AbyssalResistance/Capric
Elegant Dressings of Bone and Blood
Cost: none Duration: permanent Type: special Min. Resistance: 5 Min Essence: 4 Prereqs: Crimson Petal Armor
With increased understanding, the Abyssal may improve the armors granted by Ivory Blossom Carapace and Crimson Petal Armor. Their forms sleeken and refine, becoming less combersome and obvious while offering the same level of protection. The armors granted take on the appearance of formal attire and/or military uniforms and may even be mistaken for such at casual glance, although any detailed inspection will quickly reveal their true nature. The soak granted by those armors no longer counts as armor for the purpose of wearing other armors. They may also be activated while wearing other armors, as the bone and/or blood effuses through the normal armor, enhancing it. Note that the combined soak granted from the two charms may not exceed the Abyssal's stamina + resistance, and that normal armor is not hidden in any way by using this charm.
Crimson Consumptive Malady
Cost: 15 motes, 1 will, 1 lethal HL Duration: instant Type: simple Min. Resistance: 5 Min Essence: 4 Prereqs: Scarlet Venom Technique, Contamination of Body
Exposing a victim to her tainted blood, an Abyssal may attempt to infect her target with the consumptive essence therein. She may activate this charm, and one selected victim who is currently suffering the effects of her poison must make stamina+resistance roll at difficulty equal to the Abyssal's essence. If this roll fails, the victim will find himself subject to a disease of sorts, one that links and subjugates him to the Abyssal that infected him. While a target is infected, the Abyssal may choose to lose the target's life force or essence instead of his own. Any time the Abyssal loses or spends health levels or essence, he may choose to spend one of his infected targets' health levels or essence in place of his own as a reflexive action. No more than one health level and (resistance) motes of essence may be substituted per turn in this manner. The infected may attempt to stave off this consumption from within by spending a point of temporary willpower and re-rolling the initial resistance roll as a dice action. Success on this roll temporarily makes the sickness subside, preventing the infecting Abyssal from leeching motes or health level for a full 24 hours. This disease has a magical difficulty to treat of the Abyssal's essence, and mundane of Abyssal's essence x2. Exalts may roll to recover from this once a week, all others once a month. No more victims than the Abyssal's essence may be infected with her consumptive essence at any one time.
As a side effect of this magical disease the victim and Abyssal are completely immune to any intrinsic effects the other possess, treating all such effects as generated by self.
Vital Nectar Fermentation
Cost: 10 motes, 1 will Duration: scene Type: simple Min. Resistance: 5 Min Essence: 4 Prereqs: Scarlet Venom Technique
Exerting greater control over her flesh, the Abyssal gains more variety in her poisonous humors. Not content to grant mere death, the Abyssal may choose for her blood to have one of the following effects instead of the usual poison as described in Abyssals pg 183. This charm may be taken multiple times, selecting a different effect each time. Each effect has a single additional prerequisiste charm in addition to the normal one for this charm.
Debash: Cordial of Absolute Honey
- Prereq: Irresistable Succubus Style
- Duration: 2 hours
- The Abyssal's blood and fluids become an intensely pleasurable and highly addictive narcotic--those affected have trouble concentrating, and those deeply affected find even distasteful things pleasureable and only half-willingly avoid them. Even her mere touch, although not enough to fully transmit the drug, is exceedingly pleasant as traces of narcotic suffuse through the skin. Anyone exposed to the Abyssal's bodily fluids must make stamina + resistance roll at difficulty of the Abyssal's essence. Success on this roll gives a dice penalty of Abyssal's Essence to all the target's actions, failure makes this penalty apply at half strength, rounding up, to rolls not normally affected by penalties. The target must make a Temperance roll, difficulty 1, to resist addiction. This effect also greatly enhances seduction, giving essence in autosuccess to seduction attempts. A successful seduction makes the addictive aspects of this effect significantly stronger--if the Abyssal succeeds on appearance + performance roll at difficulty of victim's temperance, the addiction roll is at difficulty 2.
Shekar: Philtre of Pure Desire
- Prereq: Soul-Flaying Gaze
- Duration: 6 hours
- The Abyssal's blood dimishes the upper soul of the victim, with each dose breaking down the barriers that keep the hun ascendant and the po dormant. Those exposed must make stamina + resistance roll at difficulty of the Abyssal's essence. Failure drains 3 temporary willpower from the target, success drains 1. If the target reaches negative willpower, he enters a bestial rage and mindless hunger. He suffers no wound penalties, gains a bonus of +3 on all attack rolls, cannot fail valor rolls and cannot succeed any others. The character must devote all actions towards attacking and killing the nearest target in the most direct manner possible. The character may use charms and simple weapons but is not aware enough to activate sorcery, combos, or complicated artifacts. If no targets are immediately available, the victim will crouch and eat the flesh of the dead, or wander around in search of others if no meat is present. This condition persists until the poison wears off.
