Cenobite451
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“I’d ask,” the hummingbird says, “how can a destroyer rescue someone? I mean, if you are, by nature, destructive?”
“How?”
The girl makes a deliberately horrified face.
“So very, very badly,” she admits.
-Ink Inappropriate, imago.hitherby.com
The Abyssal exalted are not the champions of death. They are not the pale saviors of the Underworld, with its ghosts and chains and coins. They do not serve Lethe, nor the Dual Monarchs, nor even, truth be told, the Deathlords in their wickedness.
They are empowered by something far worse. They are the bloody, squalling children of the apocalypse.
I WILL MAKE OF THIS WORLD A TORTURE CHAMBER
A new take on Resonance
At the bottom of the world, there is a hole. Clustered about this hole, there are titanic corpses. To look upon them is to see the shape of utter suffering, agony at its most complete and total. And look: see them move.
They do not move. They are corpses. The motion you see is the motion of their spiritual decay, the maggots and vermin that writhe beneath their skin and cause it to puppeteer intention and malevolence. The Neverborn are mindless. They are inchoate nightmare. They are the suffering that gnaws at the ankles of the entire world.
They will win, one day. Saturn may be loath to admit it, but they are the always-ending of which she speaks.
WHAT IS RESONANCE?
It is a fundamental fact of the Abyssal Exaltation's nature. An Abyssal Exaltation has been tainted by the Neverborn, and through them, the Void. This explains the destructive nature of Abyssal magic, but does not, by itself, explain their Dark Fate.
Resonance is a specific reflection of the agony of the Neverborn. It is the result of an unresolved tension. The Neverborn are mired in the torment of their continued (non)existence. When an Abyssal takes steps to preserve things as they are, when she strives to ensure the longevity of a mortal or an organization, she resonates with the agony of the dead titans. In so doing, the keter soul within her begins to whine and bleed in sympathy.
The Neverborn are tormented by the preservation of their condition. An Abyssal who seeks to preserve, therefore, takes on that torment and shares it with the world. When an Abyssal performs those acts denied the dead titans, she resolves this tension. By ending life, by unraveling empire, she gives surcease-in-effigy to the Neverborn in their hole. And her keter soul shivers with delight, gasping the air of purity-in-purpose.
Resonance is intrinsic to the Abyssal Exaltation. An Executioner may never avoid it, so long as she remains an Executioner. Every life-affirming act she performs must be counter-balanced by atrocity, forever and always.
WHAT DOES RESONANCE DO?
Resonance makes the world to suffer. As she accumulates Resonance, the unresolved tension of the Neverborn’s unceasing agony bleeds out from the Abyssal-keter and taints with darkness those things an Executioner seeks to preserve. Her own body will twist into a monster’s shape. The world around her will riot with rot, horror, and dead things walking. Those closest to her will find themselves driven to murder or madness.
The only effect that Resonance never has is death. The Dark Fate cannot kill by its direct action. When a soul churns in sympathy with the Neverborn, suffering can only grow asymptotically toward the absolute.
The sweet release of death will never come for you.
WE ARE THE ARMY YOU SEE THROUGH THE RED HAZE OF BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD
Gaining Resonance
An Abyssal gains Resonance in the following ways:
Preserving Life: Whenever an Executioner attempts to save a mortal from death, whether by fighting off an assassin or by pulling an infant from the water, she gains a point of Resonance.
Preserving Structure: Upon first swearing loyalty to an organization that is not dedicated to death, and for each week of service thereafter, an Executioner gains one point of Resonance. Organizations dedicated to death include armies engaged in active warfare, suicide cults, and bloody secret police forces. The Storyteller should judge an Executioner’s obligations appropriately. Note that even traitorous service will accrue Resonance. A loyal Abyssal infiltrating the Haslanti Grandmothers will Resonate; however, she will likely find the petty murders necessary to expiate her karma far more enjoyable than her renegade counterpart would.
Preserving Relationships: At the beginning of each week in which an Abyssal is engaged in a reciprocal, positive relationship with a living being, she gains a point of Resonance. For every two weeks an Abyssal is engaged in an intimate relationship whether romantic or not, with a ghost or non-living being, she gains a point of Resonance. These conditions do not stack. The first time in a scene the Abyssal benefits from an Intimacy to either type of relationship, she gains a point of Resonance. These relationships must be serious and genuine; smiling at a barkeep does not cause the Black Exaltation to eddy nightmare. Unlike with Preserving Structure, the Abyssal’s honesty is required to accrue points of Resonance: a loyalist who merely pretends to romance is safe.
Relationships with other Abyssal Exalted do not inflict Resonance. An Abyssal’s Lunar mate is also an exception. The Deathlords are, explicitly, not.
Charms: Some Charms may grant points of Resonance.
Sidebar: The Curse of the Name– It should be obvious at this point that responding to her lost name will not generate points of Resonance. Instead, whenever an Executioner acknowledges the dead syllables that described her mortal life, there is an Obvious display of dark portent: thunder cracks on a clear day, a drop of blood seeps from the Abyssal’s eye, or a sudden intense chill grasps the room. This is, in fact, a minor Blasphemy effect, but is so small as to hardly register on the monitors of Heaven.
