XerExaltedLite/Lunars

The Lunars

• /LunarCharms - Reorganized Charms
• /LunarGifts - Gift Charms
• /LunarSociety - Lunar Society

---

Lunars are nearly completely rewritten. Much of this is taken from LunarReverseVasectomy where this all began.

During the Primordial War, Lunars were, of course, incredibly multitalented - nearly as much as their Solar mates were. They often served first-strike roles, where a combination of surprise and overwhelming force was needed. They were also potent bodyguards and scouts, often invisible to the eyes of the Creators and their servants until it was too late.

Surprise was their key - they could be anything, even taking the forms of first-circle demons themselves. It took a lot of concentration for a Primordial to pick out such a mole. Every Malfean and nearly every Yozi lost at least one of its highest souls because of this disctraction. Sometimes, the Lunar lived to do it again.

As the Primordial War came to a close, Lunars maintained many of their roles, especially as bodyguard and guard forces. Outside of combat and 'standard Celestial purview', Lunars served the Deliberative by keeping a more direct eye on the populace. Theirs was not to manipulate - though many had at least some skill at it - but to keep an eye out for insubordination and mutiny and dispense Justice where necessary.

The basic philosophy behind their construction, here, is that a Lunar-Solar combination will compliment eachother extremely well. Where the Solars need time to prepare, the Lunars give them that time, or deny it to others. No magic or means, not even the combined intervention of multiple Incarna and Primordials, can disrupt their sense of time.

Castes and Marks

All Lunars can channel Essence through their animas to generate a number of basic effects. They can all spend a single mote of Essence to:

• Cause their Caste Mark to burn brilliantly for a scene, as if they had spent 4-7 motes of Peripheral Essence. Lunar Caste Marks glow a brilliant silvery blue-white.
• Cause their Anima to glow bright enough to read by for a scene, as if they had spent 8-10 motes of Peripheral Essence. Lunar Animas put off a brilliant blue-white glow, sometimes modified by Caste.
• Know the exact phase of the moon, and month and day of the year - even during Calibration.

The Lunars are divided into five Castes:

Full Moon: Counterpart to the Dawn, Full Moons are the warriors and generals of the Lunars. Where the Dawn masters combat itself, the Full Moon masters mobility and tactical command of his current situation. Their animas tend to be tinged with orange and red, and are frequently associated with the Hunter's Moon.

Gibbous Moon: Counterpart to the Zenith, the Gibbous Lunars are the holy women of Luna, receiving more frequent contact from their goddess, and often performing rituals in her name. Their animas are starkly clear and pure, sometimes entirely white.

• Gibbous Lunars are the priestesses of Luna.

Half Moon: Counterpart to the Eclipse, Half-Moons are the representatives of the Lunars, often focusing on projects or the people of their domain. During the First Age, they would take a direct hand in the various public works began by their Solar Mates. Half-Moon animas tend to have a greenish tinge, sometimes overpowering the blue.

Crescent Moon: Counterpart to the Night, Crescents are spies and scouts. Where a Night will focus on being unseen, a Crescent focuses on blending in. Their animas are often somewhat muted, tinged with black.

New Moon: Counterpart to the Twilight, New Moons are the keepers of ways and traditions. They organize and guide, and are often pack leaders. Their animas are often yellow or orange-tinged.

• New Moon caste marks are thin silvery circles, much like the Night Caste Mark. New Moons are -not- Luna's priestesses.

Tattoos

Being natural shapeshifters and illusionists, Lunars are exceptionally resistant to the taint of the Wyld - this resistance gave them the ability to flee there in the first place, after all.

Lunars are forever immune to the physically twisting effects of the Wyld, with or without tattoos. Instead, prolonged exposure to Wyld energies without the protection of tattoos begins to twist and warp their magics and their minds, slowly transforming them into Chimerae.

This normally takes quite some time, but after the Usurpation, the Lunars were driven into the Wyld for some centuries, and, one by one, over half of the Chosen of Luna were twisted into the Chimerae before the New Moons discovered the potential of Moonsilver Tattoos.

In addition to giving the Lunar more complete control over her form, it provides a greater resistance to derangements and utter immunity to the Chimeric Warping of their Charms in the Wyld. See /Chimerae details.

Anima Banner, the Tell and the Faces of Luna

Anima Banner works much like it does on page 110 of Exalted: The Lunars, except ignore the parts regarding the Tell and use the values below.

Upon her Exaltation, a Lunar finds, or is found by, her totem animal. This must be a normal, original animal that has not been Wyld-Tainted - an original creation of Gaia. Physical properties of this creature (her Tell) begin to manifest immediately, even if she is unable to take its form yet through Finding the Spirit's Shape.

The Tell is a set of features that make up the totem creature - scales, fur, ears, eyes, tail and so on. How obvious these are depend on the Lunar's Essence, current level of Anima Display, and the current phase of Luna herself. The use of Charms such as Masking the Brilliant Form and False Face of Luna allow the Chosen to modify this somewhat.

