Thrown Charms
Seeking Throw Technique
Cost: 1 mote per two dice
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Thrown: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
Close alignment with the element
of Air considerably simplifies the task of hurling deadly objects at opponents.
With an infusion of Essence, the Dragon-Blooded forges a path through the air
to her target, ensuring her missile’s true and deadly flight. For each mote of
Essence spent on the Seeking Throw, the player may add two dice to a Thrown
attack roll. This cannot increase the character’s dice pool by more than her
Thrown Ability rating. The player must declare how much Essence she is infusing
into the Charm before making the attack roll.
Loyal Weapon
Cost: 1 mote
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Thrown: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Seeking
Throw Technique
This Charm allows an Exalt to ensure
that a particularly valuable weapon (or weapons) will return safely to her
hand. When she first hurls the weapon, the Dynast attaches an invisible rope of
wind to it, pulling it back to her hand when its path is spent. Whether it hits
its target or not, a Loyal Weapon instantly flies back through the air to the
character’s hand, available for use next turn.
This Charm works on any weapon
at all, not just those usually thrown. A daiklave may
be hurled as easily as a group of shuriken. Melee weapon thrown using this
Charm have the same accuracy, speed and damage as they would if melee weapons
and a range in yards equal to 10 times the character’s Essence, but they use
the character’s Thrown Ability, rather than her Melee.
Anyone in the weapon’s path, other
than the target, may attempt to grab the weapon as his action, assuming that he
has an action available. The weapon can be caught with a successful Dexterity +
Athletics roll, but the player of the character catching the weapon must
succeed at an immediate, reflexive opposed Strength + Athletics roll with the
Loyal Weapon’s master’s player, or fail to stop the weapon’s progress.
Persistent Hornet Attack
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Essence in turns
Type: Simple
Minimum Thrown: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Loyal
Weapon
Currents of elemental Air can be
used to sustain a thrown missile’s deadly flight long after its energy would
normally be spent. The character infuses the Essence of air into an item and
hurls it at his opponent as normal. But unlike a normal hurled attack, this
thrown weapon takes on a life of its own, continuing to circle and attack for a
number of turns equal to the attacking character’s Essence.
A weapon or item enchanted with
Persistent Hornet Attack strikes a single target each turn with the attacking
character’s Perception + Thrown skill. The weapon acts on the same initiative
as the character’s each turn. Once a weapon has been assigned a target, the
character can’t change the target. The weapon can be attacked as if it was a
normal character, but the difficulty to hit it is the throwing character’s
Essence. If struck, the weapon does not soak ― it is immediately knocked
from the air and become inert.
The character must declare he is
invoking this Charm when he first throws the weapon it is used on. If the
attacker uses Persistent Hornet Attack as part of a Combo, the daggers must
repeat the use of the other Charms in the Combo exactly. The character
should pay the cost of the additional Charms each time the dagger uses them, but
need not pay the Willpower every turn.
Invisibly Hidden Chakram
Method
Cost: 10 motes per weapon and 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Thrown: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Persistent
Hornet Attack
To invoke this potent Charm, the
character simply tosses a weapon (or weapons) into the air and sends it
Elsewhere for later use. At a later time, the Exalted can release the weapon
back into the material world. The weapon must be designed to be thrown and be
of a type that the Dragon-Blooded is actually familiar with and skilled in
throwing himself.
Attacking with one or more of
these waiting weapons is a reflexive action that must be done at the same time
that the character takes his regular action, and it can be done in conjunction
with any other normal simple action.
Aside from that fact, it is a
normal, reflexive Dexterity + Thrown attack, which can be modified by Charms as
usual. The waiting weapons may be used as part of a Combo, but the Combo can
only apply to the hidden weapons, cannot include an Extra Attack-type Charm and
must include every hidden weapon called up in the turn.
There is no limit to the number
of weapons concealed by the Invisible Hidden Chakram
Method that a Dragon-Blood can release in one turn, and each is thrown with the
Exalt’s full Dexterity + Thrown pool at the time of
its appearance. The hidden weapons originate from the character’s location and
are clearly part of an attack on that character’s part. A Dragon-Blooded
character can maintain as many invisibly hidden weapons as his Essence Trait x
2. These weapons are as impossible to sense as anything hidden Elsewhere.
Whirlwind Shield Form
Cost: 3 motes + 1 mote for each
additional person protected
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Thrown: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: None
Whirling currents of air
surround the Exalt, deflecting ranged attacks aimed at her. Each time a ranged
attack is directed at a character using Whirlwind Shield, the character’s
Essence acts as a number of automatic successes that are subtracted from any
attempt by an attacker to make a ranged attack roll against the target.
This Charm can be used upon a
group if the character so wishes, but characters so protected must remain
within range of the character’s perception. The Exalted must commit an
additional mote per companion so protected.
Vengeful Gust Counterattack
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Thrown: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Whirlwind
Shield Form
Beyond just deflecting an
enemy’s attack, Vengeful Gust Counterattack lets a character strike back at the
one assaulting her. Upon being made the target of a ranged attack that she is
aware of, the player of a character that knows this Charm may make an immediate
Dexterity + Thrown check as an opposed defensive roll in place of a dodge or
parry attempt.
If this roll exceeds the
attacker’s roll, the missile’s path is reversed. It is hurled back to its point
of origin, striking with a number of successes equal to the extra successes on
the defending character’s player’s Dexterity + Thrown roll.
This Charm is not an
all-or-nothing proposition. Even if the defender fails to score extra successes
on her Dexterity + Thrown roll, she still subtracts the successes she got from
the attacker’s roll, just as if the character was dodging or parrying the
attack.