Losing Resonance
An Abyssal may lose Resonance by committing acts of atrocity. The Neverborn shiver with every ending brought about by their erstwhile servants. Thus, an Abyssal dissipates points of Resonance via murder and destruction. Killing a mortal dissipates a single point. Killing an Exalt or god dissipates [victim’s Essence] points. Destroying a priceless work of art might dissipate as much as three points, while burning and salting a city’s fields might dissipate a full five points. The Storyteller should judge; the more effort an Abyssal character puts towards the destruction, or the greater the emotional toll of the killing, the more points of Resonance should be burned. Elaborate ritual, deliberate stalking, or excessive violence should all increase the Resonance loss. If an Abyssal performs an act of atrocity that dissipates more points of Resonance than she currently possesses, the extra points are banked against future sins. An Abyssal may never have more than five “free” points of Resonance banked in this way.
Should an Abyssal murder the target of one of her own positive Intimacies, she automatically dissipates all Resonance she currently possesses, and may avoid the next five points she would stand to gain. The target must be a character; an Abyssal may not destroy a cherished item to benefit in this way.
Effects of Resonance
0: The Abyssal’s doom is held at bay. She sleeps the sleep of the just.
1-2: The Abyssal has taken small steps in a forbidden direction. She gains a single Venom at the first level. Ex: 1st Venom, 1st level.
3-4: Within the Executioner’s chest, her keter-soul begins to shiver and bleed. She gains a second Venom at the first level. The player must choose a new Venom that falls under a different category from her existing Venom (Internal rather than External, or vice versa). If any points of Resonance in the track are generated by preserving a forbidden relationship, the player must choose a Personal Venom, if she has not done so already. She also advances her original Venom to the second level. Ex: 1st Venom, 2nd level; 2nd Venom, 1st level.
5-6: The Black Exaltation keens like a wounded animal. The Abyssal advances her second Venom by another level. With two Venoms at level two, she may choose to gain a third Venom at level one, or advance her original Venom to its final level. The third Venom may be of any type. Ex: 1st Venom, 3rd level; 2nd Venom, 2nd level. OR 1st and 2nd Venom, 2nd level; 3rd Venom, 1st level.
7-8: Hyperventilating in agony, the Abyssal-keter razors its broken-shard edges against the soft places of the Executioner’s soul. Its keening grows ever louder. If the Abyssal possesses a Venom at its final level, she gains no new ones. If the Abyssal does not, she must advance her third Venom another level. Ex: 1st Venom, 3rd level; 2nd Venom, 2nd level. OR All Venoms, 2nd level
9: The weight of her blasphemous karma now nearly inescapable, every waking moment becomes horror. The Black Exaltation extends tiny mausoleum-tendrils that are visible in the whites of the Executioner’s eyes and its screaming is audible as a subsonic whine. The player must advance her first Venom to its final level. If has already done so, she advances her second Venom to its final level. Ex: 1st and 2nd Venom, 3rd level. OR 1st Venom, 3rd level; 2nd and 3rd Venom, 2nd level.
10: At the highest level of Resonance, the Abyssal becomes an apocalypse-in-miniature. One Venom at the third level, of the player’s choice, spontaneously re-asserts its effect, regardless of what cool-down periods this might violate. The Abyssal may avoid this fate by suffering two levels of Aggravated damage. At the end of the scene, whether through the blasphemies of her Venom or the blood of her wounds, this final point of Resonance is expiated.
VENOMS OF THE DARK FATE
These are the allergic reactions brought on by an Abyssal’s denial of her dharma as a World-Ending Weapon. Venoms are not, in any way, controlled by the Neverborn. They are the manifestations of the Abyssal-keter’s own sympathetic agony. Some Executioners suffer similar outbreaks each time they fight against their dharma; others enjoy a broader spectrum of torments.
As an Abyssal rises and falls in Resonance, Venoms will come and go. Venoms take a scene to manifest or dissipate. When a Venom dissipates or recedes a level, all of its effects remove themselves. This may be cold comfort: an imposed Whispers rating will vanish, but if that Whispers rating has driven an Abyssal’s lover to seek solace in the Labyrinth, her condition may be worsened rather than improved.
The Venoms below are simply the most common. There are a vast number of different agonies that a wayward Executioner may suffer. When designing Venoms for Abyssal PCs, keep in mind that Venoms will never cause the death of another character through their direct action. That said, the first level of a Venom is generally cosmetic, on par with a one-point mutation. The second level is more severe, causing a persistent penalty or hassle on par with a five or six point mutation. The third level is apocalyptic; its effects are generally one-time, followed by a cool-down period before re-asserting themselves. They are showy, gruesome and destructive. They can, and should!, easily define a scene’s worth of play.
Internal
Internal Venoms affect only the Abyssal herself, altering her form, changing her perceptions, or compelling her actions.
Venom of Withered Flesh
This Venom reduces an Abyssal to a mockery of age and weakness.
(1) At first, the Abyssal takes on the superficial appearance of old age, hair thinning and graying, nails and teeth yellowing, and skin wrinkling. Her effective Appearance drops by 1, to a minimum of 1, for the purposes of all romantic interaction.