Mesekh: Elixir of Eternal Life
- Prereq: Skeleton-Summoning Gesture
- Duration: indefinite
- The Abyssal's blood becomes a necrotic agent, localizing in the extremeties and killing the normal flesh, filling it with undead vitae. The dead limbs then act as zombie limbs, mindlessly clawing and writhing. Note that limbs so affected are dead, and must be amputated or otherwise destroyed before the effects will end and damage can be healed. Magical effects that heal aggravated damage can reverse the process directly without amputation. In that case, when damage from the poison is healed the effects end, as limbs and other body parts are revivified.The target must make stamina + resistance roll at essence difficulty when exposed to poison. Target takes 3 lethal levels on failure, 1 lethal level on success. The total amount of damage taken with this poison determines what may be zombified. Note that additional applications may stack this, thus 'saving up' for larger limbs, and that penalties from different limbs may stack if the necessary conditions apply.
- Tongue and Jaw- Requires 1 lethal health level. The afflicted mutters gibberish and moans, making all speech impossible. If warm flesh or raw meat is placed near, it will furiously devour. The mouth can be made to drink water, but it takes time. Blood is slurped up with great speed.
- Hand- Requires 2 lethal health levels. The afflicted hand drops whatever it was holding and attempts to grab and strangle its owner. The victim must suffer penalty equal to Abyssal's essence on all dice actions or suffer undodgeable grapple with pool equal to victim's strength. Anything requiring the use of two hands suffers penalty equal to twice Abyssal's essence. Health levels dedicated towards the hand count towards levels for the attached arm.
- Foot- Requires 2 lethal health levels. The afflicted foot twists and turns most unhelpfully, refusing to balance. The victim moves at half speed and suffers penalty equal to Abyssal's essence whenever weight is on affected foot, or that foot is directly used. Moving at full speed or any athletics maneuvers requiring two feet forces a dexterity + athletics roll at difficulty 1 or face knockdown. Note that the dice penalty applies to the knockdown roll. Health levels dedicated towards the foot count towards levels for the attached leg.
- Arm- Requires 4 lethal health levels. The arm actively tries to kill its owner now, dropping anything it was holding and fighting with all the strength and skill that was worked into it. Victim suffers penalty on all actions equal to Abyssal's essence, and must devote one dice action a round to restraining or avoiding the limb or suffer undodgeable grapple at full pool (using whatever combination of str/dex/brawl/ma/specs gives highest pool). This attack is parryable at difficulty 3.
- Leg- Requires 4 lethal health levels. The leg twists and spins inelegantly as it attmpts to kick its owner. The character has an effective dexterity of zero for the purposes of calculating movement speed, and suffers penalty to all actions of Abyssal's essence. Additionally, the character must make dexerity + athletics roll at difficulty 3 or be knocked prone. If flying, this manifests as the character attempting to remain upright and in the air. Note that these balance rolls, like normal balance rolls, are not reflexive, and that the Storyteller is encouraged to call for other balance rolls when appropriate.
Blood of Teeth Technique
Cost: 3 motes Duration: Instant Type: Reflexive Min. Resistance: 4 Min Essence: 3 Prereqs: Bone Arsenal Method
As the exalt is attcked, the very blood inside of her will fight for the Abyssal. After an injury, blood spilt will form into a rain of razor spikes and hurl themselves towards the attacker. This charm may be invoked after any attack, and is unparryable melee range counterattack with accuracy equal to Abyssal's permanent essence + resistance + dice of post-soak damage, and base lethal damage equal to permanent essence + levels of damage taken. This charm may not be invoked in response to other counterattack charms.
Fragrant Petal Distillation
Cost: none Duration: permanent Type: special Min. Resistance: 5 Min Essence: 5 Prereqs: All 3 modes of Vital Nectar Fermentation
An Abyssal who has learned this charm is a fearful thing, as the poison that flows through him is so fully saturated that the merest touch or breath is enough to transmit. The effects of Scarlet Venom Technique no longer require the exchange of bodily fluids--coming within (essence) yards or being touched by the Abyssal is now enough to poison. Like the charm Scarlet Venom Technique, this is a permanent shift in the Abyssal's physiology and its effects are not optional.
Comments
All of these charms are great (with the possible exception of Elegant Dressings of Bone and Blood, which I have various problems with)but I have some critique. Firstly, Fragrant Petal Distillation - I assume poisoning people is a chosen effect rather than an automatic one (otherwise, the touch range seems redundant. Unless you have very long arms) but stating it would clarify. If it is indeed by-choice, then there should be in my opinion some cost to activate it at range. Even something as little as 2 motes non-charm or an unrolled dice action would be appropriate, it's just a bit weird to have a directed effect that has no real cost and just happens reflexively. If it's automatic(not by choice) then the current 'always on' seems okay, although it'd be a right pain at parties.
Vital Nectar Fermentation is inspired, truly wonderful. My only comment is that you're trumping the perfection of lots of effects with the leg-based knockdown rolls... If characters can stand upsidedown on a tree branch in a blizzard on one foot while blindfolded and fighting three people... why they can't stand on only one foot while the other is kicking them seems odd. I would suggest making it not ignore auto-balance, but put in a note that the GM should perhaps consider asking for rolls if it seems appropriate, just not always under any effect. You should also state whether the roll is reflexive or not. My vote is non-reflexive, like normal balance rolls.
