The Demented One
2009-05-17, 04:56 PM
Amber Concatenation of Aeons Style
In the Chaos before the world, there was no time. Past, present, and future were meaningless concepts–there was only inchoate shapelessness, without any temporal order. But then arose the Primordials, who wrought order out of chaos, and imposed time upon reality. By their decree, what has happened is the past, what is happening is the present, and what will happen is the future. The Loom of Fate they created enforces and maintains this dictum, the Pattern Spiders on it ceaselessly scurrying to ensure the orderly flow of causality.
But while the ordained course of time is inevitable, it is not absolute. In the First Age, Sidereals developed a reality-warping martial art called the Amber Concatenation of Aeons Style. With it, they could bend or break time itself, warping it to their will. Its masters were capable of feats unmatched by any other Exalt–the high, forbidden art of changing the past. The only thing they could not do was to traverse time itself, the sole stricture on their power.
There are none left who remember the art. Every Sidereal of the First Age who knew it has died in the years since, either slain by vengeful Solars in the Usurpation, or finally succumbing to the Paradox Venoms of frustrated Pattern Spiders. Chejop Kejak is said to have studied the basic principles of the style, but he never learned any of its Charms, dreading any power that could meddle in the past, and perhaps avert the Usurpation before it began. Records of the style remain within Heaven’s archives, though they are kept in so dusty a sub-archive that none, not even Chejop, know of their existence. They wait silently for a Sidereal who can find them and master the techniques within, returning the Amber Concatenation of Aeons to the present.
Weapons and Armor: The Amber Concatenation of Aeons style makes use of swords and staves, weapons with which the hourglass-patterns of the style’s attacks can be traced. Charms of this style treat attacks made with swords and staffs as unarmed attacks, as well as attacks made with artifact versions of those weapons. Characters cannot use Charms of this style while wearing armor.
The Student’s Sutra of Hours: Once, there was a curious maiden…
Recognition of Infinite Possibilities
Cost: 3m
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Reflexive (Step 1)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Who found a crystal palace of countless mirrors.
Creation’s history is a single, flowing progression of events and moments, endlessly extending from the past into the future. But what of the un-histories, the things that could have happened but did not? The first art of the Amber Concatenation is too understand every single way in which an event could unfold...and then to choose which one occurs. The martial artist refracts time into two different time streams, and acts in each. Effectively, he takes two completely separate independent actions. He can divide each of the actions as normal. Once he has taken both actions, he chooses which one actually happened, and which was just a glimmer of possibility. Only the events of the action he chooses–dice rolls, attacks, Charm activations, mote or willpower expenditures–actually occur. The actions the martial artist takes must be different–otherwise, both actions use the same dice rolls. However, as long as there is some difference in the actions they take, no matter how small, the Charm functions normally.
At Essence 5, the martial artist can take more than two actions with this Charm, although he may still only keep one. Each additional action costs him one mote, to a maximum of (Essence) actions. However, for every action past the second he takes, he rolls one Paradox die. Meddling with alternate presents and futures overburdens the Pattern Spiders with labor, and doing so to excess invites their wrath.
On the other hand, though, martial artists who have already incurred Paradox find that shaping time to their liking becomes much easier. Perhaps it displaces them slightly from the normal time flow, or creates a temporal fault line which they can exploit–but regardless of why, martial artists with 5 Paradox or more can use this Charm without it counting as Charm activation.
Flickering Transience Reminder
Cost: 12m
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Fate, Obvious, Shaping,Touch
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Recognition of Infinite Possibilities
The palace was ancient beyond the maiden’s years,
Anyone who would gaze into the fires of time must cultivate a deep clarity of perspective, the power to contemplate eternity. With such an understanding, a martial artist finds that all foes and obstacles fall away–for surely, within only a few hundred years, they will no longer exist. All that it takes is a gentle reminder of their inevitable fate.
This Charm can be used in multiple ways. When used against an enemy or an object, the martial artist makes a (Dexterity+Martial Arts) roll. The attack need not deal damage; it only has to hit its target. Enemies hit by the attack are aged, their bodies rapidly accelerating through years in moments. They lose one point each of Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina as a shaping effect, to a minimum of one dot. The loss of attribute dots is cumulative. This aging is permanent for mortals, but the Exalted are restored to their youth and regain lost Attribute dots at the end of the scene. Objects hit by the attack are aged to dust and destroyed, their small gods bamboozled into thinking millennia has passed. Artifacts cannot be destroyed with this Charm, but any action taken with them for the rest of the scene takes a -1 internal penalty, and artifact armors lose (Martial Arts) points of soak for the rest of the scene. Internal penalties and lost soak points are cumulative.
Alternatively, this Charm can bypass natural or manmade obstacles for the duration of a scene. The martial artist chooses a single obstacle or impediment–hazardous terrain, a door, a set of manacles–and can ignore its existence for a single action. The hazardous terrain can be traversed as if it were level ground, they can walk through the door as if it were immaterial, and the manacles slip off their wrists. By expending a point of temporary willpower, they may instead ignore the obstacle for an entire scene.
