Charms/WillowsInfernalLinguistics

Infernal Linguistics

It may come as a surprise that Thari, the Word Serpent, is not the thematic source of some of the most popular Linguistics Charms. It turns out that the word is essential to every Yozi's existence, and they all lend inspiration to Infernal speech magics.

Charm Count: 5

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Silent Expression Style

Cost: 3 motes

Duration: One scene

Type: Simple

Min. Linguistics: 2

Min. Essence: 1

Prereq Charms: None

As the Solar Charm Poetic Expression Style.

Sympathetic Posture

Cost: 1 mote per die

Duration: Instant

Type: Supplemental

Min. Linguistics: 2

Min. Essence: 1

Prereq Charms: Silent Expression Style

With this Charm, the Infernal duplicates the mannerisms and gestures of an audience, warming their hearts towards him. He may add up to his Limit in dice to a Linguistics, Presence, Socialize, Brawl or Melee action. This Charm is explicitly permitted to be in a Combo with Charms of other Abilities.

Wondering Eye Invocation

Cost: 2 motes per -1

Duration: One Scene

Type: Simple

Min. Linguistics: 3

Min. Essence: 2

Prereq Charms: Silent Expression Style

The victim of this Charm feels bound to interpret what is said to him in a negative manner; his pessimistic attitude makes his presence vile. This causes him to make Social rolls at a -1 die penalty per 2 motes spent. This functions automatically on beings with Willpower no greater than the Infernal's Essence; beings with Willpower up to twice his Essence may roll Willpower at a difficulty of the Infernal's Essence to shake off the effect. It does not affect stronger-willed beings at all. The Infernal may spend no more motes on this Charm than twice his Essence.

Irreproachable Diction Style

Cost: 6 motes

Duration: Instant

Type: Simple

Min. Linguistics: 4

Min. Essence: 2

Prereq Charms: Wondering Eye Invocation

The Infernal can couch a message within another, with the same restrictions as Letter-within-a-Letter Technique. This message is automatically understood by any who hear the Infernal speak or read his piece of writing, except for one social entity ("Dynasts", "Sidereals", "mangy peasants") who not only cannot discern the message, but also cannot be convinced that it is present.

Ebon Ivy Calligraphy

Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower

Duration: Indefinite

Type: Simple

Min. Linguistics: 5

Min. Essence: 2

Prereq Charms: Irreproachable Diction Style

The Infernal writes a text with an embedded message (which works just like the previous Charm), which infects other texts that it comes in contact with, like a disease. Each day, the text will transmit its viral message into (Essence) other texts, which will do likewise until the Charm is released.

Comments

Sympetetic Posture: Why only Melee, amongst all the combat abilities? And shouldn't it be two motes per die, since the base dice-adder for a melee attack is 2m/d? And how does SP interact with other dice adders? - DS (sorry, forgot)

SP is one of several Charms that feed more than one Ability, due to certain qualities of Infernal magic: generally, they can only add up to their Limit with a Charm, but their dice-adding cap is the same as other Solar-sparked Exalts (Solars and Abyssals), Attribute + Ability. So it's possible that an Infernal will be unable to add as many dice as he is capable of with a single Charm. So he needs to overlap Charms from multiple Abilities to put the most possible juice into an action. (I will probably revise the extant Forsaken dice-adders to have overlapping Ability spreads soon.)

What do you mean by the cost question? All Infernal "add your Limit for a flat cost" Charms cost 3m, and Solar motes-per-dice adders are 1/1 for offense (Excellent Strike) or 1m per 2 dice for defence (Golden Essence Block). And Infernals work on a basically Solar cost model. - FWW

I'm not questioning why SP feeds dice into a combat ability- I'm questioning that it feeds dice into only ONE combat ability. And the 2m thing was my being utterly insane for a moment, and should be struck from the record :) As to the second, I'm what I'm asking- if I have Thrasing Dragon Strike, SP, and my Limit is 9, can I add up to 18 dice (with a Combo, a willpower and 12 motes) to a single attack?

Oh yeah- why is SP an escalating cost instead of a flat cost? - DS

Hm. Just had a vague idea for charms I figured I'd put forward: Along the lines of the 'create a contagious belief' social charm you wrote a while back, how about the ability to corrupt a written text - perhaps encyphering it with a low-tier charm, working up to a spreading corruption that rewrites books with subliminal pro-Yozi propaganda built in, which could gradually contaminate other nearby books and spread throughout a library? - Translucidity

I'm worried about functionality... I'd like to have at least three adders, one that adds to armed hand-to-hand attacks, one to unarmed attacks, and one to ranged attacks. I changed this one to be the unarmed one; I think that Falling Starlight Smile will gain the ranged function and an as yet unwritten Charm will do armed attacks. I feel justified in the escalating cost now, since the MA dice-adder should be inferior to the others.

For interaction: If you're an Essence 6 guy with a base pool of 12 and 9 Limit, and you Combo two dice-adders, each will provide you with up to 9 dice, but you can't make your pool bigger than 24 dice. If your Limit drops far enough, you may be in a state where you cannot realize your full potential, but you will never be in a condition where you can exceed Solar quality in your actions.

Trans - I like that idea a lot, for a second tree. As soon as I have the rest of this up, I'll start on that branch. Rock!

A spell, Anointment of Tongues: The Infernal pierces his tongue and mystic prayer strips with the gathered blood. He bunrs the strips; those who breathe the smoke learn all the Infernal's languages.\\ - FWW

How about Charms to turn people and things into their own written names, or to write the name of a thing and change the writing into a real thing? Or symbolic Charms that allow you to write a trait on a person or thing to convey that trait? - Quendalon

So, you planning to write those up anytime soon? - willows

Er, okay, I could do that.  :) Probably not today though, as I'm struggling with my session summaries. - Quendalon

Awesome, session summaries. (This whole "prodding people to write stuff" attitude is inspired by PrettyWikiProject and my own thought that creativity is better left to interactions of cheerleading and critique, rather than suggestion-execution-suggestion tuning cycles. - willows