SpellRelay/Birds

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Psychopomp</b> (TedPro)

<b>Shadowlands Circle Necromancy

Cost: 10 motes

A black-feathered bird, the psychopomp, swoops down from nowhere, landing on a corpse of your choice. The psychopomp takes the soul of the corpse to its final resting place. If the bird leaves successfully, no ghost will be left behind, an Exalted Anima will be freed to find another body, and the corpse cannot be made raised as undead. The bird lands on the first round. On the second round, it scoops up all parts of the soul into its beak, very gently. On the third, it flies away again, out of sight. It can be attacked on any of those turns - it has a reflexive Dodge pool of 10, a Soak of 1, and a single health level of damage will destroy it. The bird will do nothing besides carry a soul away to its proper resting place.

Friend of the Feathered Host</b> (Sparrowhawk)

<b>Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Cost: 15 motes

Birds are creatures of the Air, and by invoking the power of that element, a sorcerer can greatly increase his standing in the eyes of these creatures.

The effects of this spell last for one day. While this spell is active, birds and creatures with birdlike features (such as griffons and hawkmen,) will see the sorceror as one of their own. Non-magical, unintelligent birds are completely bent to the sorcerer's will. The sorcerer can cause such creatures to be filled with a great emotion. This imitates the effects of the spell Commanding the Beasts, but with a greater degree of control. (Bo3C, page 33.) He can cause any of these emotions to flare up or die down with but a thought. This effect has a range of the sorceror's Essence x 10 yards. Additionally, this spell gives the sorceror a +4 die bonus on all Ride or Survival rolls dealing with unintelligent birds.

Bird-creatures who are intelligent or magical are not dominated in such a way, but the power of this spell does make them much more favorably disposed to the sorceror. When dealing with such creatures, the sorceror gains a +4 die bonus to all rolls based on Social attributes. It is much easier to befriend, convince, or cow bird-creatures while under this spell's aura.

Piecemeal Winged Migration (Resplendence)

Celestial Circle Sorcery
Cost: 20+ motes

From a swirling, silvery light in the sorcerer's hand explodes a large flock of materialized spirit birds. These seagull-sized birds, spun from glowing etheral Essence and seemingly fragile Starmetal constructs, silently circle overhead while the whole flock comes into existance and while waiting for the sorcerer to designate a target place or structure. Once she does, the flock (finally numbering 20 birds for every mote spent) streak toward the target in a silvery flash. Every bird snatches bit of the target in its beak, miracously without breaking or destroying it. Quickly they return to circle over the sorcerer, who must designate a destination. The birds immediately and without fail travel there, putting the place or structure back together, piece by piece, and vanish once they have done so. When the last piece is put in place, there is no trace of the target ever being divided into hundreds of bits, only that it has moved far from its original location.

20 motes can move a normal-sized house or tower, a ship or similar construct, no more than 25 yards across. Adding motes expands the capacity of the birds. 30 motes can move a mansion, a large ship, no more than 50 yards across. 40 motes moves small castles, whole neighborhoods of a town, small islands, large fields and such, no more than 100 yards across. 50 motes moves a large castle, whole towns or small forests, no more than 200 yards across. Manses, demesnes and similar magical places are unaffacted, as are those protected by wards. The birds will only move whole structures, not pieces, and they cannot be made to indirectly break them - for example, by depositing a building where it would crumble or sink. Neither will the birds move living creatures, who are left unharmed at the target site and cleverly built around if possible at the destination. If necessary, some terrain can be displaced to properly move basements, wells and such, although there is no guarantee a well would work at the destination site. The structure is frozen in magical stasis during the spell's duration. Any machinery, chemical processes and such are suspended and resume exactly where they left off when the structure is reassembled.

The target site must be within the sorcerer's sight. The destination can be any place within the same realm (usually Creation) she knows well or can percieve by natural or magical means. The dismantling and rebuilding processes take a minute each. Between those, the birds travel at 500 mph. A bird dodges all attacks reflexively with a ten automatic successes. Although they have no soak, they are immune to bashing damage and a single attack must inflict at least five health levels to destroy them. Anything less is ignored. There is some redundancy in the flock though - at least one tenth of it must be destroyed before the destination will begin to miss pieces. Depending on the kind of structure, this can lead to anything from unsightly and curiously shaped holes to disastrous collapse once the spell expires.

Foul Flesh, Fowl Flesh (TedPro)

Labyrinth Circle Necromancy
Cost: 30 motes

Created by a Daybreak Abyssal with an eerie sense of humor, this spell requires at least two dozen dead bodies of human size, whether fresh or long decayed, and can affect thousands of bodies. The corpses slither together into the shape of an enormous bird, which flies upon magic wings. The individual corpses are still clearly visible, though the overall shape resembles a bird. The bird flies at 500 miles per hour under the direction of the caster, and can carry many riders or a great load, but it cannot stop or even slow down. When the bird ceases to move at top speed, the bird collapses into individual corpses, which are then further torn apart into smaller pieces of flesh, which then rain down upon the land below. Depending on how many corpses were used, this could affect a few farms, a medium city, a distrct of a large city, or even a small province. All those within are immediately exposed to disease (depending on the nature of the corpses, this can be varied or magically augmented - by default, use the statistics for the bubonic plague) as if they were explosed by close contact. Anything riding the bird, or carried by it, floats down gently, landing in a place determined by the caster. This spell can be used as a means of transport, a way to dispose of many bodies, a way to spread plague, or, as the Abyssal who first used it was known to do, an exceptionally gruesome practical joke.

