Terrifying Argent Witches
Member
Just as the other Incarnate Exalted, the Lunar Exalted are forever marked by the death-curses of those who forged Creation. The Solars lose reason from their terrible virtue, the Sidereals are ensnared in the threads of Fate they weave, the Dragonblooded are overcome by the elements, and the Lunars? Why, the heart-felt ties of the Lunar Exalted become compulsions, chaining them to that which they let inside their guard. They are made slaves to twisted feelings.
There is a second and more subtle flaw in the way the Great Curse affects the Lunar Exalted, though. Perhaps one of those Primordials who cursed their murderers had watched the creation of Luna and drawn their own conclusions from it. Perhaps it is linked to the dark and secret ways in which the Argent Madonna made her Chosen. Perhaps it is both, or neither. Either way, the Witches can deteriorate further, one becoming many, the singular budding off Other Selves. The Lunar Exalted are aware of this, but none view it as something external to themselves. It is a trial and travail of being one of the Chosen of Luna.
Each Lunar has a 10-point Limit Track. Two forms of Limit can be marked onto it. Temporary Limit is marked as Solar Limit is marked. Permanent Limit, however, should be marked with a cross over the filled in box, and does not empty. As a result, the maximum size of the Limit Track is effectively decreased, and in addition, there are further effects. If something does not specify whether it adds permanent or temporary Limit, it adds temporary Limit.
Gaining Limit
There are several means by which Lunars accumulate temporary Limit;
• The Lunar must define one Virtue he has rated at three or above. When he spends willpower to defy that Virtue, he gains one point of Limit.
• The first time in a scene the Lunar spends Willpower to resist unnatural mental influence, she gains one point of Limit.
• Whenever a Lunar loses an Intimacy, or the context of an Intimacy changes from positive to negative or vice versa, the Lunar rolls her Conviction, and gains a number of points of Limit equal to the successes rolled. Magically created temporary Intimacies with a fixed finite duration do not produce this gain when the Intimacy ends naturally.
• Some Charms come with a cost of Limit. The number of points added are detailed in the appropriate Charm text.
Sources of permanent Limit are rather rarer;
• Some Charms specify that the character gains permanent Limit by using them, or particular features in them. This is not necessarily indefinite; “temporary” permanent Limit is removed after a stated period.
• Charms with the Chimeric keyword list the number of points of permanent Limit gained by using them for the first time (or learning them, if they are Permanent Charms). The Charm text details if there is any way of losing such permanent Limit.
• Mental crises or other blows to the Lunar’s sense of self which fundamentally strikes at her self-definition can inflict points of permanent Limit. Points of permanent Limit gained can vary from one to (successes on a relevant Virtue roll), and last until the Lunar finds some new mental balance. This is an unpredictable reaction to traumatic stress of the level of multiple Intimacies changing in context which has only been observed in the Lunar Exalted since the Usurpation, and should never be inflicted on a character without the player’s consent.
Lunacy
Once a character’s Limit track filled up, she enters Limit Break, known as Lunacy, and loses her points of temporary Limit.
While in Lunacy, one Intimacy dominates the Lunar’s existence. Every action she takes must attempt to further that Intimacy and its emotional context, and she may not act against it. The Intimacy affected should be either directly relevant when she enters Lunacy (for example, she is within sight of someone she hates), or it should have come up within the past scene. If neither condition applies, the Storyteller should select an appropriate Intimacy which makes sense at the time.
As a result, compared to the Limit Breaks of the Solar Exalted, Lunacy is much more unpredictable in its form and nature, and a rigid list of more detailed behaviour cannot be given. The Storyteller should compare the Intimacy to pre-existing Limit Breaks, and may substitute an appropriate one. For example, a Hate-based Lunacy may produce something akin to Berserk Anger against anything which symbolises or represents the thing the Lunar hates, while a Drink (Enjoyment) might produce Overindulgence specifically with regards to alcohol.
