Post by Kishar on Sept 9, 2017 3:33:20 GMT
NAME:
Kishar, Queen of Ur-Nahaptish
GENDER:
Female
AGE:
2683
AFFILIATION:
Solar Deliberative
RACE / SPECIES:
Solar Exalted
STATISTICS:
Intelligence: 6 (7)
Strength: 5 (6+)
Speed: 5 (6+)
Stamina: 5
Durability: 4 (7)
Supernatural Energy: 7
Combat Proficiency: 6 (7)
Power Proficiency: 6 (7)
ABILITIES:
Creation Born: As a native of Creation, she appears superficially to be like a normal human disregarding the wings, but the superficiality is where the similarities end when it comes to how they actually work. Hailing from a realm without naturalism, her body is not made of atoms or molecules, but rather is a pattern of Essence that takes the form of the familiar organs and makes them work similarly. However, notable differences in lifespan and gestation time for females exist due to these things. Another thing of note is that Creation Born can easily pick up other aspects of skills, such as learning to sing from learning to dance, due to the very way that skills are written into the fabric of existence. Channeling her virtue can make her more capable at a task as well due to this odd metaphysical nature. Perhaps a final point of note is that the creation born have a two-part soul, a Hun that is the higher soul of reason and a P’o that is a lower soul of base desires, and can leave two different ghosts behind upon death due to this. There are many other minor differences, but they are rather irrelevant.
Mutations: Using her skill with shaping and medicine, Kishar has altered her body quite a bit to give her a totally different appearance than she had when she was human. It is possible to revert these changes given the proper Shaping magic, and this would leave her rather distraught but also very furious at the person who had done it. This would only be temporary as she could easily do it to herself again, and would need to be done when her abilities that prevent shaping magic being applied to her are not working. Two things of note are her wings, which allow her to fly and glide rather freely between her supernatural agility as a result of her Exaltation as well as her senses, which she has heightened through mutations, showing in her extremely pale skin color, unnatural eye color, and pointed ears.
Solar Exaltation: The Exalted were created in four kinds, all within a Celestial hierarchy of power and skill. On top are the Solar Exalted, the Chosen of the Unconquered Sun who became the chief deity of the pantheon after the Primordial War. Indeed, it was upon the backs of the Exalted, whom the Incarnae created along with the traitorous Primordial Autocthon, that the war was fought. The Exaltation is a spiritual superweapon of immense power that was created to allow mere mortals to fight the undying beings that created the universe and not only win, but defy the rules and laws of the universe themselves to do so. They all went about this in different ways, but the Chosen of the Most High are perhaps the most straightforward and powerful. They are beings of infinite potential, drawing upon the nature of the Most High’s Essence of Perfection to raise mortal skills to levels that seem more like godly miracles than the works of man. Even before being chosen to be Exalted, those who bear the Solar Exaltations proved themselves through acts of almost impossible skill that they were worthy of ruling Creation and being the representatives of the Most High himself. The Exaltation bears many gifts to the bearer, and for ease of reading they shall be listed below, as well as the curse. Only innate benefits will be in this section, uses of essence magic shall be in a separate section.
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}Enhanced Attributes: The Exaltation gifts to it’s bearer infinite potential, allowing them to break the limitations that normal mortals possess on their most basic capabilities as a human. Human beings can only be so strong, so fast, and so intelligent after all, and such beings are utterly unsuited to fight horrific beings that created reality and embody it’s core concepts. Both her strength and her stamina are at the very peak of what a human being of creation can put out, without considering skill or magic, and her Dexterity far outstrips them before then as well, and she even enhanced her speed as well, leaving her even quicker than a normal Exalt of her Dexterity. She is the peak of human beauty, and quite skilled with words. However, her greatest strength lies in her intelligence and mental capabilities, which range from blatantly superhuman in perception and wits, with the highest possible for even an Exalt. The most terrifying thing is that these are merely her basic characteristics without taking into account any sort of magic or artifacts she may create or her own skill, which is far more what defines a Solar Exalt, and they still have the capability to go even higher.
Enhanced Skills: As the Exaltation gifts the bearer with infinite potential in terms of attributes, so too does it grant them the same in regards to their skills, leaving them capable of superhuman acts of skill and finesse that add to their already legendary bodies and allow them to pull off feats that mortal men only dream about…and this is even before they begin to apply their magics and artifacts. In particular, Kishar is supremely gifted in the arts of Crafting, particularly Genesis and Magitech along with the other mortal crafts to a lesser extent, as well as Medicine, Lore, the Occult, Athletics, and Martial Arts, leaving her more capable than is possible by a human no matter how long they live by leaps and bounds, even before she applies her puissant Essence to herself to enhance her capabilities.
Regeneration: The Exalted in general heal at rates four times that of the average person, but even that was not enough for Kishar’s liking, not allowing such things to taint her form. Using her knowledge of mutation and the magic of the Solar Exalted, Kishar has rendered herself even more potent than that, causing her to regenerate at rates that make even her peers look like they heal as mortals, with even the worst wounds from blunt objects clearing up in mere minutes, and even if she were put at the door of death with highly lethal attacks, she would recover on her own in less than a day…and this is without applying the magics of her kind, only the very baseline of her ability to heal.
Enhanced Durability: Unlike Mortals, the Exalted are never without armor, their skin itself resistant to blades and blunt weaponry alike. Twice as durable as the average mortal in regards to their ability to withstand damage from blunt objects and able to resist blades much like a mortal would resist blunt objects to their skin, this combined with her peak levels of stamina renders her rather hard to wound with mere blades…and this is again without applying the magics of her kind to it. She also enhanced the durability of her basic form before magic with further mutations, leaving herself hardier and less prone to damage.
Exalted Learning: The Exalted learn at rates unheard of for Mortals, as they do not learn in the ways of men. Their potential within them builds over time, but this is minute compared to the true way they build potential, and that is through struggle and hardship. The more heroic things they do, the more boundaries of knowledge they push, and the harder they train themselves, the more potential they gain. For the skills that they are most in tune to, such potential is enough that they need not actually practice the skills in question, only merely will it to be so and the knowledge will flow into them. For other skills and attributes, a bit of training is necessary, but nothing is beyond their reach…and this is again before they apply any specific magics of their kind.
Exalted Essence: Essence is the very fundamental building block of reality, as varying patterns of Essence build every single thing there is in Creation. For an Exalt, these patterns are things they can draw strength from and manipulate, and is the source of their magics. A single mote of Essence, the smallest spark of power that can be handled by an Exalt, is one tenth of the energy released by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. An Exalt has two pools of Essence, a personal pool that they can draw upon that does not make her nature obvious to others and whose use cannot be detected, and a peripheral pool granted to her by her Exaltation, which when she taps into it her power leaks out, causing great displays of light and iconic imagery, revealing to the entire world that she is an Exalt, one of the true rulers of Creation. Her Peripheral pool is over four times the size of her personal pool, and her personal pool is large enough to contain forty motes of essence. One of the side effects of being an Essence user is that it is harder to affect them with mental persuasion, both natural and through mind control, as well as it being generally harder to hit them with attacks, as their existence rebuffs the attempts to diminish it, leaving them more easily dodged. Furthermore, her existence resists change from outside sources as a result of her extremely high willpower and essence, leaving such things rather hard to afflict her with.
Material Resonance: The Exalted all resonate with one of the five magical materials, and the Solars resonate with the Material known as Orichalcum. Refined from Gold with special mirrors reflecting light and heat from an active volcano, this element looks like an even more lustrous form of gold, but has a hardness that surpasses any known element. Artifacts made from this material are especially easy for Solars to make, activate, attune to, and they also provide additional benefits for their kind that others who manage to use them cannot access due to the lack of material resonance.
Caste Ability: All Exaltations carry with it a subtype, called a Caste. It determines what kind of individual it is attracted to, as well as five of the skills it bears and a unique power that is of that caste. The Caste Ability of the Twilight Caste allows them to see through illusions, as well as notice and analyze magical effects. It activates automatically when their anima has flared up enough due to use of peripheral essence revealing their full glory as a member of the Solar Exalted.
The Great Curse: While the Exaltation carries many benefits to it’s owner, it also harbors an extremely potent curse, laid down upon the original bearers of the Exaltation by the Primordials they slew. It is not something known to the Exalted at all, in fact, none but the surviving Primordials know it exists. The only thing that can be seen are its effects, and those are that as an Exalt ages, their virtues warp and become exaggerated, leaving them worse off for them. Compassion becomes obsession, Conviction becomes coldheartedness, Temperence becomes mortification of the flesh, and Valor becomes foolhardy contempt. When they accumulate enough Limit, due to acting against their virtues or resisting mind control, they snap and the curse fully manifests for a day. In her case, she loses all emotion and becomes almost sociopathic, becoming very inured to the sufferings of others and even incapable of understanding them.
Enhanced Skills: As the Exaltation gifts the bearer with infinite potential in terms of attributes, so too does it grant them the same in regards to their skills, leaving them capable of superhuman acts of skill and finesse that add to their already legendary bodies and allow them to pull off feats that mortal men only dream about…and this is even before they begin to apply their magics and artifacts. In particular, Kishar is supremely gifted in the arts of Crafting, particularly Genesis and Magitech along with the other mortal crafts to a lesser extent, as well as Medicine, Lore, the Occult, Athletics, and Martial Arts, leaving her more capable than is possible by a human no matter how long they live by leaps and bounds, even before she applies her puissant Essence to herself to enhance her capabilities.
Regeneration: The Exalted in general heal at rates four times that of the average person, but even that was not enough for Kishar’s liking, not allowing such things to taint her form. Using her knowledge of mutation and the magic of the Solar Exalted, Kishar has rendered herself even more potent than that, causing her to regenerate at rates that make even her peers look like they heal as mortals, with even the worst wounds from blunt objects clearing up in mere minutes, and even if she were put at the door of death with highly lethal attacks, she would recover on her own in less than a day…and this is without applying the magics of her kind, only the very baseline of her ability to heal.
Enhanced Durability: Unlike Mortals, the Exalted are never without armor, their skin itself resistant to blades and blunt weaponry alike. Twice as durable as the average mortal in regards to their ability to withstand damage from blunt objects and able to resist blades much like a mortal would resist blunt objects to their skin, this combined with her peak levels of stamina renders her rather hard to wound with mere blades…and this is again without applying the magics of her kind to it. She also enhanced the durability of her basic form before magic with further mutations, leaving herself hardier and less prone to damage.
Exalted Learning: The Exalted learn at rates unheard of for Mortals, as they do not learn in the ways of men. Their potential within them builds over time, but this is minute compared to the true way they build potential, and that is through struggle and hardship. The more heroic things they do, the more boundaries of knowledge they push, and the harder they train themselves, the more potential they gain. For the skills that they are most in tune to, such potential is enough that they need not actually practice the skills in question, only merely will it to be so and the knowledge will flow into them. For other skills and attributes, a bit of training is necessary, but nothing is beyond their reach…and this is again before they apply any specific magics of their kind.
Exalted Essence: Essence is the very fundamental building block of reality, as varying patterns of Essence build every single thing there is in Creation. For an Exalt, these patterns are things they can draw strength from and manipulate, and is the source of their magics. A single mote of Essence, the smallest spark of power that can be handled by an Exalt, is one tenth of the energy released by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. An Exalt has two pools of Essence, a personal pool that they can draw upon that does not make her nature obvious to others and whose use cannot be detected, and a peripheral pool granted to her by her Exaltation, which when she taps into it her power leaks out, causing great displays of light and iconic imagery, revealing to the entire world that she is an Exalt, one of the true rulers of Creation. Her Peripheral pool is over four times the size of her personal pool, and her personal pool is large enough to contain forty motes of essence. One of the side effects of being an Essence user is that it is harder to affect them with mental persuasion, both natural and through mind control, as well as it being generally harder to hit them with attacks, as their existence rebuffs the attempts to diminish it, leaving them more easily dodged. Furthermore, her existence resists change from outside sources as a result of her extremely high willpower and essence, leaving such things rather hard to afflict her with.
Material Resonance: The Exalted all resonate with one of the five magical materials, and the Solars resonate with the Material known as Orichalcum. Refined from Gold with special mirrors reflecting light and heat from an active volcano, this element looks like an even more lustrous form of gold, but has a hardness that surpasses any known element. Artifacts made from this material are especially easy for Solars to make, activate, attune to, and they also provide additional benefits for their kind that others who manage to use them cannot access due to the lack of material resonance.
