Hundred Devils Night Parade

Hundred Devils Night Parade
0. Haunt / Dune Swarm
1. Doppelganger / Mata-Yadh
2. Strix / Zicnal of the Asmani
3. Mouse of the Sun / Rantai
4. Elephant/Mammoth / Fulope, The Choral Equestrian
5. Cloud Person / Fang-Blossom
6. Metagalapan Riding Hawk / Plentimon's Ladybug
7. Bloodworm / Giant Grosbeak
8. Armored Kraken / Ghostfisher
9. Dream Hawk / Nameless Wretch
10. Eight-Tailed Mole Hound / Mahicara the Volcanic Earthwalker
11. Aughdeighe / Jungle Stalker
12. Barrow Hound / Devil Stone
13. Lodestar / Susuruss
14. Aurochs / Walkure
15. Gem Seeker / Steel Eater
16. Gravehound / Tiger's Eye
17. Austrech / Unicorn
18. Black Hollow / Cockatrice
19. Forlorn Manor / Giant Constrictor
20. Northern Ursidae / Forest Strider
21. Flickerfeather / Grelidaka the Thousand Hungry Wings
22. Metody, the Malfean elemental
23. White Robe
24. Haloed Husk
25. Anuhle, the Demon Spider / Bat
26. Sky Titan / Storm Serpent
27. Makarios, The Sigil's Dreamer

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	0. Haunt
Merchants cross Harden Ford only when the sun is high, and camp far from the site. Hundreds have died here over the centuries in wars and raids — soldiers, traders, herders, pilgrims. Each night, their ghosts rise to re-enact the battles and the slaughter. Sadly, all too many of those slain at Harden Ford defined themselves through bloodshed. The passage of the living draws their eyes and their ire. Taking on substance, these haunts eagerly turn their spectral blades on passers- by, darkening the ford’s waters with blood.

Haunts — also called “echoes” or “drones” — are as shadows even among ghosts. Lost in death, they can do nothing but repeat their last moments over and over. Only those things that were important to them in life stir a spark of awareness. Confronted by the face of a lover or the banner of a hated foe, a haunt turns its attention from the recurring tableau of its death to act in the living world.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 1; Join Battle: 4 dice
Personal Motes: 60
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4/Incap.
Intimacies: Defining: “I’m alive, no matter what you say.” Major: “I must finish what I’ve started.”
Actions: Senses: 4 dice; Social Influence: 6 dice
Appearance 1, Resolve 5, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Short sword): 6 dice (Damage 12, minimum 2)
Attack (Shield bash): 5 dice (Damage 12)
Combat Movement: 4 dice
Evasion 2, Parry 3
Soak/Hardness: 8/0 (Ghostly hauberk)

MERITS
One-Track Mind: A haunt treats all influence unrelated to its dying moments or perpetual labor as unacceptable. Add +1 Resolve when a character’s influence is related but would keep it from playing out its vignette. A character trying to convince the haunt it’s dead must use instill actions to erode its Defining Intimacies completely. If successful, the ghost passes into Lethe.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Apparition (1m; Simple; One scene; Essence 1): The haunt becomes visible, but not corporeal.
Material Intrusion (15m; Reflexive; One round; Essence 1): The haunt materializes for one round. It may only use this Charm while taking an action necessary to act out its post-mortem “script,” such as hacking at an intruder.

Undeniable History (20m; Simple; One round; Essence 1): The haunt’s unshakeable belief sweeps its target into its delusion. The target character sees the area as it was at the time of the haunt’s death.

Storyteller Tactics
Even fighting the living, a haunt attempts to re-enact the moment of its death. It weaves its current foes into its past’s narrative, calling them by old opponents’ names and forcing them to retrace former enemies’ steps. At Incapacitated, the haunt fades away until the next evening, when it begins its toils anew.

Haunts may have additional dice pools and/or different attacks, relating to their actions when they died. The best are six dice; others are four or five. Given combat traits assume a haunt that died in battle or by violence. Those who didn’t usually can’t deviate from their morbid routines to fight, though they might bargain or threaten if faced with something important from their lives. Storytellers should also add another Defining Intimacy based on the haunt’s life.

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	0. Dune Swarm
Hidden in Southern desert sands dwells a species of centipede that lives as a hive entity. Hundreds of them hunt together in grotesque hordes, stripping flesh from larger creatures’ bones with thousands of fatal, stinging bites before scuttling away and vanishing into the dunes. Patterned in pale yellows and browns to match the shifting sand of the desert, when still they are all but invisible. Dune swarms pour forth to obliterate anyone who gets too close to their nests, which are indistinguishable from normal sand-covered mounds at a cursory glance.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 4; Join Battle: 6 dice
Health Levels: −0x5/−1x3/−2x2/−4/Incap.
Actions: Climb: 10 dice; Cohesion: 8 dice; Feats of Strength: 6 dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats); Scavenge: 7 dice; Senses: 6 dice (see Unity of the Hive Mind, Vibration Sense); Stealth: 6 dice (see Camouflage)
Resolve 1, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 10 dice (Damage 12) (see Unity of the Hive Mind, Venomous Bite)
Attack (Grapple): 9 dice (10 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 12 dice (see Unity of the Hive Mind)
Evasion 4, Parry 0
Soak/Hardness: 12/3

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Clinging Swarm: When the swarm controls a grapple, any failed attack against it automatically hits the grappled target instead, with one effective threshold success.

Deadly Charge: Every range band the swarm moves toward a single enemy in a straight line grants it two Initiative. This Initiative accumulates until it closes to close range with that enemy and makes a decisive attack. If the swarm takes any action other than moving directly toward the chosen enemy or attacking it, it loses all Initiative built up with this ability.

Furious Rampage: Whenever the swarm attacks or rushes a crashed enemy, add two automatic successes to the roll.

Ten Thousand Stinging Bites: When the swarm makes a decisive bite attack against an enemy with a lower Initiative rating, it adds +1 to the attack’s damage. Against crashed enemies, this becomes an automatic success instead.

Venomous Bite: The swarm’s decisive bite attack exposes the victim to its poison (Exalted, p. 232) if it deals any damage. The poison deals 4i/round (L in Crash), with a duration of 4 rounds and a −2 penalty.

MERITS
Camouflage: The dust-colored exoskeletons of the swarm make it indistinguishable from ordinary sand.= It doubles 9s on Stealth rolls to blend in with sandy environments.
Made of Thousands: For each smashed centipede in the swarm, ten more appear in its place. Reduce the minimum damage of any withering attack made against it by one, to a minimum of zero.

Seething Tide: The swarm ignores all difficult terrain.

Unity of the Hive Mind: Add an automatic success to the swarm’s bite attack, all combat movement actions, and Senses rolls to detect ambushes.
Venomous Bite: The swarm’s decisive bite attack exposes the victim to its poison (Exalted, p. 232) if it deals any damage. The poison deals 4i/round (L in Crash), with a duration of 4 rounds and a −2 penalty.

Vibration Sense: Dune swarms do not rely on individual sight. Instead, the hive mind feels vibrations on the wind and through the ground. They do not take penalties from poor lighting, and double 9s on Senses rolls whenever vibrations are present.

Storyteller Tactics
Dune swarms are horrifying masses of carnivorous, hive-minded invertebrates, with twitching antennae working in perfect concert. They attack anything they perceive as a threat to their territory. Characters must make a (Perception + Awareness) roll opposed by the swarm’s Stealth to notice the hive before getting too close. If they fail, the swarm attacks until all targets are dead or it is disrupted (see below). It focuses on one foe at a time, picking off the weakest first, and using Clinging Swarm to dissuade their victim’s friends from trying to smash it.
Any sufficiently powerful sound disrupts the swarm’s unity. A character must make a difficulty 4 (Charisma + Performance) roll, opposed by the swarm’s Cohesion, with either a musical instrument, another tool that can make stupendously loud sounds, or supernaturally-enhanced volume. Characters with appropriate Lore backgrounds may roll (Intelligence + Lore), difficulty 3, to learn this weakness. A disrupted swarm loses the benefits of the following: all special abilities and Made of Thousands. It regains cohesion after a number of turns equal to the Performance roll’s threshold successes. The swarm can only savage or release a grappled foe.

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	1. Doppelgänger
Long ago, the sea lords of Azure conquered the Auspice Isles and claimed the people as chattel. One enslaved Auspicene priest used curses, trickery, and poison to work such subtle revenge on his new masters that many died before they discovered him and executed him in the Kraken’s Pool. He continued his revenge even after death, until the Azurite ancestors drove him from their shores. Western mortals call him the Blue Shadow. He has mastered the art of moliation — the shaping of ghostly flesh — to copy others’ countenances. Making himself visible to mortals, he uses false faces to gain their confidence and plays on their passions with clever lies. Murder alone no longer satisfies him; he relies on seduction, treachery, and deceit to induce his victims to destroy themselves and those around them. He also practices the nemissary arts, stealing the bodies of the freshly dead for more tangible charades. He has become a doppelgänger. Like all of his kind, his name is lost to history, as is his old shape. Should magic tear his false faces from him, his visage is as blank and featureless as the moon.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 6 dice
Personal Motes: 70
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4/Incap
Actions: Disguise: 12 dice; Lockpicking/Pickpocketing: 8 dice; Read Intentions: 10 dice; Senses: 7 dice; Social Influence: 14 dice
Appearance 3, Resolve 3, Guile 7

COMBAT
Attack (Unarmed): 7 dice (Damage 10)
Attack (Grapple): 3 dice (4 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 7 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 2
Soak/Hardness: 5/0 (or 11/0; see Monstrous Mien)

MERITS
Cult 0-2: Mortals who fear the depredations of doppelgängers and other actively malicious ghosts often propitiate them.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Monstrous Mien (8m, 1wp; Simple; One scene; Essence 2): In an instant, the doppelgänger’s body expands into a horrid shape. His skin grows scaly, his visage bestial, his limbs long and bandy and tipped by vicious claws. This transformation grants the ghost the Hideous Merit (Exalted Third Edition, p. 162) for its duration, doubles 8s on unarmed attack rolls and threaten rolls, and grants +6 soak.

