Occult Charms
Spirit-Detecting Mirror Technique
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Occult: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
Air is the most closely
connected to the spirit world of all of the five elements. As such, it is
easier for the Aspects of Air to pierce the veil and see the unseen.
To invoke a Spirit Mirror
requires an ordinary mirror, a piece of polished metal or some other reflective
surface. Even a pool of still water will suffice. For the remainder of the
scene, the Exalt using this Charm can see nearby spirits reflected in such
surfaces and, if they are reflected, hear what they say. A clever Dragon-Blood
might even do this without the spirit noticing ― for instance, by using a
goblet of water and taking a sip now and then or by polishing a sword blade.
Harmonious Wind-Luring Song
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: One hour
Type: Simple
Minimum Occult: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms:
Spirit-Detecting Mirror Technique
The Dragon-Blooded are not born
occultists and magicians like some Celestial Exalted, but a number of them
study the supernatural lore of their favored element. Many Air-aspected
Dragon-Blooded learn the ways of the spirits who create the weather through
their dances and processions in the sky. Exalted who know the ways of the
sky-spirits can call them to direct the wind. To do so, the Exalted must speak
to the elementals in their own tongue: the sounds of wind sighing over stony
crags and through treetops, and the rumbles of thunder. Some Aspects of Air
imitate such sounds with their voice and a bull-roarer. Others might play a
flute or position a harp so that the wind plucks its strings. Whatever the
method used, inviting the winds to blow takes five minutes.
The basic Charm evokes nothing
more than a stiff breeze ― still enough to interfere with archery or send
a sailing ship scudding through the waves at a good speed. During the hour of
the Charm’s effect, the character can control the magic wind’s direction by
singing for a turn.
Spirit-Grounding Shout
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Occult: 3
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms:
Spirit-Detecting Mirror Technique
The Dragon-Bloods must protect
the common people of the Realm from the various supernatural beings that roam
the landscape. Often, the most effective method of accomplishing this task with
regard to spirits is to simply force them into the physical world and defeat
them there. This Charm aids greatly in that tactic. The character utters the
Spirit-Grounding Shout, and reflexive opposed Essence rolls are made for both
her and the target spirit. If the Exalt wins, the spirit is forced to
materialize. If she loses, the spirit may remain dematerialized.
A successful Spirit-Grounding
Shout forces the spirit to manifest itself for no less than the Exalt’s
permanent Essence in minutes. The Essence for this materialization (assuming
the spirit is naturally immaterial and must pay to materialize) is first
drained from the spirit’s reserves, but any remaining cost is drained from the
Exalt uttering the shout. If there is not enough Essence between the spirit and
the character to pay for the manifestation, the spirit remains immaterial, but
the Essence is still lost.
This Charm has no effect on
spirits with permanent Essences higher than the Dragon-Blood’s.
Spirit-Chaining Strike
Cost: 3 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: 5 minutes
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Occult: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms:
Spirit-Grounding Shout
This Charm allows the Dragon-Blooded
to immobilize spirit beings, which is often the first step toward eliminating
them.
The character must strike the
spirit with an attack, and then his player immediately makes a reflexive
Intelligence + Occult roll with a difficulty equal to the spirit’s Essence.
Each extra success imposes as a one-die penalty to any and all actions taken by
the spirit. If the penalty exceeds the spirit’s Essence rating, it is
immobilized and unable to act for the rest of the scene. Subsequent uses of
this Charm are additive, so long as the Charm never
lapses. Additionally, Spirit Chains used by other Dragon-Blooded are additive
as well.
Spirit Chains affect a spirit
whether it is manifested or not, but the character must be able to perceive and
strike the spirit to bind it. Spirit-Chaining Strike is explicitly permitted to
be made part of a Combo with Charms of other Abilities.
Spirit-Shredding Attack
Cost: 4 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Occult: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Spirit-Grounding
Shout
Sometimes, restraining a spirit
is not enough, and destruction becomes necessary. The Spirit-Shredding Attack
is an effective tool for this. Invoking this Charm requires a successful
physical attack against a spirit. This means that the spirit must be
materialized and/or the character must have some method of actually affecting
the spirit, whether it is a weapon or an attack that can affect incorporeal
beings.
