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Dark Fire Lily
d36af7
>>868055
>Silly me, thinking necromancy was a subset or sorcery. So separate initiations / awakenings for each then.
Yes. Among the yozis, only Oramus and the Ebon Dragon have anything to do with necromancy, and even then no further than the Labyrinth circle, but becoming akuma wouldn't negate a sidereal's native charmset, including the potential for Shadowland circle initiation. If anything, Kimbery might leave that part of your soul alone because she's scared to touch it.
>Does charisma mean something different in an exalted setting? That seems a weird choice for someone invested in interpersonal stuff.
Charisma and Manipulation can both be used in social combat for many of the same things, and the core book honestly doesn't do a great job of explaining the difference. Lot of people think of it as Charisma being honest and Manipulation being dishonest, but I think that oversimplifies the matter. My interpretation is it's about force vs. finesse, like strength vs. dexterity. Charisma can be "You should do this because I want it, and I'm awesome, everyone should do whatever I say" while Manipulation can be "You should do this because you want it, deep in your heart of hearts, regardless of what I want." Any given akuma is literally in-setting a min-maxed character, rebuilt heart and soul to excel at a particular task, quite possibly at the expense of being remotely healthy or functional in other respects. Buying the first few dots in an attribute is actually fairly cheap: 5 xp and undefined training time (magical assistance or some other special justification is required) to buy from 0 to 1, 4 XP and one month from 1 to 2, 8 xp and two months from 2 to 3. There's no special penalty for charisma zero beyond having fewer dice for charisma-based actions. Same applies to Strength and Manipulation, but Appearance 0 makes any face-to-face interaction difficult or impossible, unless it's based on intimidation. Mental attributes at zero would mean you're not quite up to the level of "I think therefore I am," or even "fire bad!" Dexterity zero indicates near-total paralysis, while Stamina zero indicates skin like tissue paper and imminent, if not ongoing, vital organ failure. Extremely high mental attributes seemed like a fitting part of the 'unpredictable and dangerous' aspect, so she can routinely make observations and deductions that even extraordinary humans are incapable of, which would contribute to an alien perspective.
>Even more artifacts
>That feels like the wrong direction.
I'll try to stick closer to the themes, then. These are from Oadenol's Codex, including the design notes below each. Aesthetic tweaks or even radical variants are not only permissible, but encouraged, wherever inspiration strikes.
DARK RIDER (Artifact 3)
Dark riders are foot-high statuettes chipped from obsidian and attached to a thin base of magical material. The figures are humanoid but vaguely monstrous. They often show horns, large teeth or elongated normal features such as fingers or eyes.
A character activates the dark rider by committing six motes to it, making the statuette blur into the character’s shadow. The shadow takes the form depicted by the statuette. From there, it watches the character’s back, making it impossible to surprise him. The monstrous shadow also lends the character a frightening appearance, adding three dice to social rolls that benefit from the unnerving mien.
The dark rider can also be used offensively. A character mentally commands the rider and may insinuate it into another person’s shadow, where it conceals itself near-perfectly. Rolls to detect the rider are difficulty 5. The character can see through the shadow’s eyes at will, which causes both the character’s and the rider’s eyes to burn crimson (decreasing the detection difficulty to three). He can command the rider to return if it is within 10 miles, or to envelop a target. The rider then inflicts an eight-die clinch attack that, if the rider maintains it for at least two actions, forces the victim Elsewhere. The dark rider must then immediately return to its master and deposit the victim back in Creation.
Bright light (such as that of a Solar anima at the 12+ mote level) and fire both burn away the shadow instantly, ending the attunement and leaving nothing but a small statuette in its place.
No one of these abilities is very powerful, but all of them are useful. The shadow makes an effective personal guard, spy or kidnapper. It has a weakness against flame, but this is a two-dot drawback at best, perhaps accounting for the low attunement cost.