Soul-Thieving Method (1wp; Supplemental; Instant; Eclipse, Withering-only; Essence 2): The doppelgänger does not receive any Initiative from the unarmed withering attack this Charm supplements. Instead, for each point of Initiative he would have received, he removes a mote from his enemy’s Essence pools and adds it to his own.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Apparition (1m; Simple; One scene; Essence 1): The doppelgänger becomes visible, but not corporeal.

False Face (8m; Simple; Instant, Essence 2): Ghostly flesh flows beneath his fingers like clay as the doppelgänger alters his appearance to assume the guise of a living human or another ghost, negating all penalties and doubling 9s on disguise rolls to imitate a specific character. False Face doesn’t work on dead flesh possessed via Nemissary’s Ride, and its disguise bonus is only compatible with Monstrous Mien if the doppelgänger imitates a similarly monstrous creature.

Nemissary’s Ride (20m, 1wp; Simple; Indefinite; Essence 1): The doppelgänger moves into a human corpse, animating it. He uses the physical Attributes, soak, and health track of the corpse’s former life in place of his own, but otherwise retains his own traits. If the body is freshly dead or expertly embalmed, this imposes a −1 die penalty to disguise actions; more advanced decay increases the penalty or makes disguise impossible. The possessor is ejected if the animated corpse runs out of health levels. Attacks capable of striking the immaterial damage both the corpse’s health track and the possessing ghost’s.

Storyteller Tactics
A doppelgänger is vicious and pitiless, but subtle. He prefers never to reveal himself to his victims, keeping up a given ruse only until it’s no longer useful for turning his victims against one another. He only fights directly when cornered or absolutely certain of his victory. He withdraws from combat or scares opponents away whenever possible if it looks like he’s in danger of discorporation. A doppelgänger chooses victims out of spite and vengeance. Although his memories of the life he once had are dim and twisted, he can recognize someone who did him wrong when he walked in the flesh, along with their friends and family, and has a nose for finding their descendants too. Failing that, he preys on anyone who lives in places or circumstances that remind him of his past. Doppelgängers lie well, but some mimicry is simply beyond their ken. Characters may become suspicious if someone who ought to be a master swordsman chooses to fight with his fists, for instance. Clever manipulation of a situation can force his hand. Each doppelgänger retains different skills from his living days, so each such situation requires an investigator’s careful attention.

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	1. Mata-Yadh
The Congeries of Obsidian and Aurora Mata-Yadh is a larval behemoth, freshly born from the Wyld. Its house-sized body is a swirling congeries of many- colored aurora with a ridge of obsidian atop it, where a daring rider can stand. Mata-Yadh has twelve clawed limbs of obsidian, each one standing high as a human, but not physically connected to the behemoth’s central body — only faint wisps of aurora limn its uppermost edge. Mata-Yadh is representative of the low end Wyld behemoths the Fair Folk might ride into battle or send to head their armies.

Essence: 3; Willpower: 7; Join Battle: 10 dice
Personal Motes: 50
Health Levels: −0x25/Incap (see Obsidian Body)
Speed Bonus: +2
Actions: Feats of Strength: 15 dice (may attempt Strength 10 feats); Senses: 8 dice; Threaten: 9 dice
Appearance 3, Resolve 4, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Obsidian claws): 16 dice (Damage 22, minimum 5)
Attack (Grapple): 12 dice (15 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 10 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 6
Soak/Hardness: 25/10

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Overwhelming Might: Mata-Yadh makes unopposed grapple control rolls against enemies of smaller size, unless they use magic that allows them to grapple larger foes, such as Dragon Coil Technique (Exalted Third Edition, p. 280).

MERITS
Cold Iron Bane: Weapons made of iron deal aggravated damage to Mata-Yadh.
Legendary Size: Mata-Yadh suffers no onslaught penalties from attacks made by smaller enemies, unless they are magically inflicted. Withering attacks from smaller enemies cannot Crash it unless they have at least 10 post-soak damage dice, although attackers still gain the full amount of Initiative damage dealt. Decisive attacks from smaller enemies cannot deal more than (3 + attacker’s Strength) levels of damage to it, not counting any levels added by Charms or other magic.

Obsidian Body: As a being of living glass, Mata-Yadh lacks the anatomy for susceptibility to mundane poison, disease, deprivation, or conventional wound penalties. However, heroes may attempt to cripple the beast by shattering one of its twelve limbs, a difficulty 5 gambit. Each time a limb is shattered, Mata-Yadh loses 3 points of Initiative from the sudden shock of amputation. For every two limbs a foe destroys, Mata-Yadh suffers a −1 wound penalty, to a maximum of −4. If all of its limbs are destroyed, Mata-Yadh is immobilized, unable to attack and effectively prone, unable to right itself.

Shadowsense: Mata-Yadh has no eyes, but senses shadows cast by its aurora, perceiving the world unimpeded and doubling 8s on all Perception rolls except in total darkness or total illumination in which shadows can’t exist.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Prism-Pyre Immolation (10m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Decisive-only): Mata-Yadh makes a grapple gambit (Exalted, p. 200) with five bonus dice on the roll. It suspends a grappled enemy within its aurora body, which is an environmental hazard with Difficulty 3, Damage 4L/round (Exalted, p. 230). Mata-Yadh ignores the usual penalties for grappling, but cannot savage, slam, or throw its foe. It has Defense 0 against attacks made by the grappled enemy, but the penalty the victim suffers for being grappled subtracts successes, not dice.

Raking Obsidian Shards (10m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Decisive-only): Mata-Yadh’s claws whirl in a razor-sharp obsidian vortex, rolling a single decisive attack with five bonus dice against all characters within short range. It rolls (Initiative / 2) total dice of damage against all characters it hits, but subtracts its current wound penalty from this damage roll. This attack’s range is reduced to close at wound penalty −2 or higher.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Aurora Bleed (5m, 5i; Reflexive; Instant; Decisive- only, Perilous): When Mata-Yadh takes decisive damage from a close range attack or loses a limb to the same, a prismatic flash erupts from the wound. This is a one-time environmental hazard with Difficulty (8 ‒ current wound penalty), Damage 5L against all characters within close range. A damaged character is blinded for the rest of the scene (Exalted, p. 168).

Blinding Aurora (5m, 2i; Reflexive; Until its next turn; Perilous): Enemies within medium range take a −3 penalty on attack rolls and other vision-dependent actions targeting Mata-Yadh.
Foe-Snatching Grasp (5m, 1wp; Reflexive; Instant; Clash, Decisive-only): Mata-Yadh can clash an attack against it with a grapple gambit, and may enhance it with Prism-Pyre Immolation reflexively. Winning the clash adds three successes on both the Initiative roll and the (Strength + Brawl) roll. This does not count as Mata-Yadh’s combat action. It can’t use this Charm at wound penalty ‒2 or higher.

God-Monster Revival (1wp; Reflexive; Instant; Perilous): When Mata-Yadh Crashes an enemy, it may roll (current Initiative ‒ current wound penalty). It costs one success from this roll to heal one level of non-aggravated damage, and three successes each to restore a limb disabled by a gambit. This Charm resets it to base Initiative and is usable once per scene.

MOBILITY CHARMS
Many-Legged Pursuit (6m; Supplemental; Instant): Mata-Yadh can rush an enemy with lower Initiative from medium range with five bonus dice, instantly closing the distance on a success. It cannot use this Charm at wound penalty −2 or higher.

SOCIAL CHARMS
Loyal Monstrosity (5m; Reflexive; Instant): Mata-Yadh gains +4 Resolve against any social influence made by a character other than its rider. It gains 1 Initiative if it successfully applies its Resolve.

Otherworldly Horror Mien (5m; Reflexive; Instant): Mata-Yadh adds five bonus dice to a threaten roll and ignores all penalties on that roll. Resisting costs an additional point of Willpower, and requires invoking at least a Major Intimacy of courage in the Decision Point.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Wall-Rending Claws (5m; Supplemental; Instant): Gain double 7s on the roll for a feat of demolition.

Storyteller Tactics
Mata-Yadh is a monstrously powerful grappler and uses that to its advantage when facing a group of enemies, taking the biggest threat among them into itself and picking off the rest with Raking Obsidian Shards. It thrives when enemies surround it, banking on its enormous size and defensive Charms to keep it safe. As more of its legs break and it becomes weaker, it uses less risky tactics, preferring to blind and separate foes before squashing them. When Mata-Yadh’s wound penalties reach −4, it flees combat to heal unless a rider forces it to continue with magic. As a mount, Mata-Yadh follows its master’s commands and never spooks or disobeys until its wound penalties reach −4. A rider can coordinate her attacks with the Congeries’ to create a devastating offensive, making ranged attacks on suspended opponents and taking advantage of the high ground her perch offers. Mata-Yadh shines when a cataphract’s foe plays hard to get, maximizing its mobility advantages and crushing cover underfoot to clear the way for its rider’s attacks.

