The Ghost/Cascade Disruption Style

The History of Cascade Disruption Style

Cascade Disruption Style was and is intended to allow martial arts practitioners among the Autochthonian enforcement divisions to disable and disrupt his chosen in combat. Though first devised as a tool to fight some of the early apostates it's practice has actually become more common among the apostates themselves.

Inception

CDS was first conceived by one of the Adamant caste's involved in the hunt for the very first known apostate. Though not fully developed in time to be used in that hunt it saw use by it's first master, Rain of Molten Victory, for several centuries before he was defeated at the hands of the apostate Dark Dreams of Dexterity. Though he died at that moment his soul was reincarnated three centuries later into the body of the Kamak Jade Caste Winsome and Vouchsafed Justice who would relearn the style from one of Rain of Molten Vicotry's many students.

Proliferation

Though Winsome and Vouchsafed Justice would help to proliferate the style among the alchemicals of the Octet, it was the renegade adamant caste Anchor of Sanguine Panoply who would first proliferate the style outside the adamant caste. Reasoning that as a terrestrial style this martial art would be of more use to Autochthon if it were proliferated among mortals who were involved in the hunt for apostates he traveled for over a century among the nations of the octet teaching worthy mortals and exalted this all important charm set before he was at last apprehended and executed by his fellow angels.

However they already knew it was too little too late, the damage was done: dojo's of Cascade Disruption Style existed in every nation in Autochthonia and to root them out would require them to risk the same action that had marked Anchor of Sanguine Panoply for death, exposing the truth of the Adamant Caste to mortals.

Corruption

It was over 600 years before the practitioners of CDS would learn the horrific truth about their style's darker side. During the upheaval of the Elemental War both sides were stalked by a mysterious figure known only as 'Black Tom Tyrant', who appeared to be a mortal practitioner of CDS fighting to bring an end to the conflict by laying low Alchamicals of both of the warring nations. One fateful night two rival groups CDS students met the ghostly warrior amidst the battle fields between the two towns of Autrama and Romos There, in the light of a burning essence vent he talked to them at length and offered to teach them his secret capstone charm to the style if they would help him bring a halt to the war. Most of them agreed and journeyed with him for four more months training relentlessly. What happened after that is a matter of some debate since the three students who made it back to Yugash and the two who survived to reach Sova were all undeniably insane and tainted with Void Tech augmentations, but careful parsing of their memories by expert mind re-constructors have revealed enough to make a guess.

As the students studied the new abilities of his alternate capstone charm progression they began to notice him growing cruller and more demanding, more vicious in his attacks on the Alchemicals of the waring nations. Eventually their new sifu persuaded some of them to graft themselves with cybernetics of his own construction in order to better endure the rigors of this long campaign or to restore function to crippled or missing limbs. The results were that those who accepted fell further under his sway and began to go mad, suffering from Dissonance. In the end he used them to force the others to accept augmentation as well and killed all who resisted. He then initiated those who were left into the true capstone charms of the Cascade Disruption Style, charms that allowed them to use their dissonance to execute brutal and vicious attacks on the chosen and even infect them with gremlin syndrome for a short period if they could be subdued.

He also told them of the history of this variant form of CDS, that it had been developed in the horrific gremlin Patropolis of Erlik and passed down from one apostate to the next for over 1000 years. The 'students' only managed to escape when their teacher confronted a colossus of Yugash called Domak the Seared who's higher clarity rendered him immune to much of the style's greater powers and allowed him to kill Black Tom Tyrant.

Following up on this narrative and parsing their records both Yugash and Sova have independently found examples of what were most probably apostates using this variant of CDS over the course of the past 300 years or so. How and when the apostates first learned this variant style is unknown but many now wonder if it would not have been better if the style had never been revealed to the general public.

CDS Today

Since the revelations of a few years ago CDS has been seen with some distrust by the Tripartite of most nations. If it can be so perverted from it's original purpose what else might it do in the wrong hands? The revolutionary government of Yugash has outright banned the style and closed it's dojos, though people still train in secret knowing that their nation will need them when the elemental war begins again, other nations have been more moderate in their approach, putting the information about the existence of the alternate capstones of the style under high priority seals and monitoring the dojos teaching it colsely to ensure they remain orthodox in their methods. Only Kamak refuses to believe that this monstrous perversion can exist and has taken no action other than to classify the information.