ILLUSION-SHATTERING MIRROR (Artifact 3)
These small hand-mirrors are backed by moonsilver instead of regular silver. When the mirror reflects a false image or appearance, from magical illusions to mundane disguises, the moonsilver alters the reflection to display the truth to anyone who looks in the mirror. Confronting a person suffering from an illusion effect with one of these mirrors shatters that effect. The mirror only performs its magic when attuned for eight motes.
This artifact definitely provides a great advantage. No illusions or disguises are safe against a character with the mirror, and it can even defeat some forms of mental influence. Some Charms may still confound the mirror if
potent enough (see the sidebar “Powers Versus Powers or Charms” on p. 13). Still, this artifact is reactive, not active. It is a significant defense but no more; a character wielding it does not become able to accomplish amazing things. It can also be inconvenient to keep glancing in a mirror. Because it doesn’t qualify for overwhelming advantage, it remains Artifact 3.
CLOAK OF VANISHING ESCAPE (Artifact 4)
The tough, white fabric of this cloak never seems to soil. It’s thick enough to keep a traveler warm like a heavy mantle, but that isn’t its purpose. The cloak’s wearer can wrap the cloak around herself and disappear in a burst of white light, reappearing anyplace she can clearly see. It attunes for five motes, while activating the cloak requires five motes and several seconds of concentration. In combat, the character takes a miscellaneous action to activate the artifact’s power before disappearing on her next action. The character can take up to one additional living creature for an additional five motes, and she can travel no more than (owner’s Essence) miles. Because the character must see her intended location, the cloak does not work well for the blind or in the dark.
Instantaneous teleportation is a great wonder in Creation, and this artifact makes a character almost impossible to corner or capture. It has the drawbacks of slow activation and limited targeting. It is possible to trap a character using this artifact (in a sealed cell or in total darkness) and to wound or kill her before she escapes—these justify the lower attunement and activation costs. Using it also means abandoning one’s allies. This is a tremendous advantage, but not world-shaking enough to make it Artifact 5.
FOLDING SHIP (Artifact 4)
This double-masted ocean-going merchant’s vessel has a hull of strong, gold-tinged wood and steelsilk sails (see p. 158). It requires no crew: the ship handles its own sail, bilge and the like. It needs only a helmsman. From the helm, a pilot can verbally command the rest of the ship.
At its owner’s command, the folding ship folds itself up in a visual spectacle, completing the one-minute process as a 1’ x 6” x 6” box that weighs 20 pounds. It takes just as long for the boat to unfold. Twelve straight hours as a box repairs the ship of any damage it may take. If the owner wants, the folding ship can reassemble as a vessel with self-moving oars and a shallower draft for river travel. The attunement cost is 10 motes, and using Sail Charms with an attuned folding ship provides a 2m (minimum 1m) discount.
The folding ship offers complete mastery of water travel. Though it could certainly be more impressive (one of the First Age, hearthstone-powered ships, perhaps), it needs no crew but the character and is ideal for getting just about anywhere on the water. Plus, it’s incredibly cool. This is a greater wonder.
FORGOTTEN BLADE (Artifact 5)
Perhaps the Sidereals forged the Forgotten Blade in the High First Age, but records of the weapon are scant even in Heaven. The Forgotten Blade may or may not be beautiful—it is impossible to remember. This daiklave has average statistics, but as long as one does not look at it, one cannot remember its appearance. In fact, no one but the person attuned to it can remember it at all when not in its presence. This unnatural mental influence requires two Willpower to shake off for a scene. Attuning requires five motes.
The weapon does not hurt people physically. It inflicts ‘phantom’ damage (mark it with a circle in health boxes). Its damage rating is normal for a daiklave, but the character wielding it adds Intelligence rather than Strength to calculate base damage. Each level of damage the weapon inflicts causes the victim to forget how to use one Ability (determined at random) and the last five years of her life. Someone “killed” by the Forgotten Blade suffers complete amnesia. Victims suffer normal wound penalties due to disorientation. Ability use returns as the wounds heal (at the same rate as bashing), but lost memories are gone forever. Compassionate warriors may prefer to cut away smaller chunks of memory or target specific memories with called shots. The difficulty of the attack increases by one (“forget only the last year,” or limit the number of random Abilities) to four (“forget the last five minutes,” or, “forget me completely”).