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	2. Strix
Giant forest owls with fifteen-foot wingspans, strix hunt by diving down from the skies and carrying their prey aloft with them — prey that can range from deer, to wolves, to isolated travelers. Mottled dark-brown feathers that make no sound in flight and large, round eyes that see clearly in the dark make them deadly nocturnal ambush predators, while their wicked claws have more than enough strength to seize and savage prey.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 7 dice
Health Levels: −0/−1x3/−2x3/−4/Incap
Actions: Feats of Strength: 6 dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats); Fly: 8 dice; Intimidate: 5 dice;
Senses: 5 dice (see Eagle Eye and Night Vision);
Stealth: 7 dice; Tracking: 6 dice
Resolve 2, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Peck): 7 dice (Damage 15)
Attack (Talons): 11 dice (Damage 11)
Attack (Grapple): 8 dice (7 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 8 dice
Evasion 5, Parry 3
Soak/Hardness: 3/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Carried Away: When a strix deals 5+ levels of damage with a withering talon attack, it may forgo receiving any Initiative and instead perform a reflexive grapple gambit against that enemy. Each point of Initiative it would have gained adds one bonus die to the control roll if the grapple is successful.

Dread Clutches: When the strix savages a grappled enemy, it may also drag him along with any movement actions it takes, without restraining him first. The strix may move normally during a grapple as long as it’s in flight.

Swooping Descent: A strix that flies downward to make a decisive unexpected attack adds two automatic successes to the attack roll. A strix soaring high in the sky is beyond sensory range without superhuman senses, ensuring an ambush on first strike and allowing the strix to attempt re-establishing stealth in combat or withdrawing from the battlefield by simply flying higher than its enemies can see.

MERITS
Eagle Eye: A strix gains five bonus dice on visual Perception- based rolls to notice something while it has the height advantage, and can make out fine details of far-off targets this way. It automatically succeeds on rolls to track a character while airborne, unless that character employs perfect concealment magic.

Eagle Wing Rush: A strix may rush enemies from long range above them, as long as the horizontal distance between them is still at short range.

Night Vision: A strix can see in dim conditions without penalty, and reduces the difficulty of Perception-based rolls made in deeper darkness by one.

Storyteller Tactics
A strix prefers fly-by grapple gambits, snatching up prey and carrying it off to its nest or another high perch to pick apart at its leisure. It cannot throw or slam grappled enemies, but may release them from a great height to cause falling damage as normal. It attempts to flee upon suffering 5+ levels of damage, carrying away anything caught in its talons.

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	2. Zicnal of the Asmani
According to legend, when the ancients shaped Creation, they set the asmani to hold up the corners of the sky. When the Contagion came and Fair Folk poured over the world’s rim in an unstoppable tide, the Wyld swallowed the asmani. Warped and reshaped almost beyond recognition, they wander as vast protean colossi through the shallows of chaos. Zicnal appears as a titanic man fifty feet high. His three faces are white-haired and bushy bearded; his many hands hold parchment and brush, plumb line and measuring cord, scepter and sword. Where his kin remain in deepest Wyld, meandering mindlessly or making war against things of chaos, Zicnal dwells upon an island of stability beyond world’s edge. There he rules the demented city of Marakanda, home to ten thousand mutated mortals and an endless variety of inscrutable goblin-things.

Essence: 5; Willpower: 7; Join Battle: 10 dice
Personal Motes: 50
Health Levels: −0x10/−1x20/−2x20/−4x10/Incap
Intimacies: Defining: “Though I am fallen from my former state, I still deserve respect from the powers of Creation;” Major: The Fair Folk (Wary Resentment); Marakanda (Exasperated Responsibility); Minor: Other Asmani (Disappointment)

Actions: Command: 10 dice; Feats of Strength: 15 dice (may attempt Strength 10 feats); Knowledge of the Wyld: 8 dice; Long Memory: 9 dice; Read Intentions: 9 dice; Resist Poison/Disease: 12 dice; Senses: 12 dice; Social Influence: 12 dice; Writing: 6 dice
Appearance 4, Resolve 5, Guile 3

COMBAT
Attack (Colossal sword): 13 dice (Damage 24, minimum 5)
Attack (Giant’s scepter, as tetsubo): 13 dice (Damage 24, minimum 4)
Attack (Plumb line, as fighting chain): 11 dice (Damage 23, minimum 5)
Attack (Unarmed/Grapple): 10 dice (13 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 12 dice
Evasion 1, Parry 5
Soak/Hardness: 15/5

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Overwhelming Might: Asmani make unopposed grapple control rolls against enemies of smaller size, unless the victims use magic allowing them to grapple larger foes, such as Dragon Coil Technique (Exalted, p. 280).

MERITS
Legendary Size: Zicnal suffers no onslaught penalties from attacks from smaller opponents, unless they’re magically inflicted. Withering attacks from smaller enemies cannot crash him unless they have at least 10 post-soak damage dice, although attackers still gain the full amount of Initiative damage dealt. Decisive attacks from smaller enemies cannot deal more than (3 + attacker’s Strength) levels of damage to him, not counting levels added by Charms or other magic.

Multitasking: Zicnal can flurry with none of the usual penalties if one action in the flurry is a miscellaneous or social action.

Threefold Gaze: Zicnal can see in three separate directions at once, and never suffers penalties for distractions or multiple complications. Characters attempting to establish surprise against him suffer a −3 dice penalty.

Wellspring of Order: Zicnal’s presence tames the Wyld within five miles, temporarily reducing middlemarches to bordermarches, and bordermarches to tainted lands. This doesn’t affect deep Wyld.

Wyld Resistance: Asmani are immune to the warping and addictive properties of ambient Wyld energies, save when they enter the Wyld’s outermost edges. They double 9s on rolls to resist shaping inflicted by creatures of the Wyld.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Limb-Wrenching Grasp (10m, 2i; Simple; Instant; Decisive-only): When an asman throws a grappled enemy, he first tears them asunder, doubling bonus dice of damage received from forfeited rounds of control. If the rolled damage exceeds the victim’s (Stamina x 2), double total levels of damage inflicted unless the victim accepts a crippling injury, which does not count against their once per story limit (Exalted, p. 201). Whether the victim lives or dies, the asman flings them aside afterward, ending the grapple.

Scything Blow (5m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Decisive- only): With one blow from his weapons, the asman makes a decisive attack against two enemies, dividing his Initiative evenly between both to determine raw damage. He may use this Charm once per scene, unless reset by building up to Initiative 20+.

Triple Threat (15m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Withering-only): Zicnal makes three separate withering attacks, each using a different weapon against a unique target. He gains Initiative as normal from the attack that dealt the highest amount of damage; the other two attacks cannot award more than 5 Initiative each, not counting Initiative Breaks. He may use this Charm once per scene, unless reset by making three separate decisive attacks.

SOCIAL CHARMS
Elegant Goblin-King Brushstrokes (20m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Written-only): Zicnal writes an edict into the legal code of Marakanda and makes a persuade roll to ensure the inhabitants follow its dictates. This roll applies against the Resolve of all Wyld mutants and creatures living there, without them needing to read the edict. Those convinced act as though the law has always been in place. Zicnal can use this Charm once per story, unless reset by achieving a major character or story goal (Exalted, p. 170) through the agency of outsiders.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Sky-Shouldering Exertion (20m, 1wp; Supplemental; Instant): Gain double 7s on the roll for a feat of strength. The asman meets the Strength prerequisite for any such feat (Exalted, p. 229).

Storyteller Tactics
In social influence, Zicnal is primarily concerned with his own authority and autonomy, and his city’s safety. He prefers persuade and threaten actions, but will bargain if the offer’s good — especially if it inconveniences the raksha without drawing too much ire upon his people — and uses the surrounding Wyld and his own forgotten place of honor as leverage if he can. He’s particularly susceptible to bargains that promise a major Creation-born power’s ear, such as a high-ranking god. In combat, Zicnal wades deep into the fray so he can crush opponents on all sides with equal fury. He always has at least one Wyld-warped guardian nearby, such as a buck-ogre or manticore (Exalted, pp. 537-539). His champion is Milaka, a Wood-Aspect mutant (Experienced Dragon-Blood: Exalted, p. 544). Milaka has wooden flesh (Unusual Hide: Exalted, p. 166-167); the back of his head is a hollowed-out raiton’s nest, which oddly impairs him not at all. Zicnal can gather a battle group of Wyld mutants and hobgoblins with the following traits: Size 3, average Drill, Might 1, Magnitude 8.

OTHER ASMANI
Zicnal’s traits are representative of asmani in general, although the Wyld’s warping power has granted others far different mutations, Charms, panoplies, or domains. The twelve-armed asman Sanek, for instance, lacks Zicnal’s three faces. Instead, she has the lower body of an immense scarlet worm, her underbelly lined with faces, and wears an armored raiment woven from honeybees. She wanders the Wyld as a penitent, hoping to reclaim former glory through deeds of what she perceives as virtue.

