Dark Messiah Style

There is nothing "natural" about the Abyssal Exalted—but like all other Exalted, they find that when they apply their Essence to fisticuffs, wrestling and other forms of unarmed combat, certain Charms spontaneously appear. Abyssal martial artists do not fight like their Solar counterparts, with noble simplicity and straightforward blows. Rather, their natural art focuses on cruelty and overkill. It's a style for bloody-handed thugs who want to terrify their foes and leave a trail of corpses behind them.

Deathknights with a particularly demented sense of irony sometimes call these Charms "Abyssal Hero Style," in mocking comparison with the Lunar, Solar and Terrestrial Hero Styles practiced by other Exalted. Those Deathlords who remember the highly formalized martial arts schools of the First Age call it Dark Messiah Style. Most deathknights don't call it anything at all—it's just unarmed combat for Abyssals.

Anyone who can learn Celestial Martial Arts can learn Dark Messiah Style. They find it a fixed tree of Charms, and cannot learn any Charms that branch off the basic set. Only Abyssals and Deathlords can devise such new Charms.

Weapons and Armor: As in Solar Hero Style, the form weapons of this style are the cestus, fighting gauntlet, khatar, tiger claws, razor harness and their artifact equivalents. Practitioners can also use improvised weapons—any convenient, sturdy object with a maximum Accuracy of -3 and Rate of 2, such as an unattuned daiklave, a coffin-lid or a corpse.

List of all Dark Messiah Style Charms