Lore, The Treasure Trove
Once, there was a maiden…
…who knew some things about a man. He didn’t like that, but he kissed her anyway.
She told him everything in her heart.
She whispered truths to him, but he
didn’t care.
She whispered hopes to him, but he
didn’t care.
She whispered her prayers, but only
heard silence.
And she whispered her fear to him, but
he didn’t care.
He looked upon her inner self,
And the void met his eyes.
“To know the world is to fear it,” said
he.
Systematic Understanding Of Everything
Cost: 1 mote
Duration: Until the character
sleeps
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Lore: 1
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
The character sleeps, and the
Maiden of Secrets grants her a vision of the projected plan for fate, from the
moment of her waking until the end of Creation. A character trained to use this
Charm can filter her perceptions and observe a small portion of the Loom of
Fate, integrating it with her own extensive knowledge. Until the vision fades
with her next dream, she adds a +1 specialty of her choice, which applies to
all relevant Abilities.
Characters can only spend
Essence for this Charm while asleep. This can increase the specialty total for
an Ability above +3, but the character cannot add more than three specialty
dice to any given roll. These specialties are dice bonuses added by a Charm and
should be considered as such when determining the maximum effect of other
dice-bonus Charms.
The Methodology Of Secrets
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: Until the character
sleeps
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Lore: 2
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Systematic
Understanding of Everything
This Charm extends Systematic
Understanding of Everything, providing a specialty that gives a +3 bonus to one
Ability and a +1 bonus to all Abilities where it is relevant. Characters can
only spend Essence for this Charm while asleep and cannot invoke it in the same
slumber as Systematic Understanding of Everything. This Charm can increase the
specialty total for an Ability above +3, but the character cannot add more than
three specialty dice to any given roll. These specialties are dice bonuses
added by a Charm and should be considered as such when determining the maximum
effect of other dice-bonus Charms.
Of Truths Best Unspoken
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: Three hours
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Systematic
Understanding of Everything
Scuttling on the paths of fate
are the seven Heptarchs of Tragedy, gods of those truths and futures
displeasing to mortal eyes. Catching sight of a horror to come, they snatch up
the knowledge of it and bind it in a living sepulcher that they cast into the
earth. Gathering together for three hours simultaneously invoking this Charm, a
trinity of Exalted serving Serenity, Battles and Secrets can dredge such a
sepulcher forth and witness an atrocity not yet come to pass. At any time
within the next year, the player of each can make a single Lore roll as if the
Sidereal were looking backward from the end of the Age of Sorrows. For example,
having lost an important artifact, the character can roll to remember notable
events wherein it is destined to appear. Five successes may lead him to it
immediately, while one success may indicate only that the Maidens intend it to
fall into the hands of a young Lunar hero “eventually.” Extrapolating another
aspect of the weave from a glimpse of one horrific section of the Loom is
difficult, even for the Exalted.
Characters can use this Charm,
at most, once per month. Multiple uses are not cumulative. Sidereal Exalted may
always use their Conviction with this Charm.
Of Things Desired And Feared
Cost: 10 motes
Duration: Three hours
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Systematic
Understanding of Everything
Charting the paths of the future
can help to resolve even the stickiest of situations. Gathering together for
three hours and simultaneously invoking this Charm, a trinity of Exalted
serving Journeys, Serenity and Endings map the paths of destiny and learn at
least one method by which they may achieve a given goal. From a mechanical
perspective, they learn the price of success at some endeavor ― anything
from “a few bumps and bruises” to “the destruction of your Circle and
everything you believe in.” If the Sidereal characters choose to pay the price,
they automatically achieve their goal; both the price and their victory occur
in a narrative fashion in amongst other stories.
