Lore

Trait Description: Many educated people in the First Age knew the secrets of the universe. Today, scholars retain only fragments of this knowledge. Characters with the Lore Ability have some knowledge of current events, history, geography and the customs of other lands, as well as the magical secrets of First Age technology. Characters must possess as least Lore 1 to be literate.

Specialties: The First Age, Geography, Enchanted Devices, Religion, History, The Realm

Trait Effects: Someone with Lore 1 is literate and can find most large nations on a map of Creation. Someone with Lore 3 knows details of the customs of lands thousands of miles away and can help operate, maintain and service many First Age devices. Someone with Lore 5 knows details of the history of the Shogunate as well as the truth about the mysterious Dragon Kings. In addition, she can maintain and repair the most complex First Age devices, including warstriders.

Dramatic Systems for Lore

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Academic Knowledge (Craft, Lore, Medicine, Occult, War)

Whenever characters are called upon to know information that they have learned in the course of their experience and education, an (Intelligence + Ability) roll is required. The Ability in question depends on the subject at hand. For most conventional academic subjects, such as mathematics, history, geography and the like, use Lore. Occult governs mystical knowledge, especially pertaining to spirits, Fair Folk, the Exalted and actual Charms and artifacts. To know how something is constructed and understand the arcane trivia of forge temperatures, gem-cutting techniques, or what have you, use Craft. Medicine covers the workings of the body in health, sickness and trauma, as well as the assorted remedies for both disease and injury. War commands the strategies and tools of warfare, from the deployment of siege engines to types of formations to actual training regimens. Other Abilities can come into play for knowledge checks when characters draw upon the formal details of their expertise. For example, identifying a fighter's style from her kata requires a successful (Intelligence + Martial Arts) check.

The difficulty of an academic knowledge check depends on the obscurity of the fact, with difficulty 0 indicating that any character with a dot of this Ability automatically knows the information without a roll and difficulty 1-5 for most checks. Difficulties above 6 are possible, but such esoteric insights are generally beyond mortal understanding. These rolls and difficulties assume the character has several minutes in which to think. Characters who try to recall details and facts on the fly substitute Wits for Intelligence and add two to the difficulty.

Create Item/Artifact (Craft, Lore, Occult)

Mundane Items

Characters use the Craft Ability to design and execute creative projects as a dramatic action using a dice pool of ([the character's lowest rating in Dexterity, Perception or Intelligence] + Craft) for small items that are personally assembled by hand or ([the lower of Perception or Intelligence] + Craft) for larger works. The difficulty is equal to the Resources value of the object. Such projects take an appropriate length of time to complete, as set by the Storyteller. Generally, this interval is in days equal to the difficulty for small items, though extremely simple trinkets worth Resources 1 might take only a few hours to make. Larger or higher-complexity items push the interval from days to weeks, as with most forged goods. Massive projects such as the construction of houses and ships take an interval of months and possibly years for larger structures such as palaces. Truly monumental tasks could theoretically take even longer, although the Storyteller is encouraged to break such enterprises into smaller, independently resolved tasks.

Characters cannot create items with a Resources value in excess of (their Craft + appropriate specialty) without a Charm or stunt. Furthermore, they must have appropriate raw materials and tools, which have their own Resources cost—typically one dot less than the value of the intended project. In the case of large projects, this cost also includes hiring the many laborers necessary to construct the item. The Storyteller should grant exceptions based on common sense. A set of paintbrushes is still Resources 1, even if an artist intends to paint a masterpiece. Any physical item may be built using these rules, whether the process employed is carving, sculpting, forging, painting, jewelry making or anything else. If successful, the project goes as planned. For every success by which the roll failed to meet the difficulty, the final Resources value of the project decreases accordingly. If the final value could purchase an inferior-quality version of the desired item type, the project is completed according to such specifications. Therefore, an artist who sought to paint a masterpiece worth Resources 4 but whose ended up rolling a single success would produce a Resources 1 painting—pretty enough in an amateurish and trivial way. If no lower-cost counterpart for the desired item exists (large estates could be Resources 4 or 5, but not less), the project fails. The craftsman can try again over a new interval, but he requires the same Resources cost in tools and materials as if he were starting over. Fortunately, his player adds a number of bonus dice to his Craft roll equal to the dice that came up as successes in the previous attempt. He may repeat this as many times as desired, but dice bonuses are not cumulative; they reference only the last attempt. Botching a project at any point spoils it and negates any possibility of continued retry, though Storytellers can always rule that the craftsman made a worthless item that he vainly imagines to be a work of genius.

