Grey Sentinel Style

The Righteous Devils punish those who defy the Mandate of Heaven, but if Heaven is corrupt then so is its Mandate. They think there is a discerning wisdom, a common truth.

There is only one common truth; that there is no common truth.

The Grey Sentinels operate under no mandate other than their own. They do not claim to have all the answers. They are aware of - and embrace - their own fallibility. If there is no absolute right, no absolute wrong. If there is no good or evil, no black and white, all that is left is grey. All that's left is to act upon one's own convictions, aware of one's lack of wisdom, one's lack of answers.

There is nothing more dangerous than a True Believer. The Grey Sentinels guard against these threats, always seeking a better way.

Created as an evolution of the Righteous Devil Style, Grey Sentinels are more cautious than their Devil brethren, guarding from the grey of the shadows; in between the light and the dark. They are less aggressive than the Righteous Devil, walking a path that combines a firm offense with a solid defense; a balance of action and inaction. To symbolize this, armed Grey Sentinels employ both a firewand, symbolizing forwardness, and a blade, symbolizing guardedness. These weapons are its signature weapons.

Grey Sentinel Style is not compatible with the use of armor.

Student Charms

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Light the Darkness Technique

Cost: 1 mote
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 3
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
Without light there is only dark, and the grey in between cannot exist. Using this technique the Grey Sentinel can overcome one of the greatest disadvantages of using a firewand; having to reload it with firedust. Sentinels with this charm can take the required firedust and reload their weapon in one fluid motion.

Alternately an unarmed Sentinel may grab a pinch of firedust in the same way, igniting it with essence when they strike their foe. Used in this way the Sentinel's next attack causes lethal instead of bashing damage.

Mental Alacrity Method

Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Sentinel is expected to find answers as quickly as possible. Using this charm she quickly surveys the scene and calculates the most likely course of events in the next few moments and adds her Martial Arts score to her Initiative rating.

Veil of Shadows

Cost: 4 motes, 1 willpower
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Grey Sentinel casts a shadow on the truth of her own being, to be able to observe and act from the shadows. While this charm is in effect and the Sentinel is not drawing attention to herself she adds her Essence rating to her difficulty to be noticed.

Seek the Path

Cost: 3 motes
Duration: One Turn
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Mental Alacrity Method, Veil of Shadows
The Grey Sentinel seeks truth and a better path. Through reinforcing her defense she buys herself time to find a hidden truth in her opponent. The Sentinel adds her Martial Arts score to all parries in the round she invokes this charm.

Counter Balance Charge

Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Light the Darkness Technique, Mental Alacrity Method
Seeking balance in life as in combat, the Sentinel begins to learn of balance between offense and defense. Whenever she successfully parries a blow she may invoke this charm and may immediately make an attack at her full Dexterity + Martial Arts dice pool against her opponent.

All the usual counter attacking rules apply.

Grey Sentinel Form

Cost: 5 motes
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Counter Balance Charge, Seek the Path
When the Grey Sentinel adopts this Form, light and dark coalesce to cast ever shifting shadows on her. Elusive, inconsistent, and never ending, like the search for a better way she embodies. She becomes precariously balanced between the light and the dark.

The visual effects of this Form make it hard to track the Sentinel's movements, further adding to the balance of this style. Whenever she successfully parries any attack, she may apply the extra successes as bonus dice to her next attack and vice versa, up to a maximum of her Martial Arts rating in dice.

An additional effect of taking on this form is that the balance inherent in the style means the Sentinel favours neither hand. She no longer suffers penalties to her off-hand weapon.

Master Charms

Shadow Casting Strike

Cost: 1 mote
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Grey Sentinel Form
The Sentinel wields light in one hand, using the blind spots and shadows her dazzling attacks creature to set up a defense against any counter attacks by her enemy. After a successful attack the Sentinel may use this charm to gain one parry at her full Dexterity + Martial Arts against her opponent before her next turn.

If this parry succeeds, the Grey Sentinel cannot use it to generate a counter attack. This charm is also mutually exclusive with Shifting Balance Blow; the Sentinel can either use a successful attack for another attack or for defense. Not both.

