Socialize Charms
Loquacious Courtier Technique
Cost: 1 mote per two dice
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Socialize: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: None
The character’s stories and idle
chitchat become more entertaining to those around him. Her every turn of phrase
becomes wittier, her every comment more topical. Mechanically, this Charm
allows the character to add two dice to her Socialize Ability for the scene for
every mote she spends; she can add no more dice than he has dots in Socialize.
Sweeten-The-Tap Method
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Socialize: 3
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisite Charms: Loquacious
Courtier Technique
Nearly any gathering of
Terrestrial Exalted involves the consumption of alcohol, often in great
quantity. A Dragon-Blood can use the Sweeten-the-Tap Method while near a
quantity of alcohol ― he expends a minimum of Essence, and the drink
noticeably improves in quality, strength and taste. This will usually improve
the general mood of the room, reducing by 1 the difficulty of all Socialize
rolls for anyone present and imbibing for the rest of the evening. However,
should anyone botch a Socialize roll during the rest of the scene, an overreaction
is more likely to take place ― possibly tempers will fray, or characters
may make ill-advised seduction attempts. This side effect has no particular
game mechanic; the Storyteller’s judgment should be the guide.
Wary Yellow Dog Attitude
Cost: 1 mote
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Socialize: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms:
Sweeten-the-Tap Method
When the
Dragon-Blooded who knows this Charm is caught in a social situation that
unexpectedly turns violent, she can quickly focus. During an unexpected combat ― that is to say, not
a military battle or one that comes at the end of a search-and-destroy mission
for some hinterlands monster ― the character can add activate this Charm
to add 3 to her Initiative roll. This Charm can only be used during the first
three turns of an unexpected combat.
Seizing-The-Tongue Technique
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Socialize: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Loquacious
Courtier Technique
In a social situation, a quick-witted
Dragon-Blooded can often nimbly step out of a verbal pit and reestablish the
grounds of a conversation without giving offense to another party. By expending
the necessary Essence, the Dragon-Blood’s player can immediately reroll any Socialize roll. She must accept the second roll
even if it is worse than the first, and she cannot spend additional Essence to
make subsequent rerolls after the first.
Additionally, if Seizing the Tongue Technique is part of any Combo, then
Essence must be spent to reactivate all the other Charms in that Combo when the
reroll takes place; if those Charms have separate
dice rolls associated with them, they are not rerolled.
Brother-Against-Brother Insinuation
Cost: 4 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Socialize: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms:
Seizing-the-Tongue Technique
The personal connections between
arrogant and aggressive beings such as the Dragon-Blooded are often tenuous; it
barely takes a spark to destroy the connection between two such individuals for
a short while.
To activate this Charm, both the
target individual and the character she is to be set against must be present.
The Exalt spends the necessary motes of Essence and makes a simple comment to
one individual about the other ― “I hear he’s got plans that don’t
include you” or the like works well enough. That is sufficient to weaken the
bonds of friendship or love between the two characters for the remainder of the
scene. The characters’ reaction to this conflict is up to the Storyteller, of
course; it may be both parties stomping off to cool their heads or engaging in
a vicious argument or even coming to blows.
Neither party immediately
remembers the character who started the disagreement
between them, though other parties present may notice the character’s activity.
When the scene is over, cooler heads prevail, and botch character remember the
strength of their friendship. Unless something horrifically bad happened
between the two (again, a matter for the Storyteller’s discretion), they will
return to their previous relationship.
When the Charm ends, the
character who was the original target of the Charm may remember the Exalted’s will-timed turn of phrase (requires a successful Intelligence +
Socialize roll with a difficulty equal to the Manipulation of the Exalt who
used this Charm). This Charm is well-known in the Realm, and those who use it
in social situations can be brought up on charges or disgraced.
This Charm does not work if
either target character has an Essence higher than that of the Exalt using the
Charm.
Warm-Faced Seduction Style
Cost: 1 mote
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Socialize: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Loquacious
Courtier Technique
The Exalted coaxes the seductive
aura of a flickering candle in the dark to coalesce around her face, and she
briefly becomes far more attractive to a character she is attempting to seduce.
