MartialArts/ForceOfLifeStyle

Force-of-Life Style Martial Arts

• Type: Sidereal
• Weapons: Typically none, though Solars using this style may use Essence-based weapons such as the Glorious Solar Saber. The Terrestrial Circle Spell Spirit Sword may be used with this style.
• Armor: No. (you won’t need it)

The Student’s Sutra of Life:

• Once, there was a maiden, who knew everything.

Essence-Damming Palm

• Cost: 5 motes
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Supplemental
• Minimum MA: 5
• Minimum Essence: 4
• Prerequisites: None

How to build up walls,

The Martial Artist knows the way Essence flows and strikes the exact points so that its flow is disrupted. This requires a successful martial arts attack. For five turns thereafter, add the Martial Artist’s Essence to the mote cost of the target’s charms and sorcery. If used on a mortal, they cannot use their essence at all for the next five turns. Repeated uses of this charm stack.

Essence Draining Strike

• Cost: 5 motes
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Simple
• Minimum MA: 5
• Minimum Essence: 4
• Prerequisite: None

How to change a river’s flow,

Upon a successful martial arts attack, roll the attacker’s Strength + Essence vs. the target’s Stamina + Essence. The defending roll is made at difficulty 3, plus the successes achieved on the attack. If the attacker wins, she drains 2 motes of Essence for every success from the target’s pool. These refill her pool, but cannot raise it above normal.

Willpower-Crushing Hold

• Cost: 8 motes
• Duration: Until Clinch ends
• Type: Reflexive
• Minimum MA: 5
• Minimum Essence: 4
• Prerequisite: None

And how to destroy them.

While in a clinch, either initiated or placed into, the Martial Artist may opt to drain a point of her target’s temporary willpower instead of doing damage. This can lower a target’s willpower to zero. If the clinch continues after all willpower is gone, she begins to drain her target’s virtue points. If the target is a Solar or Lunar, this cannot drain the primary virtue lower than necessary for the great curse, however all other virtues can be lowered to zero. This will affect the use of Spirit charms. Virtues regain at the rate of one per day.

Invincible Spirit Stance

• Cost: 10 motes, 1 wp
• Duration: 5 turns
• Type: Simple
• Minimum MA:5
• Minimum Essence: 5
• Prerequisite: Essence Damming Palm, Essence Draining Strike, Willpower Crushing Hold

she new what was necessary to be strong

For the next 5 turns, all damage done unto the martial artist is halved. Lethal damage becomes bashing, and aggravated becomes lethal. She is simply immune to bashing damage. What this means is that incoming lethal damage is soaked as bashing, incoming aggravated is soaked as lethal and bashing is simply deflected. If the user has the Gem of Adamant Skin and the incoming damage would have been lethal before its effects, then the damage is still soaked as bashing.

Force of Life Form

• Cost: 12 motes
• Duration: One Scene
• Type: Simple
• Minimum MA: 5
• Minimum Essence:5
• Prerequisite: one complete martial art, Invincible Spirit Stance.

And how to make Death back down.

For the rest of the scene lethal is turned to bashing, and bashing damage is simply deflected, as per the effects of Invincible Spirit Stance. She heals a number of bashing damage levels equal to half her Essence, rounded up a turn and heals one lethal health level every two turns. She may reflexively pay 3 motes for the effects of Essence-Damming Palm and/or Essence Draining Strike.

• The Elder Sutra of Life:

People did not understand this maiden, but Essence did, and it advanced her knowledge.

Every Atom Attack

• Cost: 15 motes, 1 wp
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Simple
• Minimum MA: 6
• Minimum Essence: 6
• Prerequisite: Force of Life Form

She learned to use her body and soul

The Martial Artist, pours Essence, the Force of Life into her muscles, preparing single, ultimately deadly attack that will strike with all that she has—body and soul. This is a single unblockable, undodgeable attack with its damage tripled.

Mind-Targeting Blow

• Cost: 20 motes
• Duration: Instant
• Type: Simple
• Minimum MA: 6
• Minimum Essence: 6
• Prerequisite: Force of Life Form

To master all things unknown

The Martial Artist knows precisely where to strike in order to make her opponent crumble—but not necessarily physically. The Martial Artist makes a standard attack roll, and upon success rather than rolling damage makes a Strength + Martial Arts roll against the target’s Stamina + Essence, difficulty equal to the Martial Artist’s Essence. If the attack succeeds, the target is drained of all willpower and loses a number of motes equivalent to [(user’s Essence x3)+ # of successes)].

