HearthstoneRelay/Emptiness

= The eleventh theme is Emptiness.

Geode of Hollow Echoes (AntiVehicleRocket)

 Earth Aspected
 Manse •
 Trigger: Sound entering the stone

The Geode of Hollow Echoes is a rough-hewn-looking Hearthstone, a sphere of rough dark brown rock, with two small holes on either end; it is hollow inside, its inner chamber lined with glittering crystals. If a sound enters one hole of the Geode (for example, if it is talked into or put up to a source of noise), the sound will emerge from the other end greatly magnified, although it takes on a reverberating, echo-like quality. Thus, the Geode is useful for magnifying quiet sounds or for speaking to a crowd.

The Fasting Stone (TedPro)

 Sidereal Aspected
 Manse ••
 Trigger: Three days of fasting

This stone is a pearly pink cabochon, fading into a pale white in the center. The bearer of the gem can fast to purify his mind and Essence. After fasting for three days (which requires a Stamina + Endurance roll to do safely), the bearer attains a sublime state of emptiness. Any effects, Charms, Spells, Resplendant Effects, or other powers influencing the mind of the bearer are purged and removed, leaving the bearer's mind clean and unsullied. Further mental effects can be added normally, however. This effect can be used up to once a month.

Sphere of the Empty Soul (Sparrowhawk)

 Sidereal Aspected
 Manse •••
 Trigger: None; constant

This stone is a perfectly transparent sphere about the size of a peach. It is so clear that it is extremely difficult to see, except when light glints off of its mirror-smooth surface. The bearer of this stone gains perfect calmness and clarity of mind, but this is not enlightenment. This peace of mind is brought about by a total loss of emotion.

When attuned to this stone, the bearer never makes virtue rolls. He can perform actions that he would normally be loath to do, and is unswayed by things that would normally terrify or anger him. Additionally, it is extremely difficult to affect his mind with supernatural powers. No power that would let someone read the bearer's thoughts, alter his memories, compel him to do something, or any other such effect works against him. To those who attempt to do so, it appears as if the bearer has no mind at all. This protection does not work against charms or spells with a minimum Essence requirement of 4 or higher, or artifacts or hearthstones with a minimum rating of 4 or higher. Otherwise, this is a perfect effect. Finally, the bearer is strengthened by the surety of one who never questions his motives. Instead of making a Conviction roll at the beginning of each day to regain Willpower, he automatically regains all temporary Willpower points.

These boons come with a price. The bearer of the stone has no emotions, and this will be obvious to those who interact with him. His cold, impersonal manner will impose a dice penalty in many social situations, the severity of which is up to Storyteller discretion. There may be situations in which being perceived as a being of pure, cold logic is advantageous, but they won't be as common. Additionally, the bearer cannot channel his virtues at all while carrying this stone. He is incapable of using charms and other powers that rely on virues to function. Lastly, though the bearer still remembers the things he had emotional attachments to as being important to him, he may end up doing things he would otherwise regret while carrying this stone. If he performs any action that would come in conflict with his virtues, the Storyteller should take a note of the action and the difficulty of the virtue roll normally required to perform such an action. If the bearer should ever become de-attuned from the stone, he must immediately make all these virtue rolls. For every virtue roll failed, he gains one level one derangement of the Storyteller's choice. These can be removed in the normal fashion, but they will also disappear entirely if he attunes to the stone again. Of course, they come back again when he de-attunes from the stone again. For this reason, many who bear this stone become addicted to it, and take great pains to never let it out of their grasp.

Void Maelstrom Stone (Moxiane)

 Aspect: Air
 Manse: ••••
 Trigger: Concentration (dice action)

The Void Maelstrom Stone is one of the darker manifestations of the Element of Air, and savants have often speculated as to the reason that it only comes from Manses that are either near a known shadowland, or were once within the borders of one. It appears as a smooth lenticular stone approximately 2" in diameter, with the rough texture and colour of frosted glass. Should someone gaze deeply into it they will feel a sense of swirling and sinking - so strong is it that people looking away have become dizzy and even vomited at times. To use the special power of the Hearthstone the attuned Exalt merely concentrates (requiring a dice action) and then the power of the Void Maelstrom is activated, sucking the life out of the very air surrounding the character, making even light work exhausting and heavy exertion (such as combat) all but impossible.