Caste Ability: All Exaltations carry with it a subtype, called a Caste. It determines what kind of individual it is attracted to, as well as five of the skills it bears and a unique power that is of that caste. The Caste Ability of the Twilight Caste allows them to see through illusions, as well as notice and analyze magical effects. It activates automatically when their anima has flared up enough due to use of peripheral essence revealing their full glory as a member of the Solar Exalted.
The Great Curse: While the Exaltation carries many benefits to it’s owner, it also harbors an extremely potent curse, laid down upon the original bearers of the Exaltation by the Primordials they slew. It is not something known to the Exalted at all, in fact, none but the surviving Primordials know it exists. The only thing that can be seen are its effects, and those are that as an Exalt ages, their virtues warp and become exaggerated, leaving them worse off for them. Compassion becomes obsession, Conviction becomes coldheartedness, Temperence becomes mortification of the flesh, and Valor becomes foolhardy contempt. When they accumulate enough Limit, due to acting against their virtues or resisting mind control, they snap and the curse fully manifests for a day. In her case, she loses all emotion and becomes almost sociopathic, becoming very inured to the sufferings of others and even incapable of understanding them.
Solar Charms: Charms are a form of magic that is both potent and comes naturally to the wielder flowing naturally from some attribute of their being. For the Chosen of the Most High, these charms flow from the twenty-five skill groups that cover all possible endeavors of skill in creation. Charms work by mixing Essence with an Exalts understanding of one of the Skills, allowing them to perform deeds far beyond the realm of a mortal attempting such a skill. These Charms can either be obvious or not, and that depends entirely on the specifics of the Charm in question, as well as where the Essence for it comes from. Their power ranges wildly from acts of mere heroism to acts that shake the cosmos and equal and surpass the arts by which Creation was shaped from the Wyld, all depending on the Skill and how deep the Exalt’s understanding of the Skill and Essence is. What is most terrifying is that there is no set limit to what charms exist, and individual Solars have created and will continue to create more of them, and due to their instinctual understanding and basis, they are fairly easy to learn for a Chosen of the Most High. They can even be combined and used more than one at a time, allowing for new and fresh uses of power that build upon each other.
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}Excellencies: Excellencies are the most basic expression of the Solar Essence that is possible for an Exalt. By infusing themselves with Essence while they perform an act, it pushes their already prestigious skill to even greater heights, rending even the youngest Solar capable of the acts that come without any use of Essence to the most puissant of their kind. Those Exalts who have already reached that level are even more terrifying, their might allowing them to perform acts of skill that are utterly unthinkable to be done by skill alone. Excellencies, unless cast from an external pool, are never Obvious to observers to be magical, though acts performed with them may seem to be utterly unbelievable for others who watch to be done without some sort of magic. Further skill in them can render an Exalt capable of being far more efficient with their essence, putting an amount in and being able to draw on that inspiration for a much longer period of time. Kishar has excellencies for the skills of Martial Arts, Occult, Lore, Craft, Medicine, Linguistics, Awareness, Dodge, Survival, Athletics, and Presence. She can use the more advanced forms of them for Presence, Occult, Martial, Dodge, Medicine, Craft, Lore, Athletics, and Linguistics.
Craft Charms: As a Member of the Twilight Caste, as well as being quite interested in Crafting herself, Kishar has a number of charms that aide in the creation, destruction, and preservation of Artifacts, magical devices that act as weapons or create other magical effects, magical beings, and Manses, which are buildings designed to harness the geomantic ley lines that run throughout the land and carry vast amounts of magical energy. They even allow her to eschew tools and even common materials that are not the Magical Metals or other uncommon items, summoning them from the ether or even using her own body and bodily functions as the tools she needs.
Lore Charms: Scholars of the Solar Exalted are not just beings of immense academic knowledge, they can use their knowledge of Creation and how the world works to their advantage in order to pass on those teachings to others at extraordinary rates, train individuals to be even more potent than they already are, share portions of their power with loyal subordinates, but also to reshape reality itself, bringing things out of nothing in a particular area and even reshaping the laws of physics and creating automatic magical effects that can happen over areas spanning the size of countries to entire worlds should they choose to express their full might. They can even restore things to how they ought to be, removing the twists and shaping of others to return beings to their original form or destroy them, if they are beings born of that distortion.
Medicine Charms: Those Exalted who practice the arts of Healing are not satisfied with merely treating their patients wounds and hoping for them to recover. Their skill and magical puissance gives them the ability to perfectly diagnose and cure any disease, ailment, genetic deformity, or crippling injury that their patients might have. With a touch they can instantly banish wounds from their patients, with the smallest effort relieving any pain they have and even bolstering their health against injury, making them hardier and more resilient against injury. They are not doctors, they are beings of divine healing that no injury or disease is too far out of their grasp to heal. Even beyond that, they can change and alter life to make it more suitable to their whims.
Occult Charms: The Ways of Sorcery and dealing with Ghosts and Spirits are known to the Exalted, as well as the mortal arts of thaumaturgy. Their puissant essence gives them access to the initiations needed to cast powerful sorcery and necromancy, allowing them further power even outside of their already powerful set of magic granted to them by their Charms. Dematerialized spirits and magic are obvious to them when they choose to look for them, and they can deal devastating attacks that can consume even immortal spirits and give them final death. These are the arts that they used to end the Primordials and create the Neverborn. Masters can shatter spells with their fists, summon demons outside of the times when they can normally be summoned, declare beings to be Creatures of Darkness against whom Holy attacks are especially dangerous, and even invert their charms to be unholy reflections that draw upon the same source as necromancy, the undead, stagnant essence of the underworld and death itself, brought about by the death of the Primordials they killed.
Athletics Charms: The perfection of the Solar Essence is reflected in their movement when they go full out. By committing a bit of her essence as she does at all times, she increases her speed tremendously, casually moving at speeds that would make her seem more like a car than a person. Not only that, but commitment lets her jump as if it were a normal movement for her as well as making her quicksilver movements too hard for her enemies to track enhancing her ability to ambush in the middle of combat, along with making her able to balance perfectly on anything, run up walls and across ceilings, and treat water and other delicate substances as if they were hard ground. She can put more effort into it, and make her movement more akin to instant transit, disappearing in a blur of golden light before reappearing at her destination much to the surprise of her opponent unless they are the most perceptive of people. Her mastery of essence makes her jumps longer, and lifting easier just by virtue of existing more than those she rules over.
Awareness Charms: The puissant essence of a Solar allows them to enhance their senses beyond even what their base abilities allow, driving them to heights of precision and detail that no human can even comprehend. Kishar has currently focused on sight, leaving her able to see through any sort of disguise, illusion, or other falsehood, including invisibility, when they put themselves before her, as well as heightening her sight so much that she could easily pick out a person’s face and read the tag on their shirt from a kilometer or more just with her own eyes.
Dodge Charms: When a Chosen of the Most High wishes not to be hit, they will not be hit. Powerful magics enhance their speed and reaction times, making them able to flow around strikes like water around a rock, or even break them into dancing shadows able to make them able to evade things that should not be able to be evaded, as well as giving them insights into surprise attacks they could never know about, letting them dodge them with ease. Indeed, so long as an Exalt trained in these has Essence, they are extremely hard, if not impossible, to hit, though making themselves absolutely impossible to hit is quite taxing on their reserves, though this becomes less of an issue at the levels of Essence Kishar holds.
Linguistics Charms: The Solar Exalted are masters of linguistics, but Kishar only currently knows a few of the charms, allowing her to apply her excellence in Linguistics to pick up on languages she has only heard brief snippets of, using her magical might and skill to construct the rest of the language in her head much like a universal translator before learning it later. She also can read the intents behind the statements of others, gaining an insight into what they hope to achieve as well as convey easy messages, such as "Duck", with just body language that is universally known.
Integrity Charms: The Exalted are beacons of unmoving stability, unable to be swayed from their course by fate, argumentations, or even physical or metaphysical barriers to them. Kishar has only dabbled in the arts associated with the skill of integrity, but they leave her rather immune to shaping attacks on her mind, body, and soul as well as making it much harder to do to her even if she does not have the Essence to resist the attacks actively.
Presence Charms: When the Solar Exalted wish to make their full majesty known to those around them, none can resist the awe and terror that such supreme beings inspire in the average person. While Kishar has not dipped heavily into this particular charmset, she is still able to project her full authority as a Solar Exalted, rendering the weak willed only able to cower in fear, making people have to fight her arguments on their merits without just denying them outright, as well as striking out against creatures of darkness, her holy radiance rendering her attacks filled with holy energy and able to strike down those considered Creatures of Darkness.
Resistance Charms: When the Solar Exalted exert their invulnerability, blades listen, topping against their skin and shattering like glass as they meet the immovable rock or shield of Ajax that is their skin. Varying expressions of their divine puissance can range from merely reducing smaller attacks to nothing or reducing larger attacks immensely, all the way to completely absorbing any and all attacks that come their way, their skin hardening to be tougher than even the magical materials as they trespass on the realm of utter perfection that they were designed to reach through human creativity applied to the radiant, perfect essence of the Ignis Divine.
Survival Charms: While less in tune with the world naturally than their Lunar Mates, the Solar Exalted are masters of the skills that man has developed to master nature and interact with it. Kishar had not much use for most of this, living in her walled city using the convenience of artifacts to take care of her every need, but she did learn the art of speaking to animals and training them to become better companions. She used this on her familiar, a rather large Tyrant Lizard (essentially a T-rex), to render it even more powerful and more intelligent than some people even, as well as making it absolutely loyal to her.
Craft Charms: As a Member of the Twilight Caste, as well as being quite interested in Crafting herself, Kishar has a number of charms that aide in the creation, destruction, and preservation of Artifacts, magical devices that act as weapons or create other magical effects, magical beings, and Manses, which are buildings designed to harness the geomantic ley lines that run throughout the land and carry vast amounts of magical energy. They even allow her to eschew tools and even common materials that are not the Magical Metals or other uncommon items, summoning them from the ether or even using her own body and bodily functions as the tools she needs.
Lore Charms: Scholars of the Solar Exalted are not just beings of immense academic knowledge, they can use their knowledge of Creation and how the world works to their advantage in order to pass on those teachings to others at extraordinary rates, train individuals to be even more potent than they already are, share portions of their power with loyal subordinates, but also to reshape reality itself, bringing things out of nothing in a particular area and even reshaping the laws of physics and creating automatic magical effects that can happen over areas spanning the size of countries to entire worlds should they choose to express their full might. They can even restore things to how they ought to be, removing the twists and shaping of others to return beings to their original form or destroy them, if they are beings born of that distortion.
Medicine Charms: Those Exalted who practice the arts of Healing are not satisfied with merely treating their patients wounds and hoping for them to recover. Their skill and magical puissance gives them the ability to perfectly diagnose and cure any disease, ailment, genetic deformity, or crippling injury that their patients might have. With a touch they can instantly banish wounds from their patients, with the smallest effort relieving any pain they have and even bolstering their health against injury, making them hardier and more resilient against injury. They are not doctors, they are beings of divine healing that no injury or disease is too far out of their grasp to heal. Even beyond that, they can change and alter life to make it more suitable to their whims.
Occult Charms: The Ways of Sorcery and dealing with Ghosts and Spirits are known to the Exalted, as well as the mortal arts of thaumaturgy. Their puissant essence gives them access to the initiations needed to cast powerful sorcery and necromancy, allowing them further power even outside of their already powerful set of magic granted to them by their Charms. Dematerialized spirits and magic are obvious to them when they choose to look for them, and they can deal devastating attacks that can consume even immortal spirits and give them final death. These are the arts that they used to end the Primordials and create the Neverborn. Masters can shatter spells with their fists, summon demons outside of the times when they can normally be summoned, declare beings to be Creatures of Darkness against whom Holy attacks are especially dangerous, and even invert their charms to be unholy reflections that draw upon the same source as necromancy, the undead, stagnant essence of the underworld and death itself, brought about by the death of the Primordials they killed.