As an amazing power without any real analog, the Forgotten Blade clearly represents a five-dot power. Its only drawback is that if its owner lets his attunement lapse, he forgets he owns it.
RING OF BEING (Artifact 5)
Forged in the secret manse at the heart of the Imperial Mountain, each ring of being is made only of a single magical material, purified a dozen times over. This complete purity, commingled with the Essence of their unique forge, affirms and protects its wearer’s identity and nature. Only things of Creation proper can affect the character—the dead, Fair Folk, demons, gods and the Wyld cannot even target the character with their magic. They may use physical and social attacks, but everything else does not touch her. Elementals, however, are of Creation, and a weapon empowered as an artifact or by Charms still counts as physical force. A ring of being only functions for an Exalt natural to the magical material and costs 15 motes to attune.
This is very, very powerful. Its power names entire classes of entity that no longer threaten the character—at least not effectively. Mundane attacks could still take her down—don’t expect to wrestle the Unconquered Sun and win—but it’s not very likely.
One- and two-dot artifacts weren't included in that list because none of the ones listed there seemed like an amazing thematic fit, and in any case such items are more the sort of thing that could be acquired as 'random treasure' (in tombs or vaults, wielded by mortal heroes, presented as 'gifts' from benevolent or conniving spirits, etc.), or crafted in a reasonable time during play, or sold at auction without kingdom-toppling quantities of money changing hands. Almost anything you could buy off the shelf IRL is available as a 1- or 2-dot artifact, likely upgraded to be nigh indestructible, need no fuel besides ambient essence (or committed motes), and incorporate convenient functions that would be implausible for mundane engineering, such as the Thousand Comforts Lounge which can be easily rearranged into any single piece of overstuffed furniture, from an armchair to a small footrest to a king-sized bed. The ubiquity of such minor wonders in the First Age is a big part of what made quality of life so much better for most people, most of the time. Any 'minor magic item' effect can also be worked out, including consumables like scrolls and potions. In fact, there are single-use artifacts all the way up the scale, though the only 5-dot example I can remember offhand is a city-killing weapon.
>Also starting to get leery of getting too much stuff instead of investing in things she can do.
Charms, then. First there's the general charms, mostly meaning Excellencies and upgrades thereto.
Black Tide Style consists of seven charms, including the capstone which lets you punch somebody's air-only lungs into permanent water-only gills or vice versa, but since it's a terrestrial style you could buy it at half price if you first learn Roots of the Brass Lotus. Maybe throw in the first three or five charms of White Veil Style to make that a round number, and enhance your ability to fight with subtlety, delivering Touch effects or even mundane poisons without the target ever becoming aware that anything happened. All that would require Martial Arts 5, and White Veil would additionally require 2 in Socialize and either Larceny, Presence, or Stealth.
You probably don't want to take the first or second excellencies for any ability from the sidereal charmset. There are cases where they could be useful, particularly for reaching outside Kimbery's themes, but most of the time it'll be redundant. Training time is just a day or two, anyway, so it'd be easy to pick up later if you change your mind. Main one to consider is the Third Excellency, which allows rerolls. Yozis don't have any analogue to that, since they still can't really conceive of their own failure, or even inadequacy. If you've got a dot in a given skill and think you might need to use it when Kimbery's themes wouldn't apply, such as subduing someone you have no prior connection to without poison or excessive cruelty, or you just need an excellency as a prerequisite for some other charm, that's probably the one to pick.
