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 two of the eight Providences [MoEP: Sidereals, p191], the forms which astrology takes, and the ability to create Resplendent Destinies. Providences cost 3bp apiece.
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 in the short term requires a roll of Essence+College Ability as a Miscellaneous Action [Spd 5, DV -1] 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, +1 for any short-term astrology effects currently affecting them [a blessing or curse laid previously in the scene, by you or another Sidereal]. 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.

Upon successfully laying a providence upon a target, they can gain the benefit of a blessing [as a reflexive choice of theirs, in step 5 if in an attack] once per action, or suffer the penalty of a curse [reflexively chosen by the Sidereal, even if she is not involved in the attack] once an 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.

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 redefine as needed when creating new identities; however, she may not 'switch it back' to a previous destiny's identity. Calling upon a Resplendency effect is a simple matter of "creating" them as if they were a Destiny, 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.

Extended Destinies
Creating an extended destiny intended to last beyond a single scene makes the shaping of destiny a dramatic action [5 long ticks, DV -1] and requires additional successes to determine the duration; as per Sidereals [p192]. but increasing the duration's cost by 1 point [therefore a destiny lasting one month requires 1 extra success, and so on]. If the subject of the destiny is not present, the Sidereal may "hold" it until they can eventually touch the target. The power of an extended destiny is similarly weakened as it lacks the devout attention of a pattern spider, working only once per scene. A single extra success increases it to [Target's Essence] times per scene. Someone benefitting from an extended blessing can call upon it reflexively when appropriate.

The Sidereal may also influence larger areas, as per the Scope of an area, minus 1 (a scope 0 Destiny automatically has the option of being limited to the target or influencing the world around him to affect his rolls and life). This manner of extended destiny has special rules for accounting for the Essence rating affected; every dot of essence above 1 adds its' rating in successes required. Affecting all entities of essence 2 requires an additional 2 successes, while affecting up to Essence 5 necessitates an extra 14 successes. Sidereals rarely account for more than Essence 2 or three in order to trim costs.

When applied to an extended destiny, using the Fateful Excellency to purchase an Auspicious Success is not possible; only reducing the target number can be done with it.

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).

Paradox
Paradox is an expression of fate back-lashing when the spiders are forced to hastily apply too much tugging and tweaking of the strands at a Sidereal's behest. The Sidereal's demands fray fate, and while the spiders are not inherently vindictive creatures, they do spend more time focusing on the requests of Destinies and less on the Sidereal's own thread. A Sidereal may successfully enact up to her Essence in Destinies in a single scene without risking Paradox. Every successful destiny over the limit adds one die to a Paradox pool, and immediately rolls the pool. Failure indicates the die is saved for the next successful Destiny. Success indicates a Curse destiny inflicted upon the Sidereal, of the ST's choice. These Curses last for the scene.

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 3xp, or 2xp if the ability tied to the college is favored. No skill in the college's ability is required, but it is helpful. [54xp total]
Providences cost 8xp apiece. [48xp]

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