Athletics Charms: The perfection of the Solar Essence is reflected in their movement when they go full out. By committing a bit of her essence as she does at all times, she increases her speed tremendously, casually moving at speeds that would make her seem more like a car than a person. Not only that, but commitment lets her jump as if it were a normal movement for her as well as making her quicksilver movements too hard for her enemies to track enhancing her ability to ambush in the middle of combat, along with making her able to balance perfectly on anything, run up walls and across ceilings, and treat water and other delicate substances as if they were hard ground. She can put more effort into it, and make her movement more akin to instant transit, disappearing in a blur of golden light before reappearing at her destination much to the surprise of her opponent unless they are the most perceptive of people. Her mastery of essence makes her jumps longer, and lifting easier just by virtue of existing more than those she rules over.
Awareness Charms: The puissant essence of a Solar allows them to enhance their senses beyond even what their base abilities allow, driving them to heights of precision and detail that no human can even comprehend. Kishar has currently focused on sight, leaving her able to see through any sort of disguise, illusion, or other falsehood, including invisibility, when they put themselves before her, as well as heightening her sight so much that she could easily pick out a person’s face and read the tag on their shirt from a kilometer or more just with her own eyes.
Dodge Charms: When a Chosen of the Most High wishes not to be hit, they will not be hit. Powerful magics enhance their speed and reaction times, making them able to flow around strikes like water around a rock, or even break them into dancing shadows able to make them able to evade things that should not be able to be evaded, as well as giving them insights into surprise attacks they could never know about, letting them dodge them with ease. Indeed, so long as an Exalt trained in these has Essence, they are extremely hard, if not impossible, to hit, though making themselves absolutely impossible to hit is quite taxing on their reserves, though this becomes less of an issue at the levels of Essence Kishar holds.
Linguistics Charms: The Solar Exalted are masters of linguistics, but Kishar only currently knows a few of the charms, allowing her to apply her excellence in Linguistics to pick up on languages she has only heard brief snippets of, using her magical might and skill to construct the rest of the language in her head much like a universal translator before learning it later. She also can read the intents behind the statements of others, gaining an insight into what they hope to achieve as well as convey easy messages, such as "Duck", with just body language that is universally known.
Integrity Charms: The Exalted are beacons of unmoving stability, unable to be swayed from their course by fate, argumentations, or even physical or metaphysical barriers to them. Kishar has only dabbled in the arts associated with the skill of integrity, but they leave her rather immune to shaping attacks on her mind, body, and soul as well as making it much harder to do to her even if she does not have the Essence to resist the attacks actively.
Presence Charms: When the Solar Exalted wish to make their full majesty known to those around them, none can resist the awe and terror that such supreme beings inspire in the average person. While Kishar has not dipped heavily into this particular charmset, she is still able to project her full authority as a Solar Exalted, rendering the weak willed only able to cower in fear, making people have to fight her arguments on their merits without just denying them outright, as well as striking out against creatures of darkness, her holy radiance rendering her attacks filled with holy energy and able to strike down those considered Creatures of Darkness.
Resistance Charms: When the Solar Exalted exert their invulnerability, blades listen, topping against their skin and shattering like glass as they meet the immovable rock or shield of Ajax that is their skin. Varying expressions of their divine puissance can range from merely reducing smaller attacks to nothing or reducing larger attacks immensely, all the way to completely absorbing any and all attacks that come their way, their skin hardening to be tougher than even the magical materials as they trespass on the realm of utter perfection that they were designed to reach through human creativity applied to the radiant, perfect essence of the Ignis Divine.
Survival Charms: While less in tune with the world naturally than their Lunar Mates, the Solar Exalted are masters of the skills that man has developed to master nature and interact with it. Kishar had not much use for most of this, living in her walled city using the convenience of artifacts to take care of her every need, but she did learn the art of speaking to animals and training them to become better companions. She used this on her familiar, a rather large Tyrant Lizard (essentially a T-rex), to render it even more powerful and more intelligent than some people even, as well as making it absolutely loyal to her.
Terrestrial Martial Arts: The Roots of the Perfeced Lotus, these arts are the most numerous and most varied of all three tiers of martial arts. They are, however, the most modest and least powerful arts. They are able to be learned even by regular mortals who have their essence enlightened, and other magical beings can be trained to use these rather easily as well. Most of the arts are elementally aspected, but some lean in no particular direction or focus on all of them equally. While a master of the mundane martial arts can easily hop hedges and split bricks with their bare hands, the master of Terrestrial Martial Arts can break boulders and jump houses with ease.
{Spoiler}Five-Dragon Style: By emulating the power of the five Elemental Dragons that gave their blessings to create the first Terrestrial Exalted, a practitioner of this style can learn to channel the fury of the five elements through their blows with ease, showing it's power through both defensive and offensive capabilities. This style's abilities can be used bare handed, or through straight swords and spear type weaponry. Kishar has mastered this form, and is skilled enough to teach it to any others who wish to learn from her, provided they show the proper respect and etiquette.
Charms Known: Five-Dragon Claw, Five-Dragon-Force Blow, Five-Dragon Fortitude, Five-Dragon Blocking Technique, Five-Dragon Form, Five-Dragon Fist, Five-Dragon Invulnerability, Five-Dragon Wrath
Charms Known: Five-Dragon Claw, Five-Dragon-Force Blow, Five-Dragon Fortitude, Five-Dragon Blocking Technique, Five-Dragon Form, Five-Dragon Fist, Five-Dragon Invulnerability, Five-Dragon Wrath
Celestial Martial Arts: The Bulb of the Perfected Lotus, and the Martial Arts that prove the peak for most practitioners of the arts. Celestial Exalted such as Kishar can learn these readily and often start here, however no mere mortal is capable of performing these arts lest they suffer explosive destabilization of their Essence. Other magical beings can be trained and have their Essence refined to the point where they can practice these arts, however. A master of Terrestrial Martial Arts may be able to split boulders and jump houses, but a Master of Celestial Martial Arts can jump mountains and destroy the walls of fortified cities.
{Spoiler}Solar Hero Style: The innate and native way of fighting that is familiar to any Solar who learns to fight with her hands is known only as Solar Hero Style. This supremely simple style is absolutely brutal and devastating in its effectiveness, an art designed by Sol Invictus to allow a Solar using it to go one on one with a Primordial without weapons and come out victorious. While not nearly as well versed in the arts as someone like the Solar Queen, who used them to strangle a Primordial to death despite its lack of needing to breathe, she has mastered all of the style that can be taught to those not of the Solar Exalted, and is able to do so if a student shows the capability to learn.
Charms Known (Base): Fists of Iron Technique, Sledgehammer Fist Punch, Dragon Coil Technique, Solar Hero Form, Heaven Thunder Hammer, Crashing Wave Throw, Ox-Stunning Blow, Hammer on Iron Technique, Shockwave Technique
Charms Known (Advanced): Hellraiser's Instinct, Dome-Shattering Smite, One With The Wave
Charms Known (Base): Fists of Iron Technique, Sledgehammer Fist Punch, Dragon Coil Technique, Solar Hero Form, Heaven Thunder Hammer, Crashing Wave Throw, Ox-Stunning Blow, Hammer on Iron Technique, Shockwave Technique
Charms Known (Advanced): Hellraiser's Instinct, Dome-Shattering Smite, One With The Wave
Sidereal Martial Arts: The Blossom of the Perfected Lotus, and the peak of the martial arts. While the Solars are the undisputed masters of most disciplines, one of the few that they are the students in while others are the Masters of are the Martial Arts, and Kishar has managed to accept this fact and humble herself before one of the Sidereal Masters of these extremely potent martial arts. While Celestial Martial Arts such as the Solar Hero Style may allow a practitioner to jump mountains and split city walls with single blows, the Sidereal Styles do far stranger things which could be likened to splitting the soul or jumping to heaven in comparison to what the Celestial Styles do. She cannot teach the arts, but she is considered a Master of both the Kaleidoscopic Border of Logic Style and the Obsidian Shards of Infinity Style, as described below.
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}Kaleidoscopic Border of Logic Style: This is one of the most dangerous and rarest Sidereal Martial Arts, and only a select few know it due to the Sidereals being particularly protective of it and for good reason. Masters of this style use their understanding of how actions and situations influence perceptions of the world, and by affecting what a person perceives with these secret and terrible techniques, these rare warriors inflict terrible madness on their enemies, as well as even more strange things brought about by manipulating their own perception of reality, and even the perception of the world’s own reality through their sheer skill and understanding of the Martial Arts and Essence, as is expected of the Blossom of the Perfected Lotus.
Obsidian Shards of Infinity Style: Obsidian Shards of Infinity Style holds a mirror up to reality and then shatters it, splintering it into thousands of possibilities and exploiting them all to fight the enemies of the styles practitioners. The gods that govern fate congregate near areas of fate that have seen it’s use, and they chatter to each other softly, appearing to be deeply disconcerted, slightly confused, and even upset. In the company of an Exalted practitioner of this style, they show the same deference that they would to any of the Exalted, but they leave their presence as soon as possible.
A practitioner seems to understand something that their opponents do not, a subtle knowing look lies in their eyes, even as they seems to look at something that isn’t there. Every move seems strange and slightly jerky, and the logic behind their motions is impenetrable; his attacks flatly impossible. When a practitioner divulges their philosophy, they speak in difficult to understand metaphors and it is difficult for others to make any sense of it. Perhaps they say that there are many ways of seeing. Perhaps they say there is only one but it can be portrayed as many. And perhaps he only says that one can choose at will, and punctuates it with a perfect strike from nowhere.
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}Last Heart Enclosure: Home is where the heart is, and many do not keep their hearts in safe enough places. Instead, just as a seductress abuses insecurities of the soul to take a man’s heart from his happy home, the martial artist can reshape her victims’ loyalties. The Exalt must impress a target with the sheer significance of her mien and how it should feel to be recognized by such a person. Her image assaults a single target, whom the character must be able to see in detail, and should the person fail to beat her skill in martial arts combined with her sheer appearance with sheer mental fortitude, the magic will take it’s sinister effect. If she chooses, the martial artist may first instigate a clinch attack against her target. She does not move, instead ensnaring her target with invisible strands of tangible attention. The strong-willed are more easily snared by this grapple, If they do not break this grapple, then the longer they are stuck in it the more powerful the coming compulsion will be, as it will fall upon them when the grapple breaks.
Overcoming the victim’s mental defenses makes the target believe he is a part of the character’s solipsism. Certain that only the martial artist’s awareness makes him real, the Charm’s target tries to stay within the character’s current awareness in order to remain real. When he is away from the martial artist or somehow sure that the character is not aware of him, the victim seeks to gain the character’s attention through any means necessary. The only exception is when he believes the character will return to him, as when he waits in her bedchamber or some other frequented area.
Overcoming this infliction once it is in place is difficult, requiring the target to expend a significant portion of their willpower to shake it off temporarily, and once they have spent enough the illusion will break. Outside effects that would break this become more difficult the more temperate the character in question is.
Birth of the Perfect Ego Juggernaut: Thin veils separate desire, belief and knowledge. This technique tears them away. With the slightest touch, the character dooms his foe (or sacrifices his friend) to a world without failure. A mere brush with a finger realigns the victim’s spiritual centers, or chakras. In combat, a normal attack must penetrate the target’s defense but need not inflict any damage. If the attack succeeds, the world reshapes itself around the target’s needs and desires. There is no immediate sensation, but a victim of this Charm knows with utmost certainty that she is fated to succeed. Most people would revel in such a feeling and glory in destiny’s aid when completing their action. The target must specifically choose to deny fate, succeeding or failing the action under only her own power, in order to evade the Charm’s effects. Otherwise, she forfeits her mental defense.
When the target accepts fate or succumbs to the character’s mental onslaught, she gains the guarantee of success from fate for the next minute, making even her attempts at routine tasks epic. After one minute the guarantee of success begins to fade before it completely disappears after ten minutes. The target is the only person who cannot become aware of this waning perfection. To her, her every act continues to outperform the gods. It does take time before the target’s perception departs from reality. For several minutes, she really does clear the battlefield with sweeping blows, draw up brilliant architectural plans or wow society with her daring repartee. Thereafter, she does only as well as she normally can—maybe worse, since she’s so out of touch—but her eyes see continued brilliance, perfect blows against her enemies, infinite strength and wisdom. She succeeds at her every aspiration with luck, grace and effort to spare.
