's rule. This dual attack does not consume a unit of the secondary weapon's Rate.

Describe an Image of Gods

Cost: 3 motes

Duration: Instant

Type: Reflexive

Min. Martial Arts: 1

Min. Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: None

The adept subtly, dramatically changes his expression in response to an attack, to remind his opponent of the gods he worships or respects. The attacker falters briefly, making some gesture of supplication, before his strike connects. This reduces his successes on the attack by the adept's successes on an Essence + Appearance roll. Often, a distinctive, symmetrical pattern of markings appears in the adept's anima banner when he uses this Charm, if he is displaying one. The adept's martial lineage and ancestral home can be determined from this pattern, if one knowd how to interpret them.

Nectar of Prayers

Cost: None

Duration: Permanent

Type: Reflexive

Min. Martial Arts: 3

Min. Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Polluted Floral Idol, Stirring Among White Flowers, Describe an Image of Gods

When he learns this Charm, the adept builds a chrysalis in his soul and enshrines something incomprehensible there. This chrysalis is full of dark need, and when someone submits to the adept or he is present when he is offered ritual attention, he gains 1 Willpower point. It is possible to benefit from submission inspired by force in this manner, such as when an attacker falters before Describe an Image of God, but the adept may only benefit once a day from a particular supplicant, and never more often than once per turn.

Graven Butterfly Form

Cost: 5 motes

Duration: 1 scene

Type: Simple

Min. Martial Arts: 4

Min. Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Nectar of Prayers

In this Form, the adept allows the dark hunger in his heart to unfold, and thus doing allows him to attack with surprising speed and ferocity. When fighting with two staves, the stylist can attack nearly as swiftly as an unarmed man: he increases the Rate of each staff by 1.

While he is under the effect of this Charm, the martial artist may suck the Essence from a Hearthstone. This requires an unrolled dice action, and if he wishes to suck the Essence of a stone borne by someone who is actively preventing him from touching it, he must first separate the stone and the individual, or else control a clinch with that opponent. When he chooses to maintain the clinch in question, he may simultaneously suck the Essence of a stone. Sucking the Essence of a Hearthstone grants the adept twice the stone's rating in motes and renders that stone ineffective for the remainder of the scene. Its owner does not lose attunement with it, but recieves no benefits from it.

Finally, while under this Form, Polluted Floral Idol can be used to affect ghosts in the same way as it affects other spirits.

Dread Freedom

Cost: 3 motes, 1 Willpower

Duration: 1 scene

Type: Simple

Min. Martial Arts: 5

Min. Essence: 3

Prerequisite Charms: Graven Butterfly Form

When under the effect of this Charm, the character is sped by predatory glee. He is energized when others express excitement, fear, or simply especial effort. In this state, he may leap and bound freely; his movement speed is doubled and he needs to alight on a support only for the briefest time. Each turn, he must push off some material obstacle, though it need not support his weight; the tops of a cluster of reeds, a flagpole, even a tent wall will do. He is able to end his turn in the air.

When some other character spends Willpower points in the martial artist's presence, the martial artist increases his Dexterity by 1 for the purposes of calculating his movement speed this turn; this includes normal movement and also other effects that measure distances.

The Birth of Storms

Cost: None

Duration: Permanent

Type: Reflexive

Min. Martial Arts: 4

Min. Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Stirring Among White Flowers

This Charm allows the character to deliver blows with only a slight stirring of his limbs. He understands the motions of air precisely, which enables him to transform a motion into a throbbing pulse of hardened air which hits at precisely the right place. The cost of this attack is force; for each yard beyond his natural reach the adept wishes to extend an unarmed Martial Arts attack, he must sacrifice a damage die. He may not reduce his attack's base damage below 0 in this way.

Tempest-Herald Stance

Cost: 3 motes

Duration: 1 scene

Type: Reflexive

Min. Martial Arts: 4

Min. Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: The Birth of Storms, Graven Butterfly Form

While enacting this Stance, the adept is able to pursue his enemies. After he makes an attack, he may instantly move up to his Dexterity in yards to approach the same or a different opponent.