There are two other general sidereal charms which require 4 dots and an excellency in the appropriate ability, and Essence 3. First is the Fateful (Ability) Excellency, which reduces target numbers. See, normally the way Exalted works is, you roll a pool of 10-sided dice, 7 or higher counts as a success, 10 counts as two successes. Spend a mote on the Fateful Excellency, and that'll turn into 6 or higher. Four motes (maybe more or less, with other target number modifying shenanigans, which Sidereals have a lot of) plus one willpower? Every single die in the pool counts as an automatic success. Represents messing with fate and probability to slant things toward the best plausible outcomes - but pushing that to extremes does, technically, cost you the slim chance of a heroic beyond-the-impossible outcome represented by rolling all 10s.
Propitious (Ability) Alignment ties into sidereal astrology, giving you a scene-long discount on excellencies for the skill in question that's partly based on your mastery of the corresponding astrological college.
On to Kimbery charms. First, there's the Excellency. Not technically required, but for an akuma it's sort of a no-brainer. Three charm slots if you're starting at Essence 3. It's the longest of the canon yozi excellencies in terms of wordcount.
The Great Mother is endlessly giving and too often forgiving, a self-defined victim of endless betrayal. She holds others to impossibly high standards, but thinks she is fair. Secrets are among the greatest purviews of her depths, particularly shameful truths and those kept with force and guile. Though her patronage and kindness are real, spurning her incites fury that drowns all opposition in her corrosive touch. Kimbery hides ugliness beyond imagining beneath playful waves of beauty, charm and poise.
The Great Mother rejects the immediacy of
brute force violence in favor of poison, acid, bleeding, curses, disease and other tactics that perpetuate spiteful suffering without further effort. Her social tricks follow the same logic, stirring undercurrents of distrust and dissent beneath the polite surface of society until the entire organization dissolves. Some Yozis call Kimbery lazy and cowardly for striking once and holding back while afflicted victims weaken, but she considers this elegant practicality.
Everything she does harms someone or sets them up to suffer worse in the future, but she is capable of martyring herself to be the one in pain. Because her depths hold no lasting generosity, she demands payment proportional to her sacrifice. Whether beneficiaries ask for her gifts or not doesn’t matter, but she gleefully tortures those who insult her by refusing her largesse. Those who cannot pay her back conventionally pay with screams.
She takes great pride in brokering deals, offering the just and true their darkest desires so that she may see them brought low. She considers herself to be the ultimate trafficker, moving everything from worlds to secrets, with a discerning eye for an advantageous bargain. She has a talent for temptation, using secret lusts against her enemies as a rook into further disfigurement.
That Kimbery takes pleasure in the agonies of
subordinates is her worst-kept secret, but she sacrifices this joy to avoid wasting what is hers. She shows no restraint in tormenting enemies, punishing them for actual transgressions and venting her bottled-up fury toward all who escape punishment. The Sea That Marched Against the Flame loves to warp herself and others into new shapes as useful as they are uncomfortable, imagining herself a great artist. She may be right, but even her siblings find her aesthetics bizarre and vile.
Kimbery’s Excellency aids actions that create disturbing art in any media, whether conventional paintings and sculptures or artful blood spatters on a wall. Appropriate stunts can make almost anything into vile art. Her power helps keep secrets by any means necessary. This Charm assists all actions to cause delayed or ongoing harm. Purely immediate harm falls outside Kimbery’s purview unless punishing someone who has benefited from her help or betrayed her love. She may also impose harm for the sadistic joy of doing so rather than expediency or necessity.
Second (Kimbery) Excellency is an upgrade to the first, rather than a standalone charm. Just one charm slot, lets you add successes directly to a roll instead of, or in combination with, dice.
(Kimbery) Mythos Exultant requires Essence 3 and the excellency, and gives you a third option for stunt awards (normally every action, a big part of the economy of combat tactics): instead of recovering motes or willpower, you can heal damage. Just bashing or lethal, no aggravated. Lots of sidereal charms, particularly the capstones, have a cost in health levels of damage; this would let you use them far more freely, in addition to the obvious benefits if stabbed by an actual enemy.
