MartialArts/SableIneffabilityOfNocturnesStyle
Contents
Sorrows - The Sable Ineffability of Nocturnes Style
By Wohksworth
Background
This is a story unearthed from a sunken archive of the Forbidding Manse of Ivy, told in spurts of recovered documents and waterlogged evidence. At the height of the First Age, a peerless Solar troubadour set aside his lyre and turned his back on the Mantle of Heaven so that he might lie with a mortal lover. For a time they were content, but the Exalt could not grasp the transience of mortal life and love.
She was taken from him. Reports are rife with vaguries--perhaps she died of a mortal accident, or old age, or perhaps she was slain by agents of the Deliberative, as a message to mortal and Exalt all. There is some indication he slew her himself, in a moment of hubristic jealousy. Whatever the cause, he wrapped himself in wards and banished his servants and retreated to his manse, never to be seen again.
His sorrow became a joke in the halls of the Deliberative, an allegory about squandering birthright for fleeting mortal lust. When time enough had passed, members of his Circle and their Sidereal advisor ventured to his manse, to offer him a final chance to return to the service of Creation--failing that, to cycle his spark to its next incarnation. They beat on his door for a night and a day, only breaking its ward as the second night fell.
This was not the manse of a man who has lost everything and surrendered, they said. Far from, long and hard has he searched for something--not even the Twilight could devine precisely what, or if he found it. The Night thirst for knowledge, and ventured away from his partners--they found her, in time, but the finest physicians of the capital could not rack her mind for what she had seen that would cause her to cut out her own eyes. The Dawn was confronted with shadows his anima would not banish, and fought until they had overcome his light and cut away some part of his will.
All this while the Sidereal was here to there, collecting papers surreptiously, for the Bureau of Secrets kept some things unknown from Creation even then. Though they could not break these wards and read the fates of this manse, the holes of the tapestry around this place told enough of the Exalt's dealings. The Circle, as it stood, ventured to the highest spire to confront their Circlemate, only to find his bedchambers empty. A dreamstone rest upon his bedsheets; the Sidereal took this, and rightly told the Circle that they should not tempt themselves to know its knowledge.
It returned to the Bureau of Secrets, stricken from the records of the Deliberative. Though it contains some secrets too dangerous for a Sidereal or God to experience, a cursory reading of the stone reveals the martial constants that compose this style, which whisper some uncertain narrative of the troubadour's research and of a journey, but never his final fate.
This is the Sable Ineffability of Nocturnes Style, the Sidereal Martial Art of Sorrows, seen from time to time in the hands of an Agent of Secrets, but usually just as quickly forgotten. Its style weapon is the baton or the jutte, effectively a baton bearing a second prong used to catch and disarm the weapons of oppenents. Using these weapons count as being unarmed for purposes of this style.
The Sutra fuctions as normal for Sidereal Exalted, but the style's strange creation synergizes it with Solar animas as well. When used in support of a loved one or cherished friend, a Solar who has the Form may remove up to his highest Virtue in motes from the cost of Charms of this Style each turn. Unlike a Sutra, this may reduce the cost of a Charm to zero, though it still counts as Charm usage for the turn. Solars masters of the Style may expend an applicable temporary Virtue point in support of a loved one or cherished friend to reflexively reduce the cost of Charms from this style by up to 15 motes and 1 Willpower for the turn, again to a minimum of zero; applications of this final effect may stack.
Jutte</b>
Speed +0 Accuracy +1 Damage +2B Defense +3
Resources <b>••</b>; Requires: Dex <b>•</b> MA <b>•</b>
<b>Jutte - Power Combat
Speed +3 Accuracy +1 Damage +4B Defense +3 Rate 3
^ This weapon makes disarming attempts at Difficulty 2, rather than 3 (Core Book, p. 238). If its last action was to parry a weapon, and neither character has moved since, the difficulty to disarm this weapon is 1.
Charms
Heart and Soul and Shadow Koan
Cost: None Duration: Permanent Type: Enchantment Min. Martial Arts: 3 Min. Essence: 4 Prereqs: None
Virtue and strange force carve an arcane mandala on the Exalt's soul. This design increases in complexity with each style Charm learned.
The character can harmonize with the pattern with an hour's meditation when she could roll to regain Willpower; she may then rolls her highest Virtue to regain Willpower. If her highest Virtue is Conviction or she possesses the Merit True Paragon, she rolls her Virtue+1. Solars always roll their Curse Virtue, and may at any time Reflexively add one point to their Limit to make a roll to regain Willpower as though she had meditated.
Like Poetry From Corpses' Mouths
Cost: 6 motes Duration: One scene Type: Simple Min. Martial Arts: 4 Min. Essence: 4 Prereqs: Heart and Soul and Shadow Koan
Air bolsters at an Exalt's behest, a kata prompting a puissance of motes to the attacks she suffers.
After defenses are applied, each success to hit the character is added as a mote to her pool of Essence. Undead and Abyssal attackers have equivilent motes drained from their own reserves when possible.
Last Kiss of Twilight Stance
Cost: 8 motes Duration: One turn Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min. Essence: 4 Prereqs: None
The Exalt slips between threads of Fate and strikes with inscrutable patterns.
