Charms/WillowsInfernalMelee
Infernal Melee
Descended from She Who Lives In Her Name and Oramus, the Dragon Beyond the World, these Charms are magics of coordination and dynamic arrangement.
- Charm Count: 19
- Back to Charms
- Back to FourWillowsWeeping
- Back to WillowsInfernal
Thrashing Dragon Strike
- Cost: 3 motes
- Type: Supplemental
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 2
- Min. Essence: 2
- Prereq Charms: None
In the countless spheres orbiting She Who Lives In Her Name are imprisoned countless dragons of flame; as they throw themselves against their crystal cages, the spheres strike against each other and chime elegant tunes. The Infernal calls upon their frustration with this Charm, adding his Limit in dice to a single Melee attack.
Crystal Razor Edge
- Cost: 2 motes, 2+ lethal Health Levels
- Type: Supplemental
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 3
- Min. Essence: 2
- Prereq Charms: Thrashing Dragon Strike
When She Who Lives In Her Name was broken against Creation, all remember the fires that were unleashed, but the shattered crystal that cut away the world was forgotten, as it whirled away into the Wyld. When the Exalt uses this Charm, the edge of his weapon glitters translucently, and he breaks a bit of his soul to give his strike unfathomable ferocity. Multiply the attack's extra successes, before soak, by the number of HLs spent.
Unwinding Soul Blow
- Cost: 3 motes
- Type: Reflexive
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 5
- Min. Essence: 2
- Prereq Charms: Crystal Razor Edge
Enhancing a Melee attack with this Charm, the Infernal strikes at his opponent's deeper essence. His weapon becomes hazy and immaterial, and instead of dealing damage normally, the Infernal's player rolls his character's Essence. Each success on this roll gives the victim a -1 penalty to all dice pools. This penalty lasts for the Infernal's Willpower in turns; after that, the victim's player may reflexively roll Essence once each turn, and reduce the penalty by the number of successes. This Charm does not affect targets with Essence greater than the Exalt; it is a spiritual attack with no physical component; it can be dodged normally, but it is parried only by defences that are explicitly capable of fending off the attacks of dematerialized spirits.
Uncounted Years Shriek
- Cost: 3 motes/attack
- Type: Extra Actions
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 3
- Min. Essence: 2
- Prereq Charms: Thrashing Dragon Strike
The Infernal's perception of time shifts; he moves through a thousand days in an instant. To others, his weapon's motion seems as inevitable and natural as the turning of seasons; to him it is a twining ribbon of sound and pain. For every three motes spent on this Charm, the infernal may make a single Melee attack; he may not buy more attacks than his Melee score.
Fury of the Name
- Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower
- Type: Extra Actions
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 5
- Min. Essence: 2
- Prereq Charms: Uncounted Years Shriek
When the Lady of Coordination commands, all obey. With this Charm, the Infernal takes on the role of lady and servants both; he may make as many Melee attacks against a single target as his Limit, but may make no more attacks than there are people present and involved in the scene.
Labyrinth of Disharmony
- Cost: 7 motes, 2 Willpower
- Type: Simple
- Duration: One Scene
- Min. Melee: 5
- Min. Essence: 3
- Prereq Charms: Uncounted Years Strike
With this Charm, the Infernal allows his desire to bring all to rightness to guide his blade; while the Charm is in effect, he adds his Limit to all Melee attacks.
Iron Pillar Block
- Cost: 1 mote/2 dice
- Type: Reflexive
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 2
- Min. Essence: 1
- Prereq Charms: None
Somwhere in the Demon City, in a place one must be told how to find, stands a pillar of immortal iron. It has been unchanged as long as even the most eternal can remember - some believe it predates Creation itself, but this cannot be true. With this Charm the Exalt can parry an attack with special proficiency, drawing on the eternity of the Pillar; he can make a parry dicepool no larger than his Dexterity+Melee+weapon's Defense bonus+Limit.
