Socialize, The Lovers
Once, there was a maiden…
…and things didn’t go so well for her.
It was just the way of the world, you
know?
She had to give up power to get it, and
she didn’t get much.
Some people hated her for getting any
power at all.
She needed a protector,
So she gave herself to a man named
Necessity.
“Love is hard,” she said.
Stern Essence Replenishment
Cost: None
Duration: Permanent
Type: Special
Minimum Socialize: 1
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: None
In taking those actions she
considers necessary, whatever the personal cost, a Sidereal sets her order on
the world. As she does so, it helplessly yields its Essence to her. This Charm
draws on the Exalt’s ability to play spirits and the world, manipulating
Creation in Creation’s service. Immediately after a successful roll using
Conviction or immediately after a Socialize roll that substantially change the
local social environment in her favor, the Exalt regains twice her Conviction
in motes of Essence, up to her normal maximum. There is no cost to use this
Charm’s effects ― learning this Charm simply enhances the Exalt’s
capabilities.
Shun The Smiling Lady
Cost: 7 motes
Duration: Indefinite
Type: Simple
Minimum Socialize: 2
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: None
The character blots the target’s
name from the rolls of those destined to attract love. The target has an
effective Appearance 1 for all non-magical effects. To invoke any form of
supernatural appeal or to maintain it into a new scene, the target must spend a
Willpower point, and his player must succeed at a Manipulation + Socialize roll
against a difficulty of the Sidereal’s Essence. He makes this roll after paying
for the Charm or Ability used. If anyone with permanent Essence less than the
Sidereal’s own has romantic feelings for the target, those feelings are
instantly severed. They do not return when the Charm ends.
Cash And Murder Games
Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Socialize: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Shun the
Smiling Lady
Quickly sketching a proposed
relationship in the plans for future fate, the character increases the power
one person has over another. The character names the fashion in which the
beneficiary acquires dominion over the target ― generally fear or desire,
sexual or otherwise. The player rolls Manipulation + Socialize. To resist being
intimidated, enthralled or impressed to the point of near-servitude, the target
must spend one temporary Willpower per scene where he encounters the Charm’s
beneficiary. When he has spent Willpower equal to the number of successes
rolled, the compulsion fades. Normally, the emotional impact does not entirely
dissipate so much as mute itself to non-magical levels. The Sidereal can choose
herself as the beneficiary. Sidereal Exalted may always use their Conviction
with this Charm.
Life Without Compunction
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Socialize: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Cash and
Murder Games
As with legal crimes, the right
tricks can make social crimes…disappear. The Sidereal can instantly erase the
onus attached to herself or to someone else for some social blunder or taboo
violation. Her player rolls Manipulation +_Socialize. A single success makes
people stop caring. With three successes, the character can choose instead
either to make the relevant action generally acceptable or to make the person
who committed it an admirable rebel (e.g., an ideologue who makes a bold, daring
statement by digging up people’s dead grandmothers, however disgusting that
behavior would be in others). The Charm only affects communities where the
relevant action significantly contributes to the target’s notoriety. (To make
theft socially acceptable throughout Creation, the Sidereal would have to
arrange an act of theft infamous throughout Creation.) Socially acceptable acts
often retain legal penalties. Sidereal Exalted may always use their Temperance
with this Charm.
You And Yours Stance
Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Socialize: 3
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Shun the
Smiling Lady
The character wraps himself in the tenor of fate that gives rise to lust. He
becomes impossible to recognize. Looking upon him, others perceive only a
blazing sense that he is their greatest possession and that to harm or
disappoint him is to risk losing their own hearts. For those actively hostile
to him, it requires a Conviction roll to attack. For others, it requires a
Temperance roll not to act as best they can, short of suicide, to please him.
This Charm adds the character’s Essence in automatic successes to any seduction
roll.
Hot-Eyed Snake Whispering
Cost: 1 mote per target number
reduction
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Socialize: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: None
Every time an audience’s trust
in the character is about to falter, her hands on the web of fate twitch its
members’ minds back onto the proper path. The Charm can reduce the target
number of Presence, Performance, Bureaucracy and Socialize rolls. This Charm is
explicitly permitted to be in a Combo with Charms of other Abilities. Sidereal
Exalted may always use their Conviction with this Charm.
Wanting And Fearing Prayer
Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower, 1
health level
Duration: Indefinite
Type: Simple
Minimum Socialize: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Life Without
Compunction, You and Yours Stance, Hot-Eyed Snake Whispering
This Charm uses two prayer
strips marked with the scripture of the Whore. The character holds them up, one
at a time, and names the target for each. The targets must be within 10 miles.
Each prayer strip burns lambent blue for a moment before disappearing,
reappearing wrapped around one of its target’s bones. Its light cannot shine
through even the thinnest veil of flesh, but bursts forth brilliantly if that
flesh is ever cut away. Extracting the strip requires 12 successes on an
extended Dexterity + Medicine roll. Each attempt inflicts one level of
unsoakable lethal damage.
The Sidereal’s player rolls
Manipulation + Socialize against the Essence of each target. If he succeeds
both times, the character can dictate a new social and emotional relationship
between the two targets. As fast and hard as plausible, for the duration of the
Charm, events push the victims toward that social relationship. The imposed
emotional relationship is partly a magical compulsion, which remains while the
character commits Essence to the Charm. Under its influence, a target must
spend a Willpower point to act significantly at odds with the imposed emotional
context. The Charm also instantly creates genuine emotions, which do not depend
on magic to sustain them. They fade or blossom as emotions normally do.
Sidereal Exalted may always use
their Conviction with this Charm.