Prax/EbonShadow

Ebon Shadow Style

Ebon Shadow is an ancient style developed during the First Age and focused upon honing its practitioner’s evasive abilities and exploiting an opponent’s weaknesses. Today the style is practiced almost exclusively by the Chosen of Endings and a few Lunar Exalted who have kept its secrets since the First Age. However, with the re-emergence of the Solar Exalted, members of the Night Caste are recalling the ancient art that they first developed and within the Shadowlands, so are their Day Caste counterparts.

Practitioners of Ebon Shadow style treat knives as form weapons. For the purpose of Ebon Shadow Charms the martial artist is considered to be unarmed when wielding such a weapon. In addition, any charm that does not specify being unarmed as a requirement may be used in conjunction with thrown weapons as long as the Ebon Shadow Stylist uses the lower of his Thrown or Martial Arts abilities when making the attack roll.

Prax's Note - This version of the Style completely replaces the version found in Scroll of the Monk.

Shadow Step Technique:

 

Cost: 2m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2; Type: Supplemental

 

Keywords: Combo-Ok

 

Duration: Instant

 

Prerequisite Charm: None

 

Ebon Shadow Stylists specialize in catching opponents off guard, thus the first thing a Shadow Stylist learns is to quickly get out of sight. By invoking this Charm, an Exalt may add his Martial Arts ability as a dice bonus to a single Stealth roll either for the purpose of making an unexpected attack or re-establishing surprise.

Left-Handed Treachery Attitude:

 

Cost: 2m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2; Type: Supplemental

 

Keywords: Combo-Ok

 

Duration: Instant

 

Prerequisite Charm: Shadow Step Technique

 

Further refining the techniques of distraction and subterfuge, this Charm enables the Ebon Shadow Stylist to enhance his attacks, drawing his opponent’s attention in one way, only to strike from a completely different angle. This Charm can enhance any attack executed with the off-hand reducing the target’s Defense Values by the Shadow Stylist’s Essence for the purpose of defending against the attack. For the purpose of Ebon Shadow Charms, an attack enhanced with Left-Handed Treachery Attitude counts as an unexpected attack.

Ebon Shadow Form:

 

Cost: 6m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2; Type: Simple (Speed 5, DV -1)

 

Keywords: Form-type, Obvious

 

Duration: One scene

 

Prerequisite Charm: Left-Handed Treachery Attitude

 

Once invoked, this charm causes the Shadow Stylist’s body to flicker and appear partially insubstantial making it difficult for opponent’s to focus upon him for any great length of time. In addition the Shadow Stylist’s movements become quicker and more fluid, the overall effect causing the Shadow Stylist to become much more difficult to strike. While using Ebon Shadow Form the Shadow Stylist may add his Stealth ability as a bonus to his Martial Arts and Dodge abilities for the purpose of determining his Defense Values. In addition he may add his permanent Essence as a dice bonus to his Stealth rolls and the Accuracy of any Unexpected Attacks. This Charm is incompatible with the use of armor.

Seven Points of Weakness Strike:

 

Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2; Type: Supplemental

 

Keywords: Combo-Ok

 

Duration: Instant

 

Prerequisite Charm: Ebon Shadow Form

 

Shadow Stylist’s learn to identify and then focus upon the weak points in their opponent’s defenses be that the target’s combat prowess, armor or body. A martial arts attack enhanced with this Charm ignores a number of points of Bashing or Lethal Soak equal to the Shadow Stylist’s Martial Arts ability. Seven-Points-of-Weakness Strike has no effect on a victim’s Hardness, thus a weak attack can still be completely ignored even if this Charm is invoked.

Sevenfold Shadow Assault:

 

Cost: 2m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Supplemental

 

Keywords: Combo-Ok

 

Duration: Instant

 

Prerequisite Charm: Seven Points of Weakness Strike

 

Practitioners of the Ebon Shadow Style learn to take full advantage of their victim’s inattention. Most opponents that fail to take notice of a Shadow assailant never get the chance to make up for that error. This Charm can only enhance an unexpected martial arts attack. Count each success on the damage roll twice.

Vengeful Shadow Approach:

 

Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 9)

 

Keywords: Combo-Ok, Counterattack, Obvious

 

Duration: Instant

 

Prerequisite Charm: Ebon Shadow Form

 

This Charm can only be activated when an opponent within a number of yards of the Shadow Stylist equal to his Dexterity fails an attack roll against the Shadow Stylist either because of his Defense Values or the use of a Charm so long as the Shadow Stylist completely avoids the attack. Once activated Vengeful Shadow Approach causes the Shadow Stylist to vanish from sight upon being attacked and then suddenly appear behind the victim where he may execute an immediate unexpected martial arts counterattack against that opponent. This Charm is incompatible with the use of armor.

