MartialArts/CrimsonThicketOfBambooStyle

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Crimson Thicket of Bamboo Style

Growth

This Style deals with many facets of growth: increased size, healing, and bringing forth great things from small seeds. I fitted in a few things reminiscent of Sun Wukong, both because they seemed to fit and because I dig the Monkey King. The style is mostly done, though I still need to tweak some Charms and add the elder sutra.

The Charms of this style treat staves and goremauls as unarmed attacks, and are incompatible with other weapons.

The Charms

Student Techniques

The Student's Sutra of Growth: Once, there was a hairy maiden...

Chick Bursts from the Egg

Cost: 5 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 4
Prereq Charms: None

... hatched from an egg of stone,

By striking key pressure points, the character causes the target’s organs and vital fluids to grow beyond the body’s ability to contain them, with potentially explosive results.

With a successful Dexterity + Martial Arts attack, the character inflicts additional lethal damage equal to her Essence. This damage is soaked separately, and ignores armor soak. (If you are using Power Combat, this damage may be soaked down to one die.) In addition, unless the additional damage is soaked fully, the target must make a Stamina + Resistance roll against a difficulty equal to the number of health levels lost; if this roll is failed, the target’s heart or brain explodes, resulting in immediate death.

Corrupted Growth Strike

Cost: 8 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 4
Prereq Charms: Chick Bursts from the Egg

whose body was twisted as a thorn tree.

As a diseased tree will grow awry, its limbs gnarled and crusted with galls, so too does this Charm deform those whom it afflicts. The character makes a normal unarmed Dexterity + Martial Arts attack, which inflicts normal damage. If the attack succeeds, random parts of the target's body start to expand and warp. At the start of each turn thereafter, the target gains a cumulative -1 penalty to all dice pools; this continues for a number of turns equal to the number of successes rolled on the attack. This also reduces the victim's Appearance to 1. Tattooed Lunars cannot be affected by this Charm.

Against mortals, the effects of this Charm are generally both unavoidable and permanent. For targets that can control their Essence, each -1 penalty may be prevented or removed with a reflexive expenditure of motes equal to the attacker's permanent Essence. In addition, all effects of this Charm may be wholly remedied by Charms that mend grievous wounds and deformities, such as Bodily Regeneration Prana.

If the total penalty meted out by this Charm equals the size of the target's largest Attribute + Ability dice pool, and the target is standing on earth, sand or clay, the target metamorphoses into an elegantly twisted tree or bush. This effect is also permanent unless healed by some effect that restores a shapeshifted target, such as Perfect Reconstruction Method.

Budding Branches Prana

Cost: 5 motes
Duration: One Scene
Type: Reflexive
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 4
Prereq Charms: None

She grew swiftly beneath the sweet air of Heaven,

By striking key Essence junctures upon her shoulders, the character begins to unlock her inner potential for multiplicity. She instantly grows a number of additional arms equal to her permanent Essence. Her dice-pool penalty for multiple actions is reduced by her permanent Essence, though it cannot go below -0.

One Root, Many Shoots

Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower, 1 health level
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 4
Prereq Charms: Budding Branches Prana

and other maidens gathered at her feet.

As a whole stand of bamboo grows from a single root, the character sends forth additional bodies from the indivisible core of her Essence. With an intricate gesture, she plucks forth one of her hairs and breathes Essence into it, reshaping it into a slightly smaller duplicate of herself.

The character may not have more duplicates at any given time than her permanent Essence score. Each duplicate has all of her Attributes and Abilities, her full complement of health levels, and wields copies of her equipment. However, it cannot employ any of the character’s Charms or activate any powers of copied artifacts that require activation. It knows everything its creator knows, shares her personality and goals, and serves her loyally unto death.

When a duplicate dies, it disappears along with all of its equipment. All remaining duplicates disappear at the end of the scene. As a dice action, the character may cause any number of surviving duplicates to revert to hair and return to her body; this restores the health level(s) expended in their creation.

Wielding the Mountain

Cost: 8 motes
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 4
Prereq Charms: None

When she had mastered all the arts of humanity,

The character twirls her martial arts weapon through the kata of the Wood Dragon's Tail, filling it with vital force. The weapon expands to enormous size, yet it remains perfectly balanced and light as a feather. This increases the weapon's base damage by twice the character's permanent Essence.

Towering Oak Stance

Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 4
Prereq Charms: Wielding the Mountain

she cultivated her conduct in the way of the Immortals

If one could compress a year's growth into a handful of seconds, one might observe a sapling burst up from the earth like fire from dry wood, swift and green and terrible. When the character performs the opening kata of the Towering Oak Stance, she too grows with blazing swiftness, expanding to twice her normal height and girth. She adds her permanent Essence rating to her Strength, Stamina and base movement rate, and gains a similar number of -0 health levels. These bonus health levels are temporary in nature; they are the first to be removed when the character takes damage, and they disappear when the effects of the Charm end. Bonus health levels may not be expended to pay the health level costs to activate Charms.

