Craft Charms
Shaping Hand Style
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: One hour
Type: Simple
Minimum Craft: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Terrestrial Exalted’s basic and close connection with the things of the
earth gives them great facility in manipulating the rude stuff that makes up
the world. The most basic trick any Exalted
craftswoman learns is that tools are, to a large extent, an illusion. It is the
force of will that drives the act of creation, not the material items one uses
to shape things.
This Charm bears that out. While
the Charm is in effect, one of the character’s hands may perform the function
of any one normal tool. The character must decide what tool he wants to emulate
when the Charm is activated. Whether it be a pick axe, hatchet or hammer, the
Dragon-Blooded’s bare hand fulfills the function
quite nicely. The character takes no damage that a normal tool would not
normally endure and can perform any normal function the tool is capable of
― and can use her hand normally as well. The Exalt’s
hand does not take on the appearance of the tool in question.
Stone-Carving Fingers Form
Cost: 1 mote per cubic foot
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Craft: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Shaping
Hand Style
This Charm is extremely popular
with Earth-aspected Exalts because it forms the
prerequisite for so many others. It enables the character to split stone with
uncanny precision. Aside from its usefulness in siegecraft
― breaching walls and the like ― the character can make all manner
of useful items out of stone.
The character must spend at
least a full minute carefully striking at the stone. Most characters will use a
hammer, pick or chisel, but a sword pommel or another rock will do just as
well. Characters trained in martial arts might strike with their bare hands. At
the end of the minute, the character strikes a final blow ― and the
excess rock shatters, leaving behind the shape the character wanted.
Roll Wits + Craft. With a simple
success, a character can quarry stone blocks ready for use in building or knock
a doorway in a wall. With three successes, she can craft an obsidian vase,
already hollowed out. With five successes, she can produce a portrait statue so
realistic that a person might mistake it for the actual person, turned to
stone.
The Essence cost of this Charm
depends on the volume of the finished object: 1 mote of Essence per cubic foot
of stone.
Perfect Climbing Attitude
Cost: 1 mote
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Craft: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms:
Stone-Carving Fingers Form
The Dragon-Blooded of Earth
include some superb mountaineers and rock-climbers, many as a result of this
Charm. Not only may a character using this Charm cling to a rock face like a
limpet, she leaves indentations in the rock that other people can use as hand-
and footholds, making the climb easier for them. The Earth-aspected
Exalt literally crafts a ladder out of sheer rock surface as she climbs it.
The character can climb a sheer
stone wall at a rate of 10 feet per turn, 20 feet or more per turn up a rough
cliff face (or a surface where someone already made handholds in the rock). No
Ability roll is needed. Those following the character up the cliff face are
considered to have two automatic successes for any climbing check.
Surfaces that are worse than
sheer, such as overhangs, call for multiple successes.
Flaw-Finding Examination
Cost: 1 mote for touch, 3 for
sight
Duration: One minute
Type: Simple
Minimum Craft: 3
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
By simply studying any crafted
or created item, object or structure, a Dragon-Blooded using this Charm may
determine that item’s weakest point. This knowledge can be used to locate and
eliminate flaws ― or exploited to destroy the object.
To use this Charm, the character
must study the object in question for at least a full minute. If the Exalt is
able to handle or touch the thing being studied, the Charm costs only a single
mote. Studying an object from a distance costs 3 motes.
Once the flaw has been determined,
the character has two options. If the Dynast wants to try and eliminate the
flaw, roll her Intelligence + Craft score and spend a point of Willpower. If
the roll succeeds, the object is repaired ― this Charm can effect the most serious repairs without tools, though
something badly broken may have many flaws.
If the character wants to damage
the thing in question, the Flaw-Finding Examination is much simpler. The next
successful physical attack the character makes on the target does double normal
damage. If the Exalt is targeting something such as armor or a weapon, treat it
as doubling the extra successes of a disarming attempt. If the disarming
attempt succeeds, the weapon or armor is destroyed.
Charm Of Lesser
Unmaking
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Craft: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms:
Flaw-Finding Examination
The Charm of Lesser Unmaking
allows a Dynast to disassemble an object or structure without actually damaging
any of its components. An item affected by this Charm is broken down into its
component pieces.
For instance, if a Dragon-Blood
was to use the Charm of Lesser Unmaking on a heavy wooden door bound in steel
bands, the end result would be a stack of timber, some hammered steel bands and
a small pile of rivets. Items disassembled in this manner are rendered useless
until put back together. Enchanted items are neutralized until reconstructed,
but the Charm does not permanently disrupt such enchantments.
When the Charm of Lesser
Unmaking is invoked, the character’s player makes an Essence + Craft roll. The
difficulty for this roll is 1 for simply constructed items (crudely made stone
hatchets, huts lashed together with vines), 3 for sturdily or competently made
items (a well-constructed sword, iron chains, the aforementioned door) and 5
for intricately or masterfully made items (a finely crafted piece of jewelry, a
finely forged weapon). If the item in question is enchanted in any way, add 1
to the difficulty, meaning most enchanted items are difficulty 6 to disassemble.
The maximum volume that a Dynast can affect with the Charm of Lesser Unmaking
is equal to her Essence in cubic yards.
Unmaking will not work on any
item that is made in one piece (i.e., a vase stone carving or the like).
However, it will undo knots and reduce chains to their component links. Lesser
unmaking is a somewhat time-consuming process. The Exalt must also remain in
contact with the item for a number of turns equal to the unmaking difficulty,
and it cannot be done as a combat maneuver.