(Kimbery) Inevitability Technique also requires Essence 3 and is another target-number dice trick. Not as powerful as the sidereal version in any single application, but far broader, and possibly more efficient at countering enemy probability manipulations.
Effortless (Kimbery) Dominance requires Essence 4 and provides a discount on the excellency based on how many times you've used it already in the scene, eventually all the way down to zero. In an extended action scene, the value of zero-mote excellency use can hardly be overstated; this charm (or equivalent), more so even than perfect defenses, is the tipping point where Celestial and Primordial Exalts become effectively unstoppable by almost anything but each other, since it means they can attack and defend with maxed-out dice pools while saving all their stunt awards to fuel other effects.
So Speaks (Kimbery) requires Essence 5 and reduces the cost of the excellency by half, not cumulative with Effortless Dominance.
Mother Sea Mastery negates penalties for operating underwater, including the water resistance which would otherwise prevent bows or swung melee weapons from working effectively, and provides broad bonuses to a lot of noncombat actions involving liquid, such as swimming or catching fish. At Essence 3+ it also negates fatigue from relevant actions.
Building off of MSM there's:
-Acrid Slipstream Assist doubles the speed of any water vehicle, or turns anything big enough to stand on (e.g. a daiklaive) into a surfboard
-Fathomless Poison Haven protects beloved targets against environmental hazards, any liquid is as the purest air to breath and cleanest water to drink
-Spiteful Sea Tincture, lays magic poison traps
-Tidal Renewal Discipline, fast recharge while submerged
Building off of Spiteful Sea Tincture:
-Sea Within Veins Prana provides total and permanent immunity to disease, plus a poison blood spray counterattack when wounded. Second purchase upgrades it to xenomorph-style acid.
-Great Mother's Tears is four separate poison-related upgrades they apparently couldn't think up good names for separately. One lets you make nonlethal knockout poisons, another is for mutagens, another limits the total penalties you can take from poisons and makes you immune to further poison damage once you're down to about half HP.
Ichor Flux Tendrils is the remote-control tentacle thing, and a second purchase lets them continue grappling somebody without requiring your attention.
Building off of Tidal Renewal Discipline:
-Sea Dissolves Herself lets you convert unwanted Shaping into an aquatic-themed mutation, and remove mutations you gave yourself.
-What Lurks Beneath lets you summon aquatic critters, basically aquaman's fish telepathy. Second purchase expands that to include first-circle demons. Third, at Essence 5+, to Cthulhu, Godzilla, or other such aquatic behemoths... though it doesn't actually let you control them.
Building off of Intolerable Burning Truths:
-All Things Betray is a surprise-negator and initiative booster
-Retributive Tsunami Force is a magical flurry of attacks, potentially including social attacks
-Bitter Heart Unbleeding adds your total number of negative intimacies to your soak against a single attack (it's worth noting that another Intolerable Burning Truths variant, Hate Springs Eternal, lets you maintain an unlimited number of negative intimacies, though it has other downsides which seemed inconsistent with the character you're designing) and further upgrades have other physical and social defensive benefits.
Then there's the shintai, at Essence 5 with lots of prerequisites. Your boss-mode transformation, basically. A huge gelatinous tentacle monster, virtually immune to anything but energy weapons.
Sidereal charms:
Most of the Resistance tree only requires 3 or fewer dots in the Resistance skill, exceptions being Heartless Maiden Trance, fourth or further purchases of Ox-Body for extra health levels, and of course the capstone.
-Water And Fire Treaty provides protection from environmental effects, including non-liquid-based problems which Fathomless Poison Haven won't cover. The upgrade, Water And Fire Legion, lets you bind a touched elemental to protect something you care about. Akuma cannot learn or use the usual sorcery spell for summoning and binding elementals.