Impersonal Denature Sting: Being defeated by a true master of the martial arts can be an enlightening experience. Indeed, masters pride themselves on granting a learning experience. Strikes supplemented with this magic deal twice the normal damage, but they never are lethal. A person who would fall unconscious due to damage inflicted by a strike with this magic behind it falls into a deep slumber no matter how badly they might try to resist it.
While unconscious, the character dreams of his encounter with the martial artist. He sees her approach and begin the conflict, and the final blow overwhelms him many, many times. He wakes up a changed man… for his Virtues have shifted. These can be left to shift on their own based on his own experiences with the fight or can be shaped by the practitioner themselves so long as they keep in physical contact with the person while the process takes place.
Kaleidoscopic Derecognition Atemi: The ability to discern one person from another should stem from the person’s soul, not her face. Appearance is just the surface, and that surface can change. The martial artist proves this when he activates this shattering attack. First, he moves so quickly he blurs into the background, traversing as much as 500 yards in order to reach his target. As the Exalt strikes, he moves so quickly he appears to be in four places at once, though there is only one true attack. What’s more, each version of himself looks completely different. The character may determine his brief appearance with complete control, as long as he appears human. If the target cannot identify which is the true copy, then the attack becomes unable to be normally blocked or dodged as they are distracted by the cloned images.
If the blow connects it disrupts the target’s mind and Essence, though the damage builds slowly. A day after the attack, the target’s mind begins to filter every person she perceives through her unbridled memory, replacing each random person’s image with someone she previously encountered. These images are drawn from the inaccessible depths of a person’s perfect memory. The roster includes everyone from old friends, parents and lovers to someone seen only once. The stronger the memory of a person and emotional attachment to that person is, the more frequently his image takes another person’s place. Smell and voice accompany the image. In cases where the target could never discern the person’s personal scent or had never heard his voice, her mind makes something up. In large crowds, the target can see multiple images—sometimes at different ages—of the same person. Any first encounter with an individual is exempt. The first impression is always true, and a new person looks then like he or she does to everyone else. During this encounter, the person’s image, voice and scent join myriad others in the victim’s memory for eventual recycling.
Although no one except a completely new individual will ever look like himself again to the target of this Charm, the target has no chance to get used to her shopkeeper looking like her father and her lover looking like a total stranger of the other gender. Every time she sleeps, the images her mind associates with the various people she’s seen reset. Going to bed beside a stranger, she might wake up next to her first teacher. Knocked out in a bar fight, she won’t know who’s friend or foe when she gets up. Willpower can prevent the shuffling if they are willing to devote great amounts of it and incur a lot of mental stress, but only magic designed to break this type of effect can truly end it. The more conviction the person has, the more costly and difficult such magic becomes as it tries to override this effect.
Words Are Not Enough Infliction: Infants have great freedom of thought, but no basis for understanding. Adults have a lifetime of education and experience, but they are wrapped in their habits of thought. Tightest of these chains is language. The Primordials designed mortals to communicate and interact, and so mortals do, clipping the wings of their minds. When invoking this Charm, the martial artist names a language family and evokes an image that could be associated with that language. Anyone who speaks or understands that chosen language and can possibly see the image has her gaze drawn to it. They see the martial artist strike at this avatar of language with fist and Essence, and the image shatters into a thousand pieces.
This effect scathes their minds, and if they fail to resist it with a combination of their magical potential, intelligence, and understanding of language at great difficulty due to the power of the wielder’s essence, they lose all ability to speak or comprehend that language. People who do not speak that language are not affected. An affected character can never again speak, write, read or understand that language. A character robbed of her last or only known language can never again learn any language. The martial artist has ripped an ephemeral but permanent binding from her. The victim no longer understands any form of interpersonal communication, and her soul becomes free of the structure of words. No method of social or mental influence that depends on communication can affect her. She gains great brilliance and creativity in a number of fields, but is utterly unable to ever communicate this to anyone ever again.
Two Score Mirror Glance: The end is in the beginning. To use this Charm, a martial artist perfectly mirrors his own previous actions—but in reverse. His opponent realizes that time has now begun to flow backward, and she is doomed to live out into her past until life ends in the womb. As long as the victim can see the martial artist, she can suffer the Charm’s mental attack. Should the victim fail to resist the attack, she would suffer the charm’s effects.
The target stops moving. For the next six seconds, she no longer perceives reality. Within her mind, she experiences her entire life backward, conscious of events but unable to change anything she did in the past. It happens in an instant, but to her, the experience lasts her entire lifetime. Extremely willful individuals can attempt to break out early, but such things are far from guaranteed.
Further, the trance displays the victim’s past not only how she perceived it, but also as it truly was. When the two are different, they are thrown into stark relief. Whenever the victim re-experiences a portion of her life in which what she perceived was not real, she recognizes the illusion for what it was. If the illusion still afflicts her, it is cured when the trance ends, allowing cures to other charms of this style.
Freeing the Father from the Child: One has never learned enough, but the victim of this Charm will never learn again. When the character attacks. wants), her slashing knife hand looks bladed and devilishly sharp, and her victim appears to onlookers like a figure of shining threads. It must deal damage to take effect, and the more damage it does the easier time it has of inflicting the dangerous side effect it has, made all the more easy as it bypasses most mundane armor, and seriously reduces the effectiveness of magical armor in stopping the attack.
The victim remembers everything in his life until the point when the Charm affected him. Nothing that happens after the decisive attack sticks with him. He remembers the last five to 10 minutes. This is enough for the victim to make sense of a combat scene or a brief verbal exchange, but anything further in the past gets muddled. His memory is fuzzy enough that he does not react violently when he wakes up in a different location than he went to sleep, but he does need to meet people and learn events all over again. As time passes, he becomes more and more dissociated from reality. To the victim, it seems like everything’s changed since just last night.
A target of this Charm may exert his will to keep some additional memories, but it is extremely taxing on their will to do so for longer than a few hours per day perhaps. Muscle memory is unaffected, so they can still learn skills, and with enough use of will they can learn languages or other things, but it is still extremely difficult. Eliminating the problem does not allow the victim to regain lost memories—they are gone for good, barring use of Two Score Mirror Glance to experience that period all over again. Yet it does allow him to begin remembering what he experiences. Spells that are attempting to clear this condition are far more expensive than normal.
Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic Form: Identity is a mere trick of Essence. Strands of fate weave through the Essence of Creation. They too are made of Essence, and this determines who and what a person is. The martial artist who uses the Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic Form unravels her own strands of fate and sends them out to snare other people and wrap them in her own pattern. While this Charm is active, the character’s Essence diffuses through others. She may attempt to mentally assault any sentient entity she touches as a reflexive action. Their willpower is contested against the practitioners force of presence, their skill with martial arts, and their magical potency.
When successful, the character asserts a total control effect upon the target. For anywhere between twenty minutes and an hour, scene, she controls the character’s body as if it were her own. She may move with it, attack with it, laugh or talk with it or simply leave it static. Her actions with this person’s body use her own Attributes and Abilities, and the body takes on the character’s posture and expression while it is under her influence.
Controlling another body in no way hinders the martial artist’s control of her own body. In effect, she now has two bodies operating under a single mind, each taking separate actions. A practitioner may not ensnare more people in this way at one time than she has dots of Essence, but she may release a body reflexively if she suddenly wishes to take over another.
Reliant Soul Infiltration: Speaking her name twice and a secret name once, the martial artist creates a duplicate of her personality in the form of a glistening shard of anima that she draws from her mouth. It quickly disappears in her hands like a conjuror’s trick. The next time she touches a sentient entity, she insinuates that replica of her mind into her target. Her identity surges along the flows of Essence to the target’s soul, the seat of his self, where it attempts to take command. The martial artist maintains a tie between both identities, perceiving both her normal senses and an internal, purely mental sense of the struggle to dominate her target’s body.
Should she overcome the target’s mental defenses, she is free to command any actions from her victim for the next 10 minutes. The martial artist is able to use her victim’s body, Charms and other abilities with complete efficiency, but with her own mental faculties and strengths.
When the 10 minutes are up, the magic of the Charm fades. Essence no longer forces the body’s owner into the backseat—but the Charm-created identity is self-aware. Its preservation instinct is as strong as that of the original character, and it will not go quietly. Both identities inside the victim’s body fight for control, and the losing side is destroyed. The martial artist might not wish her duplicate identity to live on, whether out of kindness to her victim or jealousy toward her identity. She may design it to fail at the moment of final conflict, causing it to lose out no matter how weak the will of the other is.
Whoever wins, this is when the practitioner loses control of the target body. If the body’s original mind wins, the practitioner’s influence is clearly over. Even if the character’s replica wins, it is no longer connected to the martial artist’s mind. Though the two identities have identical histories, the different experiences each has from that point on quickly turn them into individuals. They likely share goals and morals—for a while—but the character’s secondary personality changes rapidly, especially based on the qualities of the body it now inhabits. Mortal bodies make the mind more cautious and less carefree, while inhabiting an alien body makes the personality alien.
Without Assumption: The practitioner imagines a place where he does not exist and has never existed. He invents the names of the people who live there. Donning a perfect expression of one of those names in his stance, he becomes a non-entity. For the Charm’s duration, the martial artist is not a valid target for any effect or action. Others cannot recognize or remember him. Without Assumption does not replace the character’s attacks with non-attacks; other entities may still target and affect these. Without Assumption also does not protect against Charms and natural “attacks” that affect anyone within an area.
Beauty is in the Eye: Humans have great power in them, gifts from their creators sadly contained and constrained by their silly little clay bodies. If they could open that flesh and step out, they could express a smidgen of their potential. Instead, they sit and bake in their prisons of mud, just waiting to be cracked open. This Charm blows breath on that small spark of power all creatures received from their Primordial makers and gives it enough fuel to blossom into a raging wildfire.
Activating this Charm, a portion of the world opens around the Exalt, peeling outward from a single axis like an eye with the character as the pupil. It is a two-dimensional rift in a three-dimensional space, and it appears the same from all perspectives. It can be seen clearly up to 10 miles away. Closing, the character disappears with it.
She undergoes a transformation while nowhere, gaining the following benefits: Her Valor increases her strength charisma and size, her temperance increases her stamina and wits while giving her an elemental theme appropriate to the location, her conviction blesses her with increased intelligence and manipulation and causes two phantom arms to grow from her back and for her to radiate with the might of the unconquered sun, her compassion increases her dexterity and perception and rendering her an avatar of life and death that those who look at her recognize both in, her appearance becomes absolutely divine, abilities that affect her fate fail to locate her and thus fail. Her form causes those who look upon her to lose willpower so long as they look directly at her, and those she strikes feel their virtuous aspects begin to fade temporarily as she feeds on them. Finally, her mind is unbound, causing illusions and mirages of what she envisions in the area around her.
When the Charm ends, the monstrous entity disappears in an instant, replaced with the character’s normal form.
Meditative Battlefield Escalation: (I am too lazy to translate this over as it is way too complicated so here is a link. ninjasensei.wikidot.com/charms:meditative-battlefield-escalation )
Overcoming the victim’s mental defenses makes the target believe he is a part of the character’s solipsism. Certain that only the martial artist’s awareness makes him real, the Charm’s target tries to stay within the character’s current awareness in order to remain real. When he is away from the martial artist or somehow sure that the character is not aware of him, the victim seeks to gain the character’s attention through any means necessary. The only exception is when he believes the character will return to him, as when he waits in her bedchamber or some other frequented area.
Overcoming this infliction once it is in place is difficult, requiring the target to expend a significant portion of their willpower to shake it off temporarily, and once they have spent enough the illusion will break. Outside effects that would break this become more difficult the more temperate the character in question is.
Birth of the Perfect Ego Juggernaut: Thin veils separate desire, belief and knowledge. This technique tears them away. With the slightest touch, the character dooms his foe (or sacrifices his friend) to a world without failure. A mere brush with a finger realigns the victim’s spiritual centers, or chakras. In combat, a normal attack must penetrate the target’s defense but need not inflict any damage. If the attack succeeds, the world reshapes itself around the target’s needs and desires. There is no immediate sensation, but a victim of this Charm knows with utmost certainty that she is fated to succeed. Most people would revel in such a feeling and glory in destiny’s aid when completing their action. The target must specifically choose to deny fate, succeeding or failing the action under only her own power, in order to evade the Charm’s effects. Otherwise, she forfeits her mental defense.