(2) Her decay metastasizes, and the Abyssal finds her muscles cramping and her fingers curling into arthritic claws. She suffers a -4 internal penalty to all physical actions outside of combat. She may fight without pain; an Abyssal is, and always will be, a weapon. Even sympathy with the Neverborn cannot diminish that. Finally, her Appearance drops to one dot, the haggard old ghoul.
(3) The Abyssal’s ever-weakening body is held together only by the inertia of her over-hanging doom, and even that is tenuous. The next time she fails a physical action outside of combat, one of her limbs shatters into dust as a Crippling effect. This effect persists until the Abyssal anoints the stump with one health level of blood not her own, her Resonance falls, or she uses some form of magic to restore herself. After a week’s time spent whole, the threat of this Venom’s Crippling effect returns.
Venom of Gore-Palate Hunger
This Venom destroys an Abyssal’s capability to draw sustenance from the world.
(1) The Abyssal’s palate begins to shift toward the macabre. She may only gain sustenance from meat, and then only if it is at least rare, preferably bloody. She may eat other food, but doing so inflicts a -2 internal penalty for an hour afterward as the nauseated Executioner tries to prevent her gag reflex from kicking in.
(2) Her tastes shifting even further into the horrific, the Abyssal now counts either fresh blood or dead flesh as her sole source of nutrition. Both the blood and corpses must come from thinking creatures. Anything else that she tries to consume, even water, is immediately and painfully vomited up. If she does not eat at least once every six hours, the Abyssal is afflicted with severe hunger cramps, inflicting a -2 external penalty.
(3) Now is the hunger of our discontent. When next confronted with a living victim towards whom she does not bear an Intimacy, the Abyssal must roll her Temperance at a -1 external penalty. Should she fail, she suffers an immediate Compulsion to attack and devour her victim, resisted with 3w. This hunger frenzy persists for the rest of the scene and, once exhausted, does not become a threat again until a week has passed.
Venom of Fearful Words
This Venom transforms even casual conversations with an Executioner into nightmare.
(1) Every word out of the Executioner’s mouth is haunted by subtle, moaning echoes. All social rolls to make a good first impression lose three dice, and the Abyssal is marked as clearly unnatural.
(2) The Abyssal’s words are now warped, distorted, and honestly terrifying. Any character to whom she speaks develops an Intimacy of hateful fear toward the Executioner. This is an Emotion effect that costs 1w to resist. Characters with such an Intimacy will go out of their way to escape the Abyssal, if alone, or run her out of town, in in a group.
(3) Something within the Executioner’s soul breaks. For the rest of the scene, she is forced to speak in horrible, unwilling glossolalia. The Abyssal may resist this Compulsion at the cost of 4w. Any character who hears the Abyssal’s unholy rantings gains a Severe Obsession with silencing her, as a Shaping effect. The Compulsion fades at the end of the scene, but will re-assert itself one week later.
Other Internal Venoms might include: Venom of Turncoat Hand, Venom of Putrescent Belly, Venom of Skeleton’s Departure, and Venom of Bat-Wracked Belfry.
External
External Venoms affect the world around the Abyssal.
Venom of Blasphemous Presence
This Venom warps the pure into the unholy wherever an Abyssal walks.
(1) All religious icons in the Abyssal’s immediate presence tarnish, losing their sheen and gaining a patina of decay over the next few moments. This tarnishing cannot be directly tied to the Abyssal herself, but a character with knowledge of the Underworld may deduce a connection with the right die-rolls. In appropriate environments, any character tracking the Executioner adds a single success to her attempts.
(2) All religious icons in the Abyssal’s presence begin to scream and whine, persisting for an hour after the Executioner’s passing. In appropriate environments, tracking attempts automatically succeed. The Abyssal is immediately identified as an unholy thing, and will be treated appropriately.
(3) When next the Abyssal comes into the presence of a religious icon, her presence reaches out and throttles it. The largest icon present bursts into green pyreflame, as a Blasphemy effect keyed off the of the Abyssal’s own Essence rating. The immediate fallout of such an inauspicious display should, it goes without saying, be severe.
Venom of Stillborn Burial
This Venom disturbs the rest of all dead things around an Abyssal’s home.
(1) As the Executioner sleeps, all corpses smaller than a mouse rouse themselves to shambling life. This effect extends across the entire settlement in which the Abyssal rests, or a mile if the Abyssal takes her repose in the wilderness. These vermin-corpses do not interact with each other or with anyone else; they simply shamble about. This level has no mechanical effects; it simply serves to terrify.
(2) Now, corpses up to the size of a dog are roused, clawing their way out of the dirt. These corpse-beasts will attack the living, unlike their vermin-corpse predecessors, including the Abyssal herself. In fact, these corpses are particularly drawn to the Abyssal, and will preferentially attack her over other characters.
(3) The Abyssal’s presence wakes something truly horrible. A single titanic corpse rises from the grave at the stroke of midnight and begins a cruel rampage. Build this creature as a rank 7 Genesis construction. The creature will do its absolute best to cripple its Abyssal progenitor, destroy her property, or otherwise cause her trouble. At the end of the scene it falls apart, but will reanimate in a week’s time, finding itself close to the Abyssal again through the nighmare-paths of the Neverborn.
Other External Venoms might include: Venom of Dark Storm Night, Venom of Nightmare’s Life, Venom of Mausoleum Eruption, and Venom of Bone-Marimba Bacchanal.