If the character knows this Stance and also the Kite-Paper-Effigy Stance, and he is under the effect of the Graven Butterfly Form, then he may, on his initiative, deactivate one Stance and activate the other; this costs no motes and does not decommit the motes used to activate this Stance. Effectively, the commitment is transferred to the other Charm, without requiring the adept to expend additional motes or use his Charm for the turn.

I Contain Infinity

Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower

Duration: Instant

Type: Extra Actions

Min. Martial Arts: 5

Min. Essence: 3

Prerequisite Charms: Tempest-Herald Stance

The master seems to burst into a fluttering cloud of disparate parts as he uses this Charm. He has a number of splittable actions this turn equal to one-half his Essence, rounded up. He may use these for any actions requiring the Dexterity Attribute, but must appeal to other resources if he wishes to use other Attributes.

When he uses this Charm, the master enjoys a synergy with The Birth of Storms. He may reduce the damage of one attack to lengthen the range of another, and one die of damage converts into (permanent Essence * 5) yards, rather than 1 yard. Unfortunately, when he takes advantage of this effect his attacks have less cohesion; reducing an attack's base damage to 0 causes that attack to fail.

Obsidian Wings Parting

Cost: 4 motes

Duration: Instant

Type: Reflexive

Min. Martial Arts: 3

Min. Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Describe an Image of Gods

The adept eches the butterfly's symmetry in this defence; he makes two dodge attempts or two unarmed Martial Arts parry attempts against an attack. The first defence roll has a base pool equal to the adept's Dexterity, and the second, the appropriate Ability. Constant bonuses such as a weapon's Defence or the benefit of hearthstone bracers apply equally to both rolls, but instant bonuses such as those of Shadow Over Water must be purchased separately.

Kite-Paper-Effigy Stance

Cost: 3 motes

Duration: 1 scene

Type: Reflexive

Min. Martial Arts: 4

Min. Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Obsidian Wings Parting, Graven Butterfly Form

While enacting this Stance, the adept is able to flee his enemies. After he rolls a dodge or parry against an attack, he may instantly move up to one-half, rounding up, of his Dexterity in yards to put distance between himself and his attacker. While this Charm is in effect, the adept may use Describe an Image of God freely, without its activation counting as Charm use.

If the character knows this Stance and also the Tempest-Herald Stance, and he is under the effect of the Graven Butterfly Form, then he may, on his initiative, deactivate one Stance and activate the other; this costs no motes and does not decommit the motes used to activate this Stance. Effectively, the commitment is transferred to the other Charm, without requiring the adept to expend additional motes or use his Charm for the turn.

It Was Not My Only Face

Cost: 2 motes, 1 Willpower

Duration: Instant

Type: Reflexive

Min. Martial Arts: 5

Min. Essence: 3

Prerequisite Charms: Kite-Paper-Effigy Stance

Using this defence, the master of the Graven Butterfly Style positions himself so that an attack does not harm him so completely; he rolls Appearance + Martial Arts at a difficulty of the victim's Essence to align himself with some other person no more than his Dexterity in yards away; if the roll succeeds, then the successes of the attack are divided in half (rounding the halves up), and these are resolved as separate attacks against two distinct targets. If the adept uses defences prior to using this Charm, then the secondary target may not use those defences. This Charm may be used only once against a particular attack.

Comments

A nifty style and, as mentioned on WoDIRC filled with potentially obscene combinations of effects. ^_^ Also, while I am pleased that my dual-wielding rule is referenced elsewhere, it seems to me that mentioning the rule and then only using it in one Charm (particularly when taken with your stance on dual-wielding in PowerCombat, the two are IMO incompatible in intent) could be confusing. I would suggest simply saying that Stirring Among White Flowers increases the Damage of the staff by 50% (rounded up) when the Stylist uses two identical staves. - Moxiane

^_^ Using your rule is part of my one-man campaign to make the Wiki more interlinked and less of a gallery of walled gardens collected only by userpages. - willows

I can see, applaud and agree with the logic behind that. - Moxiane