When the target accepts fate or succumbs to the character’s mental onslaught, she gains the guarantee of success from fate for the next minute, making even her attempts at routine tasks epic. After one minute the guarantee of success begins to fade before it completely disappears after ten minutes. The target is the only person who cannot become aware of this waning perfection. To her, her every act continues to outperform the gods. It does take time before the target’s perception departs from reality. For several minutes, she really does clear the battlefield with sweeping blows, draw up brilliant architectural plans or wow society with her daring repartee. Thereafter, she does only as well as she normally can—maybe worse, since she’s so out of touch—but her eyes see continued brilliance, perfect blows against her enemies, infinite strength and wisdom. She succeeds at her every aspiration with luck, grace and effort to spare.
Impersonal Denature Sting: Being defeated by a true master of the martial arts can be an enlightening experience. Indeed, masters pride themselves on granting a learning experience. Strikes supplemented with this magic deal twice the normal damage, but they never are lethal. A person who would fall unconscious due to damage inflicted by a strike with this magic behind it falls into a deep slumber no matter how badly they might try to resist it.
While unconscious, the character dreams of his encounter with the martial artist. He sees her approach and begin the conflict, and the final blow overwhelms him many, many times. He wakes up a changed man… for his Virtues have shifted. These can be left to shift on their own based on his own experiences with the fight or can be shaped by the practitioner themselves so long as they keep in physical contact with the person while the process takes place.
Kaleidoscopic Derecognition Atemi: The ability to discern one person from another should stem from the person’s soul, not her face. Appearance is just the surface, and that surface can change. The martial artist proves this when he activates this shattering attack. First, he moves so quickly he blurs into the background, traversing as much as 500 yards in order to reach his target. As the Exalt strikes, he moves so quickly he appears to be in four places at once, though there is only one true attack. What’s more, each version of himself looks completely different. The character may determine his brief appearance with complete control, as long as he appears human. If the target cannot identify which is the true copy, then the attack becomes unable to be normally blocked or dodged as they are distracted by the cloned images.
If the blow connects it disrupts the target’s mind and Essence, though the damage builds slowly. A day after the attack, the target’s mind begins to filter every person she perceives through her unbridled memory, replacing each random person’s image with someone she previously encountered. These images are drawn from the inaccessible depths of a person’s perfect memory. The roster includes everyone from old friends, parents and lovers to someone seen only once. The stronger the memory of a person and emotional attachment to that person is, the more frequently his image takes another person’s place. Smell and voice accompany the image. In cases where the target could never discern the person’s personal scent or had never heard his voice, her mind makes something up. In large crowds, the target can see multiple images—sometimes at different ages—of the same person. Any first encounter with an individual is exempt. The first impression is always true, and a new person looks then like he or she does to everyone else. During this encounter, the person’s image, voice and scent join myriad others in the victim’s memory for eventual recycling.
Although no one except a completely new individual will ever look like himself again to the target of this Charm, the target has no chance to get used to her shopkeeper looking like her father and her lover looking like a total stranger of the other gender. Every time she sleeps, the images her mind associates with the various people she’s seen reset. Going to bed beside a stranger, she might wake up next to her first teacher. Knocked out in a bar fight, she won’t know who’s friend or foe when she gets up. Willpower can prevent the shuffling if they are willing to devote great amounts of it and incur a lot of mental stress, but only magic designed to break this type of effect can truly end it. The more conviction the person has, the more costly and difficult such magic becomes as it tries to override this effect.
Words Are Not Enough Infliction: Infants have great freedom of thought, but no basis for understanding. Adults have a lifetime of education and experience, but they are wrapped in their habits of thought. Tightest of these chains is language. The Primordials designed mortals to communicate and interact, and so mortals do, clipping the wings of their minds. When invoking this Charm, the martial artist names a language family and evokes an image that could be associated with that language. Anyone who speaks or understands that chosen language and can possibly see the image has her gaze drawn to it. They see the martial artist strike at this avatar of language with fist and Essence, and the image shatters into a thousand pieces.
This effect scathes their minds, and if they fail to resist it with a combination of their magical potential, intelligence, and understanding of language at great difficulty due to the power of the wielder’s essence, they lose all ability to speak or comprehend that language. People who do not speak that language are not affected. An affected character can never again speak, write, read or understand that language. A character robbed of her last or only known language can never again learn any language. The martial artist has ripped an ephemeral but permanent binding from her. The victim no longer understands any form of interpersonal communication, and her soul becomes free of the structure of words. No method of social or mental influence that depends on communication can affect her. She gains great brilliance and creativity in a number of fields, but is utterly unable to ever communicate this to anyone ever again.
Two Score Mirror Glance: The end is in the beginning. To use this Charm, a martial artist perfectly mirrors his own previous actions—but in reverse. His opponent realizes that time has now begun to flow backward, and she is doomed to live out into her past until life ends in the womb. As long as the victim can see the martial artist, she can suffer the Charm’s mental attack. Should the victim fail to resist the attack, she would suffer the charm’s effects.
The target stops moving. For the next six seconds, she no longer perceives reality. Within her mind, she experiences her entire life backward, conscious of events but unable to change anything she did in the past. It happens in an instant, but to her, the experience lasts her entire lifetime. Extremely willful individuals can attempt to break out early, but such things are far from guaranteed.
Further, the trance displays the victim’s past not only how she perceived it, but also as it truly was. When the two are different, they are thrown into stark relief. Whenever the victim re-experiences a portion of her life in which what she perceived was not real, she recognizes the illusion for what it was. If the illusion still afflicts her, it is cured when the trance ends, allowing cures to other charms of this style.
Freeing the Father from the Child: One has never learned enough, but the victim of this Charm will never learn again. When the character attacks. wants), her slashing knife hand looks bladed and devilishly sharp, and her victim appears to onlookers like a figure of shining threads. It must deal damage to take effect, and the more damage it does the easier time it has of inflicting the dangerous side effect it has, made all the more easy as it bypasses most mundane armor, and seriously reduces the effectiveness of magical armor in stopping the attack.
The victim remembers everything in his life until the point when the Charm affected him. Nothing that happens after the decisive attack sticks with him. He remembers the last five to 10 minutes. This is enough for the victim to make sense of a combat scene or a brief verbal exchange, but anything further in the past gets muddled. His memory is fuzzy enough that he does not react violently when he wakes up in a different location than he went to sleep, but he does need to meet people and learn events all over again. As time passes, he becomes more and more dissociated from reality. To the victim, it seems like everything’s changed since just last night.
A target of this Charm may exert his will to keep some additional memories, but it is extremely taxing on their will to do so for longer than a few hours per day perhaps. Muscle memory is unaffected, so they can still learn skills, and with enough use of will they can learn languages or other things, but it is still extremely difficult. Eliminating the problem does not allow the victim to regain lost memories—they are gone for good, barring use of Two Score Mirror Glance to experience that period all over again. Yet it does allow him to begin remembering what he experiences. Spells that are attempting to clear this condition are far more expensive than normal.
Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic Form: Identity is a mere trick of Essence. Strands of fate weave through the Essence of Creation. They too are made of Essence, and this determines who and what a person is. The martial artist who uses the Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic Form unravels her own strands of fate and sends them out to snare other people and wrap them in her own pattern. While this Charm is active, the character’s Essence diffuses through others. She may attempt to mentally assault any sentient entity she touches as a reflexive action. Their willpower is contested against the practitioners force of presence, their skill with martial arts, and their magical potency.
When successful, the character asserts a total control effect upon the target. For anywhere between twenty minutes and an hour, scene, she controls the character’s body as if it were her own. She may move with it, attack with it, laugh or talk with it or simply leave it static. Her actions with this person’s body use her own Attributes and Abilities, and the body takes on the character’s posture and expression while it is under her influence.
Controlling another body in no way hinders the martial artist’s control of her own body. In effect, she now has two bodies operating under a single mind, each taking separate actions. A practitioner may not ensnare more people in this way at one time than she has dots of Essence, but she may release a body reflexively if she suddenly wishes to take over another.
Reliant Soul Infiltration: Speaking her name twice and a secret name once, the martial artist creates a duplicate of her personality in the form of a glistening shard of anima that she draws from her mouth. It quickly disappears in her hands like a conjuror’s trick. The next time she touches a sentient entity, she insinuates that replica of her mind into her target. Her identity surges along the flows of Essence to the target’s soul, the seat of his self, where it attempts to take command. The martial artist maintains a tie between both identities, perceiving both her normal senses and an internal, purely mental sense of the struggle to dominate her target’s body.
Should she overcome the target’s mental defenses, she is free to command any actions from her victim for the next 10 minutes. The martial artist is able to use her victim’s body, Charms and other abilities with complete efficiency, but with her own mental faculties and strengths.
When the 10 minutes are up, the magic of the Charm fades. Essence no longer forces the body’s owner into the backseat—but the Charm-created identity is self-aware. Its preservation instinct is as strong as that of the original character, and it will not go quietly. Both identities inside the victim’s body fight for control, and the losing side is destroyed. The martial artist might not wish her duplicate identity to live on, whether out of kindness to her victim or jealousy toward her identity. She may design it to fail at the moment of final conflict, causing it to lose out no matter how weak the will of the other is.
Whoever wins, this is when the practitioner loses control of the target body. If the body’s original mind wins, the practitioner’s influence is clearly over. Even if the character’s replica wins, it is no longer connected to the martial artist’s mind. Though the two identities have identical histories, the different experiences each has from that point on quickly turn them into individuals. They likely share goals and morals—for a while—but the character’s secondary personality changes rapidly, especially based on the qualities of the body it now inhabits. Mortal bodies make the mind more cautious and less carefree, while inhabiting an alien body makes the personality alien.
Without Assumption: The practitioner imagines a place where he does not exist and has never existed. He invents the names of the people who live there. Donning a perfect expression of one of those names in his stance, he becomes a non-entity. For the Charm’s duration, the martial artist is not a valid target for any effect or action. Others cannot recognize or remember him. Without Assumption does not replace the character’s attacks with non-attacks; other entities may still target and affect these. Without Assumption also does not protect against Charms and natural “attacks” that affect anyone within an area.
Beauty is in the Eye: Humans have great power in them, gifts from their creators sadly contained and constrained by their silly little clay bodies. If they could open that flesh and step out, they could express a smidgen of their potential. Instead, they sit and bake in their prisons of mud, just waiting to be cracked open. This Charm blows breath on that small spark of power all creatures received from their Primordial makers and gives it enough fuel to blossom into a raging wildfire.
Activating this Charm, a portion of the world opens around the Exalt, peeling outward from a single axis like an eye with the character as the pupil. It is a two-dimensional rift in a three-dimensional space, and it appears the same from all perspectives. It can be seen clearly up to 10 miles away. Closing, the character disappears with it.
She undergoes a transformation while nowhere, gaining the following benefits: Her Valor increases her strength charisma and size, her temperance increases her stamina and wits while giving her an elemental theme appropriate to the location, her conviction blesses her with increased intelligence and manipulation and causes two phantom arms to grow from her back and for her to radiate with the might of the unconquered sun, her compassion increases her dexterity and perception and rendering her an avatar of life and death that those who look at her recognize both in, her appearance becomes absolutely divine, abilities that affect her fate fail to locate her and thus fail. Her form causes those who look upon her to lose willpower so long as they look directly at her, and those she strikes feel their virtuous aspects begin to fade temporarily as she feeds on them. Finally, her mind is unbound, causing illusions and mirages of what she envisions in the area around her.
When the Charm ends, the monstrous entity disappears in an instant, replaced with the character’s normal form.
Meditative Battlefield Escalation: (I am too lazy to translate this over as it is way too complicated so here is a link. ninjasensei.wikidot.com/charms:meditative-battlefield-escalation )
Obsidian Shards of Infinity Style: Obsidian Shards of Infinity Style holds a mirror up to reality and then shatters it, splintering it into thousands of possibilities and exploiting them all to fight the enemies of the styles practitioners. The gods that govern fate congregate near areas of fate that have seen it’s use, and they chatter to each other softly, appearing to be deeply disconcerted, slightly confused, and even upset. In the company of an Exalted practitioner of this style, they show the same deference that they would to any of the Exalted, but they leave their presence as soon as possible.
