Fiend Charms

Stealth
Shadow Cloak Technique
Cost: 1m, 1wp; Mins: Stealth 2, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Cloaked in darkness, the Abyssal is all but impossible to notice. After making any Stealth-based roll, she can reroll all dice other than 10s in the roll. At nighttime, or while in any dark, shadowy area, this Charm’s Willpower cost is waived.

Shadow-Shroud Discipline
Cost: 4m; Mins: Stealth 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Shadow Cloak Technique
Infusing the world around her with the blackness of her anima, the Abyssal creates a zone of darkness for her to hunt in. This effect dims all light out to long range of the Abyssal over the course of a round, making the area as dark as night - typically enough to inflict a -3 penalty on sight-based rolls, but if it was already dark when the Abyssal used this Charm the penalty is increased to -5. Light sources such as torches remain as bright and visible as ever, but their light only ever seems to reach a foot or two through the darkness, making them pinpricks of light in the oppressive shadow. Even the light of a bonfire Solar anima banner only extends out to close range.
The Abyssal can see perfectly in the darkness created with this Charm. Using this Charm eliminates the penalties to Stealth caused by her anima banner flaring - it only deepens the shadows that hide her. If she moves while this Charm is active, the darkness does not follow her.

Concealing Distraction Discipline
Cost: 3m; Mins: Stealth 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
In the moment that battle breaks out, the Abyssal vanishes in a whirl of shadows. She rolls Join Battle using (Dexterity + Stealth), and is automatically concealed from any enemy whose result she beats as long as there is some conceivable place she could have hidden.

Circling Raiton Attitude
Cost: 5m; Mins: Stealth 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: Concealing Distraction Discipline
The Abyssal stalks her prey eagerly, watching for an opportunity to strike. She ignores the -3 penalty to Stealth rolls for moving while concealed, and every round that she makes a successful Stealth roll to avoid detection by her chosen target, she gains Initiative equal to her threshold successes.
Every round that she continues to use this Charm, the Abyssal takes a cumulative -1 penalty to Stealth rolls. If she ends her commitment to this Charm, is discovered, or breaks concealment to do anything other than making a decisive attack, she loses all the Initiative she gained using this Charm.

Stifled Cry Exercise
Cost: - (+2m); Mins: Stealth 4, Essence 2
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Shadow-Shroud Discipline
The darkness the Abyssal creates with this Charm’s prerequisite seems to muffle and consume all sound. She can pay an extra two motes when she activates Shadow-Shroud Discipline to mute all sounds inside the darkness, making them almost impossible to hear - only characters with superhuman hearing can detect any noise, and even then only by succeeding at a (Perception + Awareness) roll at a difficulty of the Abyssal’s (Stealth + Essence), losing a success on their roll for each 1 in it.
The Abyssal’s ability to hear inside the darkness is unchanged, and she can selectively disable this effect for certain sounds. In this way, she might silence someone’s cry for help, then allow everyone to hear his desperate screams only once it’s far too late to save him.

Deadly Wraith Tactic
Cost: 1wp or 2i; Mins: Stealth 5, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Circling Raiton Attitude
The Abyssal darts out of the shadows to make her kill, and vanishes once more. After she incapacitates a target with a decisive attack, she can reflexively re-enter concealment with (Essence) automatic successes. She also receives four free motes to spend on Stealth charms enhancing the attempt.

Light-Devouring Labyrinth
Cost: 2m, 1wp; Mins: Stealth 5, Essence 3
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Shadow-Shroud Discipline
In the round after she activates Shadow-Shroud Discipline, the Abyssal can activate this Charm to deepen the darkness it creates. Over the course of the next round, all light in the area is completely extinguished. Only a Solar anima at bonfire is visible, and even that illuminates nothing but itself and the Lawgiver casting it. Even if a character is somehow able to see in this oppressive blackness, his sight-based rolls lose a number of successes equal to the Abyssal’s Essence, unless he is a fellow Abyssal using Superior Sight Focus.
This Charm has another, more subtle effect: characters inside the darkness cannot find their way out. This is easily attributed to losing their bearings in the total darkness, but it is actually a supernatural effect that makes them lose their bearings, running in circles through the dark without ever getting closer to its edge. A character can only leave the darkness if he succeeds on a (Wits + Survival) roll at a difficulty of (Abyssal’s Essence or 3, whichever is higher); otherwise he moves a range band deeper into it instead.

