Wood Dragon Style
Eyes Of The Wood Dragon
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Five turns or until
used
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 2
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: None
By invoking the Eyes of the Wood
Dragon, an Immaculate can perceive the patterns of a victim’s soul and easily
find the place to strike to cause the most damage.
When the Exalt
next makes a martial arts attack that succeeds, roll her Essence rating as
extra damage dice. This damage is
delivered after the damage from the attack itself has been soaked. This damage
ignores any armor, magical or otherwise, but may be soaked normally. If, for
some reason (for example, the effects of the spell Invulnerable Skin of
Bronze), the attack does not roll dice of damage, the extra dice of damage are
not applied.
This attack may also affect
dematerialized spirits as if materialized. This Charm is only effective against
living beings and spirits ― constructs and automata are immune to its
effects. A character cannot invoke the effects of more than one instance of
this Charm on a single attack.
Mind-Over-Body Meditation
Cost: 2 motes per health level
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Eyes of the
Wood Dragon
The followers of the Wood Dragon
have mastered the flow of life force in their own bodies, and healing minor
damage is a simple task for them. By simply concentrating and focusing for a
moment, the Immaculate invoking the Charm can marshal his own Essence to heal.
For every 2 motes the Immaculate
spends on this Charm, he may instantly heal one level of bashing damage. This
Charm cannot heal lethal or aggravated damage.
Wood Dragon Vitality
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: One turn
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms:
Mind-Over-Body Meditation
Essence surges through the
Immaculate’s body, bolstering her life force with that of the Wood Dragon. For
the rest of the turn, the Immaculate’s bashing soak is boosted by her Martial
Arts rating, and she may soak lethal damage with her normal bashing soak.
Soul-Marking Strike
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Wood Dragon
Vitality
To use this Charm, a Wood Dragon
Immaculate need merely caress her opponent, which results in a sharp pain in
the target’s head and no other obvious effects. If done in combat, this caress
must be part of a successful attack.
For the remainder of the scene
in which the Soul Mark is placed, any attacks the Immaculate makes against the
Soul-Marked target have an automatic success add to the attack roll before the
target’s player makes her defense roll. Multiple soul marks are cumulative.
Soul Marking is especially
painful to spirits ― as painful as a real brand is to mortals. In
addition to the effects listed above, each Soul Mark reduces a spirit’s dice
pools by -1 for the remainder of the scene, representing the constant burning
pain the being endures.
For 24 hours following the use of
this Charm, an Immaculate can sense when a being she has Soul Marked is within
her Essence in yards, and which being it is.
Wood Dragon Form
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Soul-Marking
Strike
Invoking the Wood Dragon Form
puts the Immaculate in deeper touch with his own life force and healing
ability. The martial artist strikes his own body with a series of precise,
quick blows, which activate certain pressure points and strengthen the flow of
Essence through the character’s mortal shell.
For the remainder of the scene
after successful invocation of the Wood Dragon Form, the Immaculate regenerates
one health level of bashing damage per turn and one health level of lethal damage
every two turns until killed. These health levels return at the beginning of
each turn. Health levels lost to aggravated damage cannot be regenerated in
this manner.
Invoking the form also requires
a successful Dexterity + Martial Arts roll, representing the basic execution of
the move itself. If the roll fails, the motes for this Charm are not spent, but
the action is wasted.
Only one Form-type Charm can be
invoked at any one time. Invoking a new Form-type Charm automatically ends the
effects of any currently active Form-type Charm.
Unbreakable Fascination Kata
Cost: 4 motes
Duration: Until abandoned
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Wood Dragon
Form
By executing a sinuous series of
moves and undulations of the body, a Wood-aspected Immaculate can fascinate and
distract opponents. Those characters affected by the Charm are transfixed by
the hypnotic movements, standing rooted to the spot.
As long as the Exalt maintains
the series of moves, the player of anyone wishing to take any action other than
to stare in rapt fascination must win a reflexive opposed check between her
character’s Wits and the Immaculate’s Martial Arts + Charisma. While executing
the Unbreakable Fascination Kata, the Exalt may speak, move at half pace and
dodge. Anything else, including an attack, breaks the Charm. Many Wood Dragons
use this technique to draw close to an opponent before attacking.
Enthralling Blow Attack
Cost: 8 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Unbreakable
Fascination Kata
The Dynast wishing to make an
Enthralling Blow Attack must succeed in a normal martial arts attack against
his target. Instead of rolling damage, the Immaculate’s player and the target’s
both immediately make a reflexive opposed roll pitting the martial artist’s
Essence + Martial Arts against the victim’s Essence + Willpower. If the
Immaculate beats the target in the roll, the target is enthralled. She loses
any action for the rest of the turn, and may take no actions at all other than
to stand there, slack-jawed and vacant-eyed. On each subsequent turn the victim
may attempt to shake off the effects of the Enthralling Blow Attack, her player
rolling the character’s Essence + Willpower, with a difficulty of 1 + the
number of successes that the Immaculate got on the opposed roll.
This Charm only works on living
creatures.
Spirit-Wracking Method
Cost: 4 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Wood Dragon
Form
When striking a spirit, the Wood
Dragon Immaculate’s knowledge of spirit energy allows her to channel her own
Essence into the spirit’s form, disrupting it temporarily.