Drowning in Moments
Cost: 1m+
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Reflexive (Step 8)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
And lay beneath oceans unmoving.
It is not enough to strike with force, or to employ complicated martial techniques. In the end, the power of a blow lies in how long the martial artist holds it, the infinitesimal moment of violence. A difference to small for any mortal timepiece to measure could be the difference between a glancing blow and a shattered bone. Having learned this lesson, the martial artist folds time around his fist, so that his strike seems to last forever. Each mote spent on this Charm reduces the target number of a damage roll for a Martial Arts attack by 1, to a minimum of 6. At Essence 5, the target number can be reduced to 5, and at Essence 6, it can be reduced to 4. At Essence 7, the martial artist may spend 4 motes and one point of willpower to buy an auspicious success, automatically converting every die of damage into a success.
This Charm is easier to use for martial artists who are subject to Paradox, as time seems almost eager to fold and fracture in their presence. Martial artists with 5 Paradox or more can use this Charm without it counting as Charm activation.
Shattered Years Cascade
Cost: 12m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling, Fate, Shaping
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Drowning in Moments
As the maiden wandered its endless halls,
There is nothing to be admired in killing a foe–it requires no great skill, and only a certain bare minimum of force to accomplish. It is considered much more elegant by the students of this style to simply see to it that they were never born, delivering a blow that strikes them at the moment of their birth. This Charm supplements an unarmed attack, dealing a blow that echoes throughout their victim’s entire life. If it deals any damage, then the strike echoes through every moment of the victim’s existence, past and future, causing them to always know the pain of the blow. If they are mortal, they die at the moment of their birth. History is revised so that they were delivered stillborn, as the blow meets them as soon as they draw their first breath, and that all but the martial artist remember the altered history. However, the Pattern Spiders take care to it that the greater flow of history is not damaged or changed, though they may resent the extra workload. If the mortal was particularly significant or world-changing, the may inflict one to three dice of Paradox on the martial artist: one die of Paradox for a figure whose name would appear only in local histories, three dice for a mortal known throughout Creation.
The Exalted and other essence users cannot be killed by the blow, but their lives are still filled with the pain of it, at each and every moment. The attack does not deal any damage, but instead imposes a wound penalty equal to the martial artist’s Essence on the victim as a crippling effect. This stacks with any other wound penalties they may have. This crippling neurasthenia cannot be healed by any mundane means, although Charms or spells capable of healing crippling can heal it normally. An Exalt may choose to merely cripple a mortal with this Charm, rather than killing them outright.
Assumption of Unearned Power
Cost: 1m or 1m per wp
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple (Speed 3)
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
She saw herself, as she might soon become,
All learned sorcerers know that traversing time is impossible–for all that they might fold, bend, or even fracture time, they can never travel to the past or future. However, with sufficient cunning, this restriction can be sidestepped. Assuming a complicated asana and repeating the last meaningless koan spoken by the Seven Forbidden Wisdoms before their death, the martial artist creates a temporal loop, drawing on essence or willpower they have not yet gained. The martial artist may either spend one mote to gain up to (Martial Arts + Essence) motes of essence, or gain points of willpower for 1 mote each, to a maximum of (Essence) points. If the martial artist ever gains 10 or more motes or 5 or more Willpower, they must roll one Paradox die–the Pattern Spiders despise even stable temporal loops, and channeling that much through it only exacerbates things.
The Storyteller should keep track of how many times the martial artist has used this Charm, and how many motes or points of Willpower he gained each time. At any point in the future, the Storyteller may declare that the martial artist loses motes or willpower equal to the amount he drew on with a single use of this Charm. The Storyteller should choose a moment at which the loss will have consequences, but should not use it to drain the martial artist’s last remaining motes as he duels a Deathlord, unless they have overused it egregiously.
Amber Concatenation of Aeons Form
Cost: 18m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 5
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form-type
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Assumption of Unearned Power, Flickering Transience Reminder, Shattered Years Cascade
And ran towards her future.
The measured ticking of the clock is a lie, a contraption of gears and springs designed to confound and distort time. The sands of the hourglass are distorted reflections, ignorant of the true course of time. Even the course of the sun in the sky deceives–for if Sol Invictus willed the sun to stand fixed in the sky, time would nevertheless carry on. In the end, the only true measure of time can be found in breaths and heartbeats. For while these can be just as misleading as any other measure, they span the smallest moments of one’s life–and that is all that matters. With breath control only possible through years of training and near-perfect essence mastery, the martial artist slows his breathing almost to a standstill–and in his mind, time slows too.