A practitioner seems to understand something that their opponents do not, a subtle knowing look lies in their eyes, even as they seems to look at something that isn’t there. Every move seems strange and slightly jerky, and the logic behind their motions is impenetrable; his attacks flatly impossible. When a practitioner divulges their philosophy, they speak in difficult to understand metaphors and it is difficult for others to make any sense of it. Perhaps they say that there are many ways of seeing. Perhaps they say there is only one but it can be portrayed as many. And perhaps he only says that one can choose at will, and punctuates it with a perfect strike from nowhere.
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}Black Shards Fall Like Ice: With a shout, a step and a ringing clap, the martial artist calls forth a rain of sharpened glass. For an area 50 yards in radius, obsidian fragments slice down, dealing damage that reduces the effect of armor to anyone caught inside. This can be aimed at any spot within 250 yards of the practitioner.
Ripple in the Silvered Glass: When a foe attacks, the practitioner brings his hands together, then parts them as if he were opening a pair of curtains. On a successful attack by a foe, this Charm posits an alternative, which then becomes true. The practitioner may say that his attacker, instead, stumbled and fell at his feet or broke her weapon with her clumsiness. The martial artist must limit himself to a substitute that is possible, but almost anything can happen.
The target of this ability may, if they are willful enough, notice something is extremely wrong as the new reality falls into place around them. Unless they are observant and witty enough to overcome the massive penalty dealt by the skill and the magical essence of the practitioner, they will be unable to do anything. If they do, then they can manage to just not hit, and not have anything terrible happen to them that the practitioner included in their new reality. Only those who are on a scale greater than the practitioner can completely ignore this effect.
This can also be used perfectly against non-sentient beings, as well as playing to any effect directed at them through a mirrored surface, such as scrying. They become aware of the effect and may choose to counter it or not.
Reaching Through the Mirror: Gesturing at an opponent, the practitioner calls that opponent’s reflection to face her. Any reflective surfaces around the target, no matter how they are angled, show that person. For the rest of the scene, the martial artist can attack the reflection of her foe with even more facility than she could attack the foe himself. Attacks against the reflections are undodgeable, and the is hard pressed to parry them. And, as the mirror breaks or the water ripples beneath the martial artist’s hand, her enemy feels cracks lancing across his skin. This damage ignores a great deal of an enemy’s natural toughness and armor, and is as damaging as blades would be instead of a simple blunt weapon.
Shattering the Balance: Catching his target’s eye, the martial artist strikes her reflection—and the target’s mind shatters into madness. She may be afflicted with multiple personalities, bedeviled by persistent hallucinations or made to suffer from any other terrible psychosis of which the practitioner can think. Induced psychoses are considered both Compulsion and Sickness effects. Appropriate rituals or Charms may be effective against them. To resist, a person must have the force of will to overcome the skill of the martial artist in delivering the strike.
Obsidian Shards of Infinity Form: Enemies cannot easily find the person behind the Obsidian Shards of Infinity practitioner’s endless reflections. Any time a foe successfully strikes him, the martial artist can spend one mote and break into five shards, which disappear as she instantly and reflexively re-forms within ten yards. She has taken no damage, and can attempt to surprise her opponent.
There is a downside to this form, however. There is a one in ten chance the practitioner suddenly has a vision of an alternate world where things are happening differently, obscuring her knowledge of her opponent’s actions or the results of her own action every time she acts. The truth reveals itself when she comes back to reality the next time she acts, however.
The Mirror Does Not Lie: Reflections don’t just portray the world, they give back a new vision. After activating this Charm, the martial artist may deflect any attacks against her as if she were bouncing a beam of light from a mirror. She can choose the attacker’s new target as long as that target is not the attacker himself. To everyone who witnesses the event, it looks like that person was the target all along. Only the practitioner and the attacker know his original intent. Foes can slip through cracks in the practitioner’s mirror by using attacks that no observers see coming. The attack must truly be unseen by all watchers, not just the practitioner herself.
Vanished Within the Glass: Who can resist looking in a mirror? The practitioner shows his enemy her reflected image—and while the enemy looks, he throws her in. With a touch or a successful hit by the practitioner, the target of this Charm vanishes. It seems to her that she walks through the world, tries to speak to others or pick things up, but nothing she does affects her surroundings. The only way to see her is to see her reflection.
She appears in polished silver just as she would if she were actually in Creation, and any who see her there can hear her as well, but not directly affect her in any way. The martial artist himself can sense her normally, but he can’t affect her either.
The Essence spent on this Charm is committed as long as the target remains trapped. If the practitioner touches her insubstantial form and voluntarily releases that Essence, or if he dies, then she is freed.
Draw Forth One Shard: The martial artist pulls gently at the mirror she holds before her enemy, and the reflection of her foe suddenly stands beside him. A close observer, however, sees something different about the double—an edge to its smile, the slightest change in its movements. It’s not the same person, they think—or, as the duplicates turn toward each other, is it?
To use this Charm, the practitioner must touch either the target or any surface reflecting his image. The duplicate—the shard—has the traits, personal possessions and knowledge of the original, save that it does not itself have a reflection. There is also one other, small change, which the martial artist cannot predict or control. This difference is rarely more significant than a change in a single trait’s score.
Although the shard-person has its own consciousness and will, it is completely under the practitioner’s control. At will, the martial artist may see through its eyes or control its movements. If she should take any actions against it, she automatically succeeds. The duplicate lasts indefinitely.
The shard and original share a mystical bond. The reflection may use any of its parent’s Charms or other abilities, and uses their energy to do so. The practitioner also selects one other aspect of the shard’s connection to its original: sharing physical pain and damage but not death, sharing emotions, learning what it’s parent learns, mimicking of action and movement in general (if one is knocked back some distance, so is the other), and the shard dying with the original and the original going unconscious when the shard dies.
If the parent object of a reflection is destroyed or killed, then the double gains sole access to all the power of the original—but the differences between itself and the original remain, and the practitioner loses all control over her newly empowered creation.
Draw Forth Every Shard: Gesturing to one side, then the other, the practitioner’s form multiplies as if reflected between mirrors. The doubles do not move in unison, but similarly. They all dedicate themselves to whatever the original is doing, be it crafting a daiklave, climbing a cliff or fighting an army.
Every reflection gains the benefits of the Obsidian Shards of Infinity Form. The martial artist may use his other Charms of this style through any of them, but he must pay a one-mote surcharge if he wishes to extend the effects to another duplicate.
Only the first use of this Charm in a scene costs Willpower. The martial artist may create a maximum of 100 duplicates, and they can venture only as far away as they can be perceived, either by their creator or by each other. None but the practitioner himself has a reflection.
Echoes of Infinity: Mirrors opposed to mirrors seem endless. The practitioner can activate this Charm in any place with at least a square yard’s worth of total reflective surfaces or with distinct, easily heard echoes. As long as she has these reflections to work from, none of her Martial Arts Charms cost any Essence at all.
Breathing on the Black Mirror: With a breath that lays a dark mist before him, the practitioner steps back, then brings his palm forward in a strike that seems to craze the very air. This Charm may be used only during a climactic scene, when fate hangs heavy and the balance is easily tipped.
Time stops. The martial artist sees five reflections of the scene before him, each representing a possible conclusion to the scene. He must choose one by stepping into it: In the first shard she has won an immediate conflict with difficulty, In the second shard she is offered great joy but no other gain, in the third shard, she has suffered a minor loss but gained a greater, long-term victory, In the fourth shard, she learns something that completely changes her opinion on an important matter, In the last shard, she loses something dear to him, but one of her greatest enemies is killed or neutralized.
Though she will remember using Breathing on the Black Mirror, the practitioner will not be able to recall the contents of any of the other shards once she has stepped into one. No one else will know that she influenced fate at all.
Ripple in the Silvered Glass: When a foe attacks, the practitioner brings his hands together, then parts them as if he were opening a pair of curtains. On a successful attack by a foe, this Charm posits an alternative, which then becomes true. The practitioner may say that his attacker, instead, stumbled and fell at his feet or broke her weapon with her clumsiness. The martial artist must limit himself to a substitute that is possible, but almost anything can happen.
The target of this ability may, if they are willful enough, notice something is extremely wrong as the new reality falls into place around them. Unless they are observant and witty enough to overcome the massive penalty dealt by the skill and the magical essence of the practitioner, they will be unable to do anything. If they do, then they can manage to just not hit, and not have anything terrible happen to them that the practitioner included in their new reality. Only those who are on a scale greater than the practitioner can completely ignore this effect.
This can also be used perfectly against non-sentient beings, as well as playing to any effect directed at them through a mirrored surface, such as scrying. They become aware of the effect and may choose to counter it or not.
Reaching Through the Mirror: Gesturing at an opponent, the practitioner calls that opponent’s reflection to face her. Any reflective surfaces around the target, no matter how they are angled, show that person. For the rest of the scene, the martial artist can attack the reflection of her foe with even more facility than she could attack the foe himself. Attacks against the reflections are undodgeable, and the is hard pressed to parry them. And, as the mirror breaks or the water ripples beneath the martial artist’s hand, her enemy feels cracks lancing across his skin. This damage ignores a great deal of an enemy’s natural toughness and armor, and is as damaging as blades would be instead of a simple blunt weapon.
Shattering the Balance: Catching his target’s eye, the martial artist strikes her reflection—and the target’s mind shatters into madness. She may be afflicted with multiple personalities, bedeviled by persistent hallucinations or made to suffer from any other terrible psychosis of which the practitioner can think. Induced psychoses are considered both Compulsion and Sickness effects. Appropriate rituals or Charms may be effective against them. To resist, a person must have the force of will to overcome the skill of the martial artist in delivering the strike.
Obsidian Shards of Infinity Form: Enemies cannot easily find the person behind the Obsidian Shards of Infinity practitioner’s endless reflections. Any time a foe successfully strikes him, the martial artist can spend one mote and break into five shards, which disappear as she instantly and reflexively re-forms within ten yards. She has taken no damage, and can attempt to surprise her opponent.
There is a downside to this form, however. There is a one in ten chance the practitioner suddenly has a vision of an alternate world where things are happening differently, obscuring her knowledge of her opponent’s actions or the results of her own action every time she acts. The truth reveals itself when she comes back to reality the next time she acts, however.
The Mirror Does Not Lie: Reflections don’t just portray the world, they give back a new vision. After activating this Charm, the martial artist may deflect any attacks against her as if she were bouncing a beam of light from a mirror. She can choose the attacker’s new target as long as that target is not the attacker himself. To everyone who witnesses the event, it looks like that person was the target all along. Only the practitioner and the attacker know his original intent. Foes can slip through cracks in the practitioner’s mirror by using attacks that no observers see coming. The attack must truly be unseen by all watchers, not just the practitioner herself.
Vanished Within the Glass: Who can resist looking in a mirror? The practitioner shows his enemy her reflected image—and while the enemy looks, he throws her in. With a touch or a successful hit by the practitioner, the target of this Charm vanishes. It seems to her that she walks through the world, tries to speak to others or pick things up, but nothing she does affects her surroundings. The only way to see her is to see her reflection.
She appears in polished silver just as she would if she were actually in Creation, and any who see her there can hear her as well, but not directly affect her in any way. The martial artist himself can sense her normally, but he can’t affect her either.
The Essence spent on this Charm is committed as long as the target remains trapped. If the practitioner touches her insubstantial form and voluntarily releases that Essence, or if he dies, then she is freed.
Draw Forth One Shard: The martial artist pulls gently at the mirror she holds before her enemy, and the reflection of her foe suddenly stands beside him. A close observer, however, sees something different about the double—an edge to its smile, the slightest change in its movements. It’s not the same person, they think—or, as the duplicates turn toward each other, is it?
To use this Charm, the practitioner must touch either the target or any surface reflecting his image. The duplicate—the shard—has the traits, personal possessions and knowledge of the original, save that it does not itself have a reflection. There is also one other, small change, which the martial artist cannot predict or control. This difference is rarely more significant than a change in a single trait’s score.
Although the shard-person has its own consciousness and will, it is completely under the practitioner’s control. At will, the martial artist may see through its eyes or control its movements. If she should take any actions against it, she automatically succeeds. The duplicate lasts indefinitely.
The shard and original share a mystical bond. The reflection may use any of its parent’s Charms or other abilities, and uses their energy to do so. The practitioner also selects one other aspect of the shard’s connection to its original: sharing physical pain and damage but not death, sharing emotions, learning what it’s parent learns, mimicking of action and movement in general (if one is knocked back some distance, so is the other), and the shard dying with the original and the original going unconscious when the shard dies.