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	3. Mouse of the Sun
The Mice of the Sun appear similar to ordinary mice—they have stark white fur and bright golden eyes. Though they live and breed like normal animals, they bear the blessing of the Unconquered Sun, and have an affinity for the returned Solar Exalted. A Lawgiver who bonds with one of the mice will have a companion for life. These tiny creatures are clever, inconspicuous, and loyal to a fault—more than capable of slipping into a prison cell with a lockpick, or spotting an assassin that their master has missed. The mice also serve as a vector for the Unconquered Sun’s divine judgment: the Plague of the Sun, a disease that falls upon those who have displeased him.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 8; Join Battle: 7 dice
Health Levels: -0/-1/-2/-4/Incap. Mice of the sun are fearless in battle, no matter how badly injured they are.
Actions: Complex Thought: 4 dice; Gnaw Through Things: 4 dice; Scurry Through Tight Spaces: 7 dice; Senses: 6 dice (see Keen Nose); Stealth: 9 dice (see Slink Away and Tiny Creature)
Resolve: 4, Guile: 1

Combat
Attack (Gnaw): 5 dice (Damage 2). Damage increases to 5 against any enemy housecat-sized or smaller.
Combat Movement: 7 dice
Evasion 3; Parry 1 (see Tiny Creature)
Soak/Hardness: 1/0

Special Attacks
Distracting Scurry: The mouse of the sun can attempt a distract gambit (p. XX), adding two automatic successes to the attack roll against an enemy who is larger than a housecat. An enemy who is successfully distracted by the gambit also suffers the penalties of being blinded until their onslaught penalty has refreshed, as his attentions are so thoroughly focused on the small pest assailing him that he cannot notice anything else in his immediate surroundings.

Plague of the Sun: An enemy damaged by a decisive gnaw attack must also roll for exposure to the Plague of the Sun if they have offended the Unconquered Sun with prayers unworthy of the Most High or wicked deeds committed in his name. This is generally an issue of Storyteller discretion, rather than something the mouse’s master can decide.

The Plague of the Sun
The Plague of the Sun is a supernatural disease with virulence 4, morbidity 4, and an interval of one week. In addition to the usual traits of a disease, it has the following effects:

• Minor Symptom: The victim is haunted by a sense of judgment as the sun rises into the sky, causing him to lose a point of Willpower every day when the sun reaches its noonday zenith unless he is totally cut off from all natural light at the time. In addition, once a character has contracted the Plague of the Sun, even the most powerful healing magic cannot reduce it below the level of a minor symptom. A sincere prayer made to the Unconquered Sun asking for forgiveness can lower the intensity of the disease by one step or cure it entirely for those who have it at a minor symptom, but only for those who have committed sufficient atonement for whatever sin originally drew down the Sun’s wrath. Such prayers can be made no more than once per interval of the sickness.

• Major Symptom: In addition to the above effects, the victim takes a -2 penalty on all actions when exposed to daylight. This penalty is decreased to -1 if he wears thick, concealing clothing or uses other similar means to keep the sun off the flesh.

• Defining Symptom: In addition to the above effects, the victim is considered a creature of darkness for the purposes of Charms that have additional effects against them, such as Edge of Morning Sunlight or Fiery Solar Chakram.

Scampering Misdirection: Scampering across the enemy’s body, the mouse of the sun frustrates him into striking at himself. After successfully executing a distract gambit against an enemy, the mouse of the sun may redirect any attack made by that enemy that it successfully evades back at its attacker until its next turn. The mouse must remain within close range of the distracted enemy to use this special attack.

Flashing Sun Clash (Latent): By paying 1 Willpower, the mouse of the sun moves at the speed of sound to clash an attack. The mouse may move anywhere in her master’s line of sight to make this attack, even over air. This clash is decisive and adds her master’s Initiative to her own for the purposes of ignoring hardness, though only the mouse’s damage is rolled. If the mouse fails, she is struck by the attack instead of the original target.

Orichalcum Fang Strike (Latent): When the mouse of the sun attacks demons, undead, or other creatures of the night with its gnaw attack, its withering attacks have a base damage of 5 regardless of the enemy’s size, and its decisive attacks deal aggravated damage. If the mouse spends Willpower to enhance the attack, it may apply the double 10s rule to the damage roll.

Paw of Judgment (Magical): When the mouse of the sun’s master successfully damages an enemy with a decisive attack after receiving Initiative from a distract gambit made by the mouse against that enemy, the damaged character must roll against contracting the Plague of the Sun.

Merits
Faithful Servant: All mice of the sun have a Defining Tie of loyalty to the Unconquered Sun, which cannot be weakened or altered by any influence rolls or magic.

Fed by Virtue: The mouse of the sun does not sleep, but she does tire. She may sate hunger and thirst by normal means, eliminating any fatigue penalties, but she may also feed and quench her thirst by acting compassionately or courageously to aid another. Additionally, her hunger pains may be allayed by witnessing her master do the same. In times of trouble, an Exalted master may also feed her a single mote of Essence to restore her vigor for a single day.

Keen Nose: The mouse of the sun applies the double 9s rule on Perception-based rolls made using scent.

Slink Away: When the mouse of the sun attempts to go to ground in combat (p. XX), the penalty for doing so begins at -0, instead of -3.

Sunlit Fur Warmth: Once per story in which he somehow upholds the principles or virtues of the Unconquered Sun, the player of the master of a mouse of the sun who spends a scene petting and playing with his familiar may roll a single die, removing one point of Limit for each success.

Tiny Creature: The mouse of the sun adds +2 Evasion against any attack made by any foe larger than a housecat. In addition, characters of that size subtract two successes from any Awareness-based roll made to notice the mouse.

Dancing Mouse Fury (Latent): If her master is one of the Solar Exalted, when both she and her master roll Join Battle, she gains two Initiative for each 10 in her master’s Join Battle roll. Resplendent Solar Avatar (Magical): The Solar may grant the mouse any of the benefits of his anima banner for free when he uses them himself, or may pay separately to activate them on the mouse’s behalf. This is not compatible with anima effects that allow characters to acquire permanent traits, such as an Eclipse’s ability to learn certain spirit Charms or a Twilight’s ability to bind spirits as familiars. In addition, the mouse may reflexively surround itself with radiance emulating its master’s anima banner at the burning level.

Sun’s Shadow Companion (Magical, 1wp): The mouse can learn to use effects equivalent to the Solar Charms Invisible Statue Spirit, Lock-Opening Touch, and Stealing from Plain Sight Spirit, paying a point of Willpower in lieu of the mote cost of these Charms. Each Charm the Solar wishes to teach to his familiar requires a separate use of Beast-Mastering Behavior.

Vanishing Flare (Magical): The mouse of the sun has the Essence of Solar flame. It may unknit its physical substance to vanish into a curl of Solar flame until its master calls it back. In addition, if the mouse would be killed, it instead vanishes into the fires of its anima, slowly reforming over the course of the story. Once the next story has begun, the mouse emerges at an unforeseen moment to aid its Solar master.

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	3. Rantai
From a distance, a rantai resembles a tangle of red ribbon or scarlet thread drifting on the breeze. Then it comes closer, moaning as it moves against the wind, and it's true shape is revealed—an airborne mass of blood-drenched chains, each link a barbed loop of bone. Dozens of ghosts writhe on these hooks, their shrieks blending into a cacophony of woe. The rantai collect ghosts for no discernible reason and put them to no visible use. Hundreds or even thousands dangle from the barbs of the most ancient of their breed. The agony of these fettered spirits only ends if some lesser Underworld predator snatches them, shrike-like, off the hooks and devours them—or if they should somehow be freed, either through violence or parlay.

Centuries of carrying screaming ghosts have taught the rantai most of Creation’s tongues. Though they cannot speak, they compel the ghosts bound to them to give word to their wishes. But their desires are as alien as their natures, and they may demand peculiar terms to release a prisoner—a test of skill that pits the petitioner against the ghost to be freed, the planting of a living tree in Underworld soil, the right to name a first-born child. Though rantai most often trouble the dead, they can also imperil the living. A wounded rantai seeks out a shadowland inhabited by mortals and strips out their skeletons, which it reshapes into new rings of bloody bone to replace those it has lost.

Essence: 3; Willpower: 6; Join Battle: 10 dice
Personal Motes: 80
Health Levels: -0x3/-1x6/-2x6/-4/Incap.
Actions: Feats of Strength: 7 dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats); Fly: 8 dice; Senses: 7 dice; Social Influence: 8 dice; Underworld Lore: 8 dice
Appearance 5 (Hideous), Resolve 5, Guile 6

Combat
Attack (Chain lash): 11 dice (Damage 12)
Attack (Grapple): 9 dice (8 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 8 dice
Evasion 2, Parry 5
Soak/Hardness: 11/3

Offensive Charms
Cascade of Chains (10m, 1wp; Simple; Withering-only; Instant; Essence 2): The rantai makes a single withering attack against any number of enemies in close range. It gains Initiative as normal from the damage roll that inflicted the highest amount of damage, but the total Initiative it receives from all other damage rolls cannot raise the total award above 10 (not counting Initiative breaks). Against a battle group, this doubles 7s on the damage roll of an attack. Once per fight, unless reset by incapacitating an enemy.

Ghost-Gaoler’s Leash (3m per ghost; Simple; Instant; Essence 2): The rantai unspools the lengths of chain that bind ghosts to it, sending them forth to fight on its behalf. Each ghost rolled into battle with this Charm has the traits of a war-ghost (p. XX) unless the rantai uses a specific ghost it has bound. It cannot send out more chained ghosts than it has points of temporary Willpower, although if its Willpower falls below the current number of ghosts it does not have to retract any. A character capable of striking dematerialized enemies may attempt a difficulty 4 gambit against a ghost that has been sent out with this Charm to sever the chain. Success frees the ghost, which may either flee or fight alongside its liberator, and deals one level of damage to the rantai.