Doubt Sowing Demeanor

Cost: 3 motes, 1 willpower
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Shadow Casting Strike
Light casts shadow and doubt over the heart of the Sentinel's opponent, and the steel of her blade cuts away ignorance and enlightens the true believer in the folly of her cause. This charm increases the difficulty of Conviction rolls for anyone opposing- and in view of the Grey Sentinel by 1. Additionally whenever an opponent so affected is struck by the Grey Sentinel they need to succeed at an opposed Conviction roll with the Grey Sentinel (and this charm's effects apply here too) or take the difference in successes as additional damage levels.

Shifting Balance Blow

Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Grey Sentinel Form
Though the Grey Sentinel seeks balance, she recognizes that becoming a true believer of balance is just as dangerous as being a true believer of any other paradigm, and is thus capable of exploiting a hole in her enemy's defense by following up action with more action.

Upon scoring a successful hit the Sentinel may use this charm to gain an immediate additional attack at her full Dexterity + Martial Arts against her opponent using her opposite hand or weapon.

This charm is mutually exclusive with Shadow Casting Strike; the Sentinel can either use a successful attack for another attack or for defense. Not both. This charm may also not be used in conjunction with counter attack charms such as Counter Balance Charge, or with itself.

Essence Harmonizing Mimicry

Cost: 4 motes
Duration: One Scene or Special
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Shifting Balance Blow
The Grey Sentinel is always searching for the truth and one of the best ways to obtain truth is by simply asking. The Sentinel's touches her target and synchronizes her own essence with the target's, creating a mimicry effect. As the target speaks, so does the Sentinel as if she were the target. Though the target can lie and sidestep the truth, the Sentinel will always speak the truth as if the target were speaking it. This allows the Sentinel to not only discern the truth, but also whether the target is lying or not.

The Sentinel must maintain physical contact with the target. This may be through a clinch on an unwilling victim, or through a simple hand on a shoulder of the unwary. The target may resist the synchronization by succeeding at a Conviction roll at a difficulty of half the Sentinel's permanent Essence score, rounded up. If the target fails, the target is compelled to answer the Sentinel's question; truthfully or otherwise, and the Sentinel speaks the truth simultaneously. If the target succeeds her roll the synchronization failed and this Charm does nothing.

Land of the Blind

Cost: 5 motes, 1 willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Doubt Sowing Demeanor, Essence Harmonizing Mimicry
With this technique, the Grey Sentinel reaches out and grabs the ambient shadows into their hand and wields them as a whip of darkness. All characters of her choosing within a distance of her Essence rating x 5 feet must roll Stamina + Resistance against a difficulty equal to the Sentinel's Martial Arts rating. Anyone who fails is affected by the essence-enriched darkness, which clouds their vision and blinds them for a number of turns equal to the Sentinel's Essence rating.

Alternately by spending an extra point of willpower the Sentinel can focus the shadows into a spear to hit a single target. This target is automatically hit unless he has some sort of impenetrable defense with which to block the attack. The target is automatically blinded for a number of turns equal to the Sentinel's Essence rating, and takes the Sentinel's Strength + Essence in lethal damage, soaked only with Stamina and other non-armor defenses. The range of this attack is her Essence x 10 feet.

Pinnacle: One-eyed King

Cost: 8 motes, 1 willpower, 1 health level per additional attack
Duration: Instant
Type: Extra Action
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Land of the Blind
"In regione caecorum rex est luscus"; in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. Though the Grey Sentinel embraces their own fallibility, she still recognizes her dominance over those who truly cannot see. Her form fades into the shadows, flickering momentarily into being again next to those she holds dominance over, allowing her to strike at them from many positions and angles. Using this technique, the Sentinel can make an attack at her full Dexterity + Martial Arts (plus any relevant bonuses) against anyone afflicted by blindness within a range of her Essence x10 yards. This attack is rolled only once and the result is used for all affected targets.

By further diminishing herself the Master can truly ascend to the position of One-eyed King, and hold mastery over all those who live in the land of the blind. For every health level of Lethal damage she spends in addition to this charm's cost, the Sentinel gains another attack against all nearby blinded targets as written above. She may spend only as many health levels as her permanent Essence in this way to gain additional attacks.

Attacks given by One-eyed King explicitly function in conjunction with Shifting Balance Blow, however Shifting Balance Blow still only works against one single target at a time.

MartialArts/GreySentinelStyle

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