Lore Charms
Elemental
Concentration Trance
Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One day
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
This Charm is the most basic of Lore
techniques known by the Dragon-Blooded. Through the use of this Charm, the
character concentrates on her aligned element, centering herself and opening
her mind. The Exalt can compact a week’s worth of learning into a single day,
assuming she has access to all of the necessary materials. This Charm can be
used on sequential days, but use of it for more days than the character’s Lore
skill causes one level of unsoakable lethal damage
per day. This damage can only be healed by time, and it does not begin healing
until one week after the characters suffers it.
Elemental
Empowerment Meditation
Cost: 1+ Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Elemental
Concentration Trance
Proper knowledge of the Elemental
Dragons allows a Dynast to draw energy directly from an elemental source,
restoring depleted reserves in times of crisis.
The Elemental Empowerment
Meditation requires the character to spend Willpower points while in contact
with her aligned element. The character must be able to physically touch the
element she is aligned with to draw Essence from it. For every point of
Willpower spent in this way, the character instantly gains Essence motes equal
to her Lore. These motes can be spent normally.
There is a price to be paid for
handling elemental energy in such a raw fashion. If a character spends more
Willpower in a single day to draw elemental energy than her permanent Essence
score, each additional use of Willpower to increase her Essence causes one unsoakable level of bashing damage.
Elemental
Succor Method
Cost: 5 motes and 1 Willpower per lethal health level, 2 motes per bashing
health level
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Elemental
Empowerment Meditation
In addition to providing raw
energy, a Dynast’s connection to the Elemental Dragons can be a source of great
resilience and strength in desperate times. Elemental Succor Method lets a
Dragon-Blood tap into the elemental energy of the Dragons to restore her body,
healing her injuries. That character must be able to immerse herself in her
favored element to the greatest degree possible (standing in a burning fire,
submerged in water, etc.) and must spend 5 motes and 1 Willpower for every lethal
health level to be healed or 2 motes per bashing health level to be healed. The
Elemental Succor Method will not restore lost limbs or repair other such
mutilations.
Elemental
Bolt Attack
Cost: 1 mote per 2L damage
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 2
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: None
The character extends her hand, and a bolt of elemental force flashes forth from it
― a shaft of ice, a blast of fire, a barbed wooden javelin, a stroke of
lighting or slashing shards of crystal. The character’s player rolls Dexterity
+ Athletics or Archery (whichever she prefers) to hit. This attack has a range
of 20 yards x the character’s permanent Essence spent. The accuracy of the
attack is equal to the character’s Essence. A character cannot spend more motes
on this Charm than her Stamina.
Elemental
Burst Technique
Cost: 1 mote per 1L damage
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Elemental
Bolt Attack
This Charm has effects similar
to Elemental Bolt Attack, but it creates a blast of elemental power rather than
hurling a bolt. The character’s player rolls Dexterity + Athletics or Archery
(whichever he prefers) to hit, with an accuracy bonus equal to the character’s
permanent Essence. This attack has a range increment of 20 yards x the
character’s permanent Essence. The Elemental Burst Technique affects a circular
area with a radius equal to the character’s permanent Essence in yards. Anyone
in that area who fails to dodge or parry the attack takes a base damage of 1L
for every mote the Dragon-Blooded invested in the Charm.
Dragon
Vortex Attack
Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Elemental
Empowerment Meditation, Element Burst Technique
Rather than just summoning a
temporary damaging burst of elemental energy, this Charm creates a deadly
maelstrom of the character’s elemental aspect. Whether it is a sudden rain of
fire, a roiling whirlwind of air or a grinding cloud of stone and earth, all
within the area of effect suffer the character’s wrath.
Anyone in the area of the Dragon
Vortex Attack, other than the character who summoned it, takes lethal damage
equal to the character’s Essence every turn, as she is battered by flying
shards of stone, sliced by razor-thin ice crystals, burned by swirling gouts of
flame, and so on. This damage cannot be dodged or parried. The Dragon-Blooded
who created it is exempt from these effects, and may act normally in all
respects. The Dragon Vortex extends 10 feet from the character per point of his
permanent Essence. It is stationary once invoked, and not even the character
can voluntarily terminate it before its duration expires, although killing the
character will end it.
Careful
Insight-Gathering Study
Cost: 2 motes and one hour per success
Duration: Varies
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Lore: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Elemental Concentration Trance
Diligence and intellect, properly applied, can surmount
the most difficult of systemic or academic pursuits. Diligence and intellect
coupled with the magical acumen of a talented Exalt can accomplish in a matter
of hours what could otherwise require months of work from a dedicated team of
scholars.
Through the use of this Charm, a Dragon-Blooded scholar
can virtually guarantee high-quality results on any academic or systemic task
by using Essence to strengthen and structure his thoughts and mind, gaining a
crystalline clarity. For each hour of dedicated work and 2 motes of Essence,
the Dragon-Blood’s player gains an automatic success
on any roll pertaining to academic studies, research, analysis or any other
type of “book work” the character is conducting, to a maximum of the character’s
Lore Ability (including specialties, if applicable).