Personal
Personal Venoms affect the victims of an Abyssal’s affections. Note: Personal Venoms can affect Exalted, or similarly important characters, only if they possess a reciprocal Intimacy toward the Abyssal. When a Venom first asserts itself, they may choose to abandon said Intimacy at no cost, thus avoiding any negative effects. In keeping the Intimacy, however, they submit to the Dark Fate. An Abyssal may only ever have one Personal Venom at a time.
Venom of the Black Cultist
This Venom slowly draws an Abyssal’s loved one into the service of the Neverborn.
(1) Choose one character, living or dead, to whom the Abyssal holds a positive Intimacy. That character gains a dot of Whispers.
(2) The targeted character’s Whispers increases to 3. Once per day, she suffers a Compulsion to carry out one mad task assigned by the Neverborn’s dreams. The Compulsion costs 2w to resist and the task must take less than a scene to accomplish. While carrying out her task, the targeted character exists in fugue; she may well attack or otherwise hinder her Abyssal companion.
(3) The targeted character’s Whispers increases to 5. At the next midnight, a temporary Shadowland forms around her, through which she descends into the Underworld, suffering an irresistible Compulsion to seek out the Labyrinth and join the mad nephwracks there. Her condition is Obvious to Creatures of Death, and they will not impede her, either out of fear or grim approval. If prevented from reaching her goal, the character returns to her senses, but the process will repeat in a week’s time.
Venom of the Undreamt Sleeper
This Venom destroys the mind of an Abyssal’s loved one.
(1) Choose one character, living or dead, toward whom the Abyssal holds a positive Intimacy. That character begins to suffer awful nightmares, preventing her from regaining Willpower from sleep.
(2) The nightmares worsen. The targeted character gains a single Madness Mutation at the most severe level possible. This madness is inspired by the relationship between the targeted character and the Resonant Abyssal. A Midnight preacher might find his illicit mortal friend has become convinced the the world is dead and that Oblivion has won. A Day renegade instead discovers his ghostly confidante has grown obsessed with returning to the service of the Deathlords.
(3) The targeted character suffers a complete break with reality, the horrors of her dreams becoming too much to bear. She immediately loses all points of Willpower and, in a fit of suicidal mania, attempts to destroy herself and as many other sentient individuals as possible. This might take the form of frantically hacking at the hull of a lifeboat, setting fire to a crowded building, or hurling herself at a gang of armed thugs. At the end of the scene, should she survive, the targeted character regains one point of Willpower and her madness recedes for a week.
Venom of the Dark Night Hunter
This Venom turns an Abyssal’s loved one into a stalker of the night.
(1) Choose one character, living or dead, toward whom the Abyssal holds a positive Intimacy. That character finds her Compassion drops by one, to a minimum of one.
(2)The targeted character begins to fantasize about the chase, and what comes after. She acts as if under the effects of a partially-controlled Deliberate Cruelty Limit Break (Exalted Core, p. 105). She suffers a one-die penalty on all social rolls, due to her coldness.
(3) The targeted character has become obsessed with running down her prey. At the next opportunity, she will sneak off and attempt to murder a living, sentient being. The criteria for her target will vary; one character might favor small children, another the elderly. This is a Compulsion effect costing 3wp to resist. If the character resists, or is otherwise prevented from pursuing her sport, the Compulsion fades, but will re-assert itself in a week’s time.
Other Personal Venoms might include: The Venom of the Child’s-Toy Murderer, Venom of the Silent Mask, Venom of the Cannibal Lover, and Venom of the Drunken Exorcist
SUFFER ‘TIL YOU BURST
New and Altered Charms
New Charm: Unjust Punishment Alchemy
Cost: 1m; Mins: Integrity 1, Essence 1; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Merged (War, Occult, Larceny, Bureaucracy)
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
No Abyssal has ever escaped the yoke of her Dark Fate, but they may struggle beneath and, in some cases, transform it. The Executioner may activate this Charm to swap one of her existing Venoms for a new one, trading, for example, the Venom of the Black Cultist with the Venom of Gore-Hunger Palate. Doing so increases the new Venom’s level by one for a full 24 hours following. If the Venom is already at the third level, it instead immediately asserts its effects, regardless of how long ago the original Venom did so.
Altered Charm: Faithful Killer’s Reprieve
Replace the text of this Charm with the following:
The Neverborn will take whatever respite they can, from whatever avenue they can. With every murder and assault committed by their Executioners, their infinite agony is relieved infinitesimally. An Abyssal with this Charm may choose to dedicate her acts of atrocity directly to the Neverborn themselves. Doing so requires ritual implements worth Resources 3 and necessitates that the act take place in a Shadowland or the Underworld. Any Abyssal with points in Liege may be assumed to have access to the proper tools. Engaging in an hour-long bout of horrible glossolalia, blood-letting, and other blasphemous sacraments, the Executioner finally completes her atrocity. She loses twice as many points of Resonance as would normally be permitted.
Altered Charm: Lesser Horrors Scorned
When used to defend against direct unnatural mental influence from a character solely targeting the Abyssal, this Charm forces a second level Internal Venom on the attacker. This Venom persists for a single scene, and then dissipates. This Resonance effect may be defended exactly as per the original text of the Charm.