Incomparable Essence Succor

• Cost: 20 motes, 1 willpower
• Duration: One Scene
• Type: Simple
• Minimum MA: 6
• Minimum Essence:6
• Prerequisite: Force of Life Form

And thus, to make the world her own.

By opening the channels of Essence in her body to the widest extent, the Martial Artist invoking this charm is capable of enhancing her own body to its maximum. The increased blood and essence flow into her limbs gives her her Martial Arts in additional dots in strength and stamina and half her MA (Round up) in dots of Dexterity. This applies to everything. Any physical action involving Strength Dexterity or Stamina is made with her Essence in automatic successes. If the successes alone would satisfy the difficulty, then there is no need to roll, though additional successes may be required at Storyteller’s discretion.

Perfect Combat Mastery

• Cost: 20 motes, 1 willpower
• Duration: One Scene
• Type: Simple
• Minimum MA: 6
• Minimum Essence:6
• Prerequisites: Mind-Targeting Blow, Every Atom Attack, Incomparable Essence Succor

And with this knowledge,

As the Martial Artist understands perfectly the flows of Essence, thus she understands how to apply them to battle. For the rest of the scene, she may parry any sort of incoming attack with her bare hands, and may reflexively respond with a mighty counterattack. This is a persistent parry. Such counterattacks deal lethal damage. She may reflexively spend 3 motes and 1 willpower to make any of her parries perfect (this must be declared beforehand) or 5 motes and 1 willpower to make a perfect counterattack. Anything blocked with a perfect block stops with no harm to the character. She does not need to be using a weapon or an item to block it. Even if she stops a falling star, her hands will not be burned. If she is fighting unarmed, her barehands have the statistics of +Essence to all stats, which stack with any other effect, such as Perfection of Earth Body or Perfected Kata Bracers.

Wondrous Essence Unity

• Cost: 30 motes, 1 willpower
• Duration: One Day
• Type: Simple
• Minimum MA: 8
• Minimum Essence:8
• Prerequisite: Perfect Combat Mastery

She could not be harmed.

For a full day after the activation of this charm, the user’s Essence cannot be tampered with, her soul cannot be removed, and she cannot be changed by any means, other than her own will. This means that attacks that dam or drain Essence lose their effects. Charms such as Maw of Dripping Venom, Soul Mastery, Soul Flaying Strike and other such effects that target the life force fail. She cannot be changed by Pattern Spider Touch, nor by any sorcery that is not cast by herself, nor Wondrous Lunar Transformation, etc. HOWEVER, if the user WILLINGLY allows a target to take her Essence or Soul, then the effects of this charm do not apply…obviously. She will not be warped or demented by the chaotic forces of the Wyld, regardless of how far deep in she goes. Additionally, her body surges with the Force of Life, and for the duration of this charm treat the character as though she was under the effects of the Gem of Incomparable Wellness. She may also soak aggravated damage with her lethal soak. All inhabitants of the Underworld, find her presence uncomfortable and must make a conviction roll at difficulty 3 to approach her, even under non-combat circumstances. If any inhabitant of the Underworld makes contact with her truly Living skin, they immediately take half her Essence (rounded down) in unsoakable levels of lethal damage. This is a perfect effect. If she is fighting in a Shadowland, the Unity of her Life Essence is so great that the bridge between the world of the Dead and the world of the Living beings to receed. For every day spent in the Shadowland (while under the effects of this charm), subtract a year from the amount of time it would take to close it. If it suits the story, the character may make attacks against the Essence of Death holding the Shadowland in place at a difficulty of (3x#of miles the Shadowland spreads). This is explicitly permitted to be an extended roll. If successful, the Shadowland vanishes permanently and a verdant forest appears in its place. The motes and willpower required to maintain such unity remain committed until the charm ends or is called off.

Here's the full Sutra

• The Student’s Sutra of Life

Once, there was a maiden, who knew everything. How to build up walls, How to change a river’s flow, And how to destroy them. She new what was necessary to be strong And how to make Death back down.

• The Elder Sutra of Life

People did not understand this maiden, but Essence did, and it advanced her knowledge. She learned to use her body and soul To master all things unknown And thus, to make the world her own. And with this knowledge, She could not be harmed.