Hungry Darkness Prana
Cost: -; Mins: Stealth 5, Essence 4
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Light-Devouring Labyrinth
This Charm upgrades its prerequisite. While Light-Devouring Labyrinth is active, the darkness within medium range of the Abyssal chokes the life out of those trapped within it. Unlike the darkness created, this effect does move with the Abyssal as she roams through the darkness, but immediately ceases if she leaves the darkness altogether.
All of the Abyssal’s enemies are subject to an environmental hazard while within the effect of Hungry Darkness Prana, dealing one die of bashing damage each round, with a difficulty to resist of (Abyssal’s Essence or 3, whichever is higher). The darkness senses and preys on weakness, instead dealing three dice of lethal damage to crashed characters or trivial opponents.

Shadow Devours the Sun
Cost: -; Mins: Stealth 5, Essence 5
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Hungry Darkness Prana
Darkness falls, and spreads. When the Abyssal activates Shadow-Shroud Discipline, she can choose to have the darkness spread outwards by one range band every round, until it grows large enough to consume a small city.

Socialize
Hidden Heart Concentration
Cost: 1m or 2m; Mins: Socialise 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
Whenever she calls upon her Guile, the Abyssal can raise it by 1 for one mote. With Essence 2+, she may instead pay two motes to gain a +2 bonus.

Larceny
Artful Impersonation Style
Cost: 6m; Mins: Larceny 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Until the Exalt sleeps
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Abyssal’s talent for infiltration is unsurpassed. She makes a disguise roll with double 9s and two automatic successes, and with no penalties can change her apparent race or sex, adjust her apparent height by up to ten inches, change her scent and appear up to double or half her actual age. Only characters with superhuman senses can attempt to contest this disguise, and even they subtract two successes from their rolls and cannot see who the Abyssal truly is even if they beat her roll, only that she is wearing a disguise.

Unjust Appropriation Method
Cost: 3m; Mins: Larceny 2, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Mute
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
When the Abyssal attempts to pick a pocket, she can use this Charm to ensure her attempt succeeds automatically unless contested with magic. In any roll-off, the Abyssal gains (Essence) automatic successes. This does not allow her to attempt pickpocketing feats that would normally be impossible.
Additionally, only characters with superhuman senses can attempt to notice the pickpocketing attempt, and even they suffer a -4 penalty to do so. Charms such as Felon-Branding Stigmata that would automatically reveal uses of Larceny only do so if the other character also knows Unjust Appropriation Method (or Flawless Pickpocketing Technique).

Skeleton Key Technique
Cost: 1m or 3m; Mins: Larceny 2, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
No lock can bar the path of Death’s Lawigvers. For one mote, the Abyssal can gain double 9s and (Essence) automatic successes on an attempt to pick a lock. This effect allows her to defeat magic that would make a lock impossible to pick, and guarantees that she will succeed even if her roll fails. A failed roll instead leads to some kind of complication occurring.
Alternatively, for three motes the Abyssal can reflexively touch any mundane lock to make it crumble to dust. This automatically destroys the lock with no roll required, and allows her to skip the sometimes lengthy lockpicking process.

Chains Cannot Hold
Cost: 3m; Mins: Larceny 4, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Skeleton Key Technique
Try all you like to seal away death, it will still come. When the Abyssal uses this Charm, any bindings on her person are torn off her and destroyed. Chains snap and fly from her body, manacles rust and twist until they fall off harmlessly and blindfolds abruptly fray and are blown away in the breeze. This Charm succeeds automatically against mundane bindings, and allows a roll with (Essence) automatic successes and double 9s to remove any that are magically enhanced.
This Charm does not aid the Abyssal in escaping unarmed grapples, but if a character tries to grab her using a weapon with the grappling tag, she can make her control roll with (Wits + Larceny) and the bonuses described above. If she wins the roll the grapple ends immediately, instead of on the Abyssal’s next turn, and any non-artifact weapon used to grab the Abyssal is destroyed.

Flawless Doppelganger Disguise
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Larceny 5, Essence 2
Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: Until the Exalt sleeps
Prerequisite Charms: Artful Impersonation Style
This Charm functions as its prerequisite, except the Abyssal adds (Essence) non-Charm successes to her disguise roll and ignores any penalties associated with impersonating another character or making drastic changes to her body type. No character, no matter what kind of superhuman senses he has, can attempt to see through her disguise unless she acts completely out of character, and even then the character takes a -4 penalty to his roll in addition to the penalty of Artful Impersonation Style.
This Charm allows the Abyssal to disguise herself as a visibly supernatural being, providing all the associated visual effects. If she impersonates a god, she might make herself appear to float or make her hair seem to writhe of its own accord and crackle with lightning. If she disguises herself as another Exalt, she can disguise her anima banner accordingly.