Defense Against the Moon
- Cost: 2 motes
- Type: Reflexive
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 3
- Min. Essence: 1
- Prereq Charms: Iron Pillar Block
Once, when Exalts and Primordials warred, the greatest of heroes flung the ornaments of the sky at their foes, to the horror of their divine progenitors. This Charm remembers those terrible moments. The Exalt reflexively blocks an attack with his full defensive pool.
Constellation of Safety
- Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower
- Type: Reflexive
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 4
- Min. Essence: 2
- Prereq Charms: Defense Against the Moon
The Infernal traces a pattern of points and lines in the air with his weapon, protecting the Seven Points of Weakness. Until his next action, he automatically parries any incoming attacks with a base pool of 0 and automatic successes equal to his permament Essence. He may take no offensive actions until his next action.
Cage of Wings
- Cost: 7 motes, 1 Willpower
- Type: Simple
- Duration: One Scene
- Min. Melee: 4
- Min. Essence: 3
- Prereq Charms: Defense Against the Moon
While this Charm is active, the Infernal may parry any incoming attacks with his full defensive pool. The Charm's name comes from its distinctive Essence display, where streaks of light like dragon's wings follow the defender's flashing blade.
Emerald Soul Defense
- Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower
- Type: Reflexive
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 5
- Min. Essence: 3
- Prereq Charms: Constellation of Safety, Cage of Wings
With this Charm, the Infernal can block any attack, even those that cannot ordinarily be parried, negating the attack completely, in a manner identical to Heavenly Guardian Defense. For area-effect attacks, this defends the Exalt only, and not others in the area.
Fundamental Deflection
- Cost: 7 motes, 1 Willpower, 1 lethal Health Level
- Type: Reflexive
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 5
- Min. Essence: 4
- Prereq Charms: Emerald Soul Defense
With this Charm, the Infernal learns that not only weapons but other harmful matters can be batted away with the wave of a hand. With this Charm, he may parry any sort of harm, be it spiritual attack, social assassination, even the abrupt stop at the end of a fall. The only restriction on this is that the harm must occur in a moment; it cannot take more than a turn's action to cause. (So if you are pushed and spend a month falling, you can still parry the earth, but you cannot parry an entire speech defaming you, or a book about your debaucheries.)
This Charm perfectly deflects unCharmed harm of any kind; the Infernal's player must roll the character's full defensive dice pool at a difficulty of the attacker's Essence to successfully dissipate a mystical attack.
Scorpion's Tail Strike
- Cost: 2 motes
- Type: Reflexive
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 3
- Min. Essence: 2
- Prereq Charms: Iron Pillar Block
As Solar Counterattack.
Crab Has Two Pincers
- Cost: 5 motes
- Type: Reflexive
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 4
- Min. Essence: 2
- Prereq Charms: Defense Against the Moon, Scorpion's Tail Strike
The Infernal catches an attacker's blow in an effortless whorl of pain, deflecting his blade an impaling him in a single fluid motion. With this Charm, the Exalt may parry an attack with his full defensive pool, and make a simultaneous counterattack with a base dice pool of his Limit. This counterattack can explicitly be enhanced by the effect of Universal Centipede Stance.
Universal Centipede Dance
- Cost: 1 Willpower, 2 motes/die
- Type: Reflexive
- Duration: One Scene
- Min. Melee: 5
- Min. Essence: 3
- Prereq Charms: Crab Has Two Pincers
With this Charm, the Exalt moves as though he has countless cutting limbs, lashing out at all that comes near. The Infernal adds 1 die per 2 motes spent on this Charm to every counterattack he makes for the remainder of the scene. Since this Charm is Reflexive, he may counterattack with the dice it provides alone. He may buy no more dice than his full offensive pool, and subsequent invocations of this Charm in a scene do not cost the Willpower; they merely augment the pool that the Charm originally created. As per Solar Counterattack, this Charm cannot generate a counterattack in response to another, and it is resolved between the provoking attack's attack and damage rolls.