A blow struck with this Charm
does its normal damage to spirits. In addition, the attacking Exalt’s player
reflexively rolls his character’s Willpower + Essence against a difficult of
the spirit’s Essence. Each extra success reduces the spirit’s temporary Essence
by an amount equal to the Dragon-Blooded character’s permanent Essence. The
character does not absorb the Essence ― it just dissipates. If a spirit
is destroyed by a Spirit-Shredding Attack, it is irrevocably gone.
This Charm is explicitly
permitted to be part of a Combo with Charms of other Abilities.
Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Cost: 1
Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Occult: 3
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: None
Handling the mysteries of
sorcery is a much more difficult endeavor for Terrestrial Exalted than for the
Anathema. The enchantments of the Celestial and Solar circles are far beyond
the grasp of the Dragon-Blooded. However, sorcery of the
Note that invoking this Charm
only enables the character to cast a single
Minding
The Dragon’s Eggs
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Occult: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
All Dragon-Blooded can harmonize themselves with the
elemental pole with which they share aspect in order to orient themselves.
Study, in ages past, of the mechanism of this phenomenon provided the inspiration
for a number of techniques by which Terrestrial Exalts could learn to harmonize
their Essences in other ways. Most common of these techniques is this Charm,
which allows harmony with the Magical Material of the Dragon-Blooded: jade.
This Charm is a staple of surveyors, criminals and the Jade Sniffers of the
Thousand Scales.
A character using this Charm can sense the direction to
jade of her elemental aspect up to a range of her Essence x 200 yards without
rolling. Successes on a Perception + Occult roll allow the character to glean more
detailed information from the Charm, with each success allowing for either the
perception of another of the four remaining elemental forms of jade or a rough
indication of the amount of an already-detected quantity of jade.
This Charm is ineffective against jade that is attuned to
someone other than the character using the Charm, due to the interference of
the attuned individual’s anima. Jade that is on the
person of someone using magic to conceal his presence or in a site that has had
such magic worked on it will only be detected if the Perception + Occult roll
succeeds versus a difficulty equal to the successes rolled to activate the
obfuscatory magic or the Essence of the character using the magic (whichever is
higher).
Fivefold
Resonance Sense
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Occult: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Minding the Dragon’s Eggs
Using a refined version of the technique behind Minding the Dragon’s Eggs, a Terrestrial occultist can now
use her Essence sense to detect quantities of the other Magical Materials:
starmetal, orichalcum, moonsilver and soulsteel. This Charm works exactly as Minding the Dragon’s Eggs, but only to a range of the
character’s Essence x 50 yards.
Seeing
The Maker’s Hand
Cost: 4 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Occult: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Fivefold Resonance Sense
With much of the documentation lost on how magical
artifacts were crafted in the First Age, modern savants must often reverse
engineer items as best they are able in order to better understand how to
recreate or service them. Additionally, many artifacts of modern make are
one-of-a-kind constructions, and it is safest to have the fullest possible
knowledge of an unfamiliar item before attempting to work with it. To this end,
Terrestrial technicians have learned to apply the sensory techniques of
Essence-harmonizing to better analyze the fundamental material construction and
Essence-channeling of artifacts.
To enact this Charm, the character must handle the item
in question as if he were attempting to attune to it before spending the
required Essence and before his player makes a Perception + Occult roll with a
difficulty of the item’s Artifact rating. Artifacts specifically designed so
that their properties are difficult to identify may have a higher difficulty.
Success on this roll immediately gives the character a
rough indication of the item’s power level, as reflected by the Artifact
rating, with additional successes providing more detailed insight about the specific
abilities of the item. Very powerful or complex artifacts may require multiple
uses of Seeing the Maker’s Hand over time to fully
understand their workings. This Charm is ineffective on artifacts that are
attuned to an owner.
Embracing
The Arcane
Cost: 3 motes per success
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Occult: 3
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Any three Occult Charms
Sorcery and magical engineering are inherently dangerous
undertakings, as many crippled former Heptagram servants can attest. The
slightest misstep when summoning a demon or miscalculation in Manse design can
have spectacular and fatal consequences for everyone in the area. Diligence is,
of course, the most important habit to develop to avoid these issues, but the
frequency with which dangerous magic must be worked in the Realm means that it
is often only a matter of time before a disaster occurs. High-end professional
magical practitioners use this Charm as one of many safeguards against terrible
accidents, in addition to the obvious advantages of straightforward mastery of
a particular discipline.
This Charm allows a character to convert his Occult
specialty dice into automatic success for 2 motes of Essence per die converted.
This only works if the character is exercising his specialty.