Resistance
Charms
Spirit-Hardened Frame
Cost: 2+ motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum
Resistance: 2
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite Charms:
None
The Exalted channels calcifying death
Essence through his body, granting his flesh the resilience of leathery, wind-dried
tissue. For every 2 motes of Essence spent, the character may add one point to
his bashing soak. Additionally, the character can add half this bonus to his
lethal soak (rounded down). Although this Charm can be activated multiple times
in a scene to stack protection, the total bashing soak cannot exceed a
character's Stamina + Resistance (or half that value for lethal soak). Spirit-Hardened
Frame is compatible with armor.
Ivory Blossom Carapace
Cost: 1 mote per 1B/1L, plus one lethal health
level
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum
Resistance: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite
Charms: Spirit-Hardened Frame
The Abyssal seeps Essence into her
skeleton, forcing hundreds of bony spines through her skin to blossom into armored
plates over her entire body. At the end of the scene, the plates fold back into
quills and retract. Exoskeletons grown with this Charm have one point of bashing
and lethal soak for every mote spent in their creation, as well as a mobility
penalty equal to half their soak rating (rounded down). Characters cannot spend
more motes building an Ivory Blossom Carapace than their Stamina + Resistance,
no matter how many times they use this Charm in a scene to add additional
plating. Characters wearing armor cannot use this Charm. The health level cost
of this Charm only applies the first time it is used during a given scene.
Bone Arsenal Method
Cost: Varies
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Brawl: 2
Minimum
Resistance: 4
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite
Charms: Ivory Blossom
Carapace
This multipurpose Charm allows characters
to extrude spikes and razor spines over their entire body or to grow weapons
from their limbs. If used to grow spines, the Charm costs 8 motes, 1 Willpower
and one lethal health level. The lattice of blades provides an additional soak
of 2B/2L that stacks with soak bonuses from other Charms. Additionally,
characters encased in blades can inflict lethal damage with all
"unarmed" hand-to-hand attacks, including wrestling maneuvers such as
clinches and tackles. Finally, anyone who grapples a character with spines or strikes
her barehanded must immediately soak a number of dice of lethal damage equal to
his own Strength.
Growing melee weapons with Bone Arsenal
Method costs one lethal health level, as well as 1 mote for every +1 invested
in Speed, Accuracy, Defense or lethal damage (all of which begin at a rating of
0). Characters cannot raise any of these Traits higher than their permanent Essence.
Although weapons created with this Charm can take virtually any form, they
remain obvious extensions of their creator's skeleton and cannot be dropped or taken
away unless severed.
Characters with Ivory Blossom Carapace
activated do not have to spend health levels to use any aspect of this Charm,
though other costs remain unchanged. All protrusions and weapons created by
Bone Arsenal Method retract into their owner's skeleton when the Charm expires.
Crimson Petal Armor
Cost: 1 mote per 1B/1L, 1 Willpower, one lethal health level
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum
Resistance: 5
Minimum Essence:
3
Prerequisite
Charms: Ivory Blossom
Carapace
Upon activation of this Charm, blood
gushes from every pore of the character's skin and shapes itself into a suit of
enchanted armor. This liquid armor flows and shifts with its wearer's every
motion, yet hardens to turn aside blows as if it were made of the finest steel.
When this Charm expires, the glistening armor flows back into its creator's
body through his mouth.
Apart from its appearance, Crimson Petal
Armor follows the same rules as Ivory Blossom Carapace, except that its liquid
armor is virtually weightless and has no mobility penalty. Characters cannot
activate this Charm while using Ivory Blossom Carapace (or vice versa), just as
with any other armor. Characters only need to spend Willpower the first time
they activate this Charm during a scene.
Flowing Wound Defense
Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower, one lethal health
level
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum
Resistance: 5
Minimum Essence:
3
Prerequisite
Charms: Crimson Petal Armor
Building on the principle of Crimson Petal
Armor, this Charm allows an Abyssal to momentarily liquefy her body and
possessions to shrug off any blow or assault. Upon impact, she seamlessly melts
into gore and then re-solidifies, allowing the attack to pass harmlessly
through her without resistance. This process is particularly gruesome when
defending against falls and other full-body trauma, as the character splatters
into a mass of congealed blood and immediately reforms without injury.