Impaling Barbs (4m, 1wp; Supplemental; Until released; Essence 2): On a successful grapple, the rantai doubles its extra successes to determine how many rounds of control it establishes, and takes no Defense penalties for clinching. Attacks that fail to damage it do not cause it lose any rounds of control. If it savages a clinched character, it adds +2 damage to a decisive attack or +5 damage to a withering attack. A ghost that is Incapacitated or crashed while grappled is imprisoned on the rantai’s hooks, becoming a slave to the rantai.

Skeletonize (3m; Reflexive; Instant; Essence 3): As the rantai kills a living creature with a decisive attack, it strips out the victims’ skeleton in a shower of gore. The bones crack and writhe as they reshape themselves into new barbed links to repair the rantai’s blood-drenched chains, healing a single health level. Any decisive attack against a battle group made up of living characters offers the opportunity to use this Charm, healing one level of damage per point of Magnitude lost.

Symphony of Woe: (5m, 1wp; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 3): The rantai may treat its Join Battle roll as an inspire roll against all enemies to fill them with sadness, terror, or dread. Characters who pay Willpower to resist this influence lose three Initiative. Those who don’t pay lose two Initiative at the start of each round as they succumb to their dark emotions.

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	4. Elephant/Mammoth
Throughout Creation, from the savannas of the South to the arctic wastes of the far North, people respect and revere elephants and mammoths as totems of strength and power. Full-grown bulls travel alone or in loose groups, standing twice the height of a mortal and weighing up to seven tons. Females gather in intimate family groups with their young; they have two-thirds of a male’s height and mass. They use tusks — found on male Southwestern elephants, or both genders elsewhere — to guard against predators, engage in mating battles, and tear up roots and bark for fodder. They gather near freshwater sources. Elephants live for decades, with intelligence, memory, and emotional sophistication akin to a human’s. They gather food and use tools with their prehensile trunks, and though they cannot speak, they exhibit love, grief, generosity, and humor. People keep them in captivity to haul goods, transport passengers, or trample foes in war. Hunters kill wild elephants for their valuable ivory. Northern tribes also hunt the mammoth for its meat.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 4 dice
Health Levels: −0x3/−1x6/−2x6/−4x6/Incap
Speed Bonus: +1
Actions: Endure Extreme Conditions: 9 dice; Feats of Strength: 14 dice (may attempt Strength 7 feats); Find Water: 10 dice; Intimidate: 9 dice; Senses: 7 dice
Resolve 2, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Stomp): 15 dice (Damage 16, minimum 4)
Attack (Tusks): 12 dice, or 13 with bladed tusks (Damage 18, minimum 5); Tags: Piercing (with blades only)
Attack (Trunk): 13 dice (Damage 15); Tags: Flexible
Attack (Grapple): 11 dice (14 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 7 dice
Evasion 2, Parry 4
Soak/Hardness: 16/6, or 20/6 with armor

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Gore: Decisive tusk attacks add extra successes to damage against enemies with lower Initiative, as long as the elephant hasn’t taken any other actions (including reflexive movement actions) that turn.

Massive Charge: If the elephant moves at least one range band toward a target and makes a decisive attack against it on the same turn, the attack gains the Smashing tag (Exalted, p. 586).
Overwhelming Might: Elephants make unopposed grapple control rolls against enemies of smaller size, unless the victims use magic allowing them to grapple larger foes, such as Dragon Coil Technique (Exalted, p. 280).

Rampaging Stampede: Spend one Willpower to flurry a withering stomp attack with a decisive tusk or trunk attack, each with a different target.
Trample: If the elephant reflexively pursues an enemy after a successful rush and makes a stomp attack against them on its next turn, a successful hit knocks the enemy prone. Apply the Defense penalty from being prone (Exalted, p. 202) retroactively when calculating the attack’s threshold successes.

Trunk Grapple (Latent): An elephant takes no Defense penalty for grappling, but can’t make savaging attacks. However, one with bladed tusks automatically deals lethal damage on a decisive throw, as it tosses the enemy into the air and then slices them — perhaps in half.

MERITS
Keen Nose: Gain double 9s on scent-based Perception rolls.

Legendary Size: An elephant suffers no onslaught penalties from attacks from smaller opponents, unless they’re magically inflicted. Withering attacks from smaller enemies cannot crash it unless they have at least 10 post-soak damage dice, although attackers still gain the full amount of Initiative damage dealt. Decisive attacks from smaller enemies cannot deal more than (3 + attacker’s Strength) levels of damage to it, not counting levels added by Charms or other magic.

STORYTELLER TACTICS
Elephants flee after taking 4+ levels of damage, unless protecting their young or kept under control by a rider. Against larger opponents they use their Massive Charge to protect their territory or wards more often than they attack directly. They are difficult to harm due to thick hides and versatile trunks, but they have trouble maneuvering quickly or attacking foes directly behind (or atop) them.

Those who train elephants for battle often have steel-bladed tips crafted to fit the animals’ tusks, which the elephants use like swords to cut their opponents in half. War elephants in Kirighast use their trunks to swing about modified flails with incredible accuracy. Since preparing an animal of this size for war requires huge investments of time and money, their owners also fit them with padded armor that allows them the freedom of movement to use their trunks and tusks against their enemies.

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	4. Fulope, the Choral Equestrian, Demon of the First Circle
Fulope are masses of flexible fibers like spun glass, each aglow and moving as if adrift underwater. When calm, fulope swims through the air, but fits of passion tangle it into knots, each snarl blistering into a burning eye with a lamprey-like maw as its pupil. Like many of the Silent Wind’s brood, the choral equestrian lives to sing. Its own voice a harsh buzz, it possesses others to perform. Fastening itself to the nape of another creature’s neck, it winds scorching, yet painless nerve-fibers into the victim’s brain and larynx to seize control. Confronted with another singer of any kind, the fulope competes to prove its mastery until they stop. Rival fulope engage in lengthy duels of song, leaving their hosts’ throats raw. A fulope often obsesses over something or someone as its muse — most enticingly, Malfeas’ green sun. Left to itself, a choral equestrian seizes a flying demon’s body and soars into Hell’s sky. Those that fly too high burn, their stolen bodies plummeting like meteors to the city below.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 6; Join Battle: 2 dice
Personal Motes: 70
Health Levels: −0x/−1x2/−2x4/−4x/Incap
Intimacies: Defining: Current Muse (Obsession), Singing (Obsession)
Actions: Beautiful Song: 11 dice (5 with its own voice); Fly: 4 dice; Host Impersonation: 5 dice (8 for long-term hosts); Read Intentions: 6 dice; Senses: 6 dice; Social Influence (non-Performance): 7 dice
Appearance 3, Resolve 4, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 7 dice (Damage 10) Attack (Tendril slash): 10 dice (Damage 8) Attack (Grapple): 8 dice (7 dice to control) Combat Movement: 4 dice Evasion 3, Parry 2 Soak/Hardness: 4/0

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Neural Reins (20m, 1wp; Simple; Indefinite; Decisive-only; Essence 2): Expend all rounds of a grapple’s control to roll (10 + rounds of control forfeited) dice against the higher of the target’s (Resolve or current Willpower). If successful, it gains control of her body, using her physical Attributes, health track, and voice. Observers may make a difficulty 3 (Perception + Awareness or Medicine) roll to notice a small glassy lump in the nape of her neck, and a difficulty 5 (Intelligence + Occult) roll to understand its significance. At the end of each scene in which the fulope’s host is present, she may roll (Wits + Integrity), difficulty 3, as one interval of an extended action with terminus 3 and goal number 10 to expel it. She may also roll whenever the demon tries to force her to act against an Intimacy, adding the Intimacy’s rating in bonus dice.

A character may submit willingly; the demon pays the Charm’s cost and automatically succeeds without a roll. A target who retains control while possessed — having sorcerously bound the demon or persuaded it with social influence — can spend the higher of (her Essence) or 3 of the fulope’s motes per scene on social Charms. She can relinquish control to let the demon act for her with its own social and mental traits, and regains control at will. An extended (Intelligence + Medicine) roll with difficulty 5, goal number 10, and interval one hour extracts an embedded fulope surgically from a restrained or subdued host. The patient suffers two lethal damage per roll, ignoring Hardness. Magic that ends possession, such as Burning Exorcism Technique (Exalted, p. 356), can also expel it

Song-Stealing Mollification (6m; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 1): While possessing a host and in control, the fulope gains double 9s on a Performance-based social influence roll to uphold its host’s Intimacies by singing. Using this Charm more than once per scene temporarily shifts one of the host’s Intimacies toward a more demonic context or subject with each subsequent use, until the fulope is expelled.

Uncoiling Glassy Thread (8m; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 1): The fulope’s strands elongate to grapple an enemy at short range, with three bonus successes on the attack and control rolls. Success drags the victim to close range. The strands’ pulsing heat is extraordinarily painful, increasing the grappled target’s Defense penalty to −3.

MISCELLANEOUS
Hurry Home (10m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): The demon returns to its summoner’s side; unavailable when unbound.

Materialize (35m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): The demon weaves itself from snatches of stolen song in a hundred foreign voices.

Measure the Wind (5m; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): The fulope reads anyone it possesses.

STORYTELLER TACTICS
A fulope without a host tries to grapple the most appealing target. Choose the opponent with the highest Performance rating, or if none have Performance, Charisma. Enemy sorcerers can use summoned fulope to enhance their abilities or take discreet control of someone important. Someone who’s already possessed makes for a good introduction to a mystery the characters can investigate, following rumors of strange behavior or noticing it themselves in someone they know.

