Mnemosynis/SecretWeaponsOfTheOrder
Note
This idea came from talking with my wife. She's recently joined a game online, and it was noted that the game was Celestial-level characters only. I suggested that she play a very, very confused Dragon-Blood who thought he was a Celestial. We had a good laugh and went back and forth for a bit, and it evolved into a Dragon-Blood who was deep cover for the Immaculate Order pretending to be what he though an Anathema was. We imagined a Fire Aspect putting colored flash paper into his anima to make it all green and having him say "Oooo... I'm a spooky demon too!" It was funny, but then I thought I could make it work. So I sat down and came up with this.
I realize it's far too specific for most games, and most characters anyone uses to make this are going to come out with pretty much the exact same dots on the sheet, but I though it was a neat idea. Should anyone actually ever use this, lemme know how it works out. Personally I think they'd make really good antagonits to Celestial player characters, especially if it's an NPC member of their circle. The Wyld Hunt always seems to show up and raid the manses of them and their Celestial allies, killing those other Celestials they've made contact with, and it's only a matter of time before remaining with the circle has outlived it's usefulness and they're given the ultimate betrayal. Or something like that.
Oh, and I didn't check all of this for grammar because it's late and it took a couple hours to write up. Bear with me. I'll get to fixing it up later.
The Secret Weapons of the Order
In recent times the resources of the Immaculate Order has been spread too thin. With the release of the Solar Anathema from the Jade Prison there are simply too many reports to track and the Order has been forced to prioritize the Anathema hunts, letting those who as of yet pose little threat to roam free while the most dangerous upstarts are tracked down. Because of this many Anathema have had time to establish power bases and come together in circles and still not all of them can be tracked effecitvely. Their hideouts and secret manses are scattered throughout the reaches of the Threshold and the Order often cannot spare the hunters to discover the locations of these places where the Anathema have congregated.
However, a new project has arisen in secret in the heart of the Immaculate Order to help deal with the situation in the threshold that is being spearheaded by several younger members of the Bronze Faction. The idea of the project is to facilitate the discovery of the places where the Anathema lurk. If the Order can find and destroy the manses and strongholds of the demons they can drive from where they are their powerbased cannot build up. If the Order could track whole circles of demons and hit them when they are most unsuspecting the shards that had come together in mutual interest will be scattered apart from each other to the corners of Creation. And who better to give away the secrets of the Anathema than the Anathema themselves?
For this very purpose young Dragon-Blooded skilled in the arts of guile and misdirection, mostly taken from House Islesi, have been chosen and put through a very rigorous and secret training program to make them the most deep cover agents in all Creation with the goal to infiltrate the ranks of Anathema as one of the very demons they hunt.
The test group consisted of a mere twenty students who were first put through training at the Cloister of Wisdom, but the class was held seperate from all the others and was taught at an accelerated rate. The chosen students would train out of sight of the other students and were forbidden to speak to them at all. The signature styles of the Order might be recognized by the Anathema and it was considered too much of a risk loosing an agent who had been so intensly trained. The choice was made for the agents to use styles more natural to the Anathema and to be apart in even basic fighting theory. The students were initiated using the heretical Tiger-And-Bear Charms to access the Bulb of the Perfected Lotus. They were then rigorously trained in the animal styles common to the demons. Throughout it all the Sidereals of the Bronze Faction used their Charms to keep the students literally soaked through with Immaculate propaganda to ensure they would remain loyal and not betray the Order.
Once the students had graduated from the Cloister of Wisdom the were then moved in secret to the Heptagram to learn the art that would ensure that their disguises would be complete. Again they were put through an accelerated course and were innudated with occult information. Once again they were also seperated away from the other students and forbidden to speak to anyone other than each other and the instructors. And once again the Sidereals instructing them bombarded them with propaganda and social charms to ensure the student's eternal loyalty to the Order. Once the students had advanced enough to learn Disguise of the New Face so that they might change their anima to mimic those of the Anathema they were released and reported to the Cloister of Wisdom to undergo their final tests.