The Whippoorwill's Chant (TedPro)

Void Circle Necromancy
Cost: 40 motes

The necromancer calls upon an inky brown bird, the size of a large raven, which carries the memory of the Primordial's original Great Curse against the Exalted. The Whippoorwill always seems out of focus, as if painted with rough watercolors, but it speaks with a clear voice in the victim's native tongue. The bird is an illusion - while it can normally be seen, any attempt to touch it, attack it, or interact with it physically will result in its temporary disappearance. Furthermore, it is an illusion of madness - no one can see or hear the bird except the necromancer and the intended victim, though Sorcerer's Sight or similar effects will show it to be real.

To call the bird, the necromancer must be able to see the activated Anima of an Exalt suffering some version of the Great Curse. The bird will arrive near the victim within a day. It may offer advice, taunts, or other verbal interaction, and it follows the Exalt as much as possible. The Whippoorwill is interested only in the Great Curse. It knows the Limit Break conditions of the Exalt victim, and will attempt whenever possible to bring about a Limit Break. When the Exalt suffers a Limit Break, the necromancer will be able to perceive the victim and will know everything the victim perceives or does. The Whippoorwill seeks to keep the victim in this state constantly, and it has no other goals. After the victim has suffered a Limit Break ten times, the necromancer can see the victim constantly, and can communicate with the victim verbally at any distance. The necromancer cannot, however, control the Whippoorwill's actions in any way.

To Exalts who do not suffer Limit Break, such as Sidereal Exalts, the Whippoorwill will still attempt to encourage and induce the Great curse. Exalts not subject to the Great Curse are immune to the effects of this spell.

While it's impossible to defeat the Whippoorwill physically, the Whippoorwill can be defeated socially The Whippoorwill is very wily and capable. It has Charisma 4, Manipulation 6, Perception 3, Intelligence 3, Wits 3, Awareness 1, Bureaucracy 2, Larceny 4, Linguistics 3 (but knows all languages), Lore 3, Occult 2, Performance 3, Presence 4, and Socialize 5, with Compassion 2, Temperance 5, Conviction 5, Valor 3, and a Willpower of 10. It possesses no Essence and has no actual physical form. Social Charms and abilities will work on the Whippoorwill, and if it can be convinced, tricked, bullied or compelled to leave, the spell ends.

Flock of Hungry Raitons</b> - Issaru with help by-szilard

<b>Solar Circle Sorcery
Cost: 35 Motes

The Sorcerer casts his gaze into the sky which becomes cloudy and alive with activity. Upon finishing the casting the sorcerer makes a heart piercing cry into the heavens, and is answered by a murder of Essence(x100)raitons which swoop down and attack everything that was not designated as a friend by the caster at the time of casting. The raitons bolstered by the magic of the sorcerer all add the sorcerers permanent Essence rating to:

  • all physical Attributes
  • the Brawl ability
  • base damage
  • difficultly to hit them

In all other ways the Raitons are treated as extras. The raitons strike furiously for one scene then they streak into the clouds once again and leave taking the bodies of the dead with them, at this point the clouds break up and the normal conditions of the sky reassert's itself.This spell was created by a Night Caste exalt who used it to wreak vengeance against the armies of those who had slain her Raiton-Totem Lunar mate.

Comments

Spells seem to be harder. Or maybe just less popular. Or is it just a bad theme? --TedPro

I think it's harder to come up with good spells. The theme is just fine with me. I'd submit another spell, but I think that would be bad etiquette. -- Sparrowhawk

Please do! -- TedPro

If adding new spells to this Relay is wrong, I don't want to be right! --TedPro

I hope it's not bad form. I want to keep this relay going, so I added another Spell. --TedPro

Cool spell! How does it work on Exalts without Break conditions, though? - willows

Thank you! Oh, good point on no-Break Exalts! I added a clause about that. --TedPro

A bit of a belated note on Foul Flesh, Fowl Flesh: is the plague it spreads magically augmented at all? I would be underinclined to make it automatically bubonic plague but focus it more on whatever it was the bodies used actually died of or may have picked up. There are lots of unpleasant consequences of a rain of zombie flesh, really... -- AntiVehicleRocket

Mostly, I just wanted a disease that already had statistics in the book. --TedPro

I'm tempted to rename Mockingbird's Chant to Whippoorwill's chant, because the Whippoorwill is more often seen as a bird of ill omen ("Mockingbirds don't do anything but make music for us to enjoy"). --TedPro

Since there was only one Mantle of Brighid... How did the lunars use that spell all that often? The solars -might- have given it to them with charms, but it just seems a bit weird to have lunar flavour text in a solar circle spell. I like the spell, mind you.
- Darloth

It's just an extropolation of the charms in the Players Guide so i thought that 1st agers had something that would allow the lunars to cast the spell without a problem. Thanx tho i should have added that for it to make more sense. I'm gonna think of some more flavor text for it in a bit. - Issaru

In addition to changing the flavor text, some crunch might be worthwhile. Why is this a more powerful charm than the lower-circle charm that allows you to command all animals within a certain (large) radius? Are 500 (or even 800) raitons scarier than a magma kraken? -szilard
Ok i think i got this spell licked now.tell me what you think - Issaru
Errr... the whole Lunar bit doesn't make sense to me. As a Solar Circle spell, it would have to have been created by a Solar. It wouldn't have been used first by a Lunar (and in all likelihood would never have been used by a Lunar). How about something like, "This spell was created by a Night Caste exalt who used it to wreak vengeance against the armies of those who had slain her Raiton-Totem Lunar mate." instead? -szilard
That works...I like it thanx.Hope you don't mind but i'm bout to help myself to the flavor txt - Issaru
Fine by me. Those are some really buff birds. -szilard
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