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	5. Cloud-Person
Hedonistic and aloof, the cloud people spend their ageless lives in aerial cities — masses of filmy structures built upon the largest clouds. There they indulge in airy luxuries, while away the hours amid philosophy and revelry, and study the movements of the upper air and the stars. Concerning oneself with the lands beneath — or with the affairs of the spirit courts of air — is gauche. But for all their condescension toward the mortal world, cloud people feel a strong pull toward Creation’s evanescent beauty. Lovely youths, freshly blooming flowers, opulent jewels, and the clamor of battle can draw them down to the earth below. Though they quickly tire of mortal affairs, they often bring home keepsakes or guests, infusing them with airy Essence that they may hover with the cloud people in their gauzy cities. Sadly, anything — or anyone — infused thus for more than one month per year dissolves into dust

Cloud people resemble slender mortals made of white cloudstuff, often mistaken for patches of mist. Their eyes are large and bright, their nebulous hair dozens of feet long, their voices faint and bemused. With their impalpable bodies, cloud people can assume any form (though they always remain diaphanous and cloud-pale) and ride effortlessly on the wind. Their foodstuffs are equally insubstantial, consisting of scents, breezes, and flickers of color.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 5 dice
Personal Motes: 70
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4/Incap
Actions: Debate/Persuade: 6 dice; Fly: 6 dice; Philosophical, Occult, and Astrological Knowledge: 8 dice (see Libraries of the Cloud Cities); Read Intentions: 6 dice; Senses: 6 dice; Stealth: 5 dice; Weather Prediction: 7 dice; Writing: 7 dice
Appearance 4, Resolve 3, Guile 3

COMBAT
Attack (Unarmed): 7 dice (Damage 8)
Combat Movement: 5 dice
Evasion 3, Parry 2
Soak/Hardness: 1/0

MERITS
Libraries of the Cloud Cities: The aerial cities hold libraries of countless books and star charts written on pages of mist, unreadable to all but cloudfolk eyes. With access to these, add three dice to Knowledge rolls to introduce a fact (Exalted, p. 237), including with Sky-Hidden Secrets.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Wind-Whistling Trick (5m; Simple; Instant; Eclipse; Essence 2): Cloud people call up small breezes or powerful gusts of wind to do their bidding. In combat, these gusts extend to medium range, rolling eight dice with 12 base withering damage. Conjured winds cannot execute damaging decisive attacks, but can perform all manner of gambits. They can also perform non-combat feats such as lifting small objects with a pillar of air, blowing books from shelves, or overturning a banquet table, all with eight dice; the Storyteller sets the difficulty. Eclipses pay five motes and one Willpower instead, and roll (Perception + Occult) with a base damage of (9 + Intelligence) instead.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Dissolving Mist Body (10m, 4i; Reflexive; Instant; Dual; Essence 2): A cloud person dissolves and reforms around a physical attack, adding +2 Evasion. Even if the attack hits, subtract two dice from a withering attack’s post-soak damage or a decisive attack’s raw damage. Against a grapple, instead subtract five successes from her enemy’s control roll; she escapes the grapple immediately if this reduces him to zero successes.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Cloud-Body Shapeshifting (10m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 2): A cloud person can transform her vaporous body into any number of shapes. She can seep under a door as a thin sheet of mist, hang in the sky as a cloud to spy on those below, or expand her body into a fog bank that conceals her summoner. Only supernatural senses such as Keen Sight Technique (Exalted, p. 267) can discern a transformed cloud person, with a difficulty 5 (Perception + Awareness) roll. This Charm can’t enhance Defense. Reverting to humanoid form is free and reflexive.

Cloud Feather Blessing (1m per person or object, 1wp; Simple; One month; Essence 2): Cloud people may enchant willing people or objects up to human size with Air Essence, making them light enough to walk in the aerial cities, or for a cloud person to carry in flight. Being almost weightless has no mechanical effects, but stunts can exploit it. Nothing can endure this blessing longer than one month per year — if the elemental attempts to maintain it further or bestow it again before a year has passed, the recipient crumbles to dust. Sapient subjects instinctively know how much time remains, with an increasing sense of overpowering dread as the deadline approaches, even if they don’t know what it means. They may reject the blessing at any time, though they fall as normal if they do so on a cloud.

Downward Glance (5m; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 2): Cloud people take no penalties on Awareness rolls to see things from miles above. Add one bonus success on rolls to make out minute details, such as identifying who’s meeting with a courtier behind a teahouse. Add three successes instead on rolls to make out large-scale details, such as an army’s movements.

Sky-Hidden Secrets (30m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 2): Through a combination of natural prescient gifts and immaculate star charts, the cloud people are adept at prophecy. Roll Knowledge to introduce a relevant fact about something that will happen up to a season in the future, rather than something about the present or past. Treat the introduced fact as likely to happen if the roll succeeds; but cloud oracles are fallible, due to the intrinsic instability of prophecy, inescapable minor errors in star charts, and unfamiliarity with the ways of the world below. This Charm is only usable once per story.


Storyteller Tactics
Cloud people prefer to spar with words rather than weapons. They are fond of debate, but their arguments trend toward the arcane and oblique — they like to think they operate on an entirely different level than the material people they deign to engage. A sorcerer or savant who can keep up with their rambling dialogues, gleaning droplets of brilliance from clouds of obfuscation, delights them. Cloud people make exceptional consultants on occult matters, especially astrology, over which they frequently obsess. They make passable assistants in other matters, but they’re extremely recalcitrant if their accommodations and surroundings don’t match their standards. Give each cloud person their own Intimacies.

Cloud people disdain those who would press them into combat, but betimes even they descend to such actions. When they do, they prefer hit-and-fade tactics, due partially to their delicate physical bodies and partially to their flightiness. Anything they find attractive easily distracts them, prompting them to try persuading the object of desire to accept their Cloud Feather Blessing.

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	5. Fang-Blossom
A few generations ago, a Dragon-Blooded sailor fancied a lovely species of flowering plant native to the West. Ignoring the islanders’ warnings, she uprooted the bulbs of these beautiful scandent vines and returned home to the Blessed Isle. The invasive species flourished there with alarming vitality. Emboldened by the Center’s rich soil, these fang-blossoms — as the Dynast eventually dubbed them — multiplied in droves: first one seedling from each plant, then five, then twenty, and eventually they overran the walls of her estate and germinated in the wild. The mystery of pets gone missing without explanation dogged the prefecture for months, but no one blamed the plants until the grisly devouring of a visiting foreign dignitary prompted a political feud that persists to this day.

The fang-blossom’s flowers are wide and circular, displaying a riot of dazzling colors. Each plant begins as a yellow-green root roughly the size of a watermelon, then develops a thick stem, countless tendrils, and large blooms. Curated, it maintains a reasonable size for a garden plant and limits its carnivorous tendencies to wild animals. Left to feed and sprout freely, fang-blossoms develop dozens of thick vines and can swallow an unfortunate passerby whole.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 7 dice
Personal Motes: 60
Health Levels: −0/−1x4/−2x3/−4/Incap
Actions: Climb/Slither (vines only): 9 dice; Feats of Strength: 8 dice (vines only; may attempt Strength 5 feats); Senses: 5 dice; Disguise/Stealth: 7 dice (see Camouflage)
Resolve 4, Guile 4

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 11 dice (Damage 12, minimum 3)
Attack (Vine grapple): 10 dice (12 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 8 dice (vines only)
Evasion 1, Parry 6
Soak/Hardness: 6/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Needle-Tooth Bite: A fang-blossom’s carnivorous maw opens to reveal rings of sharpened teeth while its mass of tendrils immobilizes its prey. When it deals 5+ damage with a withering bite attack, it may forgo receiving any Initiative to instead make a reflexive grapple gambit against that enemy, without an Initiative roll or cost. Each Initiative point it would have gained instead adds one die to the control roll.


MERITS
Camouflage: Whenever a fang-blossom’s maws are closed and it poses as an ordinary flowering plant, gain double 9s on Disguise/Stealth rolls.

Tendril-Sprouting Nightmare: Each fang-blossom has a core plant with bulb, stem, and one blossom maw to start with. The core has the traits listed above and is immobile. Its vines can slither out to short range and perform actions as noted above; each vine acts as a separate target with its own health track that can defend the core, and the plant cannot become Incapacitated until all of its vines have been severed by depleting their health tracks. Each vine has the same traits as the core plant except that it has five −0 health levels instead of the core’s track.

OFFENSE CHARMS
Swallow Whole (15m; Reflexive; Decisive-only; Instant; Essence 2): After dealing 3+ levels of damage to a grappled enemy with a decisive savage attack, the fang-blossom may swallow them alive as long as they’re within close range of a flower-maw. Within the plant’s stem, they contend with its digestive acids, an environmental hazard with damage 3L/round and difficulty 5. A swallowed enemy may attempt to cut their way free with a difficulty 5 gambit, but cannot otherwise attack it from inside without a relevant stunt. Even then, they contend with its full defenses. The fang-blossom may swallow a number of human-sized characters at a time equal to the number of flower-maws it has.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Infinite Reaching Vines (5m, 2i or 10m, 4i; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): For five motes and two Initiative, the plant sprouts an additional vine. For ten motes and four Initiative, the plant grows another flower-maw and becomes larger.

Storyteller Tactics
Fang-blossoms keep their maws closed and pretend to be unthreatening until prey approaches within reach of their tendrils. They attack by grappling victims and dragging them into their flower-maws, but a fang-blossom keeps two vines free to use Defend Other to protect the core unless it’s desperate. Assign a starting number of vines equal to twice the number of enemies present. Fang-blossoms sense weakness, targeting non-combatants first, then the target standing closest to a flower or wearing the least armor.

