MartialArtsRelay/FesteringCadaverStyle

The Nineteenth Theme is Festering Cadaver Style.

This is an Abyssal-flavoured celestial martial art, styled after the relentless, remorseless hordes of lurching undead. As its students progress further in their understanding of its tenets, they lose the ability to think and feel; disease and horror become their weapons, and their transformation into an abomination is complete.

The style is composed of 8 charms; it has two before the Form, branches out in four directions after it, and has one pinnacle Charm. These Charms need not necessarily be written in order.

Neither weapons nor armour are used by this Style, its repulsive practitioners finding their own body armament enough...DeathBySurfeit

---

3 Unfeeling Strength - nikink

Cost: 4m

Duration: Instant

Type: Supplemental

Keywords: Combo-Ok

Minima: MA 3, Ess 2

Prereq. Charms: None

When the mind recognises no pain, the body can be pushed past it's normal limits. The martial-artist begins discovery of this style by burying the habits of life and pain, and through this discovers strength.

This charm adds the martial-artist's Essence plus current wound penalty (ie: -4 becomes +4) to all damage dealt, even if the martial artist is not currently penalised by the pain. Also, this unnatural strength tends to tear and break the user's skin which causes all successfully damaging wounds to call for a disease check with a virulence equal to the user's Essence.

2. Useless Weight of Flesh - FlowsLikeBits

Cost: 4m per -0, 3m per -1,2m per -2, 1m per -4

Duration: Till all Health Levels are lost

Type: Simple(Speed 7)

Keywords: Obvious(if any HL's are lost), Combo-Basic

Minima: Martial Arts 3, Essence 2

Prereq. Charms: Unfeeling Strength Kata

The martial artist kills her body with this charm. This allows her to gain the resilance and damage capacity of the walking dead. Horrific wounds can blast chunks of flesh from them, and they pay no heed, for teh dead have no use for most of their body, other than for mechanical purposes. This charms gives the user a similar advantage.

When motes are commited to this charm, the martial artist gains additional health levels. These levels are always the first ones lost of their type(-0,-1,-2,-4), and they may not be healed by any means. The martial artist may not gain more health levels of a given type(-0,-1,-2,-4) than their Essence and may only benefit from one invokation of this charm at a time. When a health level is lost, the motes spend for it are decommited. While this charm is active, the user has a penalty to their appearance equal to highest penalty of any health level lost that was gained from this charm. Blasted, supporating wounds are not very attractive.

In addition, these extra health levels may not be spent to power charms not of this style. The only way to end this charm is lose all the health levels gained through it. During dramatic time, the practicitioner is generally assumed to be able to damage themselvles in such a manner as to end the charm but not cause any extra damage if they so wish. This charm becomes obvious when any of the gained health levels are lost, as the dead nature of the users flesh becomes noticable.

1. Festering Cadaver Form - Hapushet

Cost: 6m

Duration: Scene

Type: Simple

Keywords: Form-type, Obvious

Minima: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2

Prereq. Charms: Useless Weight of Flesh

The martial artist takes on the aspect of the putrid walking dead, flooding his body with the Essence of decay. His eyes grow glassy and vacant, his limbs numb, and a putrescent miasma trails behind his every movement.

While this Form is active, the martial artist reduces all wound penalties by his Essence, and increases his MDV by the same amount. He also increases the Virulence of any infection created by his attacks by 2 and he may parry lethal attacks or ranged attacks unarmed. However, the visage of death he wears reduces his Appearance by 1 dot while this Charm remains in effect.

4. Burrowing Maggot Infestation - Madoka

Cost: 4m

Duration: Instant

Type: Supplemental

Keywords: Obvious, Combo-OK

Minima: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2

Prereq. Charms: Festering Cadaver Form

In any festering carcass there exist other forms of life. There are the creatures that eat the dead and clean the world of the lifeless remains of the fallen. The martial artist is infested with hordes of maggots. When the martial artist strikes his target, his invertabrate companions leave him and find greener pastures. On a successful attack, determine damage as normal, but there is also a second source of damage to be rolled seperately. The maggots start to devour the hapless victim. Roll damage dice equal to half the user's martial arts value, rounded up, for every 5 ticks that pass. The maggots will have had their full after damage from them eating the victim is rolled martial arts times. Using this charm again on the victim infest more maggots in their body. But instead of creating a third damage pool, just add another die to the maggot damage pool. Also start over on counting the times maggot damage has been rolled. The victim can take a full action to rid his body of the insects.