The threshold obtained on a creation attempt determines the overall quality of the work relative to the difficulty. An exceptional straight sword is worth Resources 3, and a blacksmith who obtains three successes for a threshold of 0 still makes an exceptional sword. However, if he obtains a threshold of 3-4, his work is observably better, with superior balance and elegance. Such items are called fine equipment. If a buyer has a choice between a fine blade and a threshold 0 blade, he will prefer the former and will pay more for it (though not enough to raise the Resources cost of the item).

If a character obtains a threshold of 5 on a project, the superb craftsmanship improves the final Resources value by one dot (to a maximum of 5), automatically making the item exceptional. If possible, this quality improves the utility of the item accordingly. For example, a normal straight sword is Resources 2 and requires two successes. With seven successes, the extraordinary quality makes it a Resources 3 exceptional weapon. Because three successes would also be enough to make the weapon exceptional if the character had planned to do so all along, taking three weeks and spending Resources 2 on materials, the chief advantage of producing an unexpected masterpiece is the ability to do so cheaper, more quickly and possibly with less training. Perfect goods, the ultimate expression of what is possible in a given craft without magic, have a difficulty and creation time equal to (the Resources cost of an average item + 5) and a cost in materials equal to (the cost of an average version of the item + two dots, maximum Resources 5). Therefore, a perfect straight sword would cost Resources 4 in materials and take seven weeks to make at a difficulty of 7.

Artifacts

In addition to making mundane goods, magical beings may use the five magical materials and other exotic ingredients to produce artifacts that are nearly indestructible and imbued with enchantments (see pp. 380-381 and 385-392 for examples). Building an artifact requires that characters have a Craft, Lore and Occult each rated at 3+ for artifacts rated 1 to 3. For greater wonders, the minimum Ability rating required is (the Artifact rating + 2), meaning that characters cannot build level-5 artifacts without superhuman prowess. Artifacts are not built as normal goods, but instead require an extended roll of the same dice pool at a difficulty of (the artifact’s intended rating + 2). Exalted who craft magical materials different from the one that resonates with their kind (such as Solars working with jade) suffer a -2 internal penalty. The interval is one season, and the number of cumulative successes required depends on the rating of the artifact: 1 (10 successes), 2 (30 successes), 3 (60 successes), 4 (100 successes) and 5 (250 successes). A botch at any time halves the accumulated successes, rounded down.

Artifacts require mundane ingredients costing (their rating + 1)—maximum 5—as well as access to workshops costing Resources 4 to properly stock (or Resources 5 for workshops capable of producing level 4-5 artifacts). If characters do not have adequate tools at their disposal, they suffer a -2 internal penalty. In addition to mundane costs, every artifact requires a number of exotic ingredients equal to its rating, each of which must pertain to the function of the device. For instance, a basic daiklave could be built using the bones of a legendary warrior and steel refined in an elemental's fire. Exotic ingredients need not be expensive, but they should require effort to obtain (making excellent fodder for stories).

When determining the rating of a player or Storyteller-created artifact, keep the following guidelines in mind. Level-1 artifacts are useful but have only one minor supernatural power of a utilitarian nature. They are comparable to perfect equipment with no overtly supernatural powers (such as a quill that never runs out of ink or a jewel that glows as bright as a torch when commanded). Level-2 artifacts are moderately useful. However, these relics have little effect on stories and providing enchantments that an Exalt could approximate using a Charm two or three steps into a Charm tree. (Most "basic" magic weapons such as daiklaves fall into this category.) Level-3 artifacts are powerful, greatly expanding an Exalt's capability in one area or providing a number of weaker powers. Large artifacts might fall into this ranking if they require regular upkeep, external power provided by hearthstones, or other such drawbacks. Grand daiklaves, Essence cannons and the giant mechanized suits of armor called warstriders are all examples of level-3 artifacts, despite their differences in power. Level-4 artifacts are rare and wondrous things, such as cloaks that turn into wings and the advanced power armor manufactured in the Shogunate Era. Characters with such devices will have a sizable advantage against those without, although level-4 artifacts are not quite game-defining. Level- 5 artifacts are almost exclusively relics of the First Age, such as skyships, automatons programmed as both perfect servants and deadly bodyguards, and daiklaves that drink souls. These are game-defining devices.