The martial artist finds that the flow of time around him slows, allowing him to act with great speed. He reduces the speed of every action he takes by half his Essence, to a minimum of 2. He suffers no multiple action penalties on the first (Essence) actions of any flurry, and his land speed is multiplied by his essence. In addition, the blows of others become almost ludicrously easy–his DV can never be reduced below his Essence by any penalties (assuming it is higher to begin with), and he suffers no penalties from coordinated attacks or onslaught penalties. The martial artist does not perceive this as them moving faster, but as everything else moving much more slowly around them.
Whenever the martial artist successfully stunts, he may choose not to gain the normal mote or willpower rewards, and may instead dissipate Paradox, losing a single point of it. The Pattern Spiders are always impressed by feats of heroism, and the patterns of essence employed in this form so delight them that they can even forgive they most egregious of reality-altering transgressions.
Finally, the martial artist becomes a living temporal anomaly, subverting the proper and ordained flow of time. The Pattern Spiders rechannel and harmlessly vent off any major disturbances this causes, but they occasionally leave minor phenomena unchanged–sand flowing upward through an hourglass, flowers retracting back into seeds, jade obols coming up heads every time they are flipped. Some say that they simply cannot stop every flaw in time, others speculate that it amuses them in some inscrutable fashion. Nevertheless, both the martial artist’s player and the Storyteller should feel free to describe cosmetic temporal anomalies, and the martial artist may use them to stunt with.
Slip Between the Falling Sands
Cost: 3m per action, 2wp
Mins: Martial Arts 6, Essence 6
Type: Extra Action
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Amber Concatenation of Aeons Form
The Elder Sutra of Hours: The maiden fled from herself,
Those who live their lives by clocks and hourglasses know nothing of time’s true nature. They see only a sequence of seconds and minutes and hours, a mere progression of discrete, indivisible units. They lack an enlightened perspective. Those who truly understand time know seconds and minutes and lies, mere quantifications of infinitely divisible moments, inchoate quanta of time. They can act between the ticks of a clock, striking ten times before a single grain of sand can fall through the hourglass. The martial artist takes up to (Essence) fully independent actions. If the martial artist makes any Martial Arts attacks with any of his independent actions, he strikes to fast to be seen–the attacks are both undodgeable and unparryable. Only characters with Charms such as Heavenly Guardian Defense can defend against them.
Coils of Inescapable Regression
Cost: 10m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 6, Essence 6
Type: Simple
Keywords: Fate, Shaping
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Slip Between the Falling Sands
Each one retracing the others’ footsteps,
By the decree of the Primordials and the design of the Pattern Spiders, time is linear, a ceaseless flow from past to present. But with infinitely subtle manipulation of essence, the martial artist can divert one rivulet from the flow of time, coiling it inward on itself. The martial artist need only lock eyes with his intended victim and invoke this Charm. Though the victim does not realize anything has happened, their personal time flow has been excised from that of Creation.
When they next go to sleep, this Charm takes effect. When they awake, from their perspective, it is the beginning of the previous day. Events unfold exactly as they did, unless the victim acts differently enough to alter them. Only the victim realizes he has lived through the day before–even the martial artist would be ignorant of it. Every time the victim goes to sleep or dies, he again wakes back up at the start of that day. While the temporal loop may take years or even decades for the character, no one but him realizes it. To any external observer, the victim goes to sleep one night, and wakes up normally in the morning (though he may seem deeply changed).
The only way the victim can escape this temporal loop is to fulfill some condition set by the martial artist. The only limit on this condition is that it must be possible–a mortal could be tasked to kill his wife, but not to kill a Deathlord. By achieving the conditions, he can change the past, altering what happened that day–but only the alterations made on the day he finally completes the conditions are carried over. The Pattern Spiders work as best they can to integrate the new history into the old, preventing any temporal paradoxes from arising in the process (the exact effects of the change are left to the Storyteller). The martial artist always gains 3 Paradox Dice if the victim fulfills the condition. Only he and his victim remember the original history–for everyone else, the altered version was what happened originally, and their memories shift to match.
However, the victim can escape without fulfilling the conditions if he is Exalted, or if the conditions oppose his Motivation. They can escape either by spending Willpower equal to the martial artist’s Essence, or by staying awake for longer than 25 hours, entering the next day. In this case, time is left entirely unaltered.
Because the victim retains knowledge of everything that happens on each day of the temporal loop, some martial artists will use this Charm on themselves or their students in order to allow them to train for years in the space of a single night. While they cannot benefit from a trainer, there is no limit to how long they can spend in training, obviating the increased training time that results from this.