All credit for the above to Fitter Happier; I'm just the archivist.
“How?”
The girl makes a deliberately horrified face.
“So very, very badly,” she admits.
-Ink Inappropriate, imago.hitherby.com
The Abyssal exalted are not the champions of death. They are not the pale saviors of the Underworld, with its ghosts and chains and coins. They do not serve Lethe, nor the Dual Monarchs, nor even, truth be told, the Deathlords in their wickedness.
They are empowered by something far worse. They are the bloody, squalling children of the apocalypse.
I WILL MAKE OF THIS WORLD A TORTURE CHAMBER
A new take on Resonance
At the bottom of the world, there is a hole. Clustered about this hole, there are titanic corpses. To look upon them is to see the shape of utter suffering, agony at its most complete and total. And look: see them move.
They do not move. They are corpses. The motion you see is the motion of their spiritual decay, the maggots and vermin that writhe beneath their skin and cause it to puppeteer intention and malevolence. The Neverborn are mindless. They are inchoate nightmare. They are the suffering that gnaws at the ankles of the entire world.
They will win, one day. Saturn may be loath to admit it, but they are the always-ending of which she speaks.
WHAT IS RESONANCE?
It is a fundamental fact of the Abyssal Exaltation's nature. An Abyssal Exaltation has been tainted by the Neverborn, and through them, the Void. This explains the destructive nature of Abyssal magic, but does not, by itself, explain their Dark Fate.
Resonance is a specific reflection of the agony of the Neverborn. It is the result of an unresolved tension. The Neverborn are mired in the torment of their continued (non)existence. When an Abyssal takes steps to preserve things as they are, when she strives to ensure the longevity of a mortal or an organization, she resonates with the agony of the dead titans. In so doing, the keter soul within her begins to whine and bleed in sympathy.
The Neverborn are tormented by the preservation of their condition. An Abyssal who seeks to preserve, therefore, takes on that torment and shares it with the world. When an Abyssal performs those acts denied the dead titans, she resolves this tension. By ending life, by unraveling empire, she gives surcease-in-effigy to the Neverborn in their hole. And her keter soul shivers with delight, gasping the air of purity-in-purpose.
Resonance is intrinsic to the Abyssal Exaltation. An Executioner may never avoid it, so long as she remains an Executioner. Every life-affirming act she performs must be counter-balanced by atrocity, forever and always.
WHAT DOES RESONANCE DO?
Resonance makes the world to suffer. As she accumulates Resonance, the unresolved tension of the Neverborn’s unceasing agony bleeds out from the Abyssal-keter and taints with darkness those things an Executioner seeks to preserve. Her own body will twist into a monster’s shape. The world around her will riot with rot, horror, and dead things walking. Those closest to her will find themselves driven to murder or madness.
The only effect that Resonance never has is death. The Dark Fate cannot kill by its direct action. When a soul churns in sympathy with the Neverborn, suffering can only grow asymptotically toward the absolute.
The sweet release of death will never come for you.
WE ARE THE ARMY YOU SEE THROUGH THE RED HAZE OF BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD
Gaining Resonance
An Abyssal gains Resonance in the following ways:
Preserving Life: Whenever an Executioner attempts to save a mortal from death, whether by fighting off an assassin or by pulling an infant from the water, she gains a point of Resonance.
Preserving Structure: Upon first swearing loyalty to an organization that is not dedicated to death, and for each week of service thereafter, an Executioner gains one point of Resonance. Organizations dedicated to death include armies engaged in active warfare, suicide cults, and bloody secret police forces. The Storyteller should judge an Executioner’s obligations appropriately. Note that even traitorous service will accrue Resonance. A loyal Abyssal infiltrating the Haslanti Grandmothers will Resonate; however, she will likely find the petty murders necessary to expiate her karma far more enjoyable than her renegade counterpart would.
Preserving Relationships: At the beginning of each week in which an Abyssal is engaged in a reciprocal, positive relationship with a living being, she gains a point of Resonance. For every two weeks an Abyssal is engaged in an intimate relationship whether romantic or not, with a ghost or non-living being, she gains a point of Resonance. These conditions do not stack. The first time in a scene the Abyssal benefits from an Intimacy to either type of relationship, she gains a point of Resonance. These relationships must be serious and genuine; smiling at a barkeep does not cause the Black Exaltation to eddy nightmare. Unlike with Preserving Structure, the Abyssal’s honesty is required to accrue points of Resonance: a loyalist who merely pretends to romance is safe.
Relationships with other Abyssal Exalted do not inflict Resonance. An Abyssal’s Lunar mate is also an exception. The Deathlords are, explicitly, not.
Charms: Some Charms may grant points of Resonance.
Sidebar: The Curse of the Name– It should be obvious at this point that responding to her lost name will not generate points of Resonance. Instead, whenever an Executioner acknowledges the dead syllables that described her mortal life, there is an Obvious display of dark portent: thunder cracks on a clear day, a drop of blood seeps from the Abyssal’s eye, or a sudden intense chill grasps the room. This is, in fact, a minor Blasphemy effect, but is so small as to hardly register on the monitors of Heaven.
