Occult
Trait Description: This Ability represents a character's knowledge of and familiarity with all forms of magic, ranging from the Charms of the Exalted to the minor but ubiquitous workings of mortal thaumaturgy. In addition, it also covers familiarity with all manner of supernatural creatures, including ghosts, gods, elementals and the Fair Folk. Characters who are skilled in Occult know both the capabilities of such creatures and how to petition or appease them.
Specialties: Supernatural Etiquette, Exotic Cults, Thaumaturgy, Summoning, Ghosts, The Wyld
Trait Effects: Someone with Occult 1 can probably appease a minor local spirit or tell that someone is about to cast a spell. Someone with Occult 3 can recognize the difference between real and fake talismans and successfully bargain with moderately powerful gods. Someone with Occult 5 can summon elementals and demons and impress a Fair Folk noble with her knowledge of its etiquette.
Dramatic Systems for Occult
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.
Build/Attune Manse (Craft, Lore, Occult)
As explained on page 113, Essence does not flow evenly through Creation, it gathers in eddies and wellsprings of power known as demesnes. Each of these sites has an aspect, defining the type of power that resonates there. Possibilities include, Sidereal, Lunar, Solar, Abyssal or any of the five elements. Magical beings capable of channeling Essence may attune themselves to these locations through a simple meditative ritual (Intelligence + Lore), difficulty 1. This attunement is a dramatic action requiring a number of hours equal to the site’s rating. If the demesne already has beings attuned to it, they mystically feel the ritual regardless of their current location, but they do not know who is attempting to attune to the demesne unless they are physically present. Unless every owner gives consent, the attunement automatically fails. With a successful ritual (and consent, if necessary), a character becomes the new owner or a co-owner of the demesne and may automatically draw (the site's rating x 4) motes of Essence from the location whenever he is present.
While useful, demesnes are not portable, and their untamed energies can gradually mutate beings dwelling in close proximity like the touch of the Wyld does. For these reasons, Exalted raise manses atop demesnes they control whenever possible. Doing so is an enormously costly undertaking, both in terms of the resources required and the labor that goes into raising one of these arcane citadels. Characters must have at least 12 Ability dots divided among their ratings in Craft, Lore and Occult to design such a structure, and then, only for manses rated 1 to 3. Appropriate specialties count toward these totals. The total number of required Ability dots rises to 15 for level-4 manses and 20 for level 5. Characters cannot design a manse with a rating greater than the rating of the demesne it is intended to cap.
Designing a manse is a dramatic action requiring a month of in-game work, followed by a roll of (Intelligence + [the architect's lowest rating in Craft, Lore or Occult]) at a difficulty of the manse's intended rating. Other characters with sufficient Ability totals to build the manse may check the results, providing limited cooperation. If the roll fails, the character finds flaws in the blueprint and must start over from scratch. If the roll succeeds, actual construction may begin. In the event of a botch, the character’s designs include fatal flaws that will make the manse collapse or even explode within a month of its construction.
The construction materials and pay for 100 workers costs Resources 3 per month for level-1 through level-3 manses. Level-4 and level-5 manses cost Resources 4 per month (or Resources 3 for materials, assuming unpaid slave labor). The entire construction project takes a number of years equal to twice the manse's rating. Adjust this time proportionally to the labor pool available, so 200 workers take half as long, while a lone, maddened Exalt hauling stones into place would take 200 years of grueling daily effort to build a level-1 manse. Using supernatural labor also speeds the process, with every such being counting as multiple mortals. For instance, most First Circle demons are worth five laborers. If a completed manse has a lower rating than the demesne it caps, the excess energies produce dramatic but largely useless special effects around the manse.
Once the manse is completed, all attunements to the demesne immediately break. In the central hearthroom of the structure, a hearthstone will grow over the course of a month. The specific stone produced must correlate to the aspect of the manse, but it may be whatever one the architect planned. Characters can attune to a manse as if it were a demesne and gain additional Essence at the same rate when present at the site. Altering or defacing a manse's hearthroom in any substantial way disrupts the manse, breaking all existing attunements. The manse must be repaired before anyone can re-attune, which requires labor and materials equivalent to a month of construction. A character attuned to a manse may take the hearthstone and carry it against his skin, using the jewel as a conduit to the site. Doing so restores (the manse's rating x 2) motes per hour to the character. If it is socketed in a dedicated artifact made from one or more of the five magical materials, the stone also provides an additional enchantment according to its specific type.
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.
Thaumaturgy (Occult)
| THIS PAGE IS NOT FINISHED YET! |
There's a lot of this stuff (Oadenol's Codex), so all of it will eventually move to a separate page, Thaumaturgy.
The following sample Arts list a number of sample rituals according to the following format: Name (Minimum Degree, Attribute, Difficulty, Casting Time): Effect.
When casting rituals, thaumaturges spend the casting time in uninterrupted work, after which their players roll (Attribute + Occult + Degree known) against the listed difficulty. If successful, the ritual’s Effect takes place. A failure wastes the effort and components, while a botch imposes some mishap related to the intended effect. The minimum degree indicates the degree a character must possess in that Art to cast the ritual without knowing a specific Procedure to do so. Storytellers should feel free to create additional Arts and additional rituals for each Art using these examples as guidelines.
The Art of Astrology
Compile Chart (0, Wits, 2, one hour): This ritual requires access to star charts (Resources 2) and detailed personal information about the subject, or it automatically fails. Pertinent information may be obtained freely or uncovered through investigation. Success creates an astrological profile necessary for greater astrological rituals.