Solipsistic Rejection of Hierarchy
Cost: 20m, 3wp
Mins: Martial Arts 6, Essence 6
Type: Reflexive (Step 1)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: 5 ticks
Prerequisite Charms: Slip Between the Falling Sands
Until one maiden stopped
Stopping his breathing completely and weaving his essence in a infinitely recursive fractal mandala, the martial artist halts the flow of time. Rather than accelerating his own perspective, he slows that of others–all feel themselves slow to a stop, all but incapable of moving. For the next 5 ticks, no one but the martial artist can act–anyone who would act normally during those ticks instead acts on the first tick after. In addition, for those 5 ticks, any action the martial artist takes has a Speed of 1, allowing him to act on each tick. While his enemies cannot act against him, they remain capable of defending themselves against him–they can still defend against his attacks and activate reflexive Charms normally.
Existence-Denying Revision of History
Cost: 15m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 6, Essence 6
Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Fate, Shaping, Touch
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Slip Between the Falling Sands
And killed her other self.
What is a ludicrously overblown threat for some is a reality for masters of this style–”I’ll hit you so hard you grandfather will die!” The martial artist makes a single Martial Arts attack against an enemy, only needing to hit. If it does, each and every ancestor of the character for (Essence) generations is either retroactively killed, or was never born in the first place. The victim fades from existence with in a shimmering wisp of time, never having existed save for in the martial artist’s memories. Mortals are automatically unmade, but Exalted who have an Essence equal to the martial artist’s can attempt a (Willpower) roll, at a difficulty of the martial artist’s Essence, to survive having never been born. If their Essence is higher than the martial artist’s, they automatically survive, although their ancestors are stilled killed or unborn. If any of the victim’s ancestors are Exalted themselves, they can resist this Charm in the same way (using the highest Essence and Willpower they ever attained in life). If all of a victim’s ancestors survive in this way, they automatically survive.
The Pattern Spiders adjust for the removal of an entire family from history, making sure that events still unfold as they should. They also ensure that anyone but the victim who is descended from the killed and unborn ancestors is not unmade, creating a merciful paradox to sustain their life. They despise the intense labor, though: the martial artist gains 1-3 dice of Paradox based on the historical importance of their victim, and then another 1-3 dice of Paradox based on the significance of his ancestors.
Vatic Sublimation of Future Fates
Cost: Special
Mins: Martial Arts 6, Essence 6
Type: Special
Keywords: None
Duration: Special
Prerequisite Charms: Coils of Inescapable Regression, Existence-Denying Revision of History, Solipsistic Rejection of Hierarchy
“As you were, so will I become,” she said.
Rejecting the lie of his own limitations, the martial artist assumes the power of his future self. Using this Charm, he may use any Charm that he could ever learn, even if he does not meet its Essence or Ability minimums, or know all of its prerequisite Charms. The mote cost of the Charm is increased by half, and the martial artist must pay a point of willpower, plus an additional point for every dot of Essence or Ability minimums he does not meet. However, this otherwise functions just as if he had used the unknown Charm normally. He gains one die of Paradox for every dot he failed to meet the Charm’s Essence and Ability minimums by, and gains one additional dice of Paradox if he does not actually learn that Charm within a season.
Alternatively, the martial artist may use this Charm to use a Combo he does not yet know, at the cost of a single additional point of willpower. The Combo must be made up entirely of Charms he already knows, and he cannot include more than (Martial Arts) Charms in it. Using Combos with this Charm is much simpler than using Charms–the only way the martial artist can gain Paradox is if he fails to learn that Combo within a season.
Bodhisattva Stands Beyond the Hours
Cost: 25m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 7, Essence 7
Type: Simple
Keywords: Obvious
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Vatic Sublimation of Future Fates
“I cannot change my nature.”
Complete enlightenment begets complete power. Understanding with perfect clarity his place in time, and seeing past, present and future from every possible perspective, the martial artist at once steps outside of time and becomes one with it. His physical form seems to resonate with power, as its existence echoes through eternity.
The martial artist’s power to manipulate time and speed with essence are greatly empowered–he may reduce the cost of any Charm from this style by 10 motes or one willpower by taking a Paradox die, and may take up to three such additional Paradox die for each Charm he uses. In addition, he may use any reflexive Charms of this style freely, without it counting as Charm activation.
In addition, the martial artist’s body remembers a time when it was whole and undamaged. Echoing its past or future health, it constantly refreshes its temporal state, becoming whole once more. On every action, the martial artist heals all bludgeoning and lethal damage (but not aggravated damage), and his body is freed from all crippling effects, poisons, and diseases.
Finally, this Charm is capable of warping time. Upon using it, the martial artist declares a number of actions up to half his Essence that he took some time in the past day–and it becomes so. He might decide that he invoked the Amber Concatenation of Aeons Form Charm a minute ago, drew his daiklave ten minutes ago, and told his life he loves her before leaving in the morning–and all would become so. The exact changes caused by these actions are left to the Storyteller. The player of the martial artist should be able to use them to his advantage, but not to drastically alter the past–he should never be able to use this to perform an action he could not have normally done so, and he cannot perform any action that physically interacts with another character (such as attacking them). While he may use his action to speak to other characters, he cannot send information into the past–he may only communicate things he already knew.