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	6. Metagalapan Riding Hawk
Mount Metagalapa lies northeast of Great Forks, floating hundreds of feet in the air. Its denizens learned to breed its native oversized hawks larger and larger, until the birds could carry riders. Now, traders and warriors from the lofty peak swoop down to barter with those who deal with them in good faith — and raid those who don’t — borne on the wings of Metagalapan riding hawks. Modern hawks’ dispositions retain a healthy dose of the wild. Anyone foolhardy enough to steal one courts a long drop and a painful death. Riders train for long periods, earning a bird’s trust over months or years. Hawks and riders with the strongest bonds perform incredible feats, maneuvering as though they share body and mind. The hawks have 30-foot wingspans and powerful talons. They can carry a small load, about 200 pounds, for a rider and her spoils. They can transport riders up to 50-75 miles per day, but after a few days they need rest and recovery before continuing.

Metagalapan hawks often outlive their riders. Some pass their hawks’ jesses on to a child or favored student, the bird serving its masters faithfully for a century or more. The hawks are not very fertile; only a few hatchlings survive each year, and successful breeders are in demand. Even rarer is the great roc, a variety whose wingspan stretches double that of their smaller cousins, growing larger than a mammoth.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 4; Join Battle: 7 dice
Health Levels: −0x2/−1x3/−2x3/−4x2/Incap
Speed Bonus: +0
Actions: Fly: 10 dice; Senses: 5 dice (see Eagle
Eye); Stealth: 6 dice; Tracking: 5 dice (see Eagle Eye)
Resolve 2, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Beak): 10 dice (Damage 11)
Attack (Grapple): 4 dice (4 to control)
Attack (Talons): 10 dice (Damage 12)
Combat Movement: 8 dice (see Aerial Maneuverability)
Evasion 3, Parry 1
Soak/Hardness: 3/0

Special Abilities
Crushing Grip: Withering savage attacks the hawk makes against grappled opponents ignore up to four points of soak, while decisive ones ignore up to four points of Hardness.
Swooping Descent: A hawk that flies downward at least one range band and makes a decisive unexpected attack on the same turn adds two automatic successes to the attack roll. A hawk soaring high in the sky is beyond sensory range without superhuman senses, ensuring an ambush on first strike and allowing it to attempt re-establishing stealth in combat or withdrawing by simply flying higher than their enemies can see.

Aerial Maneuverability: Gain double 9s on disengage attempts while flying.

Steady Glide (Latent): The hawk moves smoothly through the air, allowing its rider to take aim or perform other actions requiring a steady hand without suffering any penalties during any maneuver. Armored hawks do not suffer barding penalties.

Merits
Eagle Eye: The hawk gains five bonus dice on visual Perception-based rolls to notice something while it has the height advantage, and can make out fine details of far-off targets this way. It automatically succeeds on rolls to track a character while airborne, unless that character employs perfect concealment magic.

Mighty Wings (Magical, 3m): The hawk can carry an extra 50 pounds for every three motes committed indefinitely, up to an extra 200 pounds.

Storyteller Tactics
Metagalapans prize their riding hawks for their maneuverability and ferocity. While a hawk is neither affectionate nor truly loyal, it recognizes a good master as a reliable source of food and shelter. It’s still a wild animal at heart, though, and a rider would do well to remember that. Mistreated hawks turn on their abusers. One Prince of the Earth known for his cruelty turned up dead on the rocks below the mountain. Official documents say his torn saddle’s straps gave way, but those who found him say they were sliced, as if by a talon. Metagalapan hawks prefer to strike from above, then move swiftly out of range as they climb into the sky for their next dive. They can only restrain/drag or savage a grappled enemy, but they can drag him while ascending and then release him to cause falling damage. They attempt to flee when they’ve taken 5+ levels of damage, unless forced by a rider to continue. Those who manage to procreate are protective of their fledglings, and defend their nests until Incapacitated or killed.

A Metagalapan hawk is a 2-dot Familiar. Its larger cousin, the great roc, is a 3-dot Familiar. The great roc’s traits are similar to the hawk’s, but add four −0 health levels, +3 to attack pools, +5 soak, and the Legendary Size Merit (Exalted, p. 522).

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	6. Plentimons' Ladybug
At first glance, they appear small and beetle-like, black with white spots. Up close, the white spots become clusters of stars; the closer an observer looks, the more stars she sees. These ladybugs are the creatures of Plentimon, god of dice and gambling, and their venom influences probability for their “victims.” In the gambling dens of Nexus, bouncers check for bite marks on anyone whose dice appear to be too lucky. Plentimon’s ladybug leaves a distinctive mark, resembling the pips on a die.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 3 dice
Personal Motes: 15
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4x1/Incap
Actions: Fly: 3 dice; Hide: 5 dice (6 on someone’s
person); Senses: 5 dice
Resolve 2, Guile 2

Combat
Attack (Bite): 3 dice (Damage 1)
Combat Movement: 5 dice
Evasion 5 (see Tiny Creature), Parry 0
Soak/Hardness: 3/0

Special Abilities
Bitten by the Gambling Bug: The ladybug bites its victim, then hides in a fold of clothing. For the scene, the bitten character’s player lowers her target number by one on any non-reflexive actions whose outcomes the character leaves completely to chance, such as rolling dice, drawing cards from a deck, choosing a random path from among several options, etc. Big winning streaks are rarely subtle, and neither Plentimon nor his ladybugs offer protection from anyone who feels cheated.

Merits
Tiny Creature: Gain +2 Evasion against opponents larger than a housecat. Characters of that size subtract two successes from Awareness rolls to notice the ladybug.

Social Charms
Fortuitous Meeting (5m; Simple; Instant; Eclipse; Essence 2): While Plentimon’s ladybugs are most famous for changing the odds in table games, some people use them to influence chance encounters in their favor. How lucky to bump into the satrap’s daughter at the market, or to arrive for an unscheduled appointment with the busy magistrate just as someone else canceled! Within five hours of the ladybug biting a character, the Storyteller must give her an opportunity to meet another character of the player’s choice, provided that character has a reasonable chance of appearing in the area.

Storyteller Tactics
Plentimon’s ladybugs don’t engage in combat, but they ambush “victims” to bite them, ignoring all armor. How they choose who to bite is a question only the god himself can answer.
Casino owners have an uncomfortable dilemma when it comes to these so-called pests. Gambling houses draw them, and while driving them off or killing them would be sensible to protect their coffers, surely it’s bad luck to destroy a creature sacred to the god of dice? Most owners opt instead for banning the bitten and punishing transgressors.

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	7. Bloodworm
At sites of great, bloody battles and other places where loss of life is staggering, the undead bloodworms emerge. Bloodworms form from the blood of the slain seeping into the dust and leeching necrotic Essence from corpses rotting below the surface. Bloodworms range from the size of an earthworm to that of a large snake, or even monstrously huge if they persist long enough. They range in color from dark red to black. With their leech-like mouths, they latch onto freshly dead bodies or the wounded living, sensing spilled blood from a mile away. When they’re hungry enough, they feed on healthy prey that crosses their paths too, all for the promise of blood.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 3; Join Battle: 4 dice
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4/Incap.
Actions: Resist Disease/Poison: 4 dice; Senses: 4 dice; Stealth: 8 dice; Tracking: 5 dice (see Blood Scent) Resolve 1, Guile 4

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 10 dice (Damage 12)
Attack (Grapple): 9 dice (7 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 5 dice
Evasion 3, Parry 0
Soak/Hardness: 3/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Drain: A bloodworm attaches to its victim and drinks their blood. Add two automatic successes to attacks against grappled foes. If the victim has any lethal damage in her health track, a decisive savaging attack attaches the worm to the open wound, inflicting one additional lethal damage level, or two if the worm has at least twice its original health levels (see Storyteller Tactics). The worm’s mouth secretes a fluid that keeps blood flowing and numbs the skin; the victim loses one Initiative automatically each turn the grapple persists, and if the grapple gambit is unexpected, the victim suffers a −2 penalty to further attempts to notice the worm while it controls the grapple.

MERITS
Blood Scent: Bloodworms detect blood in the soil and on the air. Add three successes on Senses rolls to notice or track spilled blood or open wounds, up to a mile away. When tracking a bleeding character, add an additional die for each level of wound penalty the character suffers as well.

Tiny Creature: Gain +2 Evasion against foes larger than a housecat. Characters of that size subtract two successes from Awareness rolls to notice the bloodworm.

Storyteller Tactics
Bloodworms follow their feeding urge regardless of on which side of a battle their prey fought. However, stories say the blood within the worm remembers, driving the creature to the surface to find and feast upon the foes of one whose blood it devoured. Older bloodworms are larger and more powerful; represent this by adding health levels, taking away the Tiny Creature Merit, and — at their most ancient — adding the Legendary Size Merit. A bloodworm’s grappled victim doesn’t suffer penalties to attack rolls or Defense and can still move and flurry normally, unless the bloodworm has at least twice its original health levels. A bloodworm flees when it’s taken damage to its first −4 health level, burrowing deep into the earth to withdraw or go to ground.

