Lucy4Luvzu/Buabele
Buabele, The Jeweled Blood Fruit, Progeny of the Unrelenting Crimson Mask
When Mastihos takes the form of another, and eats fruit, it may touch his lips and tongue and teeth and exit his mouth unharmed. A scar on his lower lip bleeds until he finds his love, and from this small wound, the fruit are coated and transformed. These became the Buabeles, and sorcerers summoning such expecting a demon instead find a jeweled fruit that is yet edible.
Lacking sentience, these demons have only one drive, all possessed by monomania. Exalts who eat of them gain 3 motes to their Essence pool and are inspired in their highest ability; for days equal to the Exalts Essence, they receive a specialty or bonus dice to a given statistic equal to the number of fruit they have eaten. A talented Eclipse writer might receive inspiration for their book; a compassionate Chosen of Serenity zealot opens her heart; a Full Moon might find himself more dexterous than normal - whatever best defines their concept, motivation & archetype. In this way it tempts sorcerers into summoning, for the temporary blessings.
If eaten by a mortal, however, worse effects occur; instead of just motes, mortals find themselves tainted, receiving the same blessing. Some savants and martial artists seek the fruit, seeking to channel Essence, not knowing they damn themselves in the process; while granting them a temporary Essence pool, excess consumption & build-up can endow them as a demon-blood. Descendants of Mastihos all condemn themselves to suffer for their archetypes, and even one apocryphal tale tells of a craftsman of instruments who amputated his own legs to forge a perfect flute from the bone, and lute strings from the sinew. Others become testers themselves, troublemakers forever challenging others until their demise. Mortals receive the same blessings to statistics as Exalts do, but suffer this martyr's curse for their focus, unless Exalted, slain or cleansed of taint.
If planted into the soil, the fruit takes the shape of whatever motivations taint the land. In the deep South, one such plant grew by an oasis, enslaving those who lived around it, now arranged into a hierarchical community that worships the oasis' small god. Another, planted in the East, broke the ground as a child, in the shape of a mortal child that had perished there before, and is raised by the original child's confused & seemingly blessed parents - it is an excellent child, gifted at his father's craft. A third one grows in the Varang City-States, in an astrologers garden, its tea-leaves using in scrying. Others may exist, although Mastihos has never made many of these children, and new ones only form as he eats fruit, an act he partakes 5 days before a sorceror attempts to summon the Buabele.
The day Mastihos acquires the love of his Chosen Lunar, some theorize the Buabele will be birthed no more (and so relevant summonings will fail) while others fear they will only change in nature (and turn those that consume them into lunatics or bestial monsters). None know for sure.