Add the Lunar's Permenant Essence to her level of Anima display, plus a value based on the phase of the Moon - 0 from the New Moon, 1 from Crescent, 2 from Half, 3 from Gibbous and 4 from Full. Add 1 if the phase matches her Caste. Then consult the table below.

    0: The Lunar appears as a normal human, or normal creature of whatever form she is in.  Her Tell is nonexistant.
  1-3: The Tell is visible if looked for, but easily hidden or explained away.
  4-5: The Tell is harder to hide, and may even begin to affect her voice and smell.
  6-9: The Tell cannot be hidden without the aid of extremely heavy clothing, and likely marks her voice and smell strongly.
10-14: The Tell is impossible to hide.  It has multiple animal components and there is little mistaking the Lunar for what she is.
15-19: At these levels of Tell display, the Lunar looks more like her Beast Form than anything else.
   20: At this level of Tell display, the Lunar is forced into her Beast Form.

Finding the Spirit's Shape and Beast Form

Finding the Spirit's Shape, Humble Mouse Shape, Towering Beast Form, Many-Faced Moon Transformation, Prey's Skin Disguise, and Deadly Beastman Transformation (the last hereafter referred to as 'Beast Form') are not Charms. They are innate powers of the Lunar Exalted.

• Calling Luna's Favor and Blossoming Gift of Luna are also gone, now meaningless.

All Lunars begin with the ability to taste the Heart's Blood of nearly any creature (or other portion critical to it's continued existance - the taproot of a tree, for example), within certain limitations based upon their permanent Essence:

• Size: For Storytellers who wish to be exacting, the limit on size is the mass of the Lunar's original human form, divided or multiplied by the cube of her permanent Essence.
• Nature: The Lunar may drink the Heart's Blood of any being with a permanent Essence less than hers that is not an individual entity. Individual entities include:
  • Celestial Exalted (including Abyssals and Chimerae)
  • Demons of 2nd Circle and greater
  • Elemental Dragons
  • Powerful Noble Raksha (Heart 4)
  • Deathlords
  • Shinma, their Aspects, the Unshaped, Primordials, Yozi, Malfeans
  • Any gods.

The last is a specific restriction imposed by the Incarna in order to prevent the possibility of a Lunar spending a thousand or more years working their way into the Games of Divinity in Yu Shan.

If the Lunar pays an experience point when she devoures the creature, she gains the exact shape of the individual she had just devoured, and may spend a Turn and 1 mote to shift to that Shape, if her Anima is not yet flaring. She immediately loses access to all non-Talent Charms, save for Masking the Brilliant Form, Prey's Skin Disguise and False Face of Luna, but gains the ability to learn the Charms or Arcanoi of whatever form she has taken. Any such Charms that were active have their effects fade. If her anima banner flares, even if at the lowest level, she immediately reverts to one of her four normal True Forms.

She may only use Arcanoi as a Ghost, Fair Folk Charms as a Raksha, Elemental Charms as an Elemental, Dragon King Paths as a Dragon King, or Terrestrial Charms as a Terrestrial. Learning these Charms costs double normal xp, but she pays the normal cost to activate them. However, she can only use these Charms in the proper form - she can't use Raksha Charms or any other non-Lunar Charms in her true form. In addition, even if a Charm between said forms has the same name (such as Principle of Motion) she must learn it for each kind of being whose form she can take (Elemental or Demon). As with her Lunar Charms, these effects fade if she takes another form.

Outside of her True Forms, she is limited to Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, Shadowlands Circle Necromancy, and Terrestrial Martial Arts in terms of spells and martial arts. If her Tell ever displays at level 6 or more, she reverts to one of her true forms.

• • The Lunar does have access to Celestial Martial Arts in a Dragon-Blooded form if she has initiation Charms.
  • The Lunar may make use of Raksha Charms in her True Forms.

The Lunar gains all inherent abilities of the form she takes. Her Abilities, Willpower, permanent, personal and peripheral Essence, Social and Mental Attributes remain the same, while Brawn, Dexterity, and possibly some other features change (including health levels). She does not gain any memories or learned abilities of her new form - these must be gleaned some manner beforehand, if possible.

Lunar Totem

Upon her Exaltation, the Lunar begins displaying markings of, and finding an ever-increasing urge to hunt, a creature inherent to her nature. This creature is always an animal of some kind - untainted my magic or Wyld energies, an original creation of Gaia of at least some complexity (anything interesting that modern scientists would classify under 'bilateria').

Due to mass limits, it is extremely rare for a Lunar to posess a Totem smaller than a mouse or larger than a mammoth, as such forms require more than Essence 5 and are problematic in terms of waiting centuries before a Lunar can take her Beast Form.

Upon devouring the Heart's Blood of the creature, the Lunar gains several new forms.

She gains the original creature's shape (as usual), though this does not cost xp. She also gains her own shape in that creature's form, as well as the creature's shape in her normal human form. This latter means that she has a second human form with the creature's gender, eye and hair color, and other features that could be copied over while still seeming completely human. These four forms are all considered her true forms. She can shift into any of these forms as a die action during a Turn at no cost.