Charm Of
Greater Unmaking
Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Special
Minimum Craft: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Charm of
Lesser Unmaking
This Charm functions much like Lesser
Unmaking but with much more dramatic effects. Rather than just being taken
apart, an item affected by Greater Unmaking is actually reduced back to its raw
materials. Sword blades melt into hunks of raw iron. Timbers turn to freshly
cut logs. Glittering gemstones return to their uncut state. Fine pottery melts
to clay.
When the Charm is used, roll the
character’s Essence + Craft. This roll is difficulty 1 for normal items
constructed through standard methods, but difficulty 3 for exceptionally
crafted or constructed things and 5 for items forged from the Five Magical
Materials. The Exalt must also remain in contact with the item for a number of
turns equal to the difficulty. The maximum volume that a Dynast can affect with
the Charm of Greater Unmaking is equal to her Essence in cubic yards. This
Charm is only effective against items made of materials in some way derived
from the earth.
Items that are unmade are
completely destroyed, reduced to their component materials. Whatever is unmade
must be remade from scratch. The raw materials retain any inherent value, of
course.
Diligent
Engineer Discipline
Cost: 3 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Craft: 4
Minimum Linguistics: 1
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Shaping Hand Style, Flaw-Finding Examination
Not every project can have a top-notch savant on hand to
oversee it at every stage, and many of the most skilled savants are kept far
too busy to personally attend to every detail of execution, even of the
projects they do supervise. Through the use of this Charm, a savant may produce
a detailed and comprehensive report and set of instructions that encapsulate
the research and design phases of a project. This plan may then be given to the
person or people actually performing the work, who will benefit from the
expertise of the planning savant.
The character using Diligent Engineer Discipline, after
familiarizing herself appropriately with the details of the proposed
undertaking, pays for the activation of the Charm and takes the normal amount of
time to prepare a plan, the player rolling her character’s Intelligence + Craft
at a difficulty of 2. Anyone faithfully working from this plan can avoid a total
number of difficulty penalties during the undertaking equal to the number of
successes rolled by the planning savant. In addition, he cannot fail to at
least achieve at least minimal success on the finished project so long as no
circumstances arise that would result in difficulty penalties greater than
those the Charm’s effects cancel.
Resplendent
Artisan Mastery
Cost: 3 motes per success
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Craft: 3
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Any three Craft Charms
A Dragon-Blooded with this Charm learns to apply divine
majesty to his chosen art, developing a signature style of breathtaking
prowess. The character may convert specialty dice for any Craft roll into automatic
successes for a cost of 3 motes per die converted. Exalted may use this Charm
to benefit any Craft they have a rating in, provided they are exercising a specialty
for that Craft.
Ramparts
Of Obedient Earth
Cost: 2 motes per cubic yard
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Craft: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Stone-Carving Fingers Form
The Dragon-Blood stamps hard or smites the earth with his
fist, and a shockwave of Essence and force ripples across the ground from the
point of impact. This shockwave can crudely shape and pack one cubic yard of soil
for every mote spent, but the continuous structure must have at least one edge
within a yard of its creator. Ramparts of Obedient Earth can only shape soil,
but it may affect mud, sand and even hard-packed dirt liberally strewn with
pebbles. The Charm has no effect on solid rock of any density.
Dragon-Blooded chiefly use this Charm on the battlefield
to quickly erect cover for themselves or others, though creative applications
can wreak havoc on a cavalry charge and disrupt formations of infantry.
Anyone unfortunate enough to be standing on the ground
when it buckles or collapses into a sinkhole suffers no damage unless an
extremely deep excavation prompts an injurious fall, but such characters suffer
immediate knockdown unless their players make a successful Dexterity +
Athletics roll at standard difficulty.
Outside of combat, this Charm has considerable utility for
excavation work of all kinds, especially since the heavy compression of
displaced earth allows for the creation of extremely stable tunnels. In
general, walls of packed earth roughly a yard thick have a soak of 5L/8B and
require 20 health levels to damage and 30 to destroy outright. These statistics
will fluctuate wildly depending on a given structure’s thickness and
architectural stability. Characters may only use this Charm once per turn.
Breaking
The Dragon’s Heart
Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower, 1 health
level
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Craft: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Charm of Greater Unmaking
The Dragon-Blood holds a Hearthstone in his hand and
crushes the gem in his fist. Such is the power and exacting skill of this grip
that the stone shatters. Use of this Charm requires a Wits + Craft (Jewelry)
roll against a difficulty of the Hearthstone’s rating + 2. A botch causes the
stone to explode, inflicting dice of unsoakable aggravated
damage to the Exalt equal to the difficulty of the Craft roll. If the character
suffers two or more levels of damage from a botch, the explosion of Essence
also costs him the hand holding the gem. On a failure, the Hearthstone remains
undamaged. Success breaks the gem safely, releasing its store of Essence in a
surge of power. If attuned to the Manse producing the Hearthstone, the Exalt
regains a number of motes equal to the rating of the Hearthstone x 10. If this
surge would bring his Essence pool above maximum, the excess motes bleed into
his anima banner as if spent from his Peripheral pool. The act of shattering a
Hearthstone with this Charm manifests as a deafening thunderclap and a flash of
light brighter than the noonday sun.
This Charm is chiefly intended to break Hearthstones removed
from settings. It cannot be used in combat or against Hearthstones still in
their settings. Breaking a Hearthstone has negative effects on the geomancy of
the Manse. Dragon-Blooded Dynasts who use this Charm to cannibalize family
Hearthstones without an extremely good reason may not be permitted to reclaim
the gems when they reform. Soldiers of Lookshy can
expect even harsher sanctions from their superiors. Other outcastes may or may not
suffer social ramifications for use of this Charm, depending on who owns the
Manse generating the Hearthstone they destroyed.