CallMeCanon/Alchemicals/Colossus
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Keyword: Colossus
Charms with this keyword are designed for the massive bodies of Colossal Alchemicals, and all have Essence Minimums of 6 or 7. While they can in theory be installed by Eclipse Solars or others who can learn Alchemical charms, that Exalt’s body must be altered to meet the size requirement on top of meeting all other prerequisites.
Colossus Charms with minimum Essence 6 have a minimum height requirement of 15 feet.
Colossus Charms with minimum Essence 7 have a minimum height requirement of 20 feet.
Keyword: Municipal
Municipal Charms are designed for Me/Patropoli, and all have Essence Minimums of 8 or higher. Again, it is theoretically possible for Eclipse or others to install such Charms, but they must somehow have a body the size of a city in order to do so. There will be no set of rules listed here to allow this: it is up to the Storyteller to judge whether a given charm is possible to install.
In the case of a Me/Patropolis, charms with the Obvious keyword are only obvious if the Charm itself is within range of whatever senses might perceive it; someone in the southern corner of a Metropolis is not necessarily aware of what is happening in its northern blocks.
Colossus Charms
Remote Drone-Body Guidance
"[This Charm] allows [the Alchemical] to grow a replica of her former human-scale body and outfit it with a remote-controlled dummy
soulgem, allowing her to carry out operations on a human scale."
-- Manual of Exalted Power: The Alchemicals, pg. 176
Cost: Varies [4m]
Minimums: Essence 6
Type: Simple
Keywords: Colossus, Internal, Obvious
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Mobile Sensory Drone
The Colossus creates a copy of her old human-sized body. This process takes a number of hours based on the Essence rating of the copy. The cost and other effects of this Charm also vary with the Essence rating of the copy. This Charm can make a Drone-Body of up to Essence 3, or 4 with the Core Transplant Submodule. Me/Patropolis cannot use this Charm; instead they use its Municipal upgrade Avatar-Launching Silo.
The Drone-Body functions as a human-sized Mobile Sensory Drone, and may benefit from the “Playback” and “Upgraded Senses” Submodules if they are installed for that charm. It is automatically considered to have the Communication Submodule. Its mote pools are calculated using its Essence rating and half the Willpower and Virtue ratings of the Alchemical, rounded up.
Controlling the Drone-Body requires the Alchemical's entire attention. While she remains fully aware of her own body, she cannot use it and the Drone-Body in the same action, even with a flurry or a Charm. Any time she spends an action controlling the Drone-Body, her own DV becomes 0 until her next action, and cannot be raised except by Charms that are explicit exceptions to this rule. Reintegrating the Drone-Body takes a number of minutes equal to the number of hours it took to construct.
The Drone-Body’s Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, and Appearance start at one dot each, and the Alchemical may distribute a number of dots among them depending on which version of the Charm is used at the time of the Drone-Body’s creation; these dots remain fixed until and unless the Drone-Body is disassembled and rebuilt. For all other Attributes, Abilities, Virtues, and Willpower, it uses the Alchemical’s ratings.
Any Charm Slots equipped to the Drone-Body may be outfitted with any charms the Alchemical owns and has access to, and for which the Drone-Body meets all prerequisites. Each version of this Charm transfers a different number of Charm Slots from the Alchemical to the Drone-Body, so long as she has them to spare. At minimum, her Alchemical body must keep enough Charm Slots to hold this Charm and all its prerequisites. As part of using this Charm, the Alchemical may use banked Experience points to buy new Charm Slots.
So long as the Alchemical has Perfected Lotus Matrix installed and her consciousness is actively controlling the Drone-Body, it may use any Martial Arts Charms the Alchemical knows.
The Drone-Body has its own Health-Levels and damage track, calculated as normal for an Alchemical of its Attributes and Essence Rating. It can never have any Dying Health Levels. If the Drone-Body dies, treat it as this Charm being amputated. If the Alchemical’s consciousness was inhabiting the Drone-Body at the time of its death, she takes one level of Aggravated damage.
The lethal health levels paid as part of the price to construct the Drone-Body should be considered "committed health levels", and cannot be healed by any means until the Drone-Body has been fully reintegrated, at which point they are healed automatically.
Essence 1:
Cost: 10m, 1wp, 1lhl, 5 hours
The Alchemical may distribute 4 dots among the Drone-Body’s physical Attributes.
It may have up to one Dedicated Charm Slot and one General Charm Slot.
Its mote pools are halved, rounded down.
Essence 2:
Cost: 15m, 2wp, 2lhl, 10 hours
The Alchemical may distribute 6 dots among the Drone-Body’s physical Attributes.
It may have up to three Dedicated Charm Slots and two General Charm Slots.
Essence 3:
Cost: 25m, 3wp, 4lhl, 20 hours
The Alchemical may distribute 10 dots among the Drone-Body’s physical Attributes.
It may have up to six Dedicated Charm Slots and four General Charm Slots.
Submodules:
Long Range Frequency (2xp)
Double the range of the Drone-Body.
Heavy Equipment (4xp)
Double the Drone-Body’s number of allowed Charm Slots.