Mechanically the air within six yards of the Exalted has practically all of its Essence removed (characters with an effect similar to All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight can see this as a whirlpool sinking continually into the stone). This forces all characters to make Stamina + Endurance rolls at a difficulty of 3 (or, if they are wearing armour its Fatigue Value + 2) for every minute they spend within its effect or suffer a -1 fatigue penalty to all actions. The frequency of checks increases to once per turn should combat break out while the Void Maelstrom Stone is active. The character who actived the stone is immune to these effects, but it does not distinguish between the Exalted's friends or foes.

Star of Celebrated Despair (TedPro)

 Aspect: Abyssal
 Manse: •••••
 Trigger: Constant, and when losing last Health Level

The bearer of this stone is constantly overwhelmed with a sense of melancholy, doubt and emptiness. This emotional weakness weakens the bearer, causing the bearer to fail all Virtue rolls. However, whenever something tragic, unpleasant or ruinous happens to the bearer, the bearer immediately gains one or two points of temporary Willpower, depending on how tragic the results.

The true power of the Star of Celebrated Despair comes into play when the bearer loses their last Health Level, from any means. Though the bearer suffers -- enough to gain two Willpower, in fact -- she does not die. Instead, her body becomes incorporeal, unable to touch or be touched by anything. The bearer can still be seen and heard and sensed, and abilities which do not cause damage or require physical contact will still work. The bearer can pass through any barrier not made from the Five Magical Materials, though even those materials will not cause harm - they will simply push her aside. While intangible, the bearer is immune to all Wound penalties. The bearer becomes tangible again when all Wound Levels are healed.

Comments

There, starting things off. It's a little wandering from the theme, but "Emptiness" has a lot of potential. -- AntiVehicleRocket

Love your Hollow Echoes stone, AVR! It's useful and interesting. -- TedPro

Hey, thanks! I rather like the Fasting Stone, too; there's a real dearth of good Sidereal Hearthstones, especially those of relatively low rating, so it's a nice change. Out of curiosity, is there any limit on the power level of the mental effects it can remove? -- AntiVehicleRocket

I'm not sure this is balanced for a level 3 hearthstone, but I was inspired by the theme. The last drawback might be a bit much. I was going to make it effect Limit Breaks and such, but the different exalts (and other supernaturals) use different mechanics for such things. I'm sure it's completely broken mechanically, but I really liked the idea of a hearthstone that's as much of a bane as a blessing; and the advantages and drawbacks of having no emotions. --Sparrowhawk

Dude, Sparrowhawk, I was literally just about to write a Hearthstone exactly like that last night for this topic, but I decided to save it for a higher level ... Great minds, man. Props. And by the way, yours is way better than the one I had in mind, so double props.
~ Shataina
PS: I should note that I've been really impressed by the other two Hearthstones on this topic, too. You guys rule.

Yes, mad props. That's an excellent stone, and it's particularly interesting as a Sidereal stone, given how tied to Virtues so many Sidereal Charms are; there are a lot of really interesting implications there. Neat, neat stuff. -- AntiVehicleRocket
(P.S.: Thanks, Shataina. I'm really liking this relay myself.)

I think this stone should probably be level 4 at least; very few mind-affecting powers with Essence prereqs greater than 3 exist. It also seems like a very cheap way for Solars to almost totally ignore the Great Curse. _Ikselam

I'm not sure this is exactly 'ignoring the Great Curse' so much as trading it in for another. The state of being completely emotionless feels to me a lot like some kind of Conviction or Temperance Limit Break anyway, so a Solar is effectively trading in his normal Limit Break for a different, long-term Limit Break that happens to have some benefits in exchange. -Ben-San

Also consider the significant problems associated with deattuning the Hearthstone. Assuming a situation where the character can be forced to deattune somehow, deattunement is essentially its own nasty little Limit Break -- AntiVehicleRocket