The Form

Crimson Thicket of Bamboo Form

Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 5
Min. Essence: 5
Prereq Charms: One complete martial art (all Charms), Corrupted Growth Strike, One Root Many Shoots, Towering Oak Stance

to set herself free from death and reincarnation.

The character stands with the upright, flexible posture of the bamboo, her arms spread like new leaves, her feet strong as roots that taste the earth. Green and scarlet energies crackle around her in the colors of life and growth. Even as the bamboo thicket grows again after being hacked or burned away, so too does the character renew herself in the face of ruinous injury.

For so long as she maintains the Crimson Thicket of Bamboo Form, the character heals all bashing damage in the instant that she receives it. She also heals one level of lethal damage per turn, or one level of aggravated damage every two turns. This only heals external sources of damage; poison damage, damage caused by disease, and health levels spent to activate Charms cannot be healed in this manner. These health levels return at the start of each turn.

Characters may not use more than one Martial Arts Form-type Charm at a time.

Advanced Techniques

Crimson Chrysalis Technique

Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One day
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 6
Min. Essence: 6
Prereq Charms: Crimson Thicket of Bamboo Form

It is the way of the caterpillar to withdraw into the chrysalis so as to be reborn as a butterfly. With a single vibrant gesture, the character weaves herself a cocoon of scarlet Essence, within which she may renew herself and emerge as something greater than she was when she began.

Upon entering the chrysalis, the character spends one full day shrouded in magical stasis. When she awakens, she comes forth fully healed from all injury, including aggravated damage, maimed or missing body parts, all mundane poisons and diseases, and spiritual diseases of the First and Second Circles. Even spiritual diseases of the Third Circle fade if she makes a successful Stamina + Medicine roll. She also regains all of her temporary Essence and Willpower.

But this is all subsidiary to the true purpose of the chrysalis as a crucible for personal growth. Upon emerging from the chrysalis, the character may spend experience points to increase any and all of her traits, with the exception of spells, permanent Essence and Sidereal Martial Arts Charms, without the need for training.

The chrysalis cannot be harmed by mundane means, but persistent attacks with magical weapons will tear through it in short order. Should the chrysalis be broken, the character wakes immediately but gains no benefit from the time spent within.

Burgeoning Forest Strike

Cost: 20 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 6
Min. Essence: 7
Prereq Charms: Crimson Chrysalis Technique

The character executes an intricate kata, then strikes the ground at her feet. A wave of scarlet energy sweeps out from that point, followed by a green wave of life as living plants erupt from the earth in a widening circle.

The character chooses a type of plant native to the area. Throughout an area with a radius of the character's permanent Essence in miles, these plants appear from the soil and grow to maturity within a single turn. If the plants are large or dense, such as trees or thorn bushes, every other character within the affected area must defend against an attack using the character's Wits + Martial Arts, which inflicts bashing damage equal to the character's permanent Essence. This attack may be parried, dodged and soaked normally.

Surfaces that do not support local plant life, like ice or solid rock, will not be affected by the Burgeoning Forest Strike. Likewise, most First Age constructions are immune to these growths. But buildings in the Second Age are more vulnerable, and the roots of shrubs and trees will pry apart the stones and timbers of all but the most stable of modern structures.

Cultivate the Earthen Seed

Cost: 20 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 7
Min. Essence: 7
Prereq Charms: Burgeoning Forest Strike

In learning this Charm, the character masters the eighty-one patterns of growth through which inanimate matter evolves into higher forms. By combining these patterns into an elegant whole, she may bring forth new structures from the earthen womb of Creation.

The character concentrates upon the edifice that she wishes to create and strikes the ground beneath her feet. In but a moment, a stone building rises from the ground with a mighty rumble and a shower of debris. The building may take any form that she desires, so long as none of its dimensions exceed (the Sidereal’s Essence x 10) in yards. Its floor plan follows her exact design. The building will emerge within arm’s length of the character or beneath her feet, at her preference. In either case, its emergence does her no harm.

If other characters happen to be standing beneath the emerging building, it slams into them with the force of a charging yeddim. This is an unblockable Perception + Martial Arts attack that always imposes knockback. It inflicts lethal damage equal to the extra successes on the attack roll + the character’s permanent Essence. If the building is deliberately constructed as a weapon by roofing it with razor-sharp spires, edges and spikes, double the character’s permanent Essence when determining damage.