Vermillion Iron Harmony
- Cost: 2+ motes
- Type: Reflexive
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 5
- Min. Essence: 5
- Prereq Charms: Universal Centipede Dance
With this Charm, the Infernal feels and understands the perfection-in-pain of a flurry of blows; her expanded understanding permits her to respond to an attack with an orchestra of elegant counters. This Charm permits a counterattack as per Scorpion's Tail Strike, except that it can be invoked more than once against a single attack. A particular attack may invoke no more than the Infernal's Essence in total counters, including those from this Charm and others. Each additional invocation of this Charm against a single attack costs twice as many motes as the previous.
Bronze Treachery Block
- Cost: 2 motes, 1 Willpower
- Type: Supplemental
- Duration: Instant
- Min. Melee: 2
- Min. Essence: 2
- Prereq Charms: Iron Pillar Block
The Infernal focuses the perversion of his spirit into his blade, darkening that which it touches. With a successful parry, an attacker's weapon becomes Tainted. This means that the attacker must immediately pay the base cost of attunement for the weapon again in order to remain attuned to it (unless he is Infernal, in which case he may release the unTainted surcharge), and the weapon displays the visual effects of being Tainted. The Taint lasts for a scene.
Writhing Discontented Blade
- Cost: 3 motes, 1 Willpower
- Type: Simple
- Duration: One Scene
- Min. Melee: 4
- Min. Essence: 2
- Prereq Charms: Bronze Treachery Block
The Infernal channels his dark emotions into his weapon, transforming it into an eldritch weapon of strange power. It seems to flicker and twist, and trail patterns of verdigris and glowing mist as it moves; occult patterns skitter up and down its blade. The Exalt can distribute his Melee+Limit among the sword's Speed, Accuracy, Damage, and Defense. He may not put negative amounts in any stat. The Infernal must choose how to distribute his Melee dots when he learns this Charm (and whenever his Melee score increases), but can apportion his Limit freely. If his Limit score changes while this Charm is active, he must adjust a single stat up or down accordingly.
When this Charm ends, the blade ceases shifting form, but it usually settles into a form slightly different from the one that it began in. After several uses of the Charm, the weapon will begin to become an expression of the Infernal's inner self and his connection to the Yozis; the weapon of an Infernal serving the Ebon Dragon might stretch into a graceful obsidian tachi, while the sword of a servant of Qaf might become a weighty pillar of stone.
A single usage of this Charm on a daiklave or other mystical weapon counts as a week attuned to the Infernal's anima, for the purposes of Taint. Weapons of the 5MM will gradually change in shape and ornamentation just as mundane swords do, but their material will not.
Dozen-Fingered Harpist Grip
- Cost: 7 motes
- Type: Simple
- Duration: One Scene
- Min. Melee: 3
- Min. Essence: 2
- Prereq Charms: Thrashing Dragon Strike
The Infernal recalls the skill of the angyalkae; his dexterity is such that each of his hands can handle a weapon as well as two ordinary hands. This permits him to do any of the following, combining them freely:
- Use a pair of identical single-handed weapons with only one hand and attack with them simultaneously. This allows him to apply both weapons' damage bonuses to an attack, but at the cost of reducing the attack's Accuracy by half the additional damage bonus. For example, Dust Lily is using this Charm to wield two daiklaves in one hand. They have +2 Accuracy and +6L Damage. She may attack with one, at these stats, or attack with both, at -1 Accuracy and +12L Damage.
- Use up to four weapons synergistically. When full-parrying under this Charm's effects, each weapon the character weilds may make parries up to its Rate each turn; only one weapon does not have to be chosen.
- Wield a two-handed weapon with only one hand. This leaves the other hand free for whatever purpose he wishes.
Comments
Looking at these from afar, I see that some of them are sort of shakily balanced. I've made some changes! - willows