When you deattune the stone, you are pretty much guaranteed to Limit Break, that's true, and you go insane for a while. However, there aren't really a lot of things that can cause you to involuntarily deattune a hearthstone, and its other benefits are very significant. It causes you to completely recharge your Willpower every day and, much more importantly, also makes you completely immune to pretty much every printed mind- or emotion-affecting Charm. It's one of those powers which makes you virtually untouchable by a large category of things unless someone attacks your Manse, which is a type of power I don't think should occur until at least level 4. _Ikselam

After giving it some thought, I decided that Iskelam does have a point. It is something that I was worried about from the beginning, but couldn't put into words. Now I can: this is an item that gives big mechanical bonuses, and is balanced by roleplaying penalties. When somebody attunes to this stone, he practically becomes a different person. People who know him will definitely notice, and the bearer himself might even notice. I would expect that the circlemates of the bearer would try to seperate the bearer from the stone at some point because they don't like what he's becoming. But all that relies on the people involved roleplaying the consequences of the stone.

I really like the idea of magical objects that give the bearer powers, but at a terrible price. That said, I think that my Sphere of the Empty Soul isn't balanced for most games. I'll take suggestions now on how to balance it. This might be hard, since the effects of the stone are pretty esoteric, but I have faith in the creativity of the Wiki-ites. --Sparrowhawk (Wikians? Wiki-ish? Wiki-ese?)

You could: (a) decide that the ban on virtue rolls doesn't affect Limit Break rolls (for some reason; that might be hard to write around but on balance, I do agree that things really shouldn't mess with the Great Curse); (b) state that the resistance to mind-affecting powers only raises the DC for mind-affecting powers that have a required Essence / Rating below 4 (I would personally suggest raising the DC by 3); (c) state that rather than automatically regaining all Willpower, the bearer automatically regains Willpower equal to his Conviction score (and doesn't have to roll). I'd have a tough time balancing this stone myself, but I think that might work for me ...
~ Shataina
PS: Allowing the bearer to roll Virtues to regain Willpower at all seems a little outside the province of the stone, now that I think about it. I mean, the whole point is that it eliminates virtue attunement .... Perhaps the bearer could roll Willpower and gain successes (10s don't count as 2)? Or perhaps they can't regain Willpower that way at all -- this would work for me, but then again I never play with that rule in the first place. :P

It would seem totally in-flavor for this stone to disallow Conviction-based Willpower regaining at all -- after all, you can't muster emotional strength and dedication, and can at most regain focus from the cold satisfaction of a job well done (i.e., acting within your Nature). It would be a fairly big power hit, of course, and would cause huge problems for characters whose Natures are intrisically emotion-based (Hedonist, Thrillseeker, even Jester). I still think it already wreaks a lot of hell for Sidereals, though, since it really doesn't help them against the Curse at all (if anything, it probably makes the hubris worse) and keeps them from using Virtues for Charms. -- AntiVehicleRocket

I wouldn't be so sure about the "nothing should interfere with Limit Break" hypothesis. There are Solar charms that increase Limit by one point as part of their cost. There's a hearthstone called the Gem of the Calm Heart (I believe it's in Castebook: Dawn) that can prevent its bearer from gaining Limit if his Limit Break is Valor-based. I do think that things that affect the Great Curse should be rare, and what's happening shouldn't really be clear to those who don't know that the Curse exists. Nevertheless, there is precedent in published material.

I'm thinking of bumping this stone up four dots, and leaving the 3-dot slot open for somebody else. I don't want to keep the Relay held up with my weird ideas. ;) -- Sparrowhawk doesn't know why he's putting a link up to his userpage, when there isn't any content there.

Because one day, there might be content. _Ikselam

Thanks for the vote of confidence. :) - Sparrowhawk

Wikizens, I think, is the commonly used term... B-) Nikink

Let's not get so hung up on this one stone that the relay stalls. _Ikselam

Finished the relay. Can someone else pick the next theme? I don't want to do two in a row. - TedPro