In the Chaos before the world, there was no time. Past, present, and future were meaningless concepts–there was only inchoate shapelessness, without any temporal order. But then arose the Primordials, who wrought order out of chaos, and imposed time upon reality. By their decree, what has happened is the past, what is happening is the present, and what will happen is the future. The Loom of Fate they created enforces and maintains this dictum, the Pattern Spiders on it ceaselessly scurrying to ensure the orderly flow of causality.
But while the ordained course of time is inevitable, it is not absolute. In the First Age, Sidereals developed a reality-warping martial art called the Amber Concatenation of Aeons Style. With it, they could bend or break time itself, warping it to their will. Its masters were capable of feats unmatched by any other Exalt–the high, forbidden art of changing the past. The only thing they could not do was to traverse time itself, the sole stricture on their power.
There are none left who remember the art. Every Sidereal of the First Age who knew it has died in the years since, either slain by vengeful Solars in the Usurpation, or finally succumbing to the Paradox Venoms of frustrated Pattern Spiders. Chejop Kejak is said to have studied the basic principles of the style, but he never learned any of its Charms, dreading any power that could meddle in the past, and perhaps avert the Usurpation before it began. Records of the style remain within Heaven’s archives, though they are kept in so dusty a sub-archive that none, not even Chejop, know of their existence. They wait silently for a Sidereal who can find them and master the techniques within, returning the Amber Concatenation of Aeons to the present.
Weapons and Armor: The Amber Concatenation of Aeons style makes use of swords and staves, weapons with which the hourglass-patterns of the style’s attacks can be traced. Charms of this style treat attacks made with swords and staffs as unarmed attacks, as well as attacks made with artifact versions of those weapons. Characters cannot use Charms of this style while wearing armor.
The Student’s Sutra of Hours: Once, there was a curious maiden…
Recognition of Infinite Possibilities
Cost: 3m
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Reflexive (Step 1)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Who found a crystal palace of countless mirrors.
Creation’s history is a single, flowing progression of events and moments, endlessly extending from the past into the future. But what of the un-histories, the things that could have happened but did not? The first art of the Amber Concatenation is too understand every single way in which an event could unfold...and then to choose which one occurs. The martial artist refracts time into two different time streams, and acts in each. Effectively, he takes two completely separate independent actions. He can divide each of the actions as normal. Once he has taken both actions, he chooses which one actually happened, and which was just a glimmer of possibility. Only the events of the action he chooses–dice rolls, attacks, Charm activations, mote or willpower expenditures–actually occur. The actions the martial artist takes must be different–otherwise, both actions use the same dice rolls. However, as long as there is some difference in the actions they take, no matter how small, the Charm functions normally.
At Essence 5, the martial artist can take more than two actions with this Charm, although he may still only keep one. Each additional action costs him one mote, to a maximum of (Essence) actions. However, for every action past the second he takes, he rolls one Paradox die. Meddling with alternate presents and futures overburdens the Pattern Spiders with labor, and doing so to excess invites their wrath.
On the other hand, though, martial artists who have already incurred Paradox find that shaping time to their liking becomes much easier. Perhaps it displaces them slightly from the normal time flow, or creates a temporal fault line which they can exploit–but regardless of why, martial artists with 5 Paradox or more can use this Charm without it counting as Charm activation.
Flickering Transience Reminder
Cost: 12m
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Fate, Obvious, Shaping,Touch
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Recognition of Infinite Possibilities
The palace was ancient beyond the maiden’s years,
Anyone who would gaze into the fires of time must cultivate a deep clarity of perspective, the power to contemplate eternity. With such an understanding, a martial artist finds that all foes and obstacles fall away–for surely, within only a few hundred years, they will no longer exist. All that it takes is a gentle reminder of their inevitable fate.
This Charm can be used in multiple ways. When used against an enemy or an object, the martial artist makes a (Dexterity+Martial Arts) roll. The attack need not deal damage; it only has to hit its target. Enemies hit by the attack are aged, their bodies rapidly accelerating through years in moments. They lose one point each of Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina as a shaping effect, to a minimum of one dot. The loss of attribute dots is cumulative. This aging is permanent for mortals, but the Exalted are restored to their youth and regain lost Attribute dots at the end of the scene. Objects hit by the attack are aged to dust and destroyed, their small gods bamboozled into thinking millennia has passed. Artifacts cannot be destroyed with this Charm, but any action taken with them for the rest of the scene takes a -1 internal penalty, and artifact armors lose (Martial Arts) points of soak for the rest of the scene. Internal penalties and lost soak points are cumulative.
Alternatively, this Charm can bypass natural or manmade obstacles for the duration of a scene. The martial artist chooses a single obstacle or impediment–hazardous terrain, a door, a set of manacles–and can ignore its existence for a single action. The hazardous terrain can be traversed as if it were level ground, they can walk through the door as if it were immaterial, and the manacles slip off their wrists. By expending a point of temporary willpower, they may instead ignore the obstacle for an entire scene.
