Dodge, The Ewer

 

Once, there was a maiden…

…who was driven from her land.

Great black stags chased her, and their eyes shone blue.

Monster scrambled after her through the bush, though they found her not.

Stumbling on a log, she fell; and thought to surrender, and end the torment of the hunt; but then, she stood, and stuck out her tongue at the dark woods behind her.

“Love is smiling at your troubles,” she said.

 

Absence

Cost: 1 mote per target number reduction

Duration: Instant

Type: Supplemental

Minimum Dodge: 2

Minimum Essence: 1

Prerequisite Charms: None

Predicting the path of a blade or blow well in advance, the Exalted arranges to be somewhere else when it lands. He can reduce the target number of a Dexterity + Dodge roll.

 

Duck Fate

Cost: 10 motes

Duration: Instant

Type: Reflexive

Minimum Dodge: 3

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Absence

The character sees impending danger rippling toward her in the skein of fate and, as with Absence, chooses not to meet it. Her player rolls Dexterity + Dodge against a difficulty equal to her opponent’s Essence. If the roll succeeds, the Exalt avoids any undesirable effect, including attacks she is not aware of, attacks with an area of effect, attacks with no physical component such as the Irresistible Questioning Technique and continuous deleterious effects such as You and Yours Stance. She must Duck Fate before her opponent’s player makes the attack roll or as soon as her player knows about the effect, whichever is applicable. She need evade a continuous effect only once.

 

Avoidance Kata

Cost: 2 motes

Duration: Instant

Type: Reflexive

Minimum Dodge: 3

Minimum Essence: 3

Prerequisite Charms: Duck Fate

Sometimes, the best answer to trouble is not being there at all. In the first two turns of combat or the first minute of a social encounter, the Sidereal’s player can declare, “I’m not there.” It turns out ― at least as far as anyone can prove ― that the Exalt anticipated the situation prophetically and was somewhere else, of the Storyteller’s choosing, all along.

For this Charm’s purposes, the first minute of a social encounter beings at the last chance the Exalt had to conveniently leave. If the character is chatting with a friend and Lilith shows up, a new social encounter begun. The Sidereal can use this Charm, retroactively making her excuses and ducking out sometimes beforehand. If the character is chatting Lilith and a friend shows up, however, she’s still in the encounter with Lilith.

 

Trouble Reduction Strategy

Cost: 5 motes

Duration: One scene

Type: Simple

Minimum Dodge: 4

Minimum Essence: 2

Prerequisite Charms: Duck Fate

Generous Sidereals learn to spot impending danger to others as well. When activating this Charm, the character chooses a number of targets whose total Essence does not exceed her own. While the Trouble Reduction Strategy is in force, the character can use any other Dodge Charm she knows to benefit a consenting target instead of herself. Simple and extra action Charms use the character’s action and Dodge pool. Reflexive Charms use the character’s Dodge pool. Supplemental Charms enhance the target’s dice action.

Using a Charm on someone else’s behalf counts as using that Charm that turn. The Exalt must pay for the Charm. She can only use other Charms that turn if she declares an appropriate Combo when using her first Charm. If the Combo includes non-reflexive Charms from other Abilities, the character cannot use it with the Trouble Reduction Strategy. If it includes reflexive Charms from other Abilities, she cannot use them on the target’s behalf. She could, for example, Combo Absence and Shield of Mars. When she invoked the Combo, she could use Absence but not Shield of Mars to protect a friend. She must take a dodge action that turn, assisted by Absence, even if no one tries to hit her, because it is a supplemental Charm in a Combo. She can reflexively invoke the Shield of Mars.

Sidereal Exalted may always use their Compassion with this Charm.

 

Neighborhood Relocation Scheme

Cost: 15 motes, 1 Willpower, 1 health level

Duration: Indefinite

Type: Simple

Minimum Dodge: 5

Minimum Essence: 4

Prerequisite Charms: Avoidance Kata, Trouble Reduction Strategy

This Charm uses a long prayer strip marked with the scripture of the Hunted Maiden. The character twists it and wraps it around her waits, whereupon it transforms into a band of crystalline Essence the color of the sky. Each hour the Exalted leaves this Charm in force, the band tightens, doing two levels of unsoakable bashing damage. This damage cannot be healed until the Charm ends.

The character begins to walk or run. These are the only acceptable forms of motion, but she can enhance them with Charms or the Lesser Sign of Mercury. As the character travels, the weave of Creation shifts, dragging part of the world after her. Specifically, both the general terrain and all habitations within her Essence in miles move with her. In the planning rooms of fate, this Charm slowly changes the records of each transported thing’s position. Thus, their fated interactions in the moments to come take place in a new location.

This Charm alters divine records, which are then interpreted by those who feed fate into the world. Accordingly, it is an intelligent effect. The Sidereal cannot shear a mountain or city in two. If the Charm cannot logically divide such features, given the radius of effect, they do not travel at all. Further, Creation fills in the “vacant space” with something reasonable. Finally, the Sidereal cannot “erase” anything important by dragging land onto it. If she drags a desert onto a Manse in a forested region, the forest retreats but does not vanish. The Manse follows the forest or relocates to the desert. The new location seems correct and reasonable able to all witnesses, although they remember the previous state of affairs.

This Charm was first used to pull a key fortification out of the way of a Primordial assault, in the days when Exalted and Primordials warred. Using this Charm without authorization is a Severity 3 offense.