5. Loathsome Rotting Flesh - haren

Cost: 6 m

Duration: Indefinate

Type: Simple (Speed 5)

Keywords: Obvious, Combo-Basic, Crippling

Minima: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3

Prereq. Charms: Festering Cadaver Form

Moving through the grotesque kata of the Festering Cadaver Form, the hair falls from the users head and every minor wound grows wide emiting a most foul stench. All others who are able to smell the martial artist (within double the martial artist's Martial Arts rating in yards) must make a reflexive Stamina + Resistance roll at a difficulty of the user's permanent Essence. This happens on the tick each character acts upon. Should they fail, they spend their action retching violently for 4 ticks, unable to act except with charms already activated, to use reflexive charms, or those that mention use while inactive. Should a target succesfully use a charm that negates Crippling effects, they are immune to this charm for the rest of the scene. This charm lasts only as long as the user is in the Festering Cadaver Form.

6. Grotesquerie of Necrosis - Hapushet

Cost: 4m, 1wp

Duration: Instant

Type: Simple (Speed 6, DV -2)

Keywords: Obvious, Combo-Basic, Crippling, Emotion, Stackable

Minima: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3

Prereq. Charms: Festering Cadaver Form

The martial artist has comes to terms with the nature of decay, but his opponents are rarely so enlightened. By manifesting the necrotic Essence that courses through his body, the user may make a (Charisma or Manipulation + Presence) roll against an opponent's MDV. This is an Intimidation attack; the user's effective Appearance is modified accordingly (after all other modifications). If the attack succeeds, the victim is shaken to her very core by the revelation of her ultimate fate: dissolution into pestilent death.

The attack deals (the user's Strength + Martial Arts) in bashing damage, which cannot be soaked by armor. Additional successes add to the damage as normal; in addition, the victim suffers a -1 penalty to all rolls involving Dexterity, Manipulation or Intelligence for the remainder of the scene. This attack has a maximum range of (the user's Essence x 10) yards, and targets with a Valor or Essence higher than (the user's Essence) are immune to its effects.

7. Infectious Rot - IanPrice

Cost: 2m/die

Duration: Instant

Type: Supplemental (step 1)

Keywords: Obvious, Combo-OK, Crippling, Stackable

Minima: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3

Prereq. Charms: Festering Cadaver Form

The death-taint of the Festering Cadaver stylist grows so strong with this charm that it infects his opponents, causing rigor mortis and putresence even before they die. This charm enhances a Martial Arts attack, causing an internal penalty to all of the target's dice pools equal to half the motes spent, to a maximum of (Martial Arts + Essence) dice. This penalty is inflicted only if the attack successfully hits, and it is inflicted at half strength if the attack deals no damage. The penalty lasts until the Martial Artist who inflicted it refreshes his DV twice. This counts as a wound penalty.

8. The End of Words and Men - nikink

Cost: None/3m+,1w

Duration: Permanent/Indefinite

Type: Special/Simple

Keywords: Obvious

Minima: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4

Prereq. Charms: Burrowing Maggot Infestation, Loathsome Rotting Flesh, Grotesquerie of Necrosis, Infectious Rot

At this stage of his training the Martial-Artist has reached apotheosis of necrotic essence. As the flow of essence twists and reverses its cycle the Master of Festering Cadaver Style become less than alive but more than dead. They become able to twist and wrack their bodies in ways gruesome to behold. Some crudely stitch parts of other rotting corpses to themselves to enhance their obscene figures, forcing rotten essence through the foreign matter to grant it animation, if not actual life.