If used on the site of an uncapped Demesne, the character may raise a Manse if she has the necessary skills. This requires the character to have the Abilities of Craft (Architecture), Lore and Occult at 4 or higher.

Seven Hundred Offspring Swarm

Cost: 20 motes, 1 Willpower, 1 health level
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 6
Min. Essence: 7
Prereq Charms: Crimson Chrysalis Technique

The character breathes Essence into a tuft of her hair, transforming it into a cloud of tiny, flying replicas of herself that swarm forth at her command.

The swarm occupies an area with a radius of the character’s Essence in yards. Treat it as a creature with a number of health levels of each category (-0, -1, -2, -4) equal to (Essence x 5). Its stats are otherwise equal to it’s creator’s unmodified stats. While the swarm cannot parry, as the replicas’ weapons are too small, it gets a free dodge at full pool against all attacks, and only area-effect attacks can inflict more damage on it than the attacker’s Essence. The swarm gets an attack at its full Martial Arts pool on every enemy within its radius each turn; these attacks cannot be parried or dodged without Charms.

The character may not have more than one Seven Hundred Offspring Swarm active at any one time. However, the charm may be re-invoked to restore the swarm to its full allotment of health levels. The swarm disappears at the end of the scene; as a dice action, the character may cause the swarm to revert to hair and return to her body; this restores one health level to the character.

Rending Hemorrhage Shout

Cost: 20 motes, 1 Willpower, 1 health level
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 7
Min. Essence: 7
Prereq Charms: Seven Hundred Offspring Swarm

Injuries must be tended with care lest they grow worse, for in the fullness of time, even the tiniest of scratches may prove mortal. With a mighty roar, the character employing this Charm unleashes a wave of necrotic Essence that unlocks the potential for growth in every wound. This assault affects every other living creature within (the Sidereal’s Essence x 10) yards that currently suffers from at least one health level of lethal or aggravated damage. All affected victims immediately receive a number of unsoakable health levels of lethal damage equal to the character’s permanent Essence. Victims with awakened Essence may attempt a Stamina + Resistance roll, with a difficulty of the attacker's Essence, to halve the damage inflicted. Only perfect defenses can withstand the force of the Rending Hemorrhage Shout.

Space-Stretching Gesture

Cost: 10 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Min. Martial Arts: 6
Min. Essence: 7
Prereq Charms: Crimson Chrysalis Technique

The character strikes the air, distending the very distance between her and another with the Essence of growth. Until the start of the character’s next turn, the distance between her and any one opponent she is aware of stretches to one mile per point of permanent Essence. The two cannot harm one another unless they have movement or attack Charms that permit them or their attacks to travel such a distance in a single round.

The spatial distortion created by this Charm is invisible and undetectable without the use of sensory Charms that perceive the flows of Essence. The characters may otherwise move and interact freely.

Elongating the Moment

Cost: 20 motes, 2 Willpower, 2 health levels
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Min. Martial Arts: 7
Min. Essence: 7
Prereq Charms: Space-Stretching Gesture

By reaching out to the very instant of time in which she dwells, the character may infuse that moment with Essence, extending it beyond its natural span. To others, she appears to flicker from place to place like the sparkling motes of a jewel turned in the sun; she may be in more than one place at the same moment, for that moment stretches to accommodate her presence.

This Charm replaces the character’s normal action with a number of fully independent actions equal to her Essence score. These actions are identical to those provided by the Charcoal March of Spiders Form. Multiple sources of fully independent actions do not stack.

The Ultimate Technique

Join the Pillars of Heaven

Cost: 25 motes, 2 Willpower
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Min. Martial Arts: 7
Min. Essence: 8
Prereq Charms: Cultivate the Earthen Seed, Elongating the Moment, Rending Hemorrhage Shout

A master of the Crimson Thicket may grow far beyond any mortal thing. With her feet upon the earth and her hair touching the clouds, she resembles little more than a mountain that has learned to walk like a mortal.

While this Charm is active, the character adds her (Essence x 10) to her Strength, Stamina and movement rate, and gains a similar number of –0 health levels. These bonus health levels are temporary in nature; they are the first to be removed when the character takes damage, and they disappear when the effects of the Charm end. Bonus health levels may not be expended to pay the health level costs to activate Charms.

The massive size provided by this Charm has its disadvantages. The character may not dodge attacks while under the influence of Join the Pillars of Heaven. In addition, the clumsiness inherent to this size causes the character to add her permanent Essence to all multiple action penalties for the duration of the effect.

This Charm wholly supersedes Towering Oak Stance. The effects of the two Charms are not cumulative in any way.

Comments

= Archived Comments for this Style

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