By default, Lunacy lasts for a single scene, unless it duplicates a different Limit Break, in which case it lasts as long as the mimicked madness would.
Abjection – the Chimerae - UNDER CONSTRUCTION
An ever-changing beast of flesh and bone and moonsilver ravages its way through the town. A mouth shoots out on the end of a hand to envelop a fleeing child, tearing it to shreds and spitting the bones out.
The owl is a hole in the world, rimmed with silver. Through it horrors from the Beyond squirm and wriggle, before combusting in their own impossibility. The hordes of the fae try to fight it, but their stories and tales are meaningless against this foe. The strix is the living path to Outside, and so it circles Creation, always at the borders between Here and There.
An old man sits by the side of the road in this quiet little town. He has lived here his entire life, and knows he is nearing the end of his life, but he is happy that his son is doing so well as the village thaumaturgist. He does not know that a week ago, a monster ate him and took his memories and his shape, forgetting who it was and what it was. He will not remember that he is the monster until something forces him out of this memory dream.
The owl-eyed woman with the silver mark on her forehead squats by the fire. She twitches slightly, as she warms her hands. The memories of yesterday are hateful to her and her presence erases footsteps from the ground, sweeping the tales of the world’s past from Creation. Despite that, she tries her best to prevent those hated yesterdays from recurring, and so her flesh rebels with all kind of aches and pains from unwanted recollection.
These are the fell powers of the Other Selves of the Lunar Exalted. All these monsters are all the same Lunar, though she (He? They? It?) knows it not. And together, these many selves in one body and one flesh and one keter soul are known as the Chimerae.
There are those among the Lunar Exalted who lose themselves. The progression is clear. First comes improved vicissitudes of form. They experience more mutability in their form, and more ease in transformation normal. Many Lunars have felt at least a taste of this, during times when they are confused and conflicted, enough to know that uncertainty loosens their form’s constraints further.
However, if they feel that this might merely be a blessing of Luna, the emergence of the Other Selves dispels such sentiments. At first, the Other Selves merely are different lens upon the world, different feelings and reactions to the same memories. With time spent in such a state, the Selves begin to differ, gaining different Intimacies, but they still share memories so the capacity of the Lunar to notice the wrongness is diminished.
And by the time the strange Curse-born powers start to emerge, it is getting too late to do anything about it. The Selves lose shared memory, their internal narratives and themes filling in the ‘missing time’. They gain powers which exceed or surpass what the Lunar Exalted can normally do – some hypothesise that these are bleedthrough from the Lunar Exalted that the Other Moons of Luna would have made had they been victorious in the birthplace of the Argent Madonna. They are increasingly driven by their passions to the extent of madness, and yet those passions diverge between Selves, so unknowing Selves thwart each other.
Some Lunars have been led back from such degeneration. Most have not. A few have at least one Other Self who can interact with the world as a non-Chimerical Lunar can – among their number is the famed First Age huntress, Lilith – but all too many of them are too lost in madness. Some hide away in their den-castles at the edge of the world, only emerging when an Other Self which cares about the world is dominant. Others rampage, and inevitably they are stopped, whether by saner Lunars, Sidereal witch-hunters, or the Wyld Hunt. Some are princes among the fae feted for how – in their mad way – they are Shaped and yet they have cast off the tedious mental constancy of the Creationborn, while others are the apex predators upon the princes of chaos.
This unenviable fragmentation is a product of a deeper madness in the Lunar Exalted, a sign of how – cursed as murderers by those who forged the world – the death-hate of dying titans has wormed into their very Essence and suffuses deeper, much deeper, than merely the mind. Perhaps the other Exalted show similar fractures, but as it stands only the Lunar Exalted show this deeper progression, perhaps because it plays off the very nature of their patron Incarna and turn strength into greater-yet-flawed strength.