The paths lain out by these
small prophecies are rarely optimal. Characters may reasonably decide to pursue
the goals in their own fashion rather than following the prophecy (paying the
price) or dropping the matter. The Storyteller should only slightly inflate the
price for resolving a peripheral matter but set a prohibitive price for
automatically resolving something central to the story. The characters still
benefit, however, even when the price they pay is greater than what their own
planning might provide. They are assured of success and can focus their
attention and planning effort on other matters.
Of The Shape Of The World
Cost: 3 motes per target number
reduction, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Lore: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Systematic
Understanding of Everything
Averting her eyes from the truth
that is, the character invokes a truth she wishes to create. She may lower the
target number for a Sidereal astrology roll.
Of Horrors Best Unknown
Cost: 10 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Of the
Shape of the World
The Sidereal weaves one of the
nets of Neferuaten, made from filaments of destiny thinner than the distance
between a stone and its shadow or a dog and its howl. These nets can catch and
cling even to those things normally immune to the workings of destiny: not
strong enough to impede a Primordial’s course, but cunning enough to adhere to
the nonexistent borders of Cecelyne, the Endless Desert, or hang like gossamer
from a Deathlord’s flesh. The Exalt can cast the net around any creature she
can see. Success requires a Dexterity + Lore roll with difficulty equal to the
target’s Essence. Afterward, the net then exerts a slow, continual pull on the
world around the target. In a circumstance the Sidereal names, all dice
pools that oppose the target have their target number reduced by 1, to a
minimum of 4. The net lasts a year and a day. Instead of rolling the attack,
the Sidereal can spend a permanent Willpower to guarantee success. This also
ensures that the net lasts long enough to fulfill her purpose in casting it,
even if one must reckon that time in years. Multiple such nets may cover a
single target. Sidereal Exalted may always use their Valor with this Charm.
Of Secrets Best Untold
Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 4
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Systematic
Understanding of Everything
Hissing a long susurration, the
character illumines an elemental or spirit of the earth in a verdant glow and
bestows upon it a secret: a truth about the long course of the world that the
spirit can never speak. The spirit must perform one favor for the Exalted in
return, chosen by necessity and not by desire. Neither the character nor the
spirit chooses what the favor might be. The spirit automatically knows the
favor’s nature, but the Exalted does not. Until the favor is paid, success at a
Wits + Temperance roll with difficulty 3 is required for the spirit to initiate
hostile action against the Exalt. (It can still reply to violence with
violence.)
Avoiding The Truth Technique
Cost: 3 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Lore: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: None
Drawing on preternatural
insight, the character imbues a true statement with implications that horrify
the listener. Add her Essence in automatic successes to a Socialize, Presence
or Bureaucracy roll to convince her victim she is lying.
This Charm is explicitly permitted to be in a Combo with Charms of other Abilities.
Transcendent Hatchet Of Fate
Cost: 16 motes, 1 Willpower, 1
health level
Duration: Until used
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: The
Methodology of Secrets, Of Truths Best Unspoken, Of Things Desired and Feared,
Of Horrors Best Unknown, Of Secrets Yet Untold, Avoiding the Truth Technique
This Charm uses a prayer strip
marked with the scripture of the Maiden in Terror, which grows a sickly green
as it curls and twists and sinks into the Sidereal’s palm. It leaves behind a
faint tracery of symbols in the tongue of the Old Realm.
When the Sidereal so chooses, he
shows his palm to a target and names that victim’s fate: which of the target’s
worst fears the world will realize, and how. The Exalt’s player then rolls Intelligence
+ Lore. The target instantly loses the Sidereal’s Essence plus the number of
successes in temporary Willpower, to a minimum of 0, and twice that amount in
motes of Essence.
Under normal circumstances,
although the character simply states what is preordained, the player
chooses a names a fate and manner for its realization that he finds
dramatically interesting. At the moment the character speaks, that event is
destined. The Storyteller should suggest an alternative if that destiny simply
cannot come to pass. Game events can alter this destiny and rescue the target,
due to changes in departmental vision and the meddling of Primordials, but the
target herself cannot avoid her doom.