Performance
Charms
Haunting Inflection
Trick
Cost: 1 mote per 2 dice
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum
Performance: 2
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite
Charms: None
As the Exalt speaks, her voice takes on an
otherworldly tone. Whether shattered into multiple discordant pitches or
augmented to mellifluous grace, her augmented tone adds emotional weight to
everything she says. The character can add 2 dice to a Performance or Presence
dice pool for every mote spent, although she may not more than double her pool.
The character must be employing her voice to invoke this Charm, whether for
singing, teaching or oration.
Withering Dirge
Cost: 2 motes per 1L damage
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum
Performance: 3
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite
Charms: Haunting Inflection
Trick
A deathknight can channel Essence into a
mournful song so that members of his audience, willing or otherwise, start to
die as they listen to it. Their bodies weaken as their life Essence is sucked
away into the Underworld. Each listener suffers 1L for every 2 motes spent on
the Charm, up to a maximum damage equal to the deathknights permanent Essence.
This damage leaves no physical mark and may only be soaked with Stamina or
soak-boosting Charms. Characters can only use this Charm once per turn,
although they may activate it on subsequent turns to continue their song unabated.
The exact nature of a Withering Dirge depends on the Abyssal, but there is no
mechanical difference between an achingly beautiful requiem and a piercing
scream of anguish. Nonliving beings and the deaf are immune to this Charm.
Lamenting Ghost Technique
Cost: 1 mote per 1L damage
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum
Performance: 5
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite
Charms: Withering Dirge
An Abyssal with this Charm can transform
her voice into a terrible weapon. The character opens her mouth wide and
screams, pouring Essence into a devastating sonic blast. The character's player
rolls Manipulation + Performance to hit a single target, inflicting a base
damage of 1L for every mote of Essence spent. Extra successes add as normal.
This attack cannot be parried, only dodged, and may be soaked only with Stamina
and other natural soak enhancers. Lamenting Ghost Technique has a range of (the
character's Performance x 10) yards. An Abyssal may not spend more motes
powering this Charm than her Stamina + Essence.
Elegy For The Fallen
Cost: 5 motes
Duration:
Special
Type: Simple
Minimum
Performance: 4
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite
Charms: Haunting Inflection
Trick
Preaching the veneration of death and the
dead is seen as a sacred obligation by many deathknights. Such adulation serves
two purposes: strengthening the power of the Underworld and garnering useful
allies among the dead. To these ends, Abyssal Exalted with this Charm may channel
the prayers of a living congregation to empower the dead. A memorial service
can be directed at a single ghost or the dead in general, as decided by the
Exalt, but such worship can only be carried out at night.
If targeting a single ghost, the Abyssal
spends one or more hours leading his assembled congregation in prayers to the
honored deceased. Such prayers can take the form of a high ritual, a mournful
song or dance — even a lighthearted wake. After each hour, the character's
player rolls dice equal to the number of active participants. The total number
of dice cannot be greater than twice the deathknights Charisma + Performance. A
ghost who is subject of such a celebration regains 1 mote of Essence for every
success rolled — or half that number if she is not physically present at the
memorial.
If used to facilitate general worship of
death, this Charm uses the same system. However, the total Essence generated is
divided evenly among all ghosts through the mausoleums of Stygia.
Morbid Fascination
Style
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: One
scene
Type: Simple
Minimum
Performance: 2
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite
Charms: None
With this Charm, an Abyssal may instantly
command fear and respect from an assembled crowd. Audience members may not like
her performance or believe her words, but they recognize the implicit malice
she embodies and treat her accordingly. In short, they may not like her, but
they know better than to heckle or depart before the end of the show. A few
disturbed souls may actually find the Abyssal more alluring as a result of her
dangerous edge, but these are the exception, not the rule. This Charm only works
on non-magical beings.
Heart-Sculpting Oration
Cost: 6 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One
scene
Type: Simple
Minimum
Performance: 5
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite
Charms: Haunting Inflection
Trick, Morbid Fascination Style
An Abyssal with this Charm can inflame or
harden the passions of the living and the dead alike. The character speaks with
smoldering fervor or cold certainty, lending supernatural conviction to her
words and mannerisms. The Abyssal's player selects an emotion and rolls
Manipulation + Performance at difficulty 2. If the desired emotion is innately
negative — such as hate, fear or sorrow—this roll is made at standard
difficulty.
Targets whose Willpower score is less than
the number of successes rolled are completely overwhelmed by the emotional
onslaught and act accordingly. A crowd suffused with rage is apt to riot, while
a celibate monk overcome with lust seeks to indulge his previously repressed desire.
Targets with a Willpower less than twice the number of successes rolled may
make a Willpower roll (difficulty 1) to resist the emotion. Individuals whose Willpower
exceeds twice the successes rolled are completely unaffected. The emotional
tampering caused by this Charm only lasts for one scene, although low
Temperance characters may continue to indulge themselves for some time
afterward, at Storyteller discretion.
This Charm can also induce apathy, rather
than passion. This requires the same roll, but affected characters find
themselves emotionally numbed. Everything feels crushingly bleak and hollow.
This effect can be used to quell riots, as apathetic mobs quickly lose inertia and
disperse.
Morale-Shattering
Method
Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum
Performance: 5
Minimum Essence:
3
Prerequisite
Charms: Withering Dirge,
Heart-Sculpting Oration
An Abyssal Exalt who knows this Charm can
radiate a nimbus of cold dread that saps the morale of enemies. All enemy
troops within a radius of (the character's Conviction x 100) yards feel terror
seize their hearts. Soldiers ensorcelled with this Charm lose 1 die from all
combat dice pools and their players suffer a +1 difficulty on all Valor rolls.
The effect of this Charm on the overall outcome of a battle rests within the
Storyteller's discretion, but its influence should be considerable.
Hardened Killer Training
Style
Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One week
Type: Simple
Minimum
Performance: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite
Charms: Morale-Shattering
Method
Although many deathknight generals prefer
mute legions of zombies to unpredictable mortal troops, a few recognize the
power of the human spirit — and the beauty in crushing that spirit to serve the
will of the Deathlords.
Abyssals who know this Charm can transform
a motley crew of peaceful farmers and children into competent merciless killers
with disturbing ease. Characters may supervise a maximum of (their Essence rating
x 100) soldiers in a given week. Soldiers trained for a month or longer are
considered elite troops. They are quite disciplined, with relevant combat
Abilities rated at 3 or higher and usually a specialty or two in a favored
weapon.
More importantly, this brutal training
regimen gradually wears away humanity and replaces it with psychotic malice.
For every two weeks that a soldier undergoes this instruction, she loses one
dot of Compassion and gains a dot of either Valor or Conviction. By the time
they graduate, the new soldiers typically have Compassion 1 and five or more
dots divided between Conviction and Valor. Continued use of this Charm only
further increases the combat prowess of the Abyssal's troops.