The Exalt's Martial Arts attacks are Attacks From Behind; opponents do not receive the benefit of shields, and may only dodge or parry with the use of Charms--their starting pool to defend is zero. Any attack causing no direct damage is forgotten by the end of the turn. The Exalt attacks with fearful elegance: he may negate direct damage from his attacks after it has been rolled; supplemental effects requiring damage are completed before the damage is prevented, even if this changes the indicated order of effects.
Words Lost to Night Ward
Cost: 4+ motes Duration: 1+ turns Type: Simple Min. Martial Arts: 5 Min. Essence: 5 Prereqs: Last Kiss of Twilight Stance
Creation cannot bear the implications of this Charm; the area touched is sundered, parts of it claimed by some external force.
The martial artist reachs gestures, marking a radius of their Essence*5 yards and drawing it into some place that has fallen between the cracks of the real world. Blackness surrounds the region affected; to anyone inside, the darkness extends forever outside the sundered area. Sundered lands cannot persist, and the radius inside wastes away by the Exalt's Essence in yards each turn when initiative is rolled, though the outside radius persists. The Exalt may extend the Duration of this Charm to the next initiative phase by spending 4 motes as a Reflexive Charm; if the Exalt has expended a Virtue point this turn, this does not count as Charm use. If the Charm is not extended it dissapates at iniative 0.
Anyone outside the region may enter it with a successful Dexterity+Occult action; they appear near the center of the region at the beginning of the next turn. Escape is impossible while the Charm persists. At the Charm's conclusion, the region returns to Creation, barren and scarred.
The darkness is equivilent to blindness with respect to pool modification. Anyone in the dark region is subject to a Reflexive clinch attempt with the Martial Artist's unarmed Martial Arts pool. Extras who are clinched by this effect are gone, wrapt in tendrils and irrevocably drawn into the darkness. Other opponents suffer clinch damage as though clinched by the unarmed martial artist. If an opponent gains control of or denies the clinch the clinch ceases and additional attempts are suppressed for the character's lowest Virtue in turns; anyone entering the radius from outside is immune for a similar duration. The martial artist is not immune to these effects, but receives his Essence in successes to resist or control the clinch.
Gesture of Rapt Embrace
Sable Ineffability of Nocturne Form</b>
<b>Cost: 12 motes Duration: One scene Type: Reflexive Min. Martial Arts: 6 Min. Essence: 6 Prereqs: Gesture of Rapt Embrace
But naught would his saddest song ever reach her ears.
The subjective passage of events halts for a moment as the character passes her hands across her body and, seemingly, through the fabric of the world, wrapping herself in a veil of errant shadows. A cloud covers the sun. Those who view the Essence of the world see it languish, depressed, until the movement of the martial artist shocks it to new vigor, moving to crescendo with her virtuous actions.
Spend Virtue to negate damage
+MA to be hit.
Cannot be attacked more times in a round than attacker's lowest Virtue.
The martial artist's blood radiates with unnatural saturation, not truly glowing, but given to the opalesence jade experiences in the Underworld. Where the ground is fertile, flowers of similar luster sprout--red sorrow orchids, created in the First Age to be buried with the mortal lovers of slain Exalts. They are at once fascinating and deadly to children, especially young girls, and their presence in the East is seen as a bad omen. If slain, the martial artist will never leave a ghost.
A Touch Beyond Life and Death - Use Essence pools of individuals whose souls have been captured via other Charms.
Sorrows Like the River's Flow -
Enraptured by Nightmares Gesture - Slowly fall into an unwaking sleep; Every time they sleep, lose a Virtue point; sleep increased by one hour per missing Virtue
- Damage Virtues; if destroyed, character becomes soulless husk. Lost points go to optional pool for MAist, who may supplment Virtue rolls or channeling with them.
- Hit character is marked -- MAist may use their Willpower at will, though they may spend two Willpower and a Virtue point to cancel it.
Her Sorrows Serenade - Tragic songs. Kills hope. More dead lend voices to song.
- Hold people enthralled by sorrowful music
Insufferable Labyrinth Circle
- Inhibit Essence use; burn a HL\mote penalty. // Drown out mote use with beautiful music?
- Limit Permanent Essence to lowest Virtue
- Motes spent this turn return at the rate of Willpower.
- X motes lost per turn unless already spent.
Hopeless Promises Lament - Hold back attacks /w music. -- Committ a willpower point per attack; it does not hit until the point is released. In the meantime, -1 to everyone else's initiative per attack.
- Return damage from an attack.
Last Flower Cadenza - Some sort of healing Charm.
Beauty in Reflections - Some sort of limited resurrection Charm.
As Surely as Day Follows Night Aptitude
Heart-Breaking Aubade - Unmake target or kill his true love. "But they would be together in the end."
"Lo, bard! Let me tell you of loss! Of one such man so split from love! And how, though he would see her but never again, his heart, at least, will some day be with hers, Unbound."
Comments
Nice style. Will it ever be complete as it's author intended it?
-- Darloth
- A Charm at a time. The post-Form is a little nebulous until I just commit one to one strategy or another; the last pre-Form Charm and a branch of the post-Form will probably involve drawing on the power of opponents you've inhibited, using their Virtues to fuel Charms et cetera. The mechanics of the Words Lost to Night Ward slowed me down for, literally, months. _Wohksworth
