Nekomimi-Maiden/AstrologyRewrite

Sidereal Astrology Rewrite

Astrology, as-written in the books, is a mechanic with two primary flaws. It is incredibly difficult to use and severely subject to the whims of chance even with ridiculously large pools in what you can control, requiring a great many rolls, chart references, considerations of size and ability, so on and so forth... and the benefit is incredibly miniscule for the experience investment required to become competent at it. A third flaw could be claimed, that it creates a single set of abilities every single Sidereal must train in - Performance and Occult with particular requirements - in order to have a chance at making any sort of destiny.

In an effort to simplify the process into something that can be done in the short-term with a modicum of effort, and creating extensive long-term fateweaving without requiring the massive investment of charms and abilities, I have [with admitted taking of inspiration from Raksha Shaping Combat] created the following system. Ignore all costs for astrology written in the books, they are being revised as follows.

Character Creation

A Sidereal receives access to the Colleges related to her Maiden's purview at character creation, as well as two additional Colleges if she is not Ronin. Colleges are not ranked; a Sidereal either has gained access to the astrological constellation of the Spear, or has not. Colleges cost 2bp, or 1bp if favored.
A Sidereal receives at character creation the basic eight Providences [[[MoEP]]: Sidereals, p191], the forms which astrology takes, and the ability to create Resplendent Destinies.
Like Knacks are for Lunars, Colleges and Providences are an innate function of the Sidereal Exaltation, and may not be learned through the anima ability of the Eclipse Caste and its' mirrors.

System

Using a Providence requires a roll of Essence+College Ability as a dramatic action, usually taking one minute, taking the form of a Shaping effect against the fate of the target. This is a noncharm action, allowing the use of Excellencies relevant to the ability in question. The difficulty is equal to the Essence rating of the target; success indicates that the destiny manifests as a Shaping effect, and the Sidereal checks for Paradox (see Paradox, below). Due to targeting Fate rather than the subject themselves, normal preventative measures against Shaping such as Integrity Protecting Prana and Lunar moonsilver tattoos do not prevent a destiny from being manifested on the target [I suggest the invention of a custom charm for Solars, Lunars, and Dragonblooded to allow an opposing roll]. Destiny Manifesting Method does require the listed stunt to create any astrological effect on the target without suffering the difficulty increase.

Successes gained must be allocated to cover the Essence of the target (if not the Sidereal herself, 1 if it is), extend the duration beyond a month, and affect more individuals, as per Sidereals p192 except as follows. Reduce the success of all entries in Scope by 1. Frequency is normally once per scene; however, for an additional success and paradox die it can be extended to work [target's Essence] times per scene, and for [target's Essence] successes and three paradox dice, it works every time the condition occurs.

When affecting a large number of individuals via Scope, the Sidereal sets a maximum Essence that the destiny can ensnare. Every dot of Essence above 1 included adds its' rating in successes to the requirement; affecting all targets of Essence 3 or lower, for example, costs 5 successes [2+3].

Upon successfully laying a providence upon a target, when the conditions are met, they can gain the benefit of a blessing [reflexively chosen by their player] once per action, or suffer the penalty of a curse [chosen by the Sidereal if she is present, or the ST's choice otherwise] once per action.

In addition to the option for destinies appropriate to the Correlations entries for each College [[[MoEP]]: Sidereals, p195-206], a Sidereal may simplify the process of creating a Destiny by simply declaring a Specialty of the College's ability the curse or blessing applies to. For example, one might bless a Dragon-Blooded warrior's swordsmanship with an Artless Prodigy Blessing [Melee (Swords)], rather than trying to fit other correlations of "bravery, professionalism, training, taking initiative, lack of vision, tactics, skillfulness, competition" into something more immediately useful and easily adjudicated.

As an important note, use of the Fateful Excellency to garner an auspicious success on a Shape Destiny action does not function; this sort of convergence of fate interferes with the new destiny's formation.

Mandate

Astrology is also posed to very effectively apply to the Mandate of Heaven; mortals intuitively understand when they're undertaking an action augmented by astrology that the action is easier or harder; they may not know why, and most attribute it to the whimsy of gods, but regardless, mortals laboring under a destiny of their own accord can be assumed to intuitively pursue easier actions and avoid harder actions, unless their individual motivations dictate otherwise. In essence, when affecting mortals a destiny carries a Compulsion effect that costs no willpower to resist, but may only be resisted if it conflicts with an intimacy, motivation, or virtue.
As a result, high-Scope destinies can shape the path nations will take on their own. Unless directed by a superior force, actions can be made mandatory or taboo; a society that finds their farms are bountiful when they give hospitality to strangers may not know why, but will presume that the gods of the harvest give generosity for generosity and will swiftly welcome outsiders with open arms.
Attempts by an authority to force a group operating under a destiny to act in accordance with the destiny share the bonus, even if the leader is not included in the Scope - say, if he is a Dragon-Blooded of Essence 3 and the destiny only governs Essence 1 mortals, he still gets a -1 TN if encouraging them to treat the Wyld Hunt with hospitality.
Attempting to force people to act against the destiny imposes an external penalty on the attempt equal to the Scope of the destiny; a Fiend attempting to undo the legendary hospitality of Green Acre Village's 80 residents suffers a -3 external penalty on his social rolls, as the village as a whole rejects the suggestion that they should abandon such unseeming generosity and act more selfishly, instinctively knowing it would ruin their harvests.