The students were tested to ensure the guile they had been chosen for had not deteriorated through the course of training. Once the Sidereals were satisfied the new agents were given their artifacts and their orders. Those who did not know a threshold language were taught and all students underwent training to erase all traces of a Realm accent. The artifacts the agents were armed with were orichalcum to better enhance the disguise they had chosen. The Sidereals in charge of the project also used all the favors they were owed and now owe several themselves to get access to several Jewel of Whisper hearthstones. Many elder Bronze Faction Sidereals have taken interest in the project reports coming up from their subordinates. The Sidereals were the ones who attuned to the manses and the artifacts used to hold the stones, but they gave them to all the agents they could so that they would be able to report immedietly from remote locations.
The primary purpose of the agents was not to oppose the Anathema directly, but to report in secret the precise locations of the manses and strongholds of the demons. The infiltrators were to attach themselves to a circle if at all possible and were to report on the activity, strengths and weaknesses of those they travelled with, and also those other Anathema encountered throughout their travels. With this knowledge the Order could make precision strikes to sieze manses and kill the circles the agents travelled with when the demons were least prepared for an ambush.
The first agents have been operating in the Threshold for two seasons now and the wealth of information has helped the Order target it's strikes with greater precision. Two Wyld Hunts have already been sent out to sieze manses, and the location of a few more are known. So far a couple agents are even counted as trustworthy members of demon circles, but at least one has stopped reporting in. The Bronze Faction can only hope the Order's propaganda holds up in the minds of the agents and they have not given themselves over to the service of the Anathema. As a best case scenario the missing agent was slain and the secret of the Order's new weapons remains just that. While the project seems to be off to a mostly promising start, the long-term success of the program has yet to be seen. Currently the younger members who are heading the project are compiling a list of more hopeful applicants. They feel the worth of the idea is evident.
Character Creation
The secret weapons have the same attribute and ability rules as any other Dragon-Blood rasied in the Dynasty. However, in addition the the prerequisites of having been raised in the social structure of the Realm, other, more stringent restrictions arise due to the very specific nature of thier training. All secret weapons must have both Occult and Martial Art as a favored abilities. Larceny, Martial Arts, and Occult must be at three dots each, and Martial Art must also be raised to four with bonus points. They must also possess Investigation two, Survival two dots, and Linguistics at one dot with the language being one of the Threshold.
Backgrounds are spent as normal, but the character must possess Connections in the Immaculate Order at three dots. Also due to the equipment they were given from the stores of artifacts taken from other Anathema, they may possess either moonsilver or orichalcum artifacts, and if they use a weapon to fight with it must be made from one of those materials.
The characters choose their charms as an Immacualte monk would, but the styles are heretical rather than secular. The characters use the Tiger-And-Bear initiation charms and the other three may come from either Snake, Tiger, Mantis, Ebon Shadow or Celestial Monkey.
The constant bombardment of magical social effects, the rigorous, intense training and the knowledge that they would have to hide amoungst the Anathema where once misstep would see them slain has worn on the student's very minds and souls. They all eventually succumbed to the extreme pressure and lost something of themselves. They all have the Nightmares Flaw for three points, the Callous Flaw for two points, and the Dark Fate flaw for two points. Because of the Callous flaw they only receive four points of virtues rather than five.
The characters also have to buy their Essence to three to support the purchase of Terrestrial Circle Sorcery and Disguise of the new face, also with freebie points. Thus out of the 22 freebie points the weapons gets after flaws, 21 are already spent for him. Such is the nature of having a singular purpose in life.
Most agents also carry a Jewel of Whispers that one of the Sidereals managing the project is attuned to. This is at no cost to the weapon and is assumed to come from the Connection(Immaculate Order) background. The Dragon-Blood himself is not actually attuned to the stone.