Silence of the Final Night:

 

Cost: 3m per turn; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Supplemental

 

Keywords: Combo-Ok, Crippling

 

Duration: Varies

 

Prerequisite Charm: Vengeful Shadow Approach

 

This Charm has the same effects as the Thrown Charm: Mist on Water Attack (pg. 195, Exalted Core) except that it applies to the Shadow Stylist’s Martial Arts attacks rather then to his Thrown Attacks.

Final Sunset Prana:

 

Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3; Type: Supplemental

 

Keywords: Combo-Ok

 

Duration: Instant

 

Prerequisite Charm: Sevenfold Shadow Assault, Silence of the Final Night

 

This Charm may only supplement an unexpected martial arts attack. All attempts to detect an unexpected attack enhanced by this Charm automatically fail. In addition add a number of automatic successes to the attack roll equal to the Shadow Stylist’s Essence. If an opponent uses a Charm such as Surprise-Anticipation Method to detect the attack as long as the Shadow Stylist's Essence exceeds his target's Essence use of the opposing Charm automatically fails.

Shadow-Body Style:

 

Cost: 3m, 1w; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4; Type: Simple (Speed 5)

 

Keywords: Obvious

 

Duration: One scene

 

Prerequisite Charm: Final Sunset Prana

 

This Charm wraps the Shadow Stylist in an anima of darkness that completely obscures his form making it lighter and less substantial and most importantly more difficult to detect. When the character's anima does flare only his caste mark shines and the rest of his body appears to be a silhouette of perfect darkness against the brightness of his anima banner.

 

The Shadow Body grants a number of benefits. First add an External Penalty equal to the Shadow Stylist's Essence to all attempts to perceive him in darkness while he is in his shadow form. This penalty also affects attempts to detect the Shadow Stylist by the sounds he makes as the footfalls of the Shadow Body are near silent and the shadowy aura obscures the sound that anything he is wearing might make reducing it to a faint rustle, at most sounding like a piece of rice paper being blown gently across the ground by the wind. This also affects the Shadow Stylist's voice making it echo strangely and rise above no more then a soft whisper when he talks. The Shadow Body also affects a character's vision, allowing the Shadow Stylist to see perfectly even in complete darkness. He can still suffer vision penalties from dust, smoke or anything else that obscures his vision, but neither normal nor magical darkness will impose any penalties on his vision while he wears the Shadow Body.

 

The Shadow Body also makes the character effectively weightless, nothing he stands upon will bend or break due to his presence and he will always float gently to the ground, ignoring all damage from falls. This weightlessness adds a +2 dice bonus to all attempts for the character to remain balanced as well as to resist knockdown, though not knockback. It also increases the character's Strength for the purpose of determining jumping distance by 2 and his Dexterity by 1 for the purpose of determining movement.

 

Finally due to the partially insubstantial nature of the Shadow Body the Shadow Stylist gains a Bashing and Lethal soak bonus equal to his permanent Essence unless an attack is specifically permitted to harm dematerialized opponents. This also grants the character a Bashing and Lethal Hardness equal to his Essence. The insubstantial nature of his body also makes the character difficult to hold. The Shadow Stylist gains a number of automatic successes on all rolls to escape bindings or holds equal to his permanent Essence.

Comments

First, this Style is brilliant and better in pretty much every way than the Scroll of the Monk incarnation of Ebon Shadow. I have only two comments:
Sevenfold Shadow Approach should probably be 2 motes; it's a very powerful effect, even if it's only for unexpected attacks.
I would suggest increasing the Essence costs on Final Sunset and Foe-Crippling and removing the "no higher-Essence opponent" restriction from them. It really hurts the Charms in combat against most people you would want to use them against. - FrivYeti

Heh... I actually decided to remove the Foe-Crippling Charm from Ebon Shadow while you were commenting replacing it with a version of Shadow-Body Style. As I was going over the Style again I realized that the Chakra attacks fit the old Ebon Shadow Style, but didn't quite fit in my new vision of it... The Charm will probably appear elsewhere, just not sure where yet. However, I did update Sevenfold Shadow Assault like you suggested increasing the cost to 2 motes. I also rewrote Final Sunset Prana to be a bit clearer in my intent. Basically, I didn't want it to automatically overcome Surprise Anticipation Method or similar Charms unless your Essence is higher then your opponents. Opponents who aren't using any Charms at all to detect Unexpected Attacks are out of luck when it comes to detecting a Final Sunset Prana attack. Thanks for your comments -- Prax