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	7. Giant Grosbeak
The giant grosbeak rarely sings in captivity. Dynastic collectors launch expeditions dedicated to listening for its beautiful call in its natural habitat. The birds’ plumage varies, from black and white with striking splashes of red on the breast and wings, to bright blues, soft roses, and sunny yellows. Those who keep them in menageries do so for their beauty more than the hope of their song, though they spend fortunes on their aviaries, just in case. Giant grosbeaks stand about three feet tall. Their size prevents them from flying long distances, but they can take to the air for short periods. The mysterious birds are native to the Blessed Isle and other temperate locales. Travelers near An-Teng and Goldenseal record sightings in their journals, and one merchant in Jibei claims to possess a mated pair, though none have ever seen them. Whether the hatchlings he sells are truly from a captive pair or stolen from a wild grosbeak’s nest is a matter of debate among his rivals.

The grosbeak’s song can sway even the hardest heart. Musicians try to capture its essence in their compositions, but no imitation comes close. Grosbeaks form bonds with those they trust who allow them to fly free, making them good familiars.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 3; Join Battle: 3 dice
Personal Motes: 20
Health Levels: −0/−1x3/−2x3/−4/Incap.
Intimacies: Defining: “Life is music and harmony.”; Major: “For every melody, there are countless possible harmonies.”; Minor: The Open Sky (Longing)
Actions: Fly: 4 dice; Read Intentions: 7 dice; Senses: 4 (see Keen Hearing) dice; Sing: 12 dice
Appearance 4, Resolve 2, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Peck): 3 dice (Damage 8)
Combat Movement: 5 dice
Evasion 1, Parry 1
Soak/Hardness: 4/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Warning Song (Latent): The grosbeak’s master learns the meaning of its different tones, and teaches it new songs that convey simple messages. “Danger” is a common one. Some trainers teach the birds different songs to associate with specific people, letting them know when someone is approaching.

MERITS
Keen Hearing: Double 9s on all hearing-based Perception rolls.

SOCIAL CHARMS
Ancient Lullaby (10m, 1wp; Simple; One scene, Perilous; Essence 2): The grosbeak’s song resembles a lullaby from the target’s childhood, tiring him or — if he’s already asleep — driving him deeper into slumber. Make an inspire roll with its Sing pool. If successful, its target’s Defenses suffer a cumulative −1 for each round the bird sings. A target that’s already asleep remains so for the duration; sufficient stimulus, such as a slap to the face or a noise loud enough to drown out the song, prompts a (Perception + Resistance) roll opposed by the grosbeak’s Sing pool. Taking decisive damage automatically wakes a character.

Aria of the Steadfast Friend (8m; Simple; One scene; Essence 2): The grosbeak’s song gladdens a listener’s heart in times of sorrow, settles her fears, or helps her plant her feet and be brave in the presence of oncoming enemies. The target gains +1 to her Resolve for the duration, as long as she can still hear the song.

Heartstrings Resonance (10m, 1wp; Simple; One scene; Essence 3): The grosbeak sings a battle hymn that urges someone on, a ballad that reminds him of his first love, or his enemy’s anthem that stirs him to rage. After at least eight total hours listening to a particular song, it can activate this Charm to choose a target and sing the melody at will, or a trainer’s signal. Anyone who can hear the song gains +2 successes on an instill or inspire action against the target when leveraging one of her Ties that they know and evoking the song’s emotion. The grosbeak knows a maximum of three such songs at a time. If it learns a new one, the  oldest one fades from memory.

Storyteller Tactics
Giant grosbeaks are remarkably intelligent, capable of human empathy. Though they don’t understand human speech, they glean emotions from voices and body language, rolling Read Intentions often to discern a speaker’s Ties. It may sing songs that shore up those feelings, or attempt to change them. Grosbeaks have saved friendships others deemed irreparably broken, simply seeking to soothe their masters’ hurts, or caused full-blown enmity between rivals at a canny master’s order. A grosbeak can only have one song Charm active at a time. It’s a peaceful animal by nature and never initiates combat. Threatened, it flies to safety; cornered, it fights only to escape.

A giant grosbeak is a 3-dot Familiar.

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	8. Armored Kraken
Beneath Southwestern seas lurks a monstrous colossal octopus. Dozens of yards long, with an exoskeleton of thick chitinous plates and ten arms easily long and powerful enough to crush a trireme to flinders and scatter its crew to the waves, the armored kraken is a rare marine menace. It lives in the extreme depths, but large disturbances on the surface attract it; scholars believe it mistakes ships for other creatures of like size when it senses them, drawn by shipwrecks or battles of great Exalted power, and attacks out of territorial instinct. In warmer months when currents flow north into Western waters, learned pirates and Dynastic captains take care to engage in shallower waters, lest the kraken wake. Many a sailor sees the tell-tale crest of its armored mantle in her nightmares and prays to the Ocean Father never to meet it.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 5;
Join Battle: 8 dice (base Initiative 5)
Health Levels: −0x4/−1x-6/−2x6/−4x2/Incap.
Actions: Feats of Strength: 15 dice (may attempt Strength 10 feats); Naval Maneuvers: 8 dice; Resist Disease/Poison: 12 dice; Senses: 5 dice; Stealth: 4 dice; Tracking: 4 dice
Resolve 3, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Arm): 12 dice (Damage 16, minimum 3)
Attack (Beak): 8 dice (Damage 12); Tags: Piercing
Attack (Grapple): 12 dice (14 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 10 dice (6 dice with fewer than four free arms)
Evasion 3, Parry 6 (2 with no free arms)
Soak/Hardness: 15/10
Note: For attacks against ships in naval combat, see Terror of the Deep.

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Depth Lurker: Subtract three successes from Awareness rolls to notice the kraken while it is deep below an observer. In combat, this applies when the kraken is at long range underwater relative to the character, or if it is moving up from long range while already hidden. It may rush enemies from long range beneath them underwater, as long as the horizontal distance between the two is no more than one range band. If the rush is successful, the kraken automatically moves one range band closer to its target on the next two turns, in addition to its normal movement.

Infinite Grasp: The kraken may flurry two grapple gambits together. Each enemy the kraken grapples takes up one of its arms; it may maintain one grapple per arm. While grappling, it can flurry actions as long as it has an arm available for each action. The penalty to flurried actions is −0 with ten or nine arms free, −1 with eight, −2 with seven, and −3 with six or fewer. While grappling multiple foes, a withering savaging attack deals damage normally, but the kraken only receives Initiative from the one that deals the most damage; a decisive savaging attack divides the kraken’s current Initiative as evenly as possible among all grappled enemies to determine raw damage.

Iron Grip: While it has more than three free arms, the kraken doesn’t take Defense penalties from grappling smaller enemies, and can reflexively take a drag action to move them whenever it moves. It doesn’t lose rounds of grapple control when attacked unless the attack successfully damages it.

Overwhelming Might: Krakens make unopposed grapple control rolls against enemies of smaller size, unless the victims use magic allowing them to grapple larger foes, such as Dragon Coil Technique (Exalted, p. 280).

Doldrum-Conquering Beast (Latent): A tamed kraken can be taught to tow a ship via hawser. This adds +1 Speed and Maneuverability, and grants the crew access to its unique naval stratagems.

MERITS
Impenetrable Armor: Reduce the minimum damage of any withering attack made against the kraken by one, to a minimum of zero.

Legendary Size: The kraken suffers no onslaught penalties from attacks from smaller opponents, unless they’re magically inflicted. Withering attacks from smaller enemies cannot crash it unless they have at least 10 post-soak damage dice, although attackers still gain the full amount of Initiative damage dealt. Decisive attacks from smaller enemies cannot deal more than (3 + attacker’s Strength) levels of damage to it, not counting levels added by Charms or other magic.

Terror of the Deep: In naval combat (Exalted, p. 245), the kraken can perform any stratagem except broadside and others that require an actual ship, using its Naval Maneuvers pool. It can’t perform boarding actions. Every point of Hull damage it would take inflicts two points of lethal damage to the kraken’s health track, and its Speed is +2. When it rams an opponent with its beak, it suffers no damage. It can always perform the concealment stratagem by submerging, even on the open ocean. It has the following unique stratagems:

• Living Anchor (Cost: 10 Momentum): The kraken attempts to wrap its tremendous arms around an enemy ship. If successful, the ship can only perform a broadside, or boarding actions for crew to fight the beast directly. However, characters can initiate regular combat without crossing over to the kraken’s bulk by attacking the arms, with a stratagem that costs no Momentum; doing so only allows them to attempt the gambit to sever an arm (see “Storyteller Tactics”) until the kraken lets go. This stratagem takes five free arms to perform. If the kraken takes 4+ levels of lethal damage or no longer has enough available arms, its grip breaks.

• Hull Crush (Cost: 3 Momentum): The kraken may only use this stratagem if it’s currently trapping a ship with Living Anchor. The massive arms clench until timbers crack and splinter. This stratagem inflicts one level of Hull damage.

• Thrash (Cost: None): The kraken may only use this stratagem if it’s currently trapping a ship with Living Anchor. It uses Thrash to build one Momentum per two threshold successes it rolls with Naval Maneuvers, rocking the ship back and forth to further cement its grip with its powerful suckers.

• Sea Monster Smash (Cost: 5 Momentum): With at least one arm free, the kraken draws alongside a ship and savages it with arms like massive whips, toppling masts and splintering wood. This inflicts one level of Hull damage, or two if the kraken has at least five arms free.

• Snatch (Cost: 10 Momentum): The kraken reaches onto the deck and snatches one individual from the ship. It takes one free arm to do this. This stratagem acts as a boarding action; the kraken doesn’t board the ship, but forces the conflict to move to individual-scale combat. A snatched character takes one die of bashing damage per round, ignoring Hardness, and any ranged attack that misses the kraