DragonBloodedArchery/Telgar
Gnarled Roots of Iron</b>
<b>Cost: 5 motes Type: Simple Duration: One scene Min Archery: 4 Min Essence: 3 Pre-Requisite Charms: Harvest of the Hunter
Bringing the wood of his own bow to life, a Dragon-Blooded archer can vastly strengthen the physical structure of his weapon. The bow sprouts to life, wrapping creepers around itself and coating its string with fiberous green growths that are more flexible and stronger then any normal substance. Add half the Exalt's Essence, rounded down, to Damage, Rate and Accuracy and add his Essence x10 yards to the weapon's Range. These enchantments only apply to weapons made of organic matter or Green Jade.
Eagerly Verdant Quiver-Vine</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes Type: Simple Duration: One scene Min Archery: 3 Min Essence: 3 Pre-Requisite Charms: Harvest of the Hunter
Not only can a Dragon-Blood benefit from enliving his ammunition and weapon, but from the mundane and oft-ignored quiver. Transforming one of his arrows into a marginally intelligent vine, the Dynast gains a number of benefits as the creeper hastens his archery. The magical plant is intelligent enough to offer arrows when the Dynast fires one, offering whatever type the Dynast desires as signaled by a vague mental connection. Also, the vine grasps at the bow strong, pulling it part way for the Dragon-Blood. The vine's helpful efforts add half the Terrestrial's Essence, rounded up, to the character's Rate.
From an Acorn</b>
<b>Cost: 5 motes Type: Supplemental Duration: Essence turns Min Archery: 3 Min Essence: 4 Pre-Requisite Charms: Gnarled Roots of Iron
Returning the life of the Forest to his arrows, the Dragon-Blood can cause the arrow fired from his bow to plant itself in the ground and grow at a preternatural pace. The type of plant that grows from the arrow depends on the Exalted in question, some always have their arrows become a single type of plant, some are able to cause many different species of plant to grow at whim. Whatever type of plant is selected, the growth takes place at a rate of 10 years per dot of Essence every turn. Plants that would normally not live so long survive regardless and grow to immense proportions. Such unnatural plants survive even after the Charm has finished its accelerated growth, which lasts for a number of turns equal to the Terrestrial's Essence. Attacks enhanced by this Charm may not target living beings, only scenery.
Blood-Birthed Sappling</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes, 1 health level Type: Simple Duration: Instant Min Archery: 4 Min Essence: 4 Pre-Requisite Charms: Gnarled Roots of Iron
Many Wood Aspected archers favor bows carved from trees by their own hands or at least under their own supervision. The best take no shortcuts and grow their bows from their own flesh, the wood of their bodies becoming their weapon. Slicing open his palm, an Archer coaxes forth the blood and bone of his body and grows it into a powerful bow, half as tall as he himself. The bow is perfectly suited in all ways to the archer and lasts for a number of hours equal to his Essence before melting into a puddle of flesh and blood. While in existance, the bow has Accuracy and Rate equal to the Dynast's Essence and Damage equal to his Archery score. The range of the bow is 100 yards per dot of Strength.
Prison of Ivy and Steel</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes, 1 willpower Type: Simple Duration: Instant Min Archery: 5 Min Essence: 3 Pre-Requisite Charms: Life-Swelling Sap Strike
Transforming his arrow into a seedling that quickly germinates into a vicious constricting ivy with the strength of iron, an Emerald Dragon can entangle even mighty foes for a time. Shots fired with this Charm do no damage, instead they create a web of magical vines which last for as many turns as the character has dots of Essence or until destroyed. The vines have twice the character's Essence in health levels and no soak, but damage against them must still be rolled. They are treated as having placed the target in a Clinch which requires 5 successes to escape from.
Entangling Glove of the Forest</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes Type: Reflexive Duration: Instant Min Archery: 5 Min Essence: 3 Pre-Requisite Charms: Prison of Ivy and Steel
An experianced warrior is cautious when battling the archers of the Realm and Lookshy, for their blows are nearly as dangerous when avoided as when they strike true. Should the target of one of the character's Archery attacks successfully parry the attack, the arrow explodes into a verdant mass of vines. The vines wrap around the target's weapon arm and make movement extremely difficult, for they also take root in the nearest surface as well as tangling around the target's entire body. While encumbered with the vines the target's difficult for all parry rolls is increased by the Terrestrial's Essence. It takes a single action to clear away the vines, but no roll.
Sap Seeks Blood</b>
<b>Cost: 5 motes Type: Supplemental Duration: Instant Min Archery: 5 Min Essence: 3 Pre-Requisite Charms: Prison of Ivy and Steel
Wood is drawn to Wood as Earth draws itself to a lodestone, life knows itself anywhere and can find itself anywhere. By imbuing his arrows with a bit of life and intelligence, a Dragon-Blooded archer can be assured that his arrow will hit home on any living target. Abyssals, ghosts and other undead or dead targets as well as any inanimate target are immune to this Charm. Because this Charm seeks life, those close to death gain some protection from it as well. Against unwounded targets, attacks made with this Charm are undodgeble. Against those with wounds of the -0 or -1 level, the attacks gain successes equal to the character's Essence. This Charm offers only the character's Essence in dice against targets with wound penalties of the -2, -4 or Incappacitated levels. All targets struck with these arrows, no matter their wounds, begin to bleed even if they are Exalted. The arrow draws blood to itself and out of their bodies. This bleeding follows normal rules in the corebook.
Raining Warriors of Wood and Feather</b>
<b>Cost: 10 motes, 1 willpower, 1 health level Type: Simple Duration: Instant Min Archery: 5 Min Essence: 5 Pre-Requisite Charms: From an Acorn, Seven Year Swarm Volley, Swallows Defend the Nest
In the arrows of a Wood Aspect, there is life. No matter how long removed from living wood and living flesh, the components of the arrows retain a vague touch of their life force under the constant attention of an Emerald Dragon. This life can be tapped, enhanced, encouraged and harnessed. By expending a fragment of his own life force and soul, a Dragon-Blood can animate all the arrows he has loosed in the current scene. These animated arrows take on the form of tiny warriors about a foot tall, constructed of feathers and wood, bearing metal weapons. They have the same statistics as Minor Servants of Wood (EtS 30), but no Charms or Essence pools. They remain in existance for one day before reverting to arrows.
Leader of the Swarm</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes Type: Supplemental Duration: Instant Min Archery: 4 Min Essence: 3 Pre-Requisite Charms: Swallows Defend the Nest
Acting much like the first bee to find nectar, the first arrow to land in a foe's flesh attracts others as it's enlivened Essence falls to its brothers. Each successful attack, that is one doing at least one health level of damage, enhanced with this Charm adds one automatic success to accuracy rolls made by later uses of this Charm. This bonus is cumulative.
Flying Spider's Weaving</b>
<b>Cost: 2 motes Type: Reflexive Duration: Instant Min Archery: 3 Min Essence: 2 Pre-Requisite Charms: Spring Follows Winter
Laying a bit of the essence of the spider and silkworm into his arrows, a Dragon-Blood of sufficient skill can string ropes of steely strength from his arrows. Once the arrow lodges itself in a solid surface, the silk cements it in place. The resulting rope is as long as the arrow's flight and sturdy as chain of the best steel. This Charm does not provide an action to fire the silk-arrow, it simply causes the arrow to spin its silken cords.
Verdant Apotheosis Projectile</b>
<b>Cost: 4 motes Type: Supplemental Duration: Instant Min Archery: 3 Min Essence: 3 Pre-Requisite Charms: Flying Spider's Weaving
The life within Wood can be awakened even in the most ancient driftwood and the stoney petrified forests of the Southwest. Awakening such life in fresh-harvested arrows is a simple task for experianced Emerald Dragons. Once the arrow leaves his bow, it begins to grow. By the time the arrow impacts the target, it has matured into a sappling, ten or more years of age and of the type of tree the arrow came from. The rapid growth of the arrow adds the Terrestrial's Essence to its damage and makes it hard to avoid, adding 2 to the difficulty of defensive rolls.
Mistletoe Seeks the Heartwood</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes, 1 willpower Type: Simple Duration: Instant Min Archery: 5 Min Essence: 5 Pre-Requisite Charms: Verdant Apotheosis Projectile, Sap Seeks Blood
Awakening in his arrows a predatory thirst for blood and a parasitic will to inch its way toward the juciy heartwood of its host, particularly vicious archers can slay their opponents from within. The arrow enchanted by this Charm moves through the opponent's body once implanted with a successful attack doing at least one health level of damage. It takes 10 turns to reach the opponent's heart, the final destination. Each health level done by the original attack is one less turn of travel time. Otherwise, the arrow travels normally, dealing no further damage. However, once it reaches the heart it attempts to send tendrils through the entire bloodstreet and transform the victim's body into its perfect host, a large and healthy tree. This transformation does 15L damage, which can be soaked only with stamina-based soak. Because it is not an attack, the damage done by the transformation is not subject to normal defenses. If the transformation kills the victim, they are permanently transformed into a tree, rooted to the spot of their death. Otherwise, the infestation dies off without a suitable host.