The tragedy of this manifestation of the Great Curse is that the Lunar Exalted are fully aware of its existence. It would be rather hard to miss. Experienced Lunars know that they can suffer mental breakdowns which shatter their sense of self, leaving other personalities which display strange powers to emerge. But the origins of this in the tainted gift that was the Great Curse is entirely unknown. The essence of the Argent Madonna is what is blamed for this tendency, this capacity to fragment and for one to become many.
There is a second and more subtle flaw in the way the Great Curse affects the Lunar Exalted, though. Perhaps one of those Primordials who cursed their murderers had watched the creation of Luna and drawn their own conclusions from it. Perhaps it is linked to the dark and secret ways in which the Argent Madonna made her Chosen. Perhaps it is both, or neither. Either way, the Witches can deteriorate further, one becoming many, the singular budding off Other Selves. The Lunar Exalted are aware of this, but none view it as something external to themselves. It is a trial and travail of being one of the Chosen of Luna.
Each Lunar has a 10-point Limit Track. Two forms of Limit can be marked onto it. Temporary Limit is marked as Solar Limit is marked. Permanent Limit, however, should be marked with a cross over the filled in box, and does not empty. As a result, the maximum size of the Limit Track is effectively decreased, and in addition, there are further effects. If something does not specify whether it adds permanent or temporary Limit, it adds temporary Limit.
Gaining Limit
There are several means by which Lunars accumulate temporary Limit;
• The Lunar must define one Virtue he has rated at three or above. When he spends willpower to defy that Virtue, he gains one point of Limit.
• The first time in a scene the Lunar spends Willpower to resist unnatural mental influence, she gains one point of Limit.
• Whenever a Lunar loses an Intimacy, or the context of an Intimacy changes from positive to negative or vice versa, the Lunar rolls her Conviction, and gains a number of points of Limit equal to the successes rolled. Magically created temporary Intimacies with a fixed finite duration do not produce this gain when the Intimacy ends naturally.
• Some Charms come with a cost of Limit. The number of points added are detailed in the appropriate Charm text.
Sources of permanent Limit are rather rarer;
• Some Charms specify that the character gains permanent Limit by using them, or particular features in them. This is not necessarily indefinite; “temporary” permanent Limit is removed after a stated period.
• Charms with the Chimeric keyword list the number of points of permanent Limit gained by using them for the first time (or learning them, if they are Permanent Charms). The Charm text details if there is any way of losing such permanent Limit.
• Mental crises or other blows to the Lunar’s sense of self which fundamentally strikes at her self-definition can inflict points of permanent Limit. Points of permanent Limit gained can vary from one to (successes on a relevant Virtue roll), and last until the Lunar finds some new mental balance. This is an unpredictable reaction to traumatic stress of the level of multiple Intimacies changing in context which has only been observed in the Lunar Exalted since the Usurpation, and should never be inflicted on a character without the player’s consent.
Lunacy
Once a character’s Limit track filled up, she enters Limit Break, known as Lunacy, and loses her points of temporary Limit.
While in Lunacy, one Intimacy dominates the Lunar’s existence. Every action she takes must attempt to further that Intimacy and its emotional context, and she may not act against it. The Intimacy affected should be either directly relevant when she enters Lunacy (for example, she is within sight of someone she hates), or it should have come up within the past scene. If neither condition applies, the Storyteller should select an appropriate Intimacy which makes sense at the time.
As a result, compared to the Limit Breaks of the Solar Exalted, Lunacy is much more unpredictable in its form and nature, and a rigid list of more detailed behaviour cannot be given. The Storyteller should compare the Intimacy to pre-existing Limit Breaks, and may substitute an appropriate one. For example, a Hate-based Lunacy may produce something akin to Berserk Anger against anything which symbolises or represents the thing the Lunar hates, while a Drink (Enjoyment) might produce Overindulgence specifically with regards to alcohol.
By default, Lunacy lasts for a single scene, unless it duplicates a different Limit Break, in which case it lasts as long as the mimicked madness would.
Abjection – the Chimerae - UNDER CONSTRUCTION
An ever-changing beast of flesh and bone and moonsilver ravages its way through the town. A mouth shoots out on the end of a hand to envelop a fleeing child, tearing it to shreds and spitting the bones out.
