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by CallMeCal

Emerald: Purity of Jade

The body of Gaia — that is, the land of Creation — produces and exudes the magical material Jade. Oadenal's Codex records six varieties of Jade; five found naturally, the sixth only ever produced by accident. Each color of Jade has special properties, so of course, many smiths and savants in the First Age and the Shogunate tried everything they could think of to bind all five (or, when they had Yellow Jade available, all six) together into one artifact, that could glean the benefits of all five (or six) special properties. Sadly, none were ever successful. They finally came to the conclusion that the different colors of Jade, harmonious as they were, would not work together in a single item.

But there is a secret. Two secrets, in fact.

The first is Yellow Jade. Its existence is not a secret, but its purpose is. There have been many theories as to what it is, and what it is for. It has been thought to be "pure" Jade, undifferentiated and without element; it has been thought to represent a sixth element, equal to or even greater than the other five (what element that is supposed to be was also subject to many hypotheses); it has been thought to be an artificial construct, purely synthetic, with no properties inherent to itself that could not be altered in the forging process... that is, if anyone could figure out how to reliably forge it. Of all these, the first comes closest to the truth, but even then it is not quite there. Yellow Jade represents the harmony of the elements, the space between them and the connection among them. If the five elements are the bricks of Creation, Yellow Jade represents the mortar that holds them together. Artifact weapons and armor made of Yellow Jade can be attuned to by any Aspect, and confer the standard jade bonuses (+1 Damage, -1 Speed; no fatigue value), as well as subtracting 1 from the difficulty of all cooperative actions and Charms.

The second secret is the Synergy Chakra, reservoir of Chi unique to the Dragon-Blooded.

If a Dragon-Blooded of sufficient Essence has access to equal amounts of 100% pure Jade (not alloyed with steel or anything else) of the five elemental types, and an amount of 100% pure Yellow Jade equal to the total amounts of the other five, she is in a position to forge Emerald. Whether it has ever been done before, whether anyone knows whether it has been done before, or whether anyone even knows this is possible, let alone how common any of that knowledge is, is all up to the Storyteller.

To forge an Emerald Artifact requires the amount of each elemental Jade to be the amount required to make the same artifact out of that Jade (i.e. it takes a total of ten times as much Jade [1*(each element) + 5*Yellow] to make an equivalent Artifact out of Emerald). The Dragon-Blooded must be at Essence level equal to or greater than the rating of the Artifact she wishes to forge (an Emerald Artifact is always one dot higher than the equivalent Artifact made of Jade), and she must spend Temporary Synergy equal to the rating of the Artifact during the forging process, in order to harmonize and successfully meld the six types of Jade together. Emerald cannot be alloyed with any other material, it cannot be Verdigrised or Moonfaced or otherwise altered from its original state. In order to function, it must be absolutely pure.

When forged successfully, Emerald is unspeakably beautiful. It has a gold-green hue like sunlight dancing among summer leaves coated in the late-morning dew. It is translucent like colored glass, and touched with iridescence, reflecting pools and shapes of every color of jade that went into its forging. It is also among the hardest and strongest materials known to Creation, comparable to or perhaps even surpassing Orichalcum. When wielded or used by a Terrestrial, it grants benefits as though made purely of Yellow Jade and as though made purely of Jade of her own elemental aspect, conferring both benefits. When wielded by a Gaian, however, it does even more than that.

Ascended Terrestrials: The Gaian Exalted

Emerald is the purest expression of Jade and the Elements, which in turn are expressions of the body and nature of Gaia. Terrestrials are the Exalted of the Elemental Dragons, together representing the body of Gaia but each alone representing only one aspect of the whole. The Gaian Exalted then, like Emerald, are pure expressions of all the elemental aspects, embodying in one individual that which the Dragon-Blooded Host embodies as a community. The Synergy that Dragon-Blooded express with one another, the Gaian expresses with the elements themselves, and with Gaia directly. Rather than being a weak part of a strong community, she is a strong part of a mighty world. The Gaians are Ascended Terrestrials, equal in power to the Celestial Exalts, expressing the Synergy of Creation not through their community but through their internal harmony with nature, and their power and abilities reflect this separation from the Dragon-Blooded Host to become one with Gaia Herself.