It is possible to remove the arrow before it reaches the heart. Doing so requires a Dexterity + Medicine roll with a difficulty of 10 - turns of movement left. If successful, this inflicts one unsoakable health level of lethal damage. If it fails, the damage is inflicted and nothing happens. It the roll is botched, the arrow is accelerated by one turn and the damage is still inflicted.
Chakra Orchid's Sweet Embrace</b>
<b>Cost: 10 motes Type: Simple Duration: Special Min Archery: 5 Min Essence: 5 Pre-Requisite Charms: Mistletoe Seeks the Heartwood
Filling his arrow with the power of the dreaded Chakra Orchid the archer can take control of his foes and turn them against their allies or themselves. Once infected by a successful attack doing at least one health level of damage, the victim of this attack must make a Stamina + Resistance roll or succumb to the mental control of the Terrestrial for a number of turns equal to the difference in their Willpower. This Charm does not affect beings with a higher Willpower or Essence then the Dragon-Blood. Extras are automatically converted permanently into the Terrestrial's fanatically loyal minions. The commands of the Dragon-Blood can not cause the target to directly harm himself.
Cry of the Wounded Beast</b>
<b>Cost: 6 motes Type: Supplemental Duration: Instant Min Archery: 5 Min Essence: 5 Pre-Requisite Charms: Verdant Apotheosis Projectile
The impact of this arrow acts like the dying scream of a pack animal. It sends nearby animals into a frenzy, drawing predators or scavengers to its call and sending prey animals fleeing in a mad stampede. On a successful attack, the Dragon-Blood has managed to summon animals to his call. One animal responds per success on the attack and the type of animal is determined both by the surroundings and the Terrestrial's Charisma. Charisma 1 will summon insects and such minor fauna, which count ten animals for each success. Higher Charisma scores call increasingly dangerous animals until a Charisma 5 Dragon-Blood can summon saika, tyrant lizards and yeddim to his arrows. Obviously these animals do not materialize, but some sort of life will respond to this Charm no matter the location. The Storyteller is encouraged to make the animals sensible for the setting.
Unruly Taproot Expansion</b>
<b>Cost: 5 motes Type: Supplemental Duration: Instant Min Archery: 4 Min Essence: 3 Pre-Requisite Charms: Verdant Apotheosis Projectile
Instead of being a tree in flight, the arrow of a Dynast who has mastered this Charm strikes an inanimate surface and plants itself deep. The semblance of life returns to the wood and it sends forth a vast multitude of roots. The explosive expansion of the root system shatters stone and shreds the ground, tearing down buildings and devestating farms. Each arrow's root network expands for 1 yard per dot of Essence the character possesses and does twice its normal damage against all inanimate landmarks and landscape in the area. This damage is not rolled, it is simply applied.
Land-Binding Wooden Web</b>
<b>Cost: 3 motes per 1 soak Type: Supplemental Duration: Instant Min Archery: 4 Min Essence: 4 Pre-Requisite Charms: Unruly Taproot Expansion
Refining his control over his arrows, the archer can send a spidery net of root fibers through his opponent's armor, gumming the joints and spreading the armor appart, opening cracks in solid armor and damaging the components of power armor. For every three motes spent on this Charm, a successful attack reduces the soak of the opponent's armor by 1. This can not reduce it by more then half its original value. In addition, the joints of the armor and, indeed, its entire structure become gummed by the roots. Double the mobility penalty of the armor. If it has none, apply a penalty of two dice.
Comments
With regard to Raining Warriors of Wood and Feather, how can a DB fire any arrows in the same round he uses a simple Charm? --MF
A combo with Swallows Defend The Nest? - Kraken
Kraken is correct, but also the term "round" is wrong. It should be "session" or "scene" or whatever the term for a complete combat is. I have fixed this. - Telgar
Oooh. That makes it quite nice, really. Does it apply to ones fired later? (I assume not, but I'm asking for the purposes of clarity)
-- Darloth
No. But you could activate the Charm again if you wanted. - Telgar
Oooh. A bevy, as promised, and there are some really good ones... But, I also think you've overpowered some of the ones higher up (listing and explanation will follow) and the Mistletoe seeks the Heartwood seems a little on the abyssal side. Also, there must be some way to get it -out- after it's in, or those 15L dice of damage are vastly overpowered. Finally, does natural soak from other causes (soak charms, lunar gifts, etc) apply to it?