Immediately upon purchasing this charm the user immediately gets a number of mutation points equal to their Essence to spend on themselves. These mutations carry the same drawbacks as mutations gained from the wyld in regards to maximum cap and extra experience costs and maximum Essence cap (as per Lunars book), but instead of being able to leave the Wyld, they become unable to leave the Underworld. However, the user can also activate this Charm to gain temporary benefits. By spending 1 willpower, the user may buy extra Mutation points at 3 motes per point upto a maximum of Martial Arts + Essence in points. These motes remain committed, and upon releasing the commitment the extra Mutations slough off in a putrescent display of gore. This Charm may be purchased multiple times, upto a maximum number equal to the user's Essence. As a final benefit, upon death the Martial-Artist's mastery of his own twisted, necrotic essence grants power in the afterlife. All current mutations at time of death stay with the body, and for each dot of Essence and each purchase of this Charm, the new ghost gains immediate knowledge of one Arcanoi Charm. All pertinent prerequisites must be met for these Charms.

Feedback

Very nice form Charm, Hapushet! It embodies the Style concept nicely, and gives rise to plenty of ideas for other Charms. Once again, good stuff...DeathBySurfeit

That Charm is very interesting, FLB - it breaks my brain in all sorts of new and unusual ways. Three comments: first, I'm not sure what the purpose of having both a healing option and a decommit clause for a lost HL is under the circumstances here - I mean, if you decommit the motes when you lose the HL, and then heal it back, aren't you then getting it for free? It seems to make more sense just to note that they can't be healed back at all. Second, given the Form in particular, should you really scale the HLs to a penalty the user may never see? I mean, you'd have a hard time convincing me not to just load up on -4s and -2s until I ran out of Essence to power them. It seems to make more sense to just set a penalty and fix a cost for it directly. Third, I think you need "Prana" or "Stance" or possibly even "Fist" at the end of the Charm name - something that sounds less like a Terry Pratchett title, anyway... - Hapushet, switching the numbers back because they're supposed to mark the order the Charms were written, not where they fall in the style, right?

No clue on the numbers. Good point on the healing. (I suppose healing it back could re-commit the essence instead. ) Fixed. I hate prana charms though. -FlowsLikeBits

Hey, that's perfect. - Hapushet

nikink, re: UFK: You made the same mistake I did :)...The form charm negates would penalties. This means you need to say something awkward like "penalty for the lowest HL lost" or something. -FlowsLikeBits

k, slight tweak. How's that? - nikink

Looks pretty good, I think. One point of clarification - Exalts check for infection at a -2 difficulty; this Charm isn't intended to override that, is it? (If it is, you should probably make it Simple.) I'd recommend making it explicit either way. - Hapushet

So I thought of the maggot charm up above. I wasn't sure if the damage dice inflicted by the maggots is too much or not. Say the martial artist has ma4, that means 2 damage dice will be rolled 4 times if the victim is unable to get rid of the maggots Is 8 extra damage dice too much? Suggestions....Madoka

Before I answer that, tell me this - can the maggot damage be soaked? Is it considered to be dealt by the attacker? Does it stack with itself? And if so, how? (Given the lack of the Stackable keyword, I'm thinking not, but I want to be clear.) - Hapushet

The damage is considered to be dealt from the maggots. I was thinking that it couldn't be soaked. The maggots are already in the victims flesh eating them. But a natural hardness (as in not from armor) that was high enough would cancel out the damage. Then the maggots just nibble and get nowhere. Madoka

Middle ground - how about soakable only by natural Stamina? - Hapushet

haren, how often do those around the MAist have to check for the nausea? Every action? (And oh, yeah - the range is in, what? Yards?) - Hapushet

Sorry about that. Yes, I meant yards. And I meant every tick the character has an action (so on average, every 5 ticks). Oh, and I like the new charm!- haren

This style seems awfully moribund (no pun intended) - anybody got any ideas on how to keep it moving forward? - Hapushet