When in these forms, she may use any of her Lunar Charms, and any form of Sorcery, Necromancy or Martial Arts she knows to their fullest extent (including Sidereal Martial Arts). Since these are true forms, not only does she gain an unpreventable shapeshifting ability, but she can also access a wider range of creatures to taste the Heart's Blood of.

She gains a fifth true form, her Beast Form, described below. In it, she loses any ability to use Sidereal Martial Arts, if she has learned it, but she otherwise acts at her fullest capacity. If her true forms are of split genders, her Beast Form is by default female, but she can alter this with Shaping the Ideal Form.

Beast Form

A Lunar's Beast Form is a monstrous transformation. It takes 1 mote and a full Turn to enter. A Beast Form is typically somewhere in between the size of her larger true human form and larger true animal form. For each dot of permanent Essence she has, her mass shifts about 10% from her larger human form to the sum of both her larger animal and human true forms.

While in Beast Form, the Lunar gains a few benefits:

• She adds her permanent Essence to her Dexterity and Brawn. Inside Beast Form these are her real scores.
• She splits her permanent Essence between adding to her difficulty to be hit and her size Multiplier for determining Health Levels.
• She soaks Lethal damage with her full Brawn.
• She regenerates twice her Natural score in Lethal wounds per minute.
• She is immune to Bashing damage.
• She may immediately activate a number of Gift Charms equal to her permanent Essence. She spends whatever costs are inherent in the chosen gifts and activates them.

Essence used to power Gift Charms is committed. The Lunar may activate other Gift Charms as normal, and even replace her original ones by letting them fade at the end of the scene.

Rage

Sidereals anger the Pattern Spiders to gain Paradox, Abyssals their Malfean lords to gain Resonance, Solars twist to their Curse for their Limit.

Lunars gain Rage.

Every Lunar has a primary Virtue, which drives her Rage. This Virtue must be rated at at least 3 dots.

• Compassion: Gain a point of Rage every time the Character witnesses needless suffering that could easily be prevented by another.
• Conviction: Gain a point of Rage every time the Character's goals are thwarted.
• Temperance: Gain a point of Rage every time the Character witnesses a meaningful lie or injustice.
• Valor: Gain a point of Rage evry time the Character's honor or position is challenged.

These are ever more frequent than those gained by their Solar counterparts - Lunars do not gain Rage by spending Willpower to supress Virtue urges. Whatever causes Rage should be listed as a Target for that Rage. When the Lunar's Rage finally snaps (she reaches 10 points of Rage) she immediately transforms into Beast Form, if not in it already, with a full alotment of Gifts that do not cost her Essence or Willpower until her Rage is fulfilled.

Once her Rage breaks, she spends a number of days equal to her primary Virtue doing nothing but seeking out her Targets and utterly destroying them. The Lunar may spend one point of Willpower to skip over a Target - she may only do this if she knows the Target is clearly out of her league (deathlords qualify for most Lunars). During this period, she regains Essence at twice her normal rate, and she has a free point of temporary Willpower to spend each Turn.

The Lunar may not tarry in her vengeance for more than one Turn a scene without spending Willpower, which lets her stew for the Scene. This may be done only once per Rampage.

The Lunar spends the full time no matter how easy it is for her to crush her Targets - she doesn't necessarily kill them, indeed, frequently it is not the Target, but her family - her descendants in particular - that ought to fear for their lives. The Target is certainly lucky to get out of the situation without getting maimed and suffer a complete destruction of her home, however.

At the end of her Rampage, the Lunar regains her full temporary Willpower, and drops from Beast Form.

Comments

Some very nifty ideas, though it seems like in the Age of Sorrows, any Lunar with Compassion as a primary virtue is going to have a very hard time being around human beings at all, given how cruel just about every society is. -- JohnBiles

In a city, probably. Villages and tribes less so. - Xeriar

out of curiousty why would the default gender of the beastman form be female? - Paladinltd

wut? - willows

Last paragraph of the Lunar Totems description. - Paladinltd

Speaking from a biological point of view Female is the "base" gender while Male is a genetic mutation used to shuffle genes. It would make sense that, if in conflict, the Lunar would switch to "base". Considering this is Exalted though... it could be seen as the whim of Luna.

This is one damn nifty set o' rules. It makes Lunar shapeshifting a whole lot more powerful (what with the whole "you can be anything" thing and the ability to learn spirit charms. Actually, that last bit makes me a bit worried. That kind of steps on the Eclipse shtick. Why is it important that a Lunar be able to learn the charms of another being. Isn't assuming it's form enough? --Halloween

Eep, ought to have specified - a Lunar's Anima Banner will drop the facade, so the amount of useable Essence is limited. I'd also intended the Charms to be useable in the proper form only, which is another limitation. In any case, I think Lunars need to be frightening, though I'll probably scale things back as I fine tune Solar-Lunar balance. Regarding the default gender thing, I figured I'd just pick female because that's how every mammal starts, and every Lunar is at least half-mammal. Something androgynous was too ... exotic for me, it's already a furry. - Xeriar