Crimson Consumptive Malady - another very nice effect, but this one seems strangely underpowered. Sometimes. Except when it's overpowered. Read on, and I shall explain.
Even an extra has 4 dice in a Sta + Resist pool, and assuming 2 successes (they rolled well) an abyssal can only drain 3 lots of whatever. Admittedly, they'll rapidly run out of HL as the abyssal can do it every turn, but it's the point of the thing. More importantly, if you infect your lover/hated enemy/(un)trusted lieutenant, he she or it can quite often tell you to go fish, if they have a good pool. Forcing the rolls every single turn is going to rapidly get annoying as well. Is there an upper limit on the amount of HLs drained overall? Can you kill someone with it? Both of those need to be answered, and if there's no limit on HLs drained, it seems a little powerful - infect someone with this and sooner or later they'll die... but only after hundreds and hundreds of die-rolls. I would suggest increasing the difficulty of the roll, but making success better for the victim. Perhaps the roll is at a difficulty of the abyssal's essence (making it quite hard... but possible for exalts, especially if they spend willpower or channels) but every success over the difficulty prevents the abyssal from draining from them again for an hour (or a day if you want to be generous... perhaps a day for exalts or people with awakened essence, or access to magical protections/what have you.) Finally, can you draw on more than one victim per turn? I would suggest not with the current rules, or you'll never kill an abyssal with a couple of mortal thralls and a ghost or two currently infected. It doesn't matter quite so much if they resist for longer, but it should still be answered for clarity.
Elegant Dressings of Bone and Blood... I just don't like it for some reason. I like the fluff, that it turns your armour into uniform/formal wear, that's great. What abyssal wouldn't want such a cool ability. But I don't like the actual mechanics... as a permanant charm, I think it's rather heavily overpowered. being able to add 10 soak to any suit of armour and have it count as natural... it seems wrong. Besides, doesn't Bone armour already stack with armour? Finally, you should clarify if it lets MAists use MA with it. I would strongly suggest not, or there'll be all sorts of issues.
I hope this rash of suggestions, comments and critique are helpful, they're certainly not meant aggressively, I just had lots to say about your stuff, but as I said earlier, I like all of it and I think I'm going to be using half this tree straight off. Keep it up, more abyssal charms are always good!
-- Darloth
- Thank you very much for your comments; I have a few responses. Firstly, Fragrant Petal Distillation is an always on effect; anyone who takes it is permanently poisonous, and will have difficulty even speaking with most living things without killing them. But, like Scarlet Venom Technique, the combat applications are horrifingly strong. I also put the wording about 'or touch' in there because there already exist charms which allow you to make blood-related attacks at a slight range (blood chains), and I always imagined a tree of higher tier Archery charms invovling spears of blood falling like rain upon enemies. I wanted this charm to explicitly work with any such charms.
- I pretty much figured that a difficulty one athletics roll was so trivial as to be basically a matter of course for any real exalt, hence the perfection-trumping nature of the zombie leg effect. But you're right. Trumping perfection is bad; changes you suggested are entirely reasonable, and I made them. I worry somewhat about the relative effectiveness of the leg effect versus the arm, but it's probably not a huge deal.
- Crimson Consumptive Malady was based off the Sidereal marriage charm, and was designed to be used on demon slaves; it's an in-combat mote and health regeneration charm. It's a very, very strong charm. My reasoning for it was this: Abyssal defense should not be so much that you can't hurt them (that's a Solar schtick), but that it doesn't matter when you do, and that hurting them only kills other things. However, the mess of dice rolling was not good and it was too strong as written (20 HL per turn and/or 60 motes per turn drained is a little much), so I changed the wording and effect to make it a little more sane and playable, and gave it minor combat utility against significant opponents. As a side note, Abyssals already canonically posses a relatively easy way to very rapidly regain arbitrary amounts of essence out of combat.
- I had numerous issues writing Crimson Consumptive Malady, as the initial desired effect was the incidental immunity one at the end. Unfortunately, the nature of Abyssals makes it difficult to give them an effect like that without making it the corrolary of some other very powerful effect.
- Elegant Dressings of Bone and Blood was solely designed to make Ivory Blossom Carapace and Crimson Petal Armor useable. Soak is not very useful in Exalted, and soak granted by armor is even less so, as it is diminished and negated in a number of ways. I personally can't even imagine wasting a valuable turn putting them up, not when useful persists could be raised, or Void-Banished Mails summoned, or even Inauspicious Shadow Plate summoned (which probably also needs a permanent charm to make it more worthwhile and to differentiate it from Crimson Petal Armor). Honestly, even when improved with Elegant Dressings of Bone and Blood they're mostly worthless charms, and still not worth the setup time, much less the willpower. And no, the bone armor does not stack with armor. I did decide it should probably not count as natural soak, though. I think that's the realm of a seperate Resistance charm.
- Thanks again for the very helpful comments! And sorry it took me so long to formulate a response. I'm very slow most of the time... ~Capric
Not a problem. I had admittedly forgotten I'd written this, but it's always nice to see a response. I personally think you've got them all about right now. A very nice charmset.
-- Darloth