Right. Listing of charms, including notes and suggestions for overpowered ones:
- Gnarled Roots of Iron - it's a nice charm, but +1/2 Essence, even rounded down, is still a fairly large amount to add to a bow. +2 acc, rate and damage is a big improvement, especially on a powerbow. Seems a bit cheap for 5m. If it cost a willpower, I would be happy with it, although I still think it's pushing the limits of terrestrial power, and certainly needs a higher ability requisite (perhaps 4 or 5.)
- I think half essence works fine, I've made the change. And made it and EVQV two seperate branches, so I could restore the Archery req to its original 4.
- Eagerly Verdant Quiver-Vine - Also, nice effect, but also a bit over the top. +3 rate for a scene is a lot for 4 motes... I know Wood dragon-blooded are quite limited by bow-rate, but perhaps this should just be +2? Maybe even +1/2 Essence, like the above charm.
- I stated that it rounds down, but really I find this pretty balanced. As you said, Wood DB's need the rate.
- Blood-Birthed Sappling - Damage is -REALLY- high for a bow... and it's not even scene long. This bow lasts a good few hours, and, in the hands of the default dynast learning the charm at minimum, will be WAY better than a green-jade short-powerbow. Assuming strength three, that's +4Acc +4Dam 4Rate, and 300 yards range. Actually, that's better than an artifact 3 -long- powerbow, although shorter ranged. If it were scene-long... -maybe-, but the weapon-summoning charms are typically only around as good as a level 2. Perhaps you should give them points to split like the remodeled solar ones(2xAbility), and make it last longer (to represent the greater mote efficiency and the health level cost). Either way... this is too good a bow for the cost given. (Essence 4 is hard, but not THAT hard)
- Yes, the Blood Bow is stronger then a Powerbow. This is because powerbows are wimpy like Grimcleavers. We just don't have GOOD examples to compare them to, so we don't notice it. The blood bow can be toned down for games using traditional powerbow stats.
- Prison of Ivy and Steel - I like this one, it's great! (I assume parries don't work (mechanically unblockable) but dodges are fine?)
- You're correct.
- Entangling Glove of the Forest - Also very nice... but shouldn't this come before the previous one? It seems like a simpler, smaller application of the entangle effect.
- I think they're pretty much interchangeble. It's a taste thing.
- Leader of the Swarm - looks fine to me.
- Flying Spider's Weaving - I really like the effect on this one, I'll probably be borrowing it for an archer of mine.
- Let me know how that works out, I'm always interested in how my Charms test out in game.
- Verdant Apotheosis Projectile - Also cool, nice effect, and good mechanics. Although the lunars may complain that the DBs are stealing their tree-arrows. (I'd rather tree-arrows were here anyway though)
- Mistletoe Seeks the Heartwood - As stated above... too abyssal for my -taste- (which doesn't make it a bad charm) but it's apparently unremovable, soaking is fuzzily defined, and the damage when it -does- get there is immense. Which, in my opinion, does make it a bad charm. There should be some sort of (fairly easy) check to remove it, so it only hits those people who are far too busy with that massive chunk of damage, which I suspect should be soakable with anything increasing natural soak.
- This Charm maay be a bit abyssalish..but not really. I've added the removal instructions, which I left out for simpleness's sake. I agree, they really should be there.
- Chakra Orchid's Sweet Embrace - This on the other hand seems fine.
- Cry of the Wounded Beast - I like this one too!
- Unruly Taproot Expansion - great charm, also may borrow it. Damage is always applied not rolled to inanimates, although the clarification is probably a good thing. Cost seems perhaps a mote high in my opinion, but I'm certainly not bothered with -that-
- I originally had a 4 mote / 8 mote charm here that had two uses. I merged them into one and averaged the cost. I think 5 is more appropriate.
- Land-Binding Wooden Web - Good charm, seems well balanced for where it's at.
I'm sorry to drop a chunk of criticism on your page like this, but I hope you'll appreciate it's all intended to be positive and creative. I really like all of the charms here (with the exception of the abyssal one, sortof) and I hope you'll take this (spiel? discourse? rant?) into account, and perhaps get some useful feedback from it.
-- Darloth
No problem at all, I love getting comments. Makes me actually want to post more of the stuff in my Big Binder O Junk. If you use any of my charms, post on my UserPage and lemme know how they work out! Or post here! I always love free playtesting :) - Telgar
Glad you appreciate it, and I shall do so
-- Darloth