Losing Resonance
An Abyssal may lose Resonance by committing acts of atrocity. The Neverborn shiver with every ending brought about by their erstwhile servants. Thus, an Abyssal dissipates points of Resonance via murder and destruction. Killing a mortal dissipates a single point. Killing an Exalt or god dissipates [victim’s Essence] points. Destroying a priceless work of art might dissipate as much as three points, while burning and salting a city’s fields might dissipate a full five points. The Storyteller should judge; the more effort an Abyssal character puts towards the destruction, or the greater the emotional toll of the killing, the more points of Resonance should be burned. Elaborate ritual, deliberate stalking, or excessive violence should all increase the Resonance loss. If an Abyssal performs an act of atrocity that dissipates more points of Resonance than she currently possesses, the extra points are banked against future sins. An Abyssal may never have more than five “free” points of Resonance banked in this way.
Should an Abyssal murder the target of one of her own positive Intimacies, she automatically dissipates all Resonance she currently possesses, and may avoid the next five points she would stand to gain. The target must be a character; an Abyssal may not destroy a cherished item to benefit in this way.
Effects of Resonance
0: The Abyssal’s doom is held at bay. She sleeps the sleep of the just.
1-2: The Abyssal has taken small steps in a forbidden direction. She gains a single Venom at the first level. Ex: 1st Venom, 1st level.
3-4: Within the Executioner’s chest, her keter-soul begins to shiver and bleed. She gains a second Venom at the first level. The player must choose a new Venom that falls under a different category from her existing Venom (Internal rather than External, or vice versa). If any points of Resonance in the track are generated by preserving a forbidden relationship, the player must choose a Personal Venom, if she has not done so already. She also advances her original Venom to the second level. Ex: 1st Venom, 2nd level; 2nd Venom, 1st level.
5-6: The Black Exaltation keens like a wounded animal. The Abyssal advances her second Venom by another level. With two Venoms at level two, she may choose to gain a third Venom at level one, or advance her original Venom to its final level. The third Venom may be of any type. Ex: 1st Venom, 3rd level; 2nd Venom, 2nd level. OR 1st and 2nd Venom, 2nd level; 3rd Venom, 1st level.
7-8: Hyperventilating in agony, the Abyssal-keter razors its broken-shard edges against the soft places of the Executioner’s soul. Its keening grows ever louder. If the Abyssal possesses a Venom at its final level, she gains no new ones. If the Abyssal does not, she must advance her third Venom another level. Ex: 1st Venom, 3rd level; 2nd Venom, 2nd level. OR All Venoms, 2nd level
9: The weight of her blasphemous karma now nearly inescapable, every waking moment becomes horror. The Black Exaltation extends tiny mausoleum-tendrils that are visible in the whites of the Executioner’s eyes and its screaming is audible as a subsonic whine. The player must advance her first Venom to its final level. If has already done so, she advances her second Venom to its final level. Ex: 1st and 2nd Venom, 3rd level. OR 1st Venom, 3rd level; 2nd and 3rd Venom, 2nd level.
10: At the highest level of Resonance, the Abyssal becomes an apocalypse-in-miniature. One Venom at the third level, of the player’s choice, spontaneously re-asserts its effect, regardless of what cool-down periods this might violate. The Abyssal may avoid this fate by suffering two levels of Aggravated damage. At the end of the scene, whether through the blasphemies of her Venom or the blood of her wounds, this final point of Resonance is expiated.
VENOMS OF THE DARK FATE
These are the allergic reactions brought on by an Abyssal’s denial of her dharma as a World-Ending Weapon. Venoms are not, in any way, controlled by the Neverborn. They are the manifestations of the Abyssal-keter’s own sympathetic agony. Some Executioners suffer similar outbreaks each time they fight against their dharma; others enjoy a broader spectrum of torments.
As an Abyssal rises and falls in Resonance, Venoms will come and go. Venoms take a scene to manifest or dissipate. When a Venom dissipates or recedes a level, all of its effects remove themselves. This may be cold comfort: an imposed Whispers rating will vanish, but if that Whispers rating has driven an Abyssal’s lover to seek solace in the Labyrinth, her condition may be worsened rather than improved.
The Venoms below are simply the most common. There are a vast number of different agonies that a wayward Executioner may suffer. When designing Venoms for Abyssal PCs, keep in mind that Venoms will never cause the death of another character through their direct action. That said, the first level of a Venom is generally cosmetic, on par with a one-point mutation. The second level is more severe, causing a persistent penalty or hassle on par with a five or six point mutation. The third level is apocalyptic; its effects are generally one-time, followed by a cool-down period before re-asserting themselves. They are showy, gruesome and destructive. They can, and should!, easily define a scene’s worth of play.
Internal
Internal Venoms affect only the Abyssal herself, altering her form, changing her perceptions, or compelling her actions.
Venom of Withered Flesh
This Venom reduces an Abyssal to a mockery of age and weakness.
(1) At first, the Abyssal takes on the superficial appearance of old age, hair thinning and graying, nails and teeth yellowing, and skin wrinkling. Her effective Appearance drops by 1, to a minimum of 1, for the purposes of all romantic interaction.
(2) Her decay metastasizes, and the Abyssal finds her muscles cramping and her fingers curling into arthritic claws. She suffers a -4 internal penalty to all physical actions outside of combat. She may fight without pain; an Abyssal is, and always will be, a weapon. Even sympathy with the Neverborn cannot diminish that. Finally, her Appearance drops to one dot, the haggard old ghoul.