-Someone Else's Destiny lets you catch incoming poison, sickness, or madness and tag somebody else with it instead. The upgrade, Shield of Destiny, lets you do much the same thing with post-soak damage and return it as a counterattack.
-Optimistic Security Practice is the illusory-hostages thing, plus a soak boost that's even better if you're not wearing armor (and the Infinite Resplendence Amulet doesn't count as armor). Upgrade is Heartless Maiden Trance.
-Storm's Eye Stance, the capstone, needs all six of those plus Essence 4.
Most of the Ride tree is about acquiring and upgrading minions. The only one that's not, Yellow Path, requires Ride 3. Mostly it's a strategic-scale travel speed boost, applicable regardless of the specific method of travel, but when you've got a deadline to beat it can grant miraculous shortcuts, effectively teleportation. Can't bypass active opposition, though. If you're trying to rescue a princess from an arranged marriage, it might let you run a thousand miles in ten seconds, if that's what it takes to get there at the exact moment when the priest is asking whether anyone objects, but you'd have to deal with any intervening guards or locked doors the old fashioned way. Kimbery's excellency could make that sort of miracle much more reliable.
For Sail, the main one you were looking for is Mirror-Shattering Method, which requires Sail 4 and Stone Skipping Spirit, a very straightforward charm which negates environmental problems for a ship you're aboard.
-Serendipitous Voyage helps you locate a ship (or other group conveyance, such as a trade caravan) headed where you want to go - whether or not that's the intended destination. Simplest way to a pirate's lair is to be captured, for example.
-Salt Into Ash Sleight and the upgrade, Walls of Salt and Ash, are mostly defenses against aquatic spirits.
-Five Ordeals Odyssey, the capstone, is a plot device for arranging 'out of the frying pan, into the fire' situations. Some obstacle to travel which you can't deal with effectively is replaced by a completely different obstacle.
With three charm slots (Adopting the Untamed Face lets you talk to animals, Becoming the Wilderness lets you treat the harshest natural environments like pleasant parkland) and Survival 4, you could use Dreaming The Wild Lands to shift scenery around. Big stuff takes an hour to get anywhere, but individual rocks and trees can move fast enough to function as an attack.
The other side of the Sidereal Survival tree is Sky And Rain Mantra => Sky Spirit Demand, for manipulating the weather and air elementals. Then the capstone, Wilderness-Commanding Practice, is basically a miles-wide druidic C3I system.
From Thrown, the two you probably want are Willful Weapon Method, which is the shadow-projectile trick, and Life Gets Worse Approach, which adds damage, embeds the weapon in the wound, and makes the victim attract other projectiles like a cartoon magnet. Both require only 3 dots in Thrown.
For Craft, you asked which are most applicable to reshaping bodies and minds? Well, Craft (Air) includes tattooing, and Craft (Wood) could be applicable to cosmetic or reconstructive surgery (though you'd also need Medicine). Reshaping minds is usually the province of social abilities, but Craft (Smoke) is the applicable skill for resculpting souls, including with some fairly basic necromancy spells, or fabricating new ones from scratch - good luck finding the right tools and materials for that, though. Craft (Steam) is for altering bodies on a genetic level, but learning it requires two dots each in Wood and Water plus an equal rating in Medicine, much the same way Craft (Lightning), for magitech, requires two dots each in Air and Fire plus an equal rating in Lore. Craft (Crystal) is the one for destiny and narrative, crucial for various Sidereal and Raksha stuff. As for specific charms:
-Elemental Vision broadens the applicability of Compassion channels, and provides a free target number reduction, for any action targeting an individual strongly associated with one of the elements for which you have the corresponding Craft skill rated at 4+. For example if you've got Craft (Fire) 4, you could channel Compassion on Dex + Medicine and Manipulation + Presence or Investigation rolls to vivisect a volcano god or torture information out of a fire-aspect dragon-blooded exalt. Wood requires only 2 dots if you're Chosen of Serenity, or Water for Secrets.