Face-Stealing Touch
Cost: -; Mins: Larceny 5, Essence 2
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Unjust Appropriation Method, Flawless Doppelganger Disguise
The Abyssal lays a hand on another character, and her body blurs, transforming to match his. A moment later, he stands before his twin. This Charm allows the Abyssal to use Flawless Doppelganger Disguise reflexively when she touches the person she wishes to impersonate, creating the disguise in an instant. Alternatively, she can ‘hold’ his face for up to an hour after touching him, allowing her to instantly transform into him at any point during that hour.
Using Face-Stealing Touch allows for an even greater degree of impersonation than Flawless Doppelganger Disguise normally would. The Abyssal absorbs an instinctive understanding of how the character would be expected to act in any situation she finds herself in while wearing his face. This allows her to know things like the names of his family, code phrases he uses to prove he truly is himself, or that she should treat a man as a close friend when she has never seen him before

Dodge
Untouchable Elegance Maneuver
Cost: 2m or 2i per success; Mins: Dodge 2, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Uniform
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
In his vain attempts to strike the Abyssal, her foe ends up stumbling about and clumsily fumbling his attacks. Before an attack has been rolled against her, the Abyssal can activate this Charm to remove up to (Essence) successes from the roll for two motes or Initiative per success, starting with the lowest successful results and moving up. If this converts an attack from a significant opponent into a botch, the Abyssal gains a point of Willpower.

Graceful Mocking Evasion
Cost: -; Mins: Dodge 4, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: Uniform
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Untouchable Elegance Maneuver
Those who would try to harm the Abyssal only end up hastening their own demise. Whenever a character misses the Abyssal with an attack, he loses one Initiative.

Athletics
Raiton’s Nimble Perch
Cost: 3m; Mins: Athletics 1, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Abyssal flits through the world like a shadow. She has perfect balance for the duration of the scene and can stand on any solid object without needing to roll, even those that should not be able to support her weight.

Mist Over Ice
Cost: - (+3m); Mins: Athletics 3, Essence 1
Type: Permanent
Keywords: None
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: Raiton’s Nimble Perch
As she activates Raiton’s Nimble Perch, the Abyssal may enhance it with this Charm for three motes. As if she had no more physical substance than a ghost, the Abyssal can stand on any liquid or race through the air on falling leaves. She does not disturb such surfaces in the slightest, leaving no ripples on water even if she runs across it.

Crouching Gargoyle Stance
Cost: 3m; Mins: Athletics 4, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: (Essence + 2) turns
Prerequisite Charms: Mist Over Ice
Disregarding the shackles of gravity entirely, the Abyssal can stand or move freely on any surface at any angle, allowing her to run up walls or stand unmoving upside down from a ceiling.

Thrown
Hungry Missile Technique
Cost: 1m; Mins: Thrown 1, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Dual
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Abyssal’s weapons seek weakness as though possessed of a malevolent intelligence of their own, striking exactly wherever will cause the most suffering. Her target suffers a -1 penalty to Defence, and if she hits with a withering attack he loses an extra point of Initiative, which the Abyssal does not gain.

Burrowing Bone Maggot
Cost: 3m; Mins: Thrown 2, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Decisive-only
Duration: Indefinite
Prerequisite Charms: None
Sinking into its target’s flesh without leaving a mark, the Abyssal’s weapon waits for her permission to kill. An attack enhanced by this Charm rolls damage normally, but rather than dealing that damage immediately, the target only experiences the deeply uncomfortable sensation of it crawling into his skin. At any point, the Abyssal can end her commitment to this Charm to either have the weapon harmlessly eject itself from the target’s body or rip it apart from the inside, dealing the delayed damage at once.
With an Essence 2+ repurchase, the Abyssal can dull the sensation of her weapon entering its target to a faint itch. She rolls (Dexterity + Thrown) against the (Perception + Awareness) of her target and any witnesses; on a success he is unaware that he was attacked and the Abyssal does not break stealth.

Crypt Bolt Attack
Cost: 5m; Mins: Thrown 2, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: None
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: None
Gathering necrotic energy in her palm to launch at her foes, or firing it from her eyes, the Abyssal is never unarmed. She can produce crypt bolts for the duration of the scene, which use the traits of medium artifact weapons with the thrown (short) and lethal tags.