(3) The Abyssal’s ever-weakening body is held together only by the inertia of her over-hanging doom, and even that is tenuous. The next time she fails a physical action outside of combat, one of her limbs shatters into dust as a Crippling effect. This effect persists until the Abyssal anoints the stump with one health level of blood not her own, her Resonance falls, or she uses some form of magic to restore herself. After a week’s time spent whole, the threat of this Venom’s Crippling effect returns.
Venom of Gore-Palate Hunger
This Venom destroys an Abyssal’s capability to draw sustenance from the world.
(1) The Abyssal’s palate begins to shift toward the macabre. She may only gain sustenance from meat, and then only if it is at least rare, preferably bloody. She may eat other food, but doing so inflicts a -2 internal penalty for an hour afterward as the nauseated Executioner tries to prevent her gag reflex from kicking in.
(2) Her tastes shifting even further into the horrific, the Abyssal now counts either fresh blood or dead flesh as her sole source of nutrition. Both the blood and corpses must come from thinking creatures. Anything else that she tries to consume, even water, is immediately and painfully vomited up. If she does not eat at least once every six hours, the Abyssal is afflicted with severe hunger cramps, inflicting a -2 external penalty.
(3) Now is the hunger of our discontent. When next confronted with a living victim towards whom she does not bear an Intimacy, the Abyssal must roll her Temperance at a -1 external penalty. Should she fail, she suffers an immediate Compulsion to attack and devour her victim, resisted with 3w. This hunger frenzy persists for the rest of the scene and, once exhausted, does not become a threat again until a week has passed.
Venom of Fearful Words
This Venom transforms even casual conversations with an Executioner into nightmare.
(1) Every word out of the Executioner’s mouth is haunted by subtle, moaning echoes. All social rolls to make a good first impression lose three dice, and the Abyssal is marked as clearly unnatural.
(2) The Abyssal’s words are now warped, distorted, and honestly terrifying. Any character to whom she speaks develops an Intimacy of hateful fear toward the Executioner. This is an Emotion effect that costs 1w to resist. Characters with such an Intimacy will go out of their way to escape the Abyssal, if alone, or run her out of town, in in a group.
(3) Something within the Executioner’s soul breaks. For the rest of the scene, she is forced to speak in horrible, unwilling glossolalia. The Abyssal may resist this Compulsion at the cost of 4w. Any character who hears the Abyssal’s unholy rantings gains a Severe Obsession with silencing her, as a Shaping effect. The Compulsion fades at the end of the scene, but will re-assert itself one week later.
Other Internal Venoms might include: Venom of Turncoat Hand, Venom of Putrescent Belly, Venom of Skeleton’s Departure, and Venom of Bat-Wracked Belfry.
External
External Venoms affect the world around the Abyssal.
Venom of Blasphemous Presence
This Venom warps the pure into the unholy wherever an Abyssal walks.
(1) All religious icons in the Abyssal’s immediate presence tarnish, losing their sheen and gaining a patina of decay over the next few moments. This tarnishing cannot be directly tied to the Abyssal herself, but a character with knowledge of the Underworld may deduce a connection with the right die-rolls. In appropriate environments, any character tracking the Executioner adds a single success to her attempts.
(2) All religious icons in the Abyssal’s presence begin to scream and whine, persisting for an hour after the Executioner’s passing. In appropriate environments, tracking attempts automatically succeed. The Abyssal is immediately identified as an unholy thing, and will be treated appropriately.
(3) When next the Abyssal comes into the presence of a religious icon, her presence reaches out and throttles it. The largest icon present bursts into green pyreflame, as a Blasphemy effect keyed off the of the Abyssal’s own Essence rating. The immediate fallout of such an inauspicious display should, it goes without saying, be severe.
Venom of Stillborn Burial
This Venom disturbs the rest of all dead things around an Abyssal’s home.
(1) As the Executioner sleeps, all corpses smaller than a mouse rouse themselves to shambling life. This effect extends across the entire settlement in which the Abyssal rests, or a mile if the Abyssal takes her repose in the wilderness. These vermin-corpses do not interact with each other or with anyone else; they simply shamble about. This level has no mechanical effects; it simply serves to terrify.
(2) Now, corpses up to the size of a dog are roused, clawing their way out of the dirt. These corpse-beasts will attack the living, unlike their vermin-corpse predecessors, including the Abyssal herself. In fact, these corpses are particularly drawn to the Abyssal, and will preferentially attack her over other characters.
(3) The Abyssal’s presence wakes something truly horrible. A single titanic corpse rises from the grave at the stroke of midnight and begins a cruel rampage. Build this creature as a rank 7 Genesis construction. The creature will do its absolute best to cripple its Abyssal progenitor, destroy her property, or otherwise cause her trouble. At the end of the scene it falls apart, but will reanimate in a week’s time, finding itself close to the Abyssal again through the nighmare-paths of the Neverborn.
Other External Venoms might include: Venom of Dark Storm Night, Venom of Nightmare’s Life, Venom of Mausoleum Eruption, and Venom of Bone-Marimba Bacchanal.