-World-Shaping Artistic Vision is another target-number manipulation thing that can easily apply to non-Craft actions, but requires some Craft rated at 4+
-Destiny-Knitting Entanglement requires any one craft at 3+, and can target anything you own regardless of how it's made
-Predestined Delivery Shaping requires any one Craft at 4+, but sending an object you don't know how to make is slower and less reliable. Craft (Crystal) always helps.
-Excellent Implementation of Objectives speeds up any Craft project for which you've got the relevant skill at 3+
-Mending Warped Designs requires EIoO and an appropriate Craft rated at 4+ based on the thing you're trying to repair, or Medicine for living creatures
For Dodge, everything but the capstone only requires 3 dots, apart from some upgrades which require 4, but maxing it out is probably smart if you're serious about not wanting to get hit - unless you've got Defense of Shining Joy, below.
-Absence negates penalties, and is prerequisite for all the rest.
-Duck Fate lets you dodge absolutely anything except the Great Curse, Paradox, and unexpected attacks. Not just physical stuff, either. Expensive and sometimes unreliable, particularly against high-Essence attackers.
-Trouble-Reduction Strategy lets you dodge on someone else's behalf, while they're within (dexterity) yards, including possible use of Duck Fate to negate normally undodgeable stuff like falling damage or heroin addiction.
-Avoidance Kata, the 'I was never here' effect, has Duck Fate as a prereq, and whoever you're protecting with Trouble-Reduction Strategy is retcon-ported away with you, whether they want to go or not, though as usual neither relocation nor memory edit work on those outside of fate.
Each dot in Linguistics is another language (or, really, a group of languages; by Exalted's standards, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish are basically just regional dialects of Latin) that you know, and also an improvement to your calligraphy, vocabulary, paragraph-format construction, etc. that serves as the equivalent of Appearance for social combat based on writing. Sidereals only get four non-general Linguistics charms. Blue Vervain Binding and Favorable Inflection Procedure require 3 dots, Abandoned Words Curse requires 4, and the capstone requires 5.
For Performance
-Heart-Brightening Presentation Style requires Performance 2, and lets you use any Bureaucracy, Performance, Presence, or Socialize Excellency for a roll with any of the other three skills, as well as allowing you to channel Compassion for any such roll. Yes, even a Socialize roll to break up a happy couple by seduction or slander, or a Bureaucracy roll to calculate how long you can starve those hardworking orphans before the factory's productivity will start to decline.
-Faultless Ceremony requires Performance 3
-Perfection In Life requires Performance 2, and enhances a social attack so anyone who fails to resist it gains a point of WP, but then can't change their mind and resist later in the scene
-Defense of Shining Joy requires Perfection In Life and Performance 3, and lets you use Performance instead of Dodge for, y'know, dodging. Also negates some penalties.
-Song of Spirit Persuasion requires Performance 3 and knowledge of the First Language
-Ice And Fire Binding requires Song of Spirit Persuasion and Faultless Ceremony, it's a multipurpose summoning ritual with some interesting teamwork options
For Socialize:
-Shun the Smiling Lady requires 2 dots, you touch somebody and people tend to stop loving them, at least in romantic ways
-Cash and Murder Games requires StSS and 3 dots, inflicts a relationship on somebody, causing them to view a particular other person in a particular way, and imposing penalties on any attempt they make to resist that person.
-Life Without Compunction requires StSS and 4 dots, lets you violate taboos or do outrageously offensive things without making people mad.
-You And Yours Stance requires all three of the above, makes it hard for people to attack you whenever it seems like you'd be willing and/or able to provide what they want.
-Fortuitous Fellowship requires only Socialize 4 and lets you create common-interest groups with a Wits + Socialize roll wherever a sufficient population exists. Much easier to target a group with various effects, rather than a scattered mass of strangers.
I'll do the rest later. Tired and hungry and this post is too long already.
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