Drowning in Moments
Cost: 1m+
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Reflexive (Step 8)
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
And lay beneath oceans unmoving.
It is not enough to strike with force, or to employ complicated martial techniques. In the end, the power of a blow lies in how long the martial artist holds it, the infinitesimal moment of violence. A difference to small for any mortal timepiece to measure could be the difference between a glancing blow and a shattered bone. Having learned this lesson, the martial artist folds time around his fist, so that his strike seems to last forever. Each mote spent on this Charm reduces the target number of a damage roll for a Martial Arts attack by 1, to a minimum of 6. At Essence 5, the target number can be reduced to 5, and at Essence 6, it can be reduced to 4. At Essence 7, the martial artist may spend 4 motes and one point of willpower to buy an auspicious success, automatically converting every die of damage into a success.
This Charm is easier to use for martial artists who are subject to Paradox, as time seems almost eager to fold and fracture in their presence. Martial artists with 5 Paradox or more can use this Charm without it counting as Charm activation.
Shattered Years Cascade
Cost: 12m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling, Fate, Shaping
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Drowning in Moments
As the maiden wandered its endless halls,
There is nothing to be admired in killing a foe–it requires no great skill, and only a certain bare minimum of force to accomplish. It is considered much more elegant by the students of this style to simply see to it that they were never born, delivering a blow that strikes them at the moment of their birth. This Charm supplements an unarmed attack, dealing a blow that echoes throughout their victim’s entire life. If it deals any damage, then the strike echoes through every moment of the victim’s existence, past and future, causing them to always know the pain of the blow. If they are mortal, they die at the moment of their birth. History is revised so that they were delivered stillborn, as the blow meets them as soon as they draw their first breath, and that all but the martial artist remember the altered history. However, the Pattern Spiders take care to it that the greater flow of history is not damaged or changed, though they may resent the extra workload. If the mortal was particularly significant or world-changing, the may inflict one to three dice of Paradox on the martial artist: one die of Paradox for a figure whose name would appear only in local histories, three dice for a mortal known throughout Creation.
The Exalted and other essence users cannot be killed by the blow, but their lives are still filled with the pain of it, at each and every moment. The attack does not deal any damage, but instead imposes a wound penalty equal to the martial artist’s Essence on the victim as a crippling effect. This stacks with any other wound penalties they may have. This crippling neurasthenia cannot be healed by any mundane means, although Charms or spells capable of healing crippling can heal it normally. An Exalt may choose to merely cripple a mortal with this Charm, rather than killing them outright.
Assumption of Unearned Power
Cost: 1m or 1m per wp
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4
Type: Simple (Speed 3)
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
She saw herself, as she might soon become,
All learned sorcerers know that traversing time is impossible–for all that they might fold, bend, or even fracture time, they can never travel to the past or future. However, with sufficient cunning, this restriction can be sidestepped. Assuming a complicated asana and repeating the last meaningless koan spoken by the Seven Forbidden Wisdoms before their death, the martial artist creates a temporal loop, drawing on essence or willpower they have not yet gained. The martial artist may either spend one mote to gain up to (Martial Arts + Essence) motes of essence, or gain points of willpower for 1 mote each, to a maximum of (Essence) points. If the martial artist ever gains 10 or more motes or 5 or more Willpower, they must roll one Paradox die–the Pattern Spiders despise even stable temporal loops, and channeling that much through it only exacerbates things.
The Storyteller should keep track of how many times the martial artist has used this Charm, and how many motes or points of Willpower he gained each time. At any point in the future, the Storyteller may declare that the martial artist loses motes or willpower equal to the amount he drew on with a single use of this Charm. The Storyteller should choose a moment at which the loss will have consequences, but should not use it to drain the martial artist’s last remaining motes as he duels a Deathlord, unless they have overused it egregiously.
Amber Concatenation of Aeons Form
Cost: 18m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 5
Type: Simple
Keywords: Form-type
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Assumption of Unearned Power, Flickering Transience Reminder, Shattered Years Cascade
And ran towards her future.
The measured ticking of the clock is a lie, a contraption of gears and springs designed to confound and distort time. The sands of the hourglass are distorted reflections, ignorant of the true course of time. Even the course of the sun in the sky deceives–for if Sol Invictus willed the sun to stand fixed in the sky, time would nevertheless carry on. In the end, the only true measure of time can be found in breaths and heartbeats. For while these can be just as misleading as any other measure, they span the smallest moments of one’s life–and that is all that matters. With breath control only possible through years of training and near-perfect essence mastery, the martial artist slows his breathing almost to a standstill–and in his mind, time slows too.