Characters using this Charm take no damage from a single attack but must contend
with secondary effects normally. This momentary invulnerability duplicates the
protection granted by the Solar Charm Adamant Skin Technique and is a form of
perfect defense. A character must invoke Flowing Wound Defense after his
opponent spends any motes to activate Charms but before the foe makes her actual
attack roll.
Plague Knows Its
Master
Cost: None
Duration: Permanent
Type: Special
Minimum
Resistance: 4
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite
Charms: Spirit-Hardened Frame
Some Abyssal Exalted become highly
resistant to disease as a result of their consecration to the Malfeans. As with
Ox Body Technique, this blessing can be purchased as if it were a Charm.
Players of characters with Plague Knows Its Master subtract their characters'
permanent Essence from the difficulty of all Stamina + Resistance and Stamina +
Endurance rolls to resist or throw off infection and disease. In the case of
avoiding infected wounds, this reduction is cumulative with the -2 modifier all
Exalted share. If the final difficulty of any modified roll is reduced below 1,
the character automatically avoids contracting the illness or successfully
purges it from his system (as appropriate to the roll in question).
Snake Bites Its Tail
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Reflexive
Minimum
Resistance: 3
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite
Charms: Spirit-Hardened Frame
The character amplifies her metabolism
with Essence, strengthening her body's resistance to poison. For the rest of
the scene, the Exalt nullifies any poison she is exposed to that has a
resistance difficulty lower than her permanent Essence. Against stronger
poisons, the Exalt's player may add her character's Essence in automatic
successes to her Stamina + Resistance roll. Characters need not evoke this
Charm before exposure to toxins, as long as they activate it before rolling to
resist. Incidental toxins such as spoiled food are generally considered
difficulty 1 or 2 for the purposes of this Charm. Characters protected by this
Charm may safely consume an additional number of alcoholic drinks equal to
their Resistance without penalty.
Scarlet Venom Technique
Cost: None
Duration: Permanent
Type: Special
Minimum
Resistance: 5
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite
Charms: Snake Bites Its Tail
Corrupted in body and spirit by the power
of the Malfeans, some Abyssal Exalted find their very blood tainted with vile
poison. Once a character purchases this Charm, venom suffuses every fluid in
her body. This poison has the same statistics as arrow frog. Players of living
beings consuming or otherwise internalizing these tainted fluids (such as
through kissing or more intimate contact) must succeed at a Stamina +
Resistance roll or have their characters suffer the full deleterious effects of
the poison. This Charm cannot be turned off or suppressed — the corruption is
irreversible.
Armor-Calling Kata
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: One
turn
Type: Simple
Minimum
Resistance: 3
Minimum Essence:
2
Prerequisite
Charms: None
With this Charm, an Abyssal can
dramatically speed the process of donning his armor. He need only gesture to it,
and his anima flows out to enfold the armor in a liquid shroud of darkness. By
the end of the turn, the anima slithers back and fastens the armor perfectly in
place. The character must have the armor readily available and at hand to use
this Charm and may not grab his armor from further away than his Essence in
yards.
Void-Banished Mail
Cost: 3 motes to summon or banish
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum
Resistance: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite
Charms: Armor-Calling Kata
An Abyssal who knows this Charm can store
his armor Elsewhere, recalling it only as needed for battle. The character must
be wearing his armor with all its straps and fastenings fitted properly to
banish it. If these conditions are met, the armor vanishes in a flash of
ghostly light. At any time, the character may concentrate and summon his armor from
Elsewhere, causing it to reappear on his person with a scream of torn air. A
character can only have one suit of armor stored Elsewhere at a time and may
not recall it unless she is unarmored to receive it. Void-Banished Mail cannot banish
armor substantially larger than the Exalt, so it is impossible to hide
warstriders with this Charm.
Inauspicious Shadow
Plate
Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum
Resistance: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite
Charms: Void-Banished Mail
The Abyssal's anima hardens, encasing her
in a suit of obsidian-black plate mail. This armor is an expression of the
character's soul, and thus, it reflects her personality and temperament. It may
be ornate and decorated with weeping faces and skulls or elegant in its
simplicity — it is the character's ideal armor. Inauspicious Shadow Plate provides
10L/10B soak, with only a -1 mobility penalty. For an additional 2 motes, the
deathknight can also grow a sweeping black cape that moves and flows of its own
accord to entangle and snag incoming blows. This cloak acts like a shield,
increasing the difficulty of all attacks against the Exalt by +1.