Resplendent Destinies

Resplendent Destinies are a special form of destiny; a Sidereal may define her Resplendent Destinies - their position and role in society, and so on - at any time, and [with an Astrology Shaping roll against her own Essence] redefine them as needed to create new identities; however, she may not return it to a previous identity - upon changing from Joe Mortal the Astrologer to Ragara Joe the Dragon-Blooded, the Sorcerer destiny may not return to being Joe Mortal.

Calling upon a Resplendency effect is simple; the character can take an accelerated Shape Destiny action [Spd 5, DV-0], or use it reflexively for resplendencies that work in reaction to an event, with a difficulty of 2 plus the Endurance cost. Any paradox a Resplendency effect inflicts is rolled and added to the standard pool upon successful invocation of the Resplendency. As they are functions of existing Destinies, invoking a Resplendency effect does not count against the destinies created in the scene for the purposes of paradox.

Complementary Skills

Crafting these sorts of destinies, even long-term ones, simply by dictating the fate directly to the spiders can work in a rush, but a Sidereal is most rewarded for planning ahead and taking actions to coax fate naturally in the desired direction before creating the destiny. In short, a Sidereal can undertake a complementary skill test as a dramatic action. Every two successes on the roll adds one die to the eventual Providence Shaping roll itself. These can be run as simply quick rolls or as full scenes, depending on the interest of the storyteller and the other players.

In general, any action the ST considers acceptable to the desired destiny can be used as a complementary skill roll. Most common [and always applicable] are Performance (Prayer) to the spiders and Craft: Fate for plotting out the interaction of the destiny with existing fates. Other skills require adjudication, but planning the destiny and contacting the Spiders are always available. Multiple appropriate actions can be taken across different scenes and downtimes, but the Sidereal may only add the largest bonus + half of all other bonuses (round up).

The Sidereal enacting the destiny can take up to [Essence] complementary actions. If other Sidereals work with her, they each get one roll, and may add their College ability in successes to that roll. She may also gain assistance from each of a single Solar, Lunar, and Dragon-Blooded; despite their inability to weave fate, the heroes of Creation can guide its' course if properly directed to make her job easier.

Paradox

When a Sidereal reshapes the fate of threads in the loom, his own often becomes entangled in the mess. If incautious in his efforts to affect destiny, the Sidereal may find his actions restricted by an errant thread, as if he had come under an astrological curse with no maker. This is referred to as the Weaver's Paradox - the more one tries to fix the strands of fate, the more out of alignment he may make them - or Paradox for short.
Every successful destiny produces a pool of paradox dice, and immediately rolls the pool. A failure on the roll indicates one die is saved for the next successful Destiny; this pool is cleared at the end of the day. Success indicates a Paradox Snarl is placed in abeyance; at any time, the ST may inflict a destiny-like curse upon the Sidereal ["+1 TN to your Melee rolls in opposition to Bull of the North for the scene"], or blessing antithetical to her desires [such as the Solar she's opposing gaining the benefits of a destiny], of the ST's choice. These Snarls last for the scene they are invoked in. As an alternate to imposing a negative destiny, the ST may expend a curse to inflict an automatic failure on a single roll of the Sidereal's, as an Unnatural Compulsion costing 1wp to resist [which keeps the curse from being expended].
If a Sidereal has paradox snarl waiting in abeyance, he may perform the Wrapped Fly or Wrapped Diamond rituals to remove them. The Wrapped Fly ritual removes one snarl for each day the Sidereal does not stress the loom, as the Pattern Spiders obediently take the time to untangle the strands of fate snarled around him. The Wrapped Diamond ritual removes [Essence+Willpower] curses at once in exchange for the intimacy and EXP sacrificed; this is generally only used in emergencies.
Flavorwise: The Wrapped Fly Ritual is a notification of requiring maintenance and assistance by the pattern spiders. Removing the snarled strands of fate that cause Paradox Curses necessitates a quiet day and temporarily accepting the loss of fate's benefits, as the Sidereal's strand is essentially "taken out for repair". The Wrapped Diamond Ritual forges the Sidereal's heartfelt intimacy and the touch of their own experiences into a dummy fate; so long as they don't reforge the intimacy within the time limit, the snarled strands remain attached to it until it dissolves.

Example

Lilang Hu, in the process of plotting the course of the south, intends to create a destiny for the city of Gem to help maintain its' stability [this also serves to help edge the betting pool on its' next catastrophe date in her favor]. Since affecting an entire city with a blessing is a tricky task requiring an incredible amount of success on her astrological shaping, she decides to invest a good deal of time preparing Gem for her plans.