The martial artist finds that the flow of time around him slows, allowing him to act with great speed. He reduces the speed of every action he takes by half his Essence, to a minimum of 2. He suffers no multiple action penalties on the first (Essence) actions of any flurry, and his land speed is multiplied by his essence. In addition, the blows of others become almost ludicrously easy–his DV can never be reduced below his Essence by any penalties (assuming it is higher to begin with), and he suffers no penalties from coordinated attacks or onslaught penalties. The martial artist does not perceive this as them moving faster, but as everything else moving much more slowly around them.
Whenever the martial artist successfully stunts, he may choose not to gain the normal mote or willpower rewards, and may instead dissipate Paradox, losing a single point of it. The Pattern Spiders are always impressed by feats of heroism, and the patterns of essence employed in this form so delight them that they can even forgive they most egregious of reality-altering transgressions.
Finally, the martial artist becomes a living temporal anomaly, subverting the proper and ordained flow of time. The Pattern Spiders rechannel and harmlessly vent off any major disturbances this causes, but they occasionally leave minor phenomena unchanged–sand flowing upward through an hourglass, flowers retracting back into seeds, jade obols coming up heads every time they are flipped. Some say that they simply cannot stop every flaw in time, others speculate that it amuses them in some inscrutable fashion. Nevertheless, both the martial artist’s player and the Storyteller should feel free to describe cosmetic temporal anomalies, and the martial artist may use them to stunt with.
Slip Between the Falling Sands
Cost: 3m per action, 2wp
Mins: Martial Arts 6, Essence 6
Type: Extra Action
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Amber Concatenation of Aeons Form
The Elder Sutra of Hours: The maiden fled from herself,
Those who live their lives by clocks and hourglasses know nothing of time’s true nature. They see only a sequence of seconds and minutes and hours, a mere progression of discrete, indivisible units. They lack an enlightened perspective. Those who truly understand time know seconds and minutes and lies, mere quantifications of infinitely divisible moments, inchoate quanta of time. They can act between the ticks of a clock, striking ten times before a single grain of sand can fall through the hourglass. The martial artist takes up to (Essence) fully independent actions. If the martial artist makes any Martial Arts attacks with any of his independent actions, he strikes to fast to be seen–the attacks are both undodgeable and unparryable. Only characters with Charms such as Heavenly Guardian Defense can defend against them.
Coils of Inescapable Regression
Cost: 10m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 6, Essence 6
Type: Simple
Keywords: Fate, Shaping
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Slip Between the Falling Sands
Each one retracing the others’ footsteps,
By the decree of the Primordials and the design of the Pattern Spiders, time is linear, a ceaseless flow from past to present. But with infinitely subtle manipulation of essence, the martial artist can divert one rivulet from the flow of time, coiling it inward on itself. The martial artist need only lock eyes with his intended victim and invoke this Charm. Though the victim does not realize anything has happened, their personal time flow has been excised from that of Creation.
When they next go to sleep, this Charm takes effect. When they awake, from their perspective, it is the beginning of the previous day. Events unfold exactly as they did, unless the victim acts differently enough to alter them. Only the victim realizes he has lived through the day before–even the martial artist would be ignorant of it. Every time the victim goes to sleep or dies, he again wakes back up at the start of that day. While the temporal loop may take years or even decades for the character, no one but him realizes it. To any external observer, the victim goes to sleep one night, and wakes up normally in the morning (though he may seem deeply changed).
The only way the victim can escape this temporal loop is to fulfill some condition set by the martial artist. The only limit on this condition is that it must be possible–a mortal could be tasked to kill his wife, but not to kill a Deathlord. By achieving the conditions, he can change the past, altering what happened that day–but only the alterations made on the day he finally completes the conditions are carried over. The Pattern Spiders work as best they can to integrate the new history into the old, preventing any temporal paradoxes from arising in the process (the exact effects of the change are left to the Storyteller). The martial artist always gains 3 Paradox Dice if the victim fulfills the condition. Only he and his victim remember the original history–for everyone else, the altered version was what happened originally, and their memories shift to match.
However, the victim can escape without fulfilling the conditions if he is Exalted, or if the conditions oppose his Motivation. They can escape either by spending Willpower equal to the martial artist’s Essence, or by staying awake for longer than 25 hours, entering the next day. In this case, time is left entirely unaltered.
Because the victim retains knowledge of everything that happens on each day of the temporal loop, some martial artists will use this Charm on themselves or their students in order to allow them to train for years in the space of a single night. While they cannot benefit from a trainer, there is no limit to how long they can spend in training, obviating the increased training time that results from this.
Solipsistic Rejection of Hierarchy
Cost: 20m, 3wp
Mins: Martial Arts 6, Essence 6
Type: Reflexive (Step 1)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: 5 ticks
Prerequisite Charms: Slip Between the Falling Sands
Until one maiden stopped
Stopping his breathing completely and weaving his essence in a infinitely recursive fractal mandala, the martial artist halts the flow of time. Rather than accelerating his own perspective, he slows that of others–all feel themselves slow to a stop, all but incapable of moving. For the next 5 ticks, no one but the martial artist can act–anyone who would act normally during those ticks instead acts on the first tick after. In addition, for those 5 ticks, any action the martial artist takes has a Speed of 1, allowing him to act on each tick. While his enemies cannot act against him, they remain capable of defending themselves against him–they can still defend against his attacks and activate reflexive Charms normally.