The owl is a hole in the world, rimmed with silver. Through it horrors from the Beyond squirm and wriggle, before combusting in their own impossibility. The hordes of the fae try to fight it, but their stories and tales are meaningless against this foe. The strix is the living path to Outside, and so it circles Creation, always at the borders between Here and There.
An old man sits by the side of the road in this quiet little town. He has lived here his entire life, and knows he is nearing the end of his life, but he is happy that his son is doing so well as the village thaumaturgist. He does not know that a week ago, a monster ate him and took his memories and his shape, forgetting who it was and what it was. He will not remember that he is the monster until something forces him out of this memory dream.
The owl-eyed woman with the silver mark on her forehead squats by the fire. She twitches slightly, as she warms her hands. The memories of yesterday are hateful to her and her presence erases footsteps from the ground, sweeping the tales of the world’s past from Creation. Despite that, she tries her best to prevent those hated yesterdays from recurring, and so her flesh rebels with all kind of aches and pains from unwanted recollection.
These are the fell powers of the Other Selves of the Lunar Exalted. All these monsters are all the same Lunar, though she (He? They? It?) knows it not. And together, these many selves in one body and one flesh and one keter soul are known as the Chimerae.
There are those among the Lunar Exalted who lose themselves. The progression is clear. First comes improved vicissitudes of form. They experience more mutability in their form, and more ease in transformation normal. Many Lunars have felt at least a taste of this, during times when they are confused and conflicted, enough to know that uncertainty loosens their form’s constraints further.
However, if they feel that this might merely be a blessing of Luna, the emergence of the Other Selves dispels such sentiments. At first, the Other Selves merely are different lens upon the world, different feelings and reactions to the same memories. With time spent in such a state, the Selves begin to differ, gaining different Intimacies, but they still share memories so the capacity of the Lunar to notice the wrongness is diminished.
And by the time the strange Curse-born powers start to emerge, it is getting too late to do anything about it. The Selves lose shared memory, their internal narratives and themes filling in the ‘missing time’. They gain powers which exceed or surpass what the Lunar Exalted can normally do – some hypothesise that these are bleedthrough from the Lunar Exalted that the Other Moons of Luna would have made had they been victorious in the birthplace of the Argent Madonna. They are increasingly driven by their passions to the extent of madness, and yet those passions diverge between Selves, so unknowing Selves thwart each other.
Some Lunars have been led back from such degeneration. Most have not. A few have at least one Other Self who can interact with the world as a non-Chimerical Lunar can – among their number is the famed First Age huntress, Lilith – but all too many of them are too lost in madness. Some hide away in their den-castles at the edge of the world, only emerging when an Other Self which cares about the world is dominant. Others rampage, and inevitably they are stopped, whether by saner Lunars, Sidereal witch-hunters, or the Wyld Hunt. Some are princes among the fae feted for how – in their mad way – they are Shaped and yet they have cast off the tedious mental constancy of the Creationborn, while others are the apex predators upon the princes of chaos.
This unenviable fragmentation is a product of a deeper madness in the Lunar Exalted, a sign of how – cursed as murderers by those who forged the world – the death-hate of dying titans has wormed into their very Essence and suffuses deeper, much deeper, than merely the mind. Perhaps the other Exalted show similar fractures, but as it stands only the Lunar Exalted show this deeper progression, perhaps because it plays off the very nature of their patron Incarna and turn strength into greater-yet-flawed strength.
The tragedy of this manifestation of the Great Curse is that the Lunar Exalted are fully aware of its existence. It would be rather hard to miss. Experienced Lunars know that they can suffer mental breakdowns which shatter their sense of self, leaving other personalities which display strange powers to emerge. But the origins of this in the tainted gift that was the Great Curse is entirely unknown. The essence of the Argent Madonna is what is blamed for this tendency, this capacity to fragment and for one to become many.