The Dragon-Blood who uses this Charm momentarily increases her Socialize dice
pool by up to five dice, solely for the purpose of seducing the Charm’s target.
Warm-Faced Seduction Style cannot increase the character’s Socialize Trait to
more than double its base value.
Friend-To-All-Nations Attitude
Cost: 2 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Socialize: 3
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisite Charms: Warm-Faced
Seduction Style
The Dragon-Blooded with
Friend-to-All Nations Attitude finds herself to be equally at home on the
Blessed Isle, in the Scavenger Lands or even in the barbaric reaches of the Wyld. While this Charm is active, the Exalt suffers no
penalties to her Socialize Ability for being in a strange land, so long as she
speaks the local tongue. If she does not, she may suffer a penalty at the
Storyteller’s discretion, but even so, that penalty will be relatively minor,
as she instinctively knows all of the mores and basic manners of the culture
into which she immerses herself.
Strangely, this Charm is
somewhat less effective in melting-pot cultures such as Nexus, as the character
picks up on cultural standards from several groups simultaneously. Thankfully,
people in such melting pots are, on average, more tolerant of cultural
differences, so the net effect of the Charm is the same.
Smoothing-Over-The-Past Technique
Cost: 3 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One scene
Type: Reflexive
Minimum Socialize: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Warm-Faced
Seduction Style
This Charm enables the
Dragon-Blood who uses it to cause a target’s mind to temporarily skip over a
past event involving the Exalted that would reflect poorly on the current
discussion. That is to say, she makes the target forget about a single event in
the past ― an event that must have included the Exalt herself ―
just for the current scene. She can cause the target to forget about multiple
events if she wishes, but that requires multiple uses of this Charm, just as
with any other reflexive Charm.
When the scene is over, the
target will be aware of what has happened to her, and she is likely to be quite
unhappy about any bargains reached while she was not quite herself. That means
that future uses of this Charm on the same individual will require the Exalt to
first use the Charm to smooth over the target’s memories of having been
previously fooled through the use of Smooth-Over-the-Past Technique. Covering
up for careless use of this Charm can quickly become impossibly expensive in
Essence.
This Charm does not work on
characters whose Essence Traits are higher than that of the character using the
Charm.
Jade
Defense
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum
Socialize: 3
Minimum
Essence: 2
Prerequisite
Charms: Sweeten-the-Tap
Method
Jade Defense is used to protect the
Exalt from con games, seduction and intimidation attempts and similar forms of
social or emotional manipulation. Years of interminable intriguing attune the
Dragon-Blooded to a wide variety of political and social engineering
techniques. Wise social operators quickly learn that any manipulation technique
they can use on others can just as easily be used on them. Any Exalt feeling
that he might be the subject of such techniques can spend Essence to amplify
his own sense of ennui and sheer jadedness and, thereby, render himself
resistant to any and all social control or manipulation techniques being used
on him. Activating this Charm increases the difficulty of all Charisma,
Manipulation and Socialize rolls used against the Exalt by half his Socialize
(round up), rendering him utterly bored with nearly
everything, including those using Socialize Charms on him. For the duration of
this Charm, the character’s Essence is considered one higher than it really is
when he’s targeted by mind-affecting or social Charms that do not work on individuals
of high Essence.
Loyalty-Reading
Meditation
Cost: 5 motes
Duration: One scene
Type: Simple
Minimum
Socialize: 4
Minimum
Essence: 2
Prerequisite
Charms: Brother-Against-Brother
Insinuation
Clever courtiers learn early on to watch
and analyze every gesture made by others in a social setting to see how — and
in which direction — the wheels of loyalty and obligation turn. Knowing whom to
trust with dirt on another — and whom not to — can be critical to a
Dragon-Blood wanting to go far in Dynastic society.
This Charm heightens the Dragon-Blood’s
sensitivity to the minute details of social interaction: whose eyebrow goes up
at what comment, who’s especially ingratiating to whom, who laughs just a bit
too loudly at another’s tired witticisms, etc. This Charm can let the
Dragon-Blood know (among other things): if a particular individual is loyal to
her, whom in the room an individual is loyal to and who is feigning
loyalty to whom. This Charm does not explain these loyalties in any way.
It simply reveals them.