Existence-Denying Revision of History
Cost: 15m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 6, Essence 6
Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK, Fate, Shaping, Touch
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Slip Between the Falling Sands
And killed her other self.
What is a ludicrously overblown threat for some is a reality for masters of this style–”I’ll hit you so hard you grandfather will die!” The martial artist makes a single Martial Arts attack against an enemy, only needing to hit. If it does, each and every ancestor of the character for (Essence) generations is either retroactively killed, or was never born in the first place. The victim fades from existence with in a shimmering wisp of time, never having existed save for in the martial artist’s memories. Mortals are automatically unmade, but Exalted who have an Essence equal to the martial artist’s can attempt a (Willpower) roll, at a difficulty of the martial artist’s Essence, to survive having never been born. If their Essence is higher than the martial artist’s, they automatically survive, although their ancestors are stilled killed or unborn. If any of the victim’s ancestors are Exalted themselves, they can resist this Charm in the same way (using the highest Essence and Willpower they ever attained in life). If all of a victim’s ancestors survive in this way, they automatically survive.
The Pattern Spiders adjust for the removal of an entire family from history, making sure that events still unfold as they should. They also ensure that anyone but the victim who is descended from the killed and unborn ancestors is not unmade, creating a merciful paradox to sustain their life. They despise the intense labor, though: the martial artist gains 1-3 dice of Paradox based on the historical importance of their victim, and then another 1-3 dice of Paradox based on the significance of his ancestors.
Vatic Sublimation of Future Fates
Cost: Special
Mins: Martial Arts 6, Essence 6
Type: Special
Keywords: None
Duration: Special
Prerequisite Charms: Coils of Inescapable Regression, Existence-Denying Revision of History, Solipsistic Rejection of Hierarchy
“As you were, so will I become,” she said.
Rejecting the lie of his own limitations, the martial artist assumes the power of his future self. Using this Charm, he may use any Charm that he could ever learn, even if he does not meet its Essence or Ability minimums, or know all of its prerequisite Charms. The mote cost of the Charm is increased by half, and the martial artist must pay a point of willpower, plus an additional point for every dot of Essence or Ability minimums he does not meet. However, this otherwise functions just as if he had used the unknown Charm normally. He gains one die of Paradox for every dot he failed to meet the Charm’s Essence and Ability minimums by, and gains one additional dice of Paradox if he does not actually learn that Charm within a season.
Alternatively, the martial artist may use this Charm to use a Combo he does not yet know, at the cost of a single additional point of willpower. The Combo must be made up entirely of Charms he already knows, and he cannot include more than (Martial Arts) Charms in it. Using Combos with this Charm is much simpler than using Charms–the only way the martial artist can gain Paradox is if he fails to learn that Combo within a season.
Bodhisattva Stands Beyond the Hours
Cost: 25m, 1wp
Mins: Martial Arts 7, Essence 7
Type: Simple
Keywords: Obvious
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Vatic Sublimation of Future Fates
“I cannot change my nature.”
Complete enlightenment begets complete power. Understanding with perfect clarity his place in time, and seeing past, present and future from every possible perspective, the martial artist at once steps outside of time and becomes one with it. His physical form seems to resonate with power, as its existence echoes through eternity.
The martial artist’s power to manipulate time and speed with essence are greatly empowered–he may reduce the cost of any Charm from this style by 10 motes or one willpower by taking a Paradox die, and may take up to three such additional Paradox die for each Charm he uses. In addition, he may use any reflexive Charms of this style freely, without it counting as Charm activation.
In addition, the martial artist’s body remembers a time when it was whole and undamaged. Echoing its past or future health, it constantly refreshes its temporal state, becoming whole once more. On every action, the martial artist heals all bludgeoning and lethal damage (but not aggravated damage), and his body is freed from all crippling effects, poisons, and diseases.
Finally, this Charm is capable of warping time. Upon using it, the martial artist declares a number of actions up to half his Essence that he took some time in the past day–and it becomes so. He might decide that he invoked the Amber Concatenation of Aeons Form Charm a minute ago, drew his daiklave ten minutes ago, and told his life he loves her before leaving in the morning–and all would become so. The exact changes caused by these actions are left to the Storyteller. The player of the martial artist should be able to use them to his advantage, but not to drastically alter the past–he should never be able to use this to perform an action he could not have normally done so, and he cannot perform any action that physically interacts with another character (such as attacking them). While he may use his action to speak to other characters, he cannot send information into the past–he may only communicate things he already knew.