If the parent object of a reflection is destroyed or killed, then the double gains sole access to all the power of the original—but the differences between itself and the original remain, and the practitioner loses all control over her newly empowered creation.
Draw Forth Every Shard: Gesturing to one side, then the other, the practitioner’s form multiplies as if reflected between mirrors. The doubles do not move in unison, but similarly. They all dedicate themselves to whatever the original is doing, be it crafting a daiklave, climbing a cliff or fighting an army.
Every reflection gains the benefits of the Obsidian Shards of Infinity Form. The martial artist may use his other Charms of this style through any of them, but he must pay a one-mote surcharge if he wishes to extend the effects to another duplicate.
Only the first use of this Charm in a scene costs Willpower. The martial artist may create a maximum of 100 duplicates, and they can venture only as far away as they can be perceived, either by their creator or by each other. None but the practitioner himself has a reflection.
Echoes of Infinity: Mirrors opposed to mirrors seem endless. The practitioner can activate this Charm in any place with at least a square yard’s worth of total reflective surfaces or with distinct, easily heard echoes. As long as she has these reflections to work from, none of her Martial Arts Charms cost any Essence at all.
Breathing on the Black Mirror: With a breath that lays a dark mist before him, the practitioner steps back, then brings his palm forward in a strike that seems to craze the very air. This Charm may be used only during a climactic scene, when fate hangs heavy and the balance is easily tipped.
Time stops. The martial artist sees five reflections of the scene before him, each representing a possible conclusion to the scene. He must choose one by stepping into it: In the first shard she has won an immediate conflict with difficulty, In the second shard she is offered great joy but no other gain, in the third shard, she has suffered a minor loss but gained a greater, long-term victory, In the fourth shard, she learns something that completely changes her opinion on an important matter, In the last shard, she loses something dear to him, but one of her greatest enemies is killed or neutralized.
Though she will remember using Breathing on the Black Mirror, the practitioner will not be able to recall the contents of any of the other shards once she has stepped into one. No one else will know that she influenced fate at all.
Sorcery: Unlike charms, sorcery is not an act that is channeled through any particular skill, nor does it come naturally to even the Chosen of the Most High. Indeed, to become a sorcerer one must fundamentally break open progressively bigger and bigger holes in their soul in order to draw more and more power through it, stuffing the holes where one has sacrificed things important to them in order to gain the power with more sorcerous potential. Sorcery is willwork in its most pure form, and as such it takes enormous concentration and force of will to cast spells, with the largest spells draining the most strong-willed people in only a few consecutive spells. It also demands enormous amounts of Essence and takes more time than using charms, so it is best suited as a strategic weapon or tactical weapon rather than something that someone normally fights one on one with. It draws upon the very nature of Essence, and Kishar subscribes to the Devnonian theory that sorcery is simply exploiting natural law with tools left behind by the Primordials, and that it acts much like we would believe natural laws would, leaving her quite the scientist for a Sorcerer.
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}Emerald Circle Spells: First Circle Demon, Emerald Countermagic, Emerald Banishment, Death of Obsidian Butterflies, Impenetrable Frost Barrier, Summon Elemental
Sapphire Circle Spells: Second Circle Demon, Sapphire Countermagic, Sapphire Banishment, Travel Without Distance, Dolorous Reflection, Eternal Crystalline Encasement, Imbue Amalgam, Magma Kraken, Ivory Orchid Pavillion, Outside Worlds Within, Raise the Puissant Sanctum, Gift of Knowledge
Adamant Circle Spells: Third Circle Demon, Adamant Countermagic, Adamant Banishment, Rain of Doom, Abjuration of the Maidens, Chariot of the Blazing Sun, Cleansing Solar Flames, Curse of Unyielding Mist, Benediction of Archgenesis, Enemy of Nature, Evocation from the Mirror, Gaia’s Rebuke, Light of Solar Cleansing, Pressed Beyond the Veils of Time, Solar Sanctuary, Technique Mirror, Total Annihilation, Winds of Confusion
Sapphire Circle Spells: Second Circle Demon, Sapphire Countermagic, Sapphire Banishment, Travel Without Distance, Dolorous Reflection, Eternal Crystalline Encasement, Imbue Amalgam, Magma Kraken, Ivory Orchid Pavillion, Outside Worlds Within, Raise the Puissant Sanctum, Gift of Knowledge
Adamant Circle Spells: Third Circle Demon, Adamant Countermagic, Adamant Banishment, Rain of Doom, Abjuration of the Maidens, Chariot of the Blazing Sun, Cleansing Solar Flames, Curse of Unyielding Mist, Benediction of Archgenesis, Enemy of Nature, Evocation from the Mirror, Gaia’s Rebuke, Light of Solar Cleansing, Pressed Beyond the Veils of Time, Solar Sanctuary, Technique Mirror, Total Annihilation, Winds of Confusion
Necromancy: Necromancy is the necrotic inverse of Sorcery, drawing upon the undead and necrotic essence of the Neverborn in order to achieve it’s ends, and as such, it has far more focus on the dead and related subjects compared to Sorcery. Due to not being in tune enough with death and necrotic essence, Kishar is only able to access the first two of the three circles of Necromancy, much to her chagrin. The same drawbacks and scale apply to Necromancy, only with different subject matter thanks to its alternative source.
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}Iron Circle Spells: Iron Countermagic, Door of the Dead, Flesh-Sloughing Wave, Raise the Skeletal Horde, Shattering Void Mirror, Soul Brand, Summon Ghost, Banish Ghost
Onyx Circle Spells: Onyx Countermagic, Arisen Legion, Baleful Sun and Shadow, Bone Lion, Call the Greater Servitor, Exquisite Undead Aide, Ivory Razor Forest, Shield of Shattering Bones, Spurring the Beast of War, Willful Flesh Commands
Onyx Circle Spells: Onyx Countermagic, Arisen Legion, Baleful Sun and Shadow, Bone Lion, Call the Greater Servitor, Exquisite Undead Aide, Ivory Razor Forest, Shield of Shattering Bones, Spurring the Beast of War, Willful Flesh Commands
EQUIPMENT:
{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}Protoshinamic Vortices: These objects are the cutting edge of solar motonic technology, shaped from the raw essence of the Pure Chaos of the true Wyld. It is the greatest kind of portable energy source available to the Exalted, and can be used for a number of purposes so long as it is properly maintained. If it is not, or it is purposefully ruptured, it causes a localized creation of a Wyld zone, destroying the laws of reality in the area and regressing the place into a locality that resembles reality less than even an absurdist cartoon might at it’s deepest, and taking years for reality to come back and reassert itself, if it ever manages to fully. She has seven of these on her, five embedded in her Skin Mount Amulets, and the other two powering devices.
Skin Mount Amulet: A rather common body modification among the Exalted, often forged to look like jewelry with the hearthstone or vortex that is in the middle as the centerpiece. It allows an Exalt to draw motes from the device, supplementing her natural mote recovery as well as increasing the total pool of motes she can draw from.
Scabbard of the Living Weapon: The Exalted are above the petty concerns of mundanity, and artifacts like this are what show that this is indeed the case. So long as she has her Daiklaive inside the Scabbard, it can be removed by others, and the Scabbard attuned and on her person, she is immune to any and all damage from purely mundane sources, no matter how powerful they are. Only things that are capable of magic can be worthy of her attention.
Daiklaive: A rather large sword made out of Orichalcum that is the typical favored weapon of the Exalted. She hardly uses it, and mostly keeps it attuned and on her person so that she can benefit from the effects of her Scabbard.
Hand of the Great Maker: A powerful tool made out of Orichalcum and Adamant that she wears on her right hand, and is powered by one of her Vortices. It allows her to treat reality as if it were the Wyld in regards to her ability to shape it to her will with her Lore charms that do such things, as well as letting her build up shaping potential in it that normally would have to be generated as she was doing the shaping, instead of before she was intending to do it, allowing for quicker shaping that might be useful in combat instead of just in a theoretical sense.
Metasorcerous Phylactery: A combination of all of the magical materials and malfean brass, this phylactery lets her alter and empower her sorcery, making it more powerful, increasing the duration, the success of the spell, the range of the spell, changing how it manifests, as well as adding triggers so that it does not go off until later.
Infinite Resplendence Amulet: A composite design made out of all of the magical materials, this amulet allows Kishar to create clothing from nothing, taking on different characteristics depending on which material she activates within the amulet. Orichalcum provides clothes luxurious clothes woven from light that enhance the proper glory of the solar exalted and render her even more beautiful than she already is. Moonsilver provides camoflauge and greater protection, making it more suitable for combat and is made out of flowing, liquid metal. Starmetal weaves clothes out of strands of the owner’s own fate, and is filled with pockets that are connected to a pocket of elsewhere that she has plenty of materials for making artifacts, including large amounts of rare reagents and magical metals, as well as a miniature library of tomes. Shes got a device built into it to sort through her rather large amount of items as well to find what she needs. She never uses the jade version, as it is far too base for her tastes but she could not get one in just three metals.
Discreet Essence Armor: Four bangles, one for each of her limbs, adorn Kishar’s form, made out of finely decorated Orichalcum. Normally they are dormant and do nothing, but when attacked they flare to live, providing a force field of essence that acts as armor without unduly limiting her movement and causing her to be unable to practice her most potent martial arts. They are polished to a mirror shine to allow her to use her Obsidian Shards Of Infinity Style charms with them.
Forge Hand Gauntlets: A pair of artifact gloves that superheat in order to allow her to just work metal with her hands without needing to use her charm to eschew tools. They heat up to extreme temperatures, so they make for decent improvised weapons if she only is using her Solar Hero Style and not her Sidereal Styles, as they are not compatible with them.
Resplendant Satchel of Healing: A set of powerful artifact tools for healing that she keeps with her in case she chooses to save a bit on essence by not eschewing the treatment of an individual, all the while boosting the effectiveness with the different items she has in it, both in their individual uses and the general helpfulness of having dedicated medical tools to work with.
Arms of Multiple Manipulation: Another biomotonic implant that she has put into herself, these crystals normally lie dormant, one above each of her wings. With a direction of Essence into them, she can grow ten extra arms of ethereal essence that can extend up to ten yards away. They can be set to engage in a task on their own while she is involved with something else, such as casting a spell or combat, but are best for use in tasks that require fine manipulation. They can even form themselves into any mundane tool she finds herself in need of, whetehr it be a hammer, scalpal, or a set of lockpicking devices.
Crown of Luminous Command: An artifact that she created to help her manage other artifacts she uses. It allows her to command golems, automata, and even other created life she has created with just her thoughts, as well as operate functions of any manse or other magitech device. The limit is that she has to install transceivers onto them that are attuned to the device, which count as artifacts on their own and have to be individually made and attached to them on their own. They are rather minor artifacts, however, so it doesn't take too long for them to be made. They can, however, be targeted and destroyed to remove her ability to direct them with her mind. It takes the form of the crown that she has floating on her head normally, but it can turn into a regular circlet with a small expenditure of Essence.
Omniscient Literary Advisor: A tool that can autoread a book in any language and translate it for it’s owner, as well as letting them query it for information instead of just listening to it or reading the book themselves.
Resplendant Personal Assistant: Magical compass, watch, and calendar combination that can keep track of the seasons and the phases of the moon.
Hyperion Key: An Artifact made for the creation of other artifacts. So long as she keeps it properly maintained, which is a fairly simple task for someone as skilled in Magitech as herself, she can negate penalties for working with magical materials other than Orichalcum, which resonates with her Exaltation and is easy to work with by nature, as well as unlock the potential in more mundane objects so that they may be used as ingredients for Artifacts.
Skin Mount Amulet: A rather common body modification among the Exalted, often forged to look like jewelry with the hearthstone or vortex that is in the middle as the centerpiece. It allows an Exalt to draw motes from the device, supplementing her natural mote recovery as well as increasing the total pool of motes she can draw from.
Scabbard of the Living Weapon: The Exalted are above the petty concerns of mundanity, and artifacts like this are what show that this is indeed the case. So long as she has her Daiklaive inside the Scabbard, it can be removed by others, and the Scabbard attuned and on her person, she is immune to any and all damage from purely mundane sources, no matter how powerful they are. Only things that are capable of magic can be worthy of her attention.