Personal
Personal Venoms affect the victims of an Abyssal’s affections. Note: Personal Venoms can affect Exalted, or similarly important characters, only if they possess a reciprocal Intimacy toward the Abyssal. When a Venom first asserts itself, they may choose to abandon said Intimacy at no cost, thus avoiding any negative effects. In keeping the Intimacy, however, they submit to the Dark Fate. An Abyssal may only ever have one Personal Venom at a time.
Venom of the Black Cultist
This Venom slowly draws an Abyssal’s loved one into the service of the Neverborn.
(1) Choose one character, living or dead, to whom the Abyssal holds a positive Intimacy. That character gains a dot of Whispers.
(2) The targeted character’s Whispers increases to 3. Once per day, she suffers a Compulsion to carry out one mad task assigned by the Neverborn’s dreams. The Compulsion costs 2w to resist and the task must take less than a scene to accomplish. While carrying out her task, the targeted character exists in fugue; she may well attack or otherwise hinder her Abyssal companion.
(3) The targeted character’s Whispers increases to 5. At the next midnight, a temporary Shadowland forms around her, through which she descends into the Underworld, suffering an irresistible Compulsion to seek out the Labyrinth and join the mad nephwracks there. Her condition is Obvious to Creatures of Death, and they will not impede her, either out of fear or grim approval. If prevented from reaching her goal, the character returns to her senses, but the process will repeat in a week’s time.
Venom of the Undreamt Sleeper
This Venom destroys the mind of an Abyssal’s loved one.
(1) Choose one character, living or dead, toward whom the Abyssal holds a positive Intimacy. That character begins to suffer awful nightmares, preventing her from regaining Willpower from sleep.
(2) The nightmares worsen. The targeted character gains a single Madness Mutation at the most severe level possible. This madness is inspired by the relationship between the targeted character and the Resonant Abyssal. A Midnight preacher might find his illicit mortal friend has become convinced the the world is dead and that Oblivion has won. A Day renegade instead discovers his ghostly confidante has grown obsessed with returning to the service of the Deathlords.
(3) The targeted character suffers a complete break with reality, the horrors of her dreams becoming too much to bear. She immediately loses all points of Willpower and, in a fit of suicidal mania, attempts to destroy herself and as many other sentient individuals as possible. This might take the form of frantically hacking at the hull of a lifeboat, setting fire to a crowded building, or hurling herself at a gang of armed thugs. At the end of the scene, should she survive, the targeted character regains one point of Willpower and her madness recedes for a week.
Venom of the Dark Night Hunter
This Venom turns an Abyssal’s loved one into a stalker of the night.
(1) Choose one character, living or dead, toward whom the Abyssal holds a positive Intimacy. That character finds her Compassion drops by one, to a minimum of one.
(2)The targeted character begins to fantasize about the chase, and what comes after. She acts as if under the effects of a partially-controlled Deliberate Cruelty Limit Break (Exalted Core, p. 105). She suffers a one-die penalty on all social rolls, due to her coldness.
(3) The targeted character has become obsessed with running down her prey. At the next opportunity, she will sneak off and attempt to murder a living, sentient being. The criteria for her target will vary; one character might favor small children, another the elderly. This is a Compulsion effect costing 3wp to resist. If the character resists, or is otherwise prevented from pursuing her sport, the Compulsion fades, but will re-assert itself in a week’s time.
Other Personal Venoms might include: The Venom of the Child’s-Toy Murderer, Venom of the Silent Mask, Venom of the Cannibal Lover, and Venom of the Drunken Exorcist
SUFFER ‘TIL YOU BURST
New and Altered Charms
New Charm: Unjust Punishment Alchemy
Cost: 1m; Mins: Integrity 1, Essence 1; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Merged (War, Occult, Larceny, Bureaucracy)
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
No Abyssal has ever escaped the yoke of her Dark Fate, but they may struggle beneath and, in some cases, transform it. The Executioner may activate this Charm to swap one of her existing Venoms for a new one, trading, for example, the Venom of the Black Cultist with the Venom of Gore-Hunger Palate. Doing so increases the new Venom’s level by one for a full 24 hours following. If the Venom is already at the third level, it instead immediately asserts its effects, regardless of how long ago the original Venom did so.
Altered Charm: Faithful Killer’s Reprieve
Replace the text of this Charm with the following:
The Neverborn will take whatever respite they can, from whatever avenue they can. With every murder and assault committed by their Executioners, their infinite agony is relieved infinitesimally. An Abyssal with this Charm may choose to dedicate her acts of atrocity directly to the Neverborn themselves. Doing so requires ritual implements worth Resources 3 and necessitates that the act take place in a Shadowland or the Underworld. Any Abyssal with points in Liege may be assumed to have access to the proper tools. Engaging in an hour-long bout of horrible glossolalia, blood-letting, and other blasphemous sacraments, the Executioner finally completes her atrocity. She loses twice as many points of Resonance as would normally be permitted.
Altered Charm: Lesser Horrors Scorned
When used to defend against direct unnatural mental influence from a character solely targeting the Abyssal, this Charm forces a second level Internal Venom on the attacker. This Venom persists for a single scene, and then dissipates. This Resonance effect may be defended exactly as per the original text of the Charm.
All credit for the above to Fitter Happier; I'm just the archivist.
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