Lesser Divination (1, Intelligence, 4, three hours): By observing the night sky using star charts and a target's astrological profile, the thaumaturge makes a prediction about the target's future, splitting successes between duration and accuracy. Duration: 1 (one month), 2+ (one season). Accuracy generates predictions that are extremely vague (1) or vague (2+). Botches result in false predictions. (Targeting a Primordial or a native of the Wyld, Malfeas or the Underworld results in an automatic botch.) The Storyteller creates the prediction, assuming no interference from Heaven or beings that trigger automatic botches. Such interference spoils predictions.
Divination (2, Intelligence, 4, three hours): As Lesser Divination, but more successes may be applied to Duration: 3 (half a year) or 4+ (one year), or Accuracy: 3 (woefully incomplete but enlightening) or 4+ (somewhat accurate). Greater Divination (3, Intelligence, 4, three hours): As Divination, but more successes may be applied to Accuracy: 5 (mostly accurate with details) or 6+ (accurate with details).
The Art of Demon Summoning
Demonsight (1, Perception, 3, five minutes): Her closed eyes anointed with blood, the thaumaturge opens them to perceive immaterial demons with all senses for the rest of the scene.
Summon [Species] (2, Intelligence, 5, six hours): A First Circle demon of the desired species crawls through a crack in the Demon Realm and appears in a flash of green fire before the caster. Thaumaturges have no power to command summoned demons, but they may try to threaten, bribe or cajole them to do some task they are naturally inclined to do instead of immediately attacking (e.g., erymanthoi hunger for bones to crunch and flesh to rend). This ritual must be conducted entirely at night, and it involves blood sacrifice. To clarify, the summoning must begin at sundown, as with its superior, sorcery equivalent, Demon of the First Circle. Each ritual summons one and only one kind of First Circle demon. Each type of demon has its own sigil and array of plants, animals, stones, color combinations and other symbolic elements that must be used in its summoning.
The Art of Enchantment
[Least Wonder] (1, Intelligence, 3, 50 hours): This ritual may be interrupted and resumed without automatically failing, so long as the caster spends at least five hours per day working on it. The caster must have the target object on hand and own it, and the item cannot have Resources value greater that the thaumaturge's Occult rating. Each success gives the item the properties of being exceptional (see p. 365) for one decade. Each individual item that a character could categorize requires a separate Procedure, if the ritual is learned as such (e.g., swords, plate armor, blacksmithing tools, etc.).
[Lesser Wonder] (2, Intelligence, 4, 100 hours): As [Least Wonder], but an exceptional item (including an item already enchanted with [Least Wonder]) can be made perfect for one decade per success. (NOTE: errata says that Perfect Equipment doesn't exist and all perfect equipment should now be treated as Exceptional Equipment. I'm not sure whether this case should still work?)
[Talisman] (3, Intelligence, 5, 200 hours): Before beginning this ritual, the character physically builds an artifact with a rating of 1, using one more exotic ingredient than usual. See Create Item/Artifact for artifact-creation rules. Because the item is not made from one of the magical materials, it cannot socket hearthstones, nor is it indestructible. This ritual provides the magic that powers the artifact, lasting one decade per success. Such artifacts are called talismans, and they lose all magical power if they are targeted with a countermagic spell or if the item itself is significantly damaged. Every different artifact must be learned as a separate Procedure, if learned as a Procedure rather than through Degrees.
The Art of Geomancy
Essence Sense (0, Perception, 1, one minute): Needing no materials, nor required to spend Willpower, the thaumaturge handles or stares at a target object or being in rapt concentration. If the successes equal (11 – [the number of motes spent on Charms and/or spells currently affecting the target]), the thaumaturge senses the presence of Essence, but not its strength or source. Three or more successes also detect the presence of any thaumaturgical effects on the target.
Blessing (2, Intelligence, 3, three hours): The thaumaturge names a target within one mile, a sample of whose hair, blood or some other body part is part of the expended materials. Her player picks one Attribute, one Ability and one specialty for that Ability. The next time the target botches a roll of those traits in the context of that specialty, the botch is converted to a simple failure. This blessing cannot offset magically induced botches, and a character can benefit from only one geomantic blessing at a time.
Curse (2, Intelligence, 3, three hours): As Blessing, but the next failed roll for the target in the context of the named Attribute, Ability and specialty becomes a botch. A character can suffer from only one geomantic curse at a time.
The Art of the Dead
Summon Ghost (0, Charisma, 2, 15 minutes): Ghosts are frightfully easy to summon, as virtually any apprentice of the occult can tell you. At a location important to the deceased, a thaumaturge may call a ghost through offerings of grave goods and fresh blood. The roll's difficulty decreases by 1 if performed in a shadowland or the Underworld; increase it by 1 for each 100 years the person has been dead and if summoning a ghost by its qualities rather than its name. When performing this ritual in a shadowland, failure means that five (usually unwelcome) ghosts show up for each success by which the attempt falls short. Ghost summoned by this ritual manifest visibly and audibly but remain immaterial unless the ghost can materialize on its own or the summoning takes place in a shadowland.
Speak with Corpse (1, Perception, 2, one minute): This ritual requires the whole skull of a corpse; if there isn't enough meat on the bones to hold the jawbone, the thaumaturge must wire the jaw using human sinew and iron pins. The ritual itself involves a period of osculation that most would consider abhorrent. Afterward, the thaumaturge may ask and receive an answer to two questions, plus one question per threshold success. Corpses entreated with this ritual only know what their bones have seen since the day before their deaths; to learn what it saw while alive, the necromancer must seek the extant spirit.