Daiklaive: A rather large sword made out of Orichalcum that is the typical favored weapon of the Exalted. She hardly uses it, and mostly keeps it attuned and on her person so that she can benefit from the effects of her Scabbard.
Hand of the Great Maker: A powerful tool made out of Orichalcum and Adamant that she wears on her right hand, and is powered by one of her Vortices. It allows her to treat reality as if it were the Wyld in regards to her ability to shape it to her will with her Lore charms that do such things, as well as letting her build up shaping potential in it that normally would have to be generated as she was doing the shaping, instead of before she was intending to do it, allowing for quicker shaping that might be useful in combat instead of just in a theoretical sense.
Metasorcerous Phylactery: A combination of all of the magical materials and malfean brass, this phylactery lets her alter and empower her sorcery, making it more powerful, increasing the duration, the success of the spell, the range of the spell, changing how it manifests, as well as adding triggers so that it does not go off until later.
Infinite Resplendence Amulet: A composite design made out of all of the magical materials, this amulet allows Kishar to create clothing from nothing, taking on different characteristics depending on which material she activates within the amulet. Orichalcum provides clothes luxurious clothes woven from light that enhance the proper glory of the solar exalted and render her even more beautiful than she already is. Moonsilver provides camoflauge and greater protection, making it more suitable for combat and is made out of flowing, liquid metal. Starmetal weaves clothes out of strands of the owner’s own fate, and is filled with pockets that are connected to a pocket of elsewhere that she has plenty of materials for making artifacts, including large amounts of rare reagents and magical metals, as well as a miniature library of tomes. Shes got a device built into it to sort through her rather large amount of items as well to find what she needs. She never uses the jade version, as it is far too base for her tastes but she could not get one in just three metals.
Discreet Essence Armor: Four bangles, one for each of her limbs, adorn Kishar’s form, made out of finely decorated Orichalcum. Normally they are dormant and do nothing, but when attacked they flare to live, providing a force field of essence that acts as armor without unduly limiting her movement and causing her to be unable to practice her most potent martial arts. They are polished to a mirror shine to allow her to use her Obsidian Shards Of Infinity Style charms with them.
Forge Hand Gauntlets: A pair of artifact gloves that superheat in order to allow her to just work metal with her hands without needing to use her charm to eschew tools. They heat up to extreme temperatures, so they make for decent improvised weapons if she only is using her Solar Hero Style and not her Sidereal Styles, as they are not compatible with them.
Resplendant Satchel of Healing: A set of powerful artifact tools for healing that she keeps with her in case she chooses to save a bit on essence by not eschewing the treatment of an individual, all the while boosting the effectiveness with the different items she has in it, both in their individual uses and the general helpfulness of having dedicated medical tools to work with.
Arms of Multiple Manipulation: Another biomotonic implant that she has put into herself, these crystals normally lie dormant, one above each of her wings. With a direction of Essence into them, she can grow ten extra arms of ethereal essence that can extend up to ten yards away. They can be set to engage in a task on their own while she is involved with something else, such as casting a spell or combat, but are best for use in tasks that require fine manipulation. They can even form themselves into any mundane tool she finds herself in need of, whetehr it be a hammer, scalpal, or a set of lockpicking devices.
Crown of Luminous Command: An artifact that she created to help her manage other artifacts she uses. It allows her to command golems, automata, and even other created life she has created with just her thoughts, as well as operate functions of any manse or other magitech device. The limit is that she has to install transceivers onto them that are attuned to the device, which count as artifacts on their own and have to be individually made and attached to them on their own. They are rather minor artifacts, however, so it doesn't take too long for them to be made. They can, however, be targeted and destroyed to remove her ability to direct them with her mind. It takes the form of the crown that she has floating on her head normally, but it can turn into a regular circlet with a small expenditure of Essence.
Omniscient Literary Advisor: A tool that can autoread a book in any language and translate it for it’s owner, as well as letting them query it for information instead of just listening to it or reading the book themselves.
Resplendant Personal Assistant: Magical compass, watch, and calendar combination that can keep track of the seasons and the phases of the moon.
Hyperion Key: An Artifact made for the creation of other artifacts. So long as she keeps it properly maintained, which is a fairly simple task for someone as skilled in Magitech as herself, she can negate penalties for working with magical materials other than Orichalcum, which resonates with her Exaltation and is easy to work with by nature, as well as unlock the potential in more mundane objects so that they may be used as ingredients for Artifacts.
APPEARANCE:
As befitting one of the Chosen of the Most High, Kishar has brought her appearance to the peak of what would be considered possible for a mortal. This is, after all, the bare minimum accepted for someone of her age and rank in the Solar Deliberative. She has flowing golden hair and golden eyes that she gave herself with her mastery over the humanoid form, replacing her dull black hair and brown eyes, and leaving her skin radiantly white instead of the muddy brown that she had sported when she was a mere mortal human. Indeed, very little of what she looked like when she was one of the throng of mortals remains on her visage, as she has moved past such things in her two millennia of age, throwing away even her mortal name for something far more fitting in her opinion. After all, she was one of the Chosen who ruled Creation, she had to stand above the mortal masses that she was divinely appointed to rule over. Who was she to argue with the millennia old traditions of the Exalted that had formed long before she had drawn her Second Breath and truly become alive.
As such, she eternally dresses the part of a ruler, refusing to wear anything but clothing created through her Amulet of Infinite Resplendence, much preferring the Orichalcum setting as it was most appropriate for her and only rarely using the others in case she needs to retrieve something from Elsewhere or enter combat, using Starmetal and Moonsilver for the two of those respectively, as they are more suited to those applications than the Orichalcum setting, much to her infinite chagrin. Her clothing always is made to accentuate her Discreet Essence Armor and Metasorcerous bracelet, as well as the Skin Mounted amulets, all of which contain Protoshinmaic vortices that she treats as if they were emeralds to add to her attire. The skin mounts are on her left and right shoulders, her breastbone, the back of her left hand which has the Bracelet, as well as right below her bellybutton. On her Right hand is her Gauntlet of the Maker, which carries its own Vortex.
On her back are two golden wings that she also added to her form, as her village of birth had legends of winged servants of the Unconquered Sun who served him faithfully and saved villagers. She knows these legends to be false, but she enjoyed the imagery so she had decided to take on their form for her own use. Above all, one will notice a constant air of arrogance and superiority that she keeps about herself, ingrained into her by many centuries of rule by divine mandate over a city that was once her small home village. Worshipped by the people, though she did officially discourage it since such a thing was illegal in name, she didn't really do much about it seriously as it gave her additional essence and will to fuel her research.
PERSONALITY:
Kishar is a person who is constantly putting on a show, at least when she is in public. She has to act to keep up with the expectations of what a person in her post should be like when she is out in public events. Benevolent, Magnanimous, Wise, Regal. All things that she is forced to be when her subjects are watching so that she can get the adulation and praise she feeds and thrives on, as well as so that she is not judged by the other members of the Deliberative for not acting like a member of the Chosen should, and while stress like this would likely break lesser women in a fraction of the time she has been alive, it simply takes a great toll on her when she is forced to do it, leaving her rather reluctant to do those things.
Instead, she prefers to be left to the private of her own sanctum and her lunar mate, who she has long since abandoned that sort of behavior in front of. When alone or in a place that does not require such pomp and circumstance, such as in a meeting of fellow researchers and sorcerers, she is far less like that, and more akin to a researcher devoted to her subject when it comes up, and more akin to a bit of a bookish person in general otherwise. She had always wanted to learn more when she was growing up as a mortal, so when she Exalted as a Twilight Caste, she took full advantage of her position and became one of the most learned people in Creation in order to compensate for the years of being an undereducated peasant.
She does come off as rather callous and cruel, though this is a result of the effects of the Great Curse taking it’s toll on her as well as having to spend all her emotional energy for caring on her public persona. As such, when she is not maintaining it, she can be rather uncaring about the suffering of others, which is a necessity considering her research into Genesis as well as Necromancy. Anyone overly compassionate and not willing to sacrifice lives and create suffering are very unlikely to be able to go far in that field, or so she justifies her callousness in her head. She remembers a time when she wasn’t like this, and she convinces herself that she is better off this way, even though deep down she knows she would have been horrified at what she has become if her old self saw her current self.
As she is rather not interested in governance, she tends to leave that to her Lunar Mate, who is rather good at that sort of thing. She isn’t sure if he was originally that way or if he just picked up after her for so many years he has become extremely good at it, but she doesn’t particularly care either way. She simply appreciates his willingness to do the usual running of the kingdom so that she doesn’t have to put on the public persona so much and she can instead just be left alone to work on her research and sorcerous workings. That is what she prefers far more about being an Exalt over any sort of notion of being a ruler. She is willing to play the part and has become used to the trappings and luxuries, but at her heart she is a scholar and a researcher, and this will never change.
HISTORY:
Kishar was born in what was originally a small hamlet on the borders of reality, one of the many small villages that supplied efforts to expand into the Wyld. She has long forgotten the name that she went under as a mortal, as well as the faces and names of her parents, siblings, and friends during that time. After all, it has been two thousand years since that time, and she has had much to do besides reminisce about her rather unflattering days among the mortal throngs of creation, laboring day in and day out for her betters. The one moment from this time in her life that is scorched into her memory better than any other is the incident that led to her taking the Second Breath and becoming one of the Chosen of the Most High, a Solar Exalt.
She, like all of her kind, went through a trial by fire that proved that she was worthy. It was nothing formal or fated even, just one of many grueling things that happened to so many people throughout the world on a daily basis, or so she tells herself now that she knows such a thing. In her mind, she simply stood up and took the call to do the impossible when others shied away from greatness o fled from danger to leave those they cared about behind, saving their own skin for now but rendering them unfit to join the ranks of the Exalted.
Her trial came when the Raksha, unintelligible horrors made from Wyld Essence and Living Narratives, descended upon her small hamlet in the back woods. Naturally, they were outmatched and the town was trying to evacuate as many people as possible, starting with the women and children so that they could go on to continue the legacy of the village while the men had a last stand to keep the Raksha at bay. She knew that they were all doomed without aide, and she was the daughter of the local thaumaturge, and she had always been bright. She had devised something that might just work right here and right now to keep them at bay, but it was extremely risky and was as likely to destroy her as it was to save her village. Despite having an opportunity to go to safety, she denied that call to safety and instead leapt into the lions den.
She walked out onto the ramparts, the men all astonished that she was there, trying to get her to flee, but she would not. She traced the boundaries of the village with runic scripts, written in the Old Realm that only thaumaturges and the high class used to communicate, covering it in an intricate spell that she would later learn was Sorcery, not thaumaturgy. She had managed to self-initiate into sorcery completely on accident, and this act would normally have destroyed her as the spell would have consumed her entire body as payment. But instead, the ingenuity and audacity of the lone girl working to save her village with her mind attracted a free Twilight Exaltation, which bound to her and sped up her work, allowing her to both save her village and not die at the same time.
By the time she was done, her body burnt bright with the Essence of the Ignis Divine, her anima banner at full blaze and the bright golds, blues, reds, and purples that defined the anima of the Twilight Caste lit up the village in a blaze of hues and drove the Raksha back, they knew better than to try the defenses of what seemed to be a Solar Exalt. This was the basis for the cult that would later spring up in her dominion, as she later came back to the village to make it her domain, cutting swathes through the wyld and bringing it under her fold to create a large and prosperous kingdom with her old village at the very heart of it. Her motivation was to change it like she had changed herself, so that no vestiges of her previous mortal self remained, leaving her as only the beautiful, glorious Exalt that she had become.
She sought deeper truths of Essence, and experimented with Crafting, Sorcery, Sidereal Martial Arts, Lore, Occultism, and even Necromancy in order to more deeply pursue her quest to find the truth, and eventually she managed to catch a lead that nobody else had been able to find. A strange pattern of Essence utterly alien to Creation. She had to figure it out and discover what it was, no matter the cost. She then spent the next century devoting her life to creating a powerful manse of power only surpassed by the Sword of Creation, and then routing it to an artifact she had created of similar magnitude that would let her bore a hole through reality itself to reach the alien land and explore it. This is how she came to reach the Physical realm of the Astral planes, shot through a wormhole through the void at immense speed towards the unknown.
