Nemissary Arcanoi
Intangible
Guardian Presence
Cost: None
Duration: Permanent
Type: Special
Minimum Compassion: 2
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Mortal-Shadowing Technique
This Arcanos is a type of Ox-Body Charm
that works only on vessels the ghost is riding or possessing. While it doesn’t
add anything to the ghost’s health levels, it dramatically fortifies all vessels she is skinriding using Mortal-Shadowing Technique, Nemissary’s Ride or subsequent Arcanoi
in the tree. Some ghosts skinride mortal descendants
to protect them in battle, while others augment possessed corpses to increase
their own battlefield prowess. When a ghost departs the vessel she was riding,
the extra health levels are crossed off, whether they held damage or not. Each
purchase imparts one -0 and one -1 health level on the ghost’s vessel. A ghost
can buy this Charm as many times as she has dots in her Compassion rating.
Storytellers should note that a ghost’s own Ox-Body Technique does not fortify
hosts, only her own plasm.
This Arcanos is particularly helpful
when the ghost is riding a smaller animal, such as a raiton,
which usually has far fewer health levels than a human being.
The Embalmer’s
Art
Cost: 15 motes
(committed), 2 Willpower
Duration: Indefinite
Type: Simple
Minimum Compassion: 2
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Nemissary’s Ride
With this Arcanos, a nemissary
refines her ability to possess and animate dead flesh. She may automatically commandeer
a corpse as if using Nemissary’s Ride but requires no
roll to do so. Such possession lasts until the ghost withdraws the Essence
committed to the Arcanos. Finally, a body possessed using
the Embalmer’s Art does not decay. Any existing decay from prior to possession
remains, and the body resumes decomposing normally if the ghost leaves it. Furthermore,
the nemissary may fortify the vessel it’s riding with
Essence. For every 4 additional motes of Essence the ghost commits to the
vessel, it gains a -2 health level. The ghost can impart up to its Compassion
rating in additional health levels on a vessel this way.
Nemissaries wanting to develop
their powers even further can purchase a superior version of this Arcanos called the Embalmer’s Enduring Triumph. This Arcanos functions exactly as The Embalmer’s Art, but
requires Compassion •••, Essence •••• and the Embalmer’s Art as a prerequisite.
However, the Embalmer’s Enduring Triumph costs only 10 motes and 1 Willpower to activate and 2 motes per -1 health level, and the Willpower cost is waived if the
ghost is in a shadowland.
Instauration
Of The Fleshly Vessel
Cost: Varies
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Compassion: 3
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: The Embalmer’s Art
Among the most powerful — and sometimes most painful — Arcanoi used by nemissaries,
Instauration of the Fleshly Vessel allows a ghost to repair damage to a body
she is possessing, whether that damage was caused by rot or combat. Many ghosts
dislike this Arcanos because of the pain it causes them,
but it provides the nemissary with options for keeping
a war body useful well beyond its usual duration.
The first technique in this Arcanos
repairs rotting damage. Every 4 motes of Essence the ghost channels into this
Charm undoes all rotting damage sustained over the course
of a single day. In most climates, an unprotected corpse will last from six to
eight weeks before it becomes structurally compromised. At that point, the
vessel loses two permanent health levels per day until it reaches zero health
levels, at which point it is little more than a jumble of bones and necrotic goo.
A nemissary using this Arcanos can take control of a vessel that may have gone
untended a bit too long and render it more habitable.
Bodies rot at a different rate depending on the climate. In the extreme North
and South, bodies are mummified by the cold or arid climates and last for
several months before ceasing to function. In warm, humid climes, a corpse may
last only a couple of weeks before falling into a putrescent gray mass, and a nemissary may need to use this Arcanos
frequently to keep her vessel intact. The Storyteller determines how often this
Arcanos needs to be used on a body to keep it in good
repair. Repeated uses of this Charm on even extremely decayed flesh can,
eventually, result in a body that looks as though it’s only moments past its
final breath. Once the ghost has repaired a possessed body with this Arcanos, she may use the Embalmer’s Art to preserve the
corpse’s improved state indefinitely.
The other use of this Charm heals damage taken by the nemissary’s vessel, but at the expense of her corpus. For 1
mote of Essence per health level, the nemissary
bleeds her own integrity into the vessel to restore it. She suffers one unsoakable level of damage per level regenerated, with the
type of damage appropriate to the type healed. She may heal bashing or lethal
injuries in any order. Ghosts with the Ox-Body Technique Arcanos
(a Conviction Arcanos with no Prerequisites and an
Essence and Conviction minimum of 1 that gives two -2 levels per purchase, up
to a limit of the ghost’s Conviction rating) are far more capable of using this
Charm than other ghosts.
This Charm cannot heal damage caused by fire, aggravated sources
or magic specifically designed to inflict deleterious effects on the undead
(such as that caused by the Zeniths’ anima flare or the Charms Solar Spike or Blazing
Solar Bolt).
Drive The Necrotic Colossus
Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower, 1 experience point
Duration: One day
Type: Simple
Minimum Compassion: 2
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Nemissary’s Ride
Nemissary’s Ride allows a ghost
to possess and animate a shell as large as a very large (eight feet tall, 400 pound)
human. To animate corpses larger than that (or the multiple connected corpses
of some necromantic war machines), the ghost must know Drive the Necrotic
Colossus. This Charm allows ghosts to animate the bodies of even the largest
natural animals and war machines up to the size of a large temple. If the shell to be animated is larger than that (as the largest war
machines and behemoth corpses are), then multiple nemissaries
must work in concert to animate it.
Once the player spends the experience point, the character no
longer has to commit Essence to the Charm. At that point, the nemissary stays inside the war machine she’s “piloting”
until she decides to leave.
The 30 nemissaries that propel Mask of
Winter’s Juggernaut do so through the use of this Charm.