Artifacts/EssenceSheathingBands

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Essence Sheathing Bands

Artefact •••• (Terrestrial rank)

The armour of the Exalted, like their weapons, is anything but subtle. Massive suits of jade alloy, with carefully constructed grooves and vanes to redirect and focus the Essence that flows through the armour into those places where it will do the most good. The Essence Sheathing Bands, however, barely appear to be armour and can therefore be worn by one of the Chosen in a situation where armour might be inappropriate or insulting. Their construction appears relatively simple, being composed of a broad girdle, a flexible collar and a pair of cuffs and anklets – all made from an alloyed Magical Material.

After 6 motes of Essence have been committed to the bands the wearer is covered in an almost invisible (difficulty 5 on a Perception + Awareness check to notice) shield of Essence that is capable, albeit in a limited fashion, of entirely absorbing the damage of attacks, keeping the wearer safe. The Exalted is granted Lethal and Bashing soaks of 10, and for the first few attacks (equal to half of the wearer’s permanent Essence) in a scene the bands also grant Hardness of the same amount – thus potentially completely stopping some attacks.

The Essence Sheathing Bands have a single hearthstone socket, usually mounted on the centre of the girdle.

                               Soak          Hardness       Mobility Penalty       Fatigue Value
  Essence Sheathing Bands     10L/10B       10 (special)          -1                     0

Comments:

Can these be turned off, or do you actually need to decommit them to deactivate the shield? Diff 5 means mortals will almost never notice... but certainly other exalted have a low but still quite possible chance of noticing it.
-- Darloth

You have to decommit them, which also costs you whatever Hearthstone power you have (if any). Of course, the bands are small enough and light enough that you could wear them while not commited and with no change in mobility penalty (I figure that the penalty when they're on derives from the slight resistance that the field provides). - Moxiane