The Immaculate must make a
successful martial arts attack, either bare handed or with a weapon. This
attack affects spirits as if they were materialized and does normal damage. If
the Dynast actually wounds the spirit, her player immediately makes a reflexive
Essence + Martial Arts roll with a difficulty equal to the spirit’s Essence
rating. For every success that the martial artist gets on the roll, the spirit
must subtract one die from all its dice pools. This penalty fades at the rate
of one die per turn.
Spirit-Rending Technique
Cost: 8 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms:
Spirit-Wracking Method
Much like Spirit-Wracking
Method, Spirit-Rending Technique allows an Immaculate to strike a spirit being.
But the effects are far more deadly than simple disruption.
The martial artist makes a
normal martial arts attack, whether armed or unarmed. If she hits, instead of
doing normal damage, make a reflexive Essence + Willpower roll. If the number
of successes equals or exceeds the spirit’s permanent Essence, it takes one
automatic health level of aggravated damage. If the number of successes exceeds
multiples of the spirit’s Essence, then the spirit will take multiple health
levels of damage. If the roll does not equal the spirit’s Essence, the
Spirit-Rending Technique has no effect.
For Example: Tiphanie chooses
to make an example of her fight with Talia, a weak nature spirit. She strikes
Talia, and her player rolls eight successes on the Essence + Willpower roll.
Talia is a weak spirit, and her permanent Essence is 3. She thus takes two
automatic unsoakable levels of aggravated damage from the attack because the
result is more than twice Talia’s Essence. The extra two successes are wasted.
If Tiphanie’s player had rolled nine successes Talia would have taken three
levels of aggravated damage.
Death-Pattern Sensing Attitude
Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower + 1
mote per attack dodged
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Wood Dragon
Form
Once a Wood Dragon Immaculate is
truly attuned to the patterns of soul energy, she can perceive the patterns of
death as well ― at least those directed against her person by other
beings.
For the remainder of the scene
after invoking the Death-Pattern Sensing Attitude, the Immaculate may make a
full dodge against any hand-to-hand attack launched at her in a turn by a
living being ― or a being animated by spiritual energy. This includes
spirits and the undead. This full dodge can even be used against ranged
attacks, so long as the attacker is within the Immaculate’s Essence in yards.
Each dodge roll costs the Immaculate a single mote. The maximum number of
attacks that can be dodged in this manner per turn is equal to the Immaculate’s
Essence. This dodge does not cost the Exalted her action for the turn and may
even be made after she has acted in a turn.
The Dynast does not have to be
aware of the attack, but the Patterns of Death do not alert an Immaculate to
the mere presence of other living beings, only of their attacks. This Charm is
ineffective against traps, attacks from automata and ranged attacks that occur
from outside the radius of the Death-Pattern Sensing Attitude.
Wood Dragon Succor
Cost: 3 motes per health level
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms:
Death-Pattern Sensing Attitude
This technique heals the wounds
of others ― but the Wood-aspected Immaculate cannot dissipate another’s
injuries directly as he can his own. He must first take these injuries onto his
own body. All the Immaculate needs to do to activate this Charm is to touch the
target. For every 3 motes of Essence the character invests in the Charm, he can
draw one health level of damage out of a target and into himself. Even the most
grievous wounds on the target close and heal, while the same injuries
immediately appear on the Immaculate’s body.
Taking on the wounds of others
can be quite painful and dangerous. The character immediately assumes the
proper level of impairment, although he can heal this damage with the Wood
Dragon Form, assuming it is not aggravated.
Soul Mastery
Cost: 10 motes, 1 health level
Duration: Essence in turns or
until discharged
Type: Simple
Minimum Martial Arts: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Spirit-Rending
Technique, Enthralling Blow Attack, Wood Dragon Succor
This Charm is the highest
mystery of the Dragon of Wood. Few have seen this Charm executed ― and
even fewer who have seen it have lived to tell anyone about it. The close
alignment of the Wood Dragon with the forces of life allows the most highly
skilled of its disciples mastery over life and death
itself.
Invoking this Charm is an action
in and of itself, and it absorbs the character’s dice action for the turn.
After the character invokes this Charm, it lingers on his hands as a sizzling
green-and-black aura. In order to discharge the aura, the Immaculate must make
a successful attack, though touching an unsuspecting victim would also work. If
discharged by an attack, the attack does normal damage in addition to the
effects of Soul Mastery.
The martial artist’s player
rolls a reflexive contested roll of his character’s Essence + Martial Arts
against his opponent’s Stamina + Endurance. If the target loses this contest,
her soul is severed from her body, killing her instantly. Even if she ties or
beats the martial artist, the shock to the soul is considerable, and her
character takes a number of dice of aggravated damage equal to the Immaculate’s
Essence.
In addition to the effects on
the living beings, any spirit with an Essence equal to or lower than the
Immaculate’s that is struck by Soul Mastery is annihilated utterly, ripped
asunder by the Immaculate’s wrath and permanently destroyed. Spirits can sense
the presence of Exalted schooled in Soul Mastery and fear and dislike them
intensely.
Using Soul Mastery is not easy
on the Immaculate. In addition to its considerable cost, once invoked, the
power must be used ― and quickly, lest the powerful Essence shred the
martial artist’s own soul. The Immaculate has her Essence in turns to
successfully unleash the Charm, or she must resist the effects herself!