Paths/WhisperingShadow

Path of Whispering Shadow

As the Dragon Kings worshipped the Unconquered Sun and worked alongside his chosen, so has the cycle continued with the tainted servants of the Abyss. Several deathlords have tainted the essence of Dragon King eggs to produce servants and allies. Along this line these dragon kings have wrought a path of enlightenment unique to their servitude. As per this servitude they may no longer attune to orichalcum. However, they may now align to soulsteal as if they were abyssal exalted.

*Summon the Ghostly servant

Cost: 5 motes
Duration: scene
Type: simple

For the rest of the scene the dragon king may sense ghosts or abyssals in a radius equal to his permanant essence in miles and call to them.

**Empower the Dead

Cost: 5 motes per zombiem 1 commited per zombie
Duration: special
Type: Simple

The dragon king learns to animate the dead. They may creat and sustain a number of zombies equal to 2x their essence rating. They must feed each zombie 1 essence to sustain it through commitment.

***Empower the Soul

Cost: 10 motes
Duration: special
Type: Simple

Refining the crafts, the dragon king can now work the forms of jadecrafting and soulsteel crafting of the dead. They may create artifacts of undead jade and soulsteel or craft the flesh of the dead.

****Spirit Treading Style

Cost: 5 motes
Duration: scene
Type: Simple

The dragon king learns to walk the formless way of the dead, thus becoming intangible in creatinon. The character ignores all physical damage not dealt by a magical material. Orichalcum and soulsteel do normal damage, but the damage from Jade, moonsilver and starmetal is halved. (before or after soak? - Dar) In the insubstantial form this ability grants, the dragon king is treated as a dematerialized spirit when dealing with charms which effect spirits.

*****Walk the Abyss

Cost: 10 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple

The Stalker learns to walk into the underworld from anywhere in creation.

***** *Bridge Death's Grasp

Cost: 2 motes per die.
Duration: permanent
Type: Simple

The Dragon king gains the favor of death. The dragon king becomes immune to all mundane diseases. He may reflexively spend 2 mote to add to resist magical diseases. He also suffers no physical penalties from age. Upon reincarnation, as long as the taint is not cleansed, the dragon king spontaniously reach essence 2 after their 50th year. The rating still requires expeience to be spent for the new Essence. In life and death the dark dragons serve the abyss.

                         ===== Comments: =====

I am aware that it is unlikely the original creator is still around to read this... that said, maybe I'm wrong. Either way, the last ability for this path needs a cost, and in my opinion it needs a re-write. The power level is fine, but I'm having difficulty seeing the fluff - the HL reduction, sure, but why is the dragon-king harder to -hit-... maybe more soak, or even a valor roll to attempt to attack such an avatar of darkness, but the difficulty increase seems odd. Duration instant is a weird duration as well, it seems like it should be permanant or scenelong or something.
-- Darloth has also corrected many typos, but has no idea who originally authored this

Sorry, I have been away for sometime now... I upgraded the final level. I instead gave them a kinship to the abyssal exalt's immunity to the ravages of death and time. I also added a clause for thier servitude to extend into reincarnations. sorry
-- ToBE