She begins by divining the fate of Gem, to check for any approaching twists of fate such as great conflicts or endings, rolling her Perception+Occult and getting 5 successes for +2 dice. She then takes the effort of coercing various officials into more effective performance of their duties, undertaking a Manipulation+Bureaucracy roll after several dramatic actions; with 7 successes, she adds another 3 dice to her pool. Writing up the destiny itself as an Intelligence+Craft:Fate roll rewards her with another 8 successes and +4 dice, and finally, an extended prayer to the Spiders with her Fateful Performance Excellency results in 12 successes, for +6 dice.

She receives a total bonus of 6+[(3+2+4)/2] dice; eleven bonus dice from situational circumstances to her roll! She decides she is finally ready to commit to creating the year-long destiny for Gem, but to further hedge things in her favor, she creates a short-term Artless Prodigy Blessing of the Sorcerer [Essence+Occult, difficulty 4 for her own Essence rating] to aid her in the crafting of the destiny, giving herself -1 TN on the roll.

Settling on the Sword as the End of Hope, she decides to create an Ascending Destiny of the Sword, rewarding the city of Gem with the Artless Prodigy Blessing for any actions taken realizing the populace's hopes of security and prosperity. She rolls her Essence+Martial Arts+11 dice and achieves 14 successes on her 20 dice, buying another 4 with her Second Martial Arts Excellency. 6 successes go to the sheer population of Gem's metropolis [assuming around 100,000 individuals], four go to making it last ten years, three more to ensuring it can benefit Gem up to once a scene, and finally the last five go to allowing it to affect beings of up to Essence 3; stronger gods, god-blooded, and Exalted may not share in the blessing's value, but the mortals in the area, and any Mandate of Heaven rolls on their behalf, will be able to gain the benefit of the blessing once per scene.

Finally, she rolls her total paradox pool from the extended destiny: Ten years adds one die, the size of the city adds three dice, and working once per scene adds one die. Rolling two successes, she will unfortunately encounter two scenes related to her assistance of Gem wherein astrological curses of the Storyteller's choice take effect. Additionally, if her tampering in fate is discovered and not sufficiently justified, she may face censure due to the size and scope of the destiny. Preventing its' discovery, and creating sufficient justification, should provide interesting stories in her future.

Experience
Access to a College costs 10xp, or 8xp if the ability tied to the college is favored. No skill in the college's ability is required, but it is helpful.
If new Providences are designed and permitted, they cost 5xp apiece.

Astrological Charms
Should the charms detailed in Glories: Maidens and Return of the Scarlet Empress be unlocked for Sidereal use, they function as written, aside from the Paradox cost.
Any time an astrological charm would give the Sidereal using it a point of Paradox, an immediate paradox curse is formed, as if she had rolled her Paradox pool and garnered a success. This occurs for every point of paradox the charm generates; a charm with a 3p cost generates three destinies that the Sidereal would probably not want, of the ST's choosing. The duration of these curse destinies is the same as the charm or one scene, whichever is longer. They can be used by the ST immediately or held in contingency for a later date.

Caveat: This is made to work with such current edition versions of the Sidereal Charmset as Loom 2.0, SrGrvsALot's Rethinking Sidereals, or even *shudder* MoEP: Sidereals, as errata'd. Should Sidereals receive a proper 2e charmset that restores them to their original position in 1e, with the solar-rivaling power and scope of charm use that justified horrendously character-ruining randomly generated results on Astrology, then I will adjust the power of Astrology and the penalty of Paradox to match. However, this is written on the assumption that Sidereals are a mid-ranged Celestial Exalt; as such, I have made astrology more useful to compensate for the Dragon Blooded-equivalent power of most Sidereal charmsets.

Comments

You need to include into your rules an explicite mention of how you are changing Scope to not have to count for Essence 2+ beings in the area. Was it your intent to make it possible for single Sidereals to lay effects on entire directions of Creation? Probably a rule for not allowing Fateful (Ability) Excellency to not work with this ruleset. Perhaps make it a little more clear as well how Resplendant Destinies are being changed. It seems like now a Sidereal has all of them whenever they want and just invokes powers from them. A good start to fixing things up though I would like to see Craft: Fate play a larger roll somehow. -BogMod

The XP cost for a college seems too high. 8XP is basically a new charm, yet the bonus point cost is only 1 for a favored college. For comparison, a charm costs 4bp. Additionally, how does this interact with Propertous (Ability) Excellency? Previously, every dot in the Ability's college would reduce the cost of the Excellency by one mote per dot, so at five dots a Sidereal could activate Propertous Excellency for 1m & 1wp and be able to get either six dice (1st Excellency) or three successes automatically. This is a very useful feature, so some kind of compensation for not being able to use it should be made. -Xeno426