I have an idea for the pinnacle, but I'm not sure a) how to work it and b) if it is really appropriate to the style. Keying off of the initial description that "their transformation into an abomination is complete", I'm thinking about some kind of permanent effect where, if the practitioner's body dies, his soul lives on with the sole purpose of reassembling its body, either from original parts, or whatever parts it can find. This would allow stuff like forming a body with five arms and so on. Mechanically, I'm thinking like death would reduce permanent Essence by one, but allow the practitioner to recreate a body (over a few weeks) with the addition of a number of mutation points equal to his Essence when he died. -- Wordman

That is an awesome idea, and I think you should go with it, with the notation that the mutations should reflect a body assembled Frankenstein-style from spare dead parts. - IanPrice

That mayu be one of the most awesome ideas for a Charm ever. - Hapushet

Actually, after giving it some more thought, why wait until they die? Why not give them the mutation points (insert freakish Frankenstein self-mutilation here) when they take the Charm, and then again when they die? Honestly, having to die in order to get the benefits seems like a bit of a downer... - Hapushet, who really wants to learn this style now

Arg. Bad timing. I'm about to leave the country for a little bit, so somebody please take the idea and run with it. - Wordman

How's that? - nikink

I dunno... I liked the "lose Essence to come back after death" better than "extra temporary mutations." Not that the second idea isn't cool... - IanPrice, waffling.

The positive aspects of the pinnacle charm are great. But with all those caps, I would never buy the charm. The reason for learning a martial art is to be more powerful in combat. It is counter productive that by learning the pinnace charm, your power level is limited. The reason the wyld has those caps and bad effects is that the wyld is bad thing. It is not formed essence, and when non-formed essence enters a structured body of essence, things don't go well. But with this charm, it is just a charm. There is nothing bad about it that would "infect" the martial artists and weaken them by limiting their attainable power level. And not being able to leave the underworld, very good reason to not buy the charm. Madoka

Hmm. I would counter that a: it's not that much of a limiter, you can get a lot of very powerful mutations before you are trapped in the underworld, b: I think it fits the theme of the style, ie: becoming more and more a creature of the underworld by emulating the forces of death, c: it's not just a Charm, it's a grab bag of mutations, some of which are permanent, others that can be chopped and changed as the MA-ist desires - I think that's actually very powerful and needs a balance. After all, it's only Essence 4. Maybe there should be a higher Essence version that removes the restrictions? Likewise, I can't think of any good way to let this charm provide a benefit upon the MA-ist's death. Perhaps all mutations currently donned stay with the ghost? But that seems beyond the scope of the Charm and the Style. Maybe all mutations stay with the body, but for every dot of Essence at death, the MA-ist's ghost gets one charm from the Nemissary Arcanoi Charm Set - that way upon death, the hideous mutated body can be instantly possessed and ridden by the ghost, thus causing the battle to enter phase two as the glorious heroes turn their backs on the corpse... mwahahahaha! - nikink Also, it's only the permanent mutations that have the drawback of tying the MA-ist to the underworld... the temporary one's are just limited by mote cost...

There, added a bit, and made it more explicit. Now upon death, the ghost will start with at least 5 Arcanoi, which is more than enough to get Nemissary's Ride and immediately re-animate the mutated body. Alternatively they could take their knowledge of body-crafting and learn the Moliation Arts... etc. B-) nikink

Not that anyone looks in here any more, but I'm thinking about the pinnacle Charm (which I still like, oddly enough given the years in between, all 3 of them - wow, 2006???). There is a mutation in one of the books called 'breed true' or something isn't there? Allowing a Wyld Mutated Creature to venture safely into Creation? Well, that's one of the mutations the Martial Artist should take if they wish to leave the underworld. Anyway, just a thought. I will one day have an Abyssal with this style... one day... sigh. - nikink

Matrix Metadata

Name: Festering Cadaver Style

Author: MartialArtsRelay

Description: Styled after the relentless unthinking undead, masters of this style become abominations of disease and horror

Type: celestial

Rules: E2

Form Weapons: none

Armor Allowed: none

Shield Allowed: no

Essence Range: 2-4

MA Range: 3-5

Total Charms: 8

Forms: 1

Comboable Charms: 6

Reflexive Charms: 0

Persistent Charms: 4