Twisting Spiteful Shaft

Cost: 4m; Mins: Archery 4, Essence 3; Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Pulse of the Prey

When the arrows of Oblivion taste blood, can they be blamed for drinking deeper of the wound? This Charm enhances any Archery-based attack that inflicts lethal (or aggravated) damage. If the attack inflicts any damage to an animate being, the projectile burrows deeper into the wound and cannot be removed without a difficulty 3 (Strength + [Athletics or Medicine]) roll as a miscellaneous action. Energy-based attacks instead cover the target in an agonizing nimbus of the appropriate energy (so firewands set victims aflame), but the action to extinguish this nimbus is the same. Until the effect is stopped, the victim suffers an number of dice of lethal damage equal to the Abyssal's Essence on each tick when the victim acts (or once every five seconds out of combat). This damage bypasses soak and Hardness from armor.

Victims suffering from multiple activations of this Charm use the highest Essence among the archers to determine damage, adding one die to the damage and one to the difficulty of removal for each activation after the first.