The hours spent in study for the use of this Charm must
be concurrent, and any interruption of the character’s activities will require
him to begin anew, losing any Essence spent in the Charm’s activation. Due to
the highly structured changes worked on the mind by use of this Charm,
characters suffer an effective -1 penalty to their Compassion Virtue Trait for
a number of hours after using this Charm equal to the number of hours of study
(even if the Charm fails due to interruption). Those who make repeated, long-term
use of this Charm grow detached and often cold toward others. Storytellers may
reduce the Compassion of characters who rely overmuch on this Charm but should
warn players if they think their characters are overusing the Charm. Generally,
more uses per lunar month than a character’s Essence should be considered
abuse.
Brute
Force Contemplation
Cost: 2 motes per success
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Lore: 4
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Careful Insight-Gathering Study
Sometimes, solutions to complicated problems are needed
on the spot, without the luxury of analysis by engineers or scholars. When a
dam or other vital structure is damaged, for example, an effective plan must be
made before the structure fails and further hampers normal operating
procedures.
A Terrestrial scholar may bring the full force of his
mind and accumulated academic training to bear on a single problem with the use
of this Charm, straining his mind with Essence and condensing days of analysis
into a single, staggering moment of insight. For every 2 motes of Essence
spent, the character may purchase an automatic success on any roll involving an
analytical or scholarly task, up to a limit of his Lore Ability. The remainder
of the pool is then rolled normally. The character’s
player must then roll to soak, using the Dragon-Blood’s Wits Attribute, a
number of bashing health levels equal to the total successes on the roll, as
the Exalt attempts to mentally digest and sort the rush of information. It is
common, after using this Charm, for a character to experience violent
nosebleeds, sporadic weakening of vision and hearing and excruciating
headaches.
Regardless of the results of the soak roll, each use of this
Charm counts as a full day’s exertion for the character, who must then deal
with the effects of sleep deprivation or use a Charm or item to counter it. The
bashing damage dealt through the use of this Charm may be healed using whatever
methods are available to the character.
Eternal
Mind Meditation
Cost: 2 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 3
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Careful Insight-Gathering Study
With a potential lifespan of centuries, and those centuries
almost surely densely packed with all manner of both excitement and study, the
memories of the Dragon-Blooded can become quite cluttered. Dedicated scholars
especially, who have a long lifetime’s worth of books and observations on which
they likely wish to meditate, find that the enervation of the memory with
Essence can allow them near-perfect recall of any event they have witnessed or
any material they have read.
After spending the required Essence, a Dragon-Blood
spends a moment in contemplation, and his player rolls the Exalt’s
Intelligence + Lore, with the number of successes indicating how far into his
memory the Dragon-Blood may explore. One success is enough to recall a hurried
conversation from a few years prior, while five allows the user to reexperience events from primary school. Some savants have
even claimed to recall memories of time spent in their mothers’ wombs through
the use of this Charm.
While using this Charm, the character is not helpless or
unaware of his surroundings, as he is not truly immersed in reexperiencing
the events of his past. He experiences them normally, as memories, simply
perfectly detailed and accurate memories.
Flawless
Study Focus
Cost: 3 motes per success
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Lore: 3
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Any 3 Lore Charms
Savants entertain a great variety of individually focused
fields of study. Nearly every scholar, dabbler and professional alike, has her
favored era of history, mathematical discipline or school of philosophy. True pundits,
through the use of this Charm, can enjoy flawlessly reliable intuition and
produce repeatable results within their chosen areas of focus.
For every 3 motes of Essence spent to fuel the use of
this Charm, one of the character’s levels of a Lore specialty can be converted
to an automatic success. The rest of the character’s Lore pool is rolled
normally.
Stern
Tutor Discipline
Cost: 2 motes + 1 mote per student
Duration: One day
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Elemental Concentration Trance
Individual study, for a savant, may be a relaxing and
prestigious pastime, regardless of the specific area of endeavor. Professional
undertakings and the work of students do not allow for the slow pace and low pressure
necessary to produce the results enjoyed by those who study for leisure. In
such cases, and others, it is efficient and effective to establish a hierarchy within
which the more skilled savants are on hand to advise
and to proof the work of the lesser savants or students. An overseer who uses
this Charm can take this methodology a step further, weaving connections of
Essence between herself and those under her to maximize the collective
cognition of the group.
On activation of the Charm, the player rolls his character’s
Charisma + Lore. For the remainder of the day’s study, the character may use
these successes as a pool from which he can reflexively allocate additional dice
to rolls made by those under his tutelage, including during a roll that has
resulted in a failure or botch. The character can, for example, add dice one at
a time to his charge’s roll until the pool of extra dice is depleted or the
charge cancels his botch or failure.