If the Exalt has Whirlwind
Shield Form active when she activates Vengeful Gust Counterattack, the
character’s Essence is subtracted from the attack before the results of the
Dexterity + Thrown roll are applied to it, allowing stronger counterattacks. If
the character is the target of an area-of-effect attack such as the Death of
Obsidian Butterflies, the Whirlwind Shield Form protects only her own person,
but the attack can still be deflected. This means that, for example, a sorcerer
who targets multiple Air-aspected Dragon-Blooded with
such a spell may be struck multiple times with its effect due to this Charm.
Wind Weapons
Cost: 3 motes per weapon
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Thrown: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Persistent
Hornet Attack, Vengeful Gust Counterattack
Once sufficient connection with
the Air Dragon has formed, the skilled Dragon-Blooded can move beyond even the need
for a weapon to throw at his opponent. By infusing the air itself with Essence,
the character solidifies it, forming indistinct yet glittering patterns of icy
wind ― weapons from the very substance of air itself. Such insubstantial
weapons are too unstable for melee combat, but they are eminently suited for
ranged attacks.
A wind weapon has a base damage
and accuracy equal to the character’s permanent Essence and a range equal to 10
times this value. It is also possible to create more than one wind weapon at
once, so long as the Essence cost is paid for each. The maximum number of
weapons that can be created in a single turn with this Charm is equal to the
character’s permanent Essence.
Once created, the wind weapon is
thrown as a reflexive action, using the characters Dexterity + Thrown, plus the
accuracy of the weapon and any appropriate modifiers for a ranged attack. If
multiple weapons are created, they are all thrown at once and can be thrown at
one or at multiple targets. The wind weapons can’t be handed to anyone else or
used in melee combat. This Charm cannot be put in a Combo with Extra
Action-type Charms. If the character throws multiple wind weapons, each is
thrown at his full dice pool.
Wind Weapons have real substance
for the Charm’s short duration and can be used for purposes other than simple
attacks. For instance, a wind knife can sever a rope or knock an item out of
someone’s hand as easily as any other thrown knife can.
Wind Armor Technique
Cost: 1 mote per 1B/1L
Duration: One scene per point of
permanent Essence
Type: Simple
Minimum Thrown: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Vengeful
Gust Counterattack
By further refining the control
needed to form a Whirlwind Shield, the character learns to form invisible armor
from the surrounding air. While a Whirlwind Shield only protects against ranged
weapons, Wind Armor Technique forms a barrier to any assault upon the
character.
The Wind Armor has a 1B/1L soak
rating for every mote of Essence committed to it and has no mobility penalty or
fatigue value. Wind Armor appears as a cocoon of violently swirling winds
surrounding the character invoking it. The maximum rating of this armor is the
character’s permanent Essence. This armor is fully compatible with and additive
to physical armor.
Wind Armor Technique can also be
used on others, but they cannot move farther 5 x the Exalt’s
permanent Essence in yards away, or the effect immediately fades. The use of
this Charm on others is at the normal price ― one mote per 1L/1B of the
armor ― and must be spent for every target armored.
Crosswind
Offense
Cost: 1 mote per penalty cancelled
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Thrown: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: Seeking Throw
This is the first of what are collectively known as the
Crosswind Techniques, a group of Charms predicated on emulating and channeling
Essence in a manner similar to the Essence within the very wind, first taught
centuries ago by their creator, “Windtamer” Cynis Mond. The eccentric
innovator no longer teaches the Techniques he once claimed were mere
by-products of his other studies of the Essence of the winds, but the
collection of Charms is so widespread today that instruction is available practically
anywhere.
The Crosswind Offense is a technique by which a Terrestrial
may imbue both weapon and throw with wind-like Essence in order to guide the
throw accurately in a wide arc instead of a straight line, with the purpose of
bypassing a shield or cover with a lateral attack. This technique costs 1 mote
of Essence per difficulty penalty due to shields or cover bypassed.
Crosswind
Feint
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Extra Action
Minimum Thrown: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Crosswind Offense
“One: As the wind shepherds a leaf, shepherd the target.
Two: As the wind drives the rain, drive your weapon to the target.” These are Windtamer’s words on the subject of this Charm, often
quoted by teachers of this technique. Activating this Charm, the Exalt uses a
feinted attack to trick a target into dodging into a second attack, the true
attack.
To use this Charm, the attacking character splits his
action into two actions. The player rolls one attack using his character’s
Manipulation + Thrown at -2 dice with a difficulty of 1. If this attack is
successful, it does no damage, but instead, note the
extra successes rolled on the attack. The second action is a normal Dexterity +
Thrown attack at -3 dice. The extra successes on the first roll reduce the
target’s dice on any attempts to dodge the second throw.
Crosswind
Gale
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Thrown: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Crosswind Offense
Learning to more fully emulate the Essence of wind, a
Terrestrial with this Charm can throw her weapon with the terrible force of
hurricanes, sending her target flying through the air.
The attack is rolled normally, a
successful hit does damage as usual and also knocks the target back (the
attacker’s Essence + attack successes) yards. This attack may be blocked and
dodged as usual, though a block is only useful against the damage, not the knockback.
Crosswind
Empowerment Technique
Cost: Motes equal to base damage of the empowered weapon
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Thrown: 2
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Crosswind Offense
Using a more focused version of the principles behind the
Crosswind Gale technique, a Dragon-Blood utilizing this Charm may imbue his
thrown weapons with highly concentrated, wind-like Essence. Weapons thus
empowered are only vehicles for this pure force, which will find its way
through even the smallest chink in the target’s armor. Attacks made using this
Charm are treated as piercing attacks, halving the target’s lethal armor soak.