Core Transplant
The Alchemical may transfer her own Core into the Drone-Body, making it the semi-permanent home for her consciousness, removing the distance limitation and making it immune to any attempt to force her consciousness back to her “true body” such as protection against scrying; for most intents and purposes, the Drone-Body becomes her true body. This submodule adds a fourth version of the base Charm:
Essence 4:
Cost: 10m(20m), 3wp, 4lhl, 25 hours
The Drone-Body uses the Alchemical’s ratings for all Attributes, though any with base rating 6 or greater are treated as though they are base rating 5. She may transfer any number of Charm Slots from her Colossus body to the Drone-Body, with the exception of the ones holding this Charm and all its prerequisites. If she wishes to perform Martial Arts Charms, she must bring Perfected Lotus Matrix with her to the Drone-Body.
The Drone-Body may now have Dying Health-Levels, but the Colossus Body loses any it had for the duration of the Charm. If the Colossus is destroyed, the Drone-Body is treated as the Alchemical’s true and only body until she can get to a Vats complex and regrow her Colossus body, which requires half the time, effort, and materials that it took to ascend to Colossus form in the first place. If the Drone-Body dies, the Alchemical dies.
The Alchemical brings her full mote pool with her in the Drone-Body. This version of the Charm costs 10m to activate, but the Alchemical must keep another 20m committed to the Colossus Body for the duration of the Charm. She may not willingly decommit these motes, and if they are ever forcibly decommitted for any reason, the Colossus body begins taking unsoakable Aggravated damage at a rate of 1 level per 5 hours. Damage taken this way cannot be healed by any means until she can both reunite her two bodies and recommit the 20 motes, at which point the damage stops accruing. Once her bodies are fully reintegrated, she may freely decommit the motes.
Integrated Mobile Sanctum
"[This Charm] folds space within the Alchemical’s body, creating a large staging area carved out of Elsewhere that allows
the Exalt to act as a mobile troop transport or even to outfit her body with a fully staffed factory-cathedral."
-- Manual of Exalted Power: The Alchemicals, pg. 176
Cost: 1m[2m]
Minimums: Essence 7
Type: Permanent(Reflexive)
Keywords: Colossus, Internal
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
Municipal Charms
Avatar-Launching Silo
"This Municipal Charm is a staging bay containing one or more replicas of the Alchemical’s former Colossus and human-scale bodies. Because patropoli and metropoli cannot afford to divert their full consciousness away from maintaining the cities they have become, they spin off one full subsidiary memory-facet of their former lives to guide each Avatar-body they choose to empower. While an Avatar is still fundamentally the Alchemical—it has all of her skills, memories, Motivation and Intimacies—it is more strongly colored by the past life imbuing it than the Alchemical’s normal personality is, making Avatars notoriously eccentric and difficult to anticipate."
-- Manual of Exalted Power: The Alchemicals, pg. 176
Cost: Varies [5m]
Minimums: Essence 8
Type: Permanent(Reflexive)
Keywords: Municipal, Obvious
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Remote Drone-Body Guidance
This Charm upgrades its prerequisite for Municipal use, and functions mostly the same way, with one major difference: Instead of a temporary Drone-Body, this Charm creates a permanent Avatar. She cannot shift her consciousness into or out of it; rather, she creates a permanent and separate consciousness for the Avatar.
The Alchemical may not create an Avatar whose Essence rating is greater than her own minus three. Using this Charm to create an Avatar costs an amount of Temporary Willpower equal to half the Avatar's Essence rating rounded up, and a number of motes equal to (Avatar's Essence x5)+5. The process of creating an Avatar takes a number of hours equal to (Avatar's Essence x3). Once an Avatar has been created, it may be stored in this Charm indefinitely, and deployed as a Reflexive action.
Rules for creating an Avatar are similar to creating a new Alchemical character, with the following differences:
For the Avatar's Caste, its marked Caste and Favored Attributes, the base ratings of its Social and Mental Attributes (except Appearance), its base Ability ratings and Specialties, and its base Virtue and Willpower ratings, use the base ratings of the Metropolis character. Note that Abilities and Attributes are capped at the Avatar's Essence Rating or 5, whichever is higher.
For the Avatar's Physical Attributes and Appearance, distribute a number of dots among them equal to (Avatar's Essence x2)+2
For its Charm Slots, the Alchemical may transfer up to (Avatar's Essence x2) General Charm Slots and (Avatar's Essence x3) Dedicated Charm Slots from herself to the Avatar. These Charm Slots may be outfitted with any Charms the Alchemical owns and has access to. (An Avatar may never install Remote Drone-Body Guidance.)
The Avatar starts with the Background "Patron•••••" (as Scroll of Heroes, pg129), with available Backgrounds limited to (and capped at) the Alchemical's Backgrounds (and ratings), but useable any number of times per session so long as she might reasonably have access to them. Other than that, she does not start with any Backgrounds of her own.
The Avatar does not get any Bonus Points, however the Alchemical may spend banked Experience Points on the Avatar during the process of its creation (though in general it would be more efficient to spend them on herself before creating the Avatar; the most notable exception to this is if she wants to buy more Physical Attribute dots for the Avatar than allotted by the creation process).
(Note that the Avatar has its own Mote Pools, Health Levels, and Damage track, calculated normally.)
After this point, the Alchemical may spend Experience Points on the Avatar as though it were an Alchemical in its own right, with two main restrictions. Firstly, no Avatar may ever have an Essence level higher than 7 or in any other way ascend to Me/Patropolis status. Secondly, the total Essence ratings of all Avatars owned by an Alchemical may never exceed her own Essence rating x2.