Castes

Gaians by nature encompass all Elemental Aspects, and are therefore Casteless. One could sort of consider Gaian to be a sixth Terrestrial Aspect in itself, though this falls far short of the whole story. As for how much of the whole story is known, and how common that knowledge is, that is explored to a certain extent here.

The Ascension: Becoming One With Gaia

The line between a Terrestrial and a Gaian is not quite as solid as the line between, for example, a Solar and an Abyssal. One does not simply become a Gaian. It is a process, a path, and it takes near half of the Dragon-Blooded's life to complete. There are five stages along the path, as the Dragon-Blooded transitions from Terrestrial to Gaian Exaltation.

Stage 0: Terrestrial

At this stage she is simply Dragon-Blooded, slow growing, monoaspected, bound to the Dragon-Blooded Host. However, if she attunes herself to an Emerald Artifact, something inside her begins to change. Most Artifacts bind themselves to an Exalt's First Chakra (Glory, Shift, Mystery, Synergy, or Logic), while those of the Yozis, Neverborn, and Fae bind themselves to their respective Exalted's Second Chakra (Penitence, Jhor, or Plot), but Emerald works differently. Emerald binds itself to the Third Chakra, Quintessence. It will only do so in the presence of a Synergy Chakra (i.e. only Dragon-Blooded and their other templates can attune to it), but it binds instead to her Quintessence. However, since a good deal of Synergy Chi was folded into the Emerald during its forging, it attracts Synergy Chi to itself. Any Synergy that she earns while she is attuned to the Emerald Artifact is channeled through the Artifact before it reaches the Chakra, and is altered slightly by it, as iron scraped by a magnet, and receives the "Emerald" trait. Any Temporary Synergy she has stored also feels the pull of the Emerald, and at the end of each session one Temporary Synergy gains the "Gaian" trait. (Permanent Synergy is unaffected.) If her Temporary Synergy is of mixed type, she cannot convert it to Permanent. Once she has ten Temporary "Gaian" Synergy, however, she may convert them to one Permanent "Gaian" Synergy. And this is when things start to get interesting...

Stage 1: Enlightened

If a Dragon-Blooded with one or more Permanent "Gaian" Synergy increases her Permanent Essence rating, she immediately becomes Enlightened. Her eyes are opened, and she realizes how disconnected the Dragon-Blooded are, how disconnected she is. She feels a distance from her fellows that she never felt before, but more than that she feels a distance from Creation that she never noticed before. She is overcome with the astounding notion that all things are connected, all things are one, but that Creation is broken, it has become separated, divided. The factional infighting between Houses suddenly seems pointless and self-destructive, the hunting of Anathema feels disjointed and counterproductive, and most of all the division of the Elements into five Aspects seems arbitrary and unnecessary.

And then the vision is gone. Her old feelings and opinions, whatever they were before this moment, come rushing back over her. What will she do with this vision? Such is the power of it that she canot remain unchanged by it. Will she be repulsed by it, rejecting its message and diving even more strongly into traditional Dragon-Blooded philosophy? Will she embrace it, rejecting her old life and beliefs in pursuit of holistic interconnectedness? Or will it be somewhere in between? This is, in the end, up to her to decide. If she chooses to reject it entirely, feeling repulsed by the vision and its message, that feeling of revulsion will extend to the Emerald Artifact as well, as she instinctively realizes that its very substance is the embodiment of that message and the source of that vision. But the one thing she cannot do is go back to the way she was. She is now and will forevermore be Enlightened.

Changes

An Enlightened Terrestrial has one Permanent "Gaian" Synergy locked into her Exaltation for life by her Permanent Essence. As such she can never fully shake the memory of the vision it brought with it. As such, she receives a -1 Internal Penalty on all cooperative rolls. This tends to be the most difficult time for her, as she has had her eyes opened to the brokenness around and within her but has not yet begun the process of healing. In all other ways, she remains simply a Terrestrial. For now.

Stage 2: Awakened

Stage 3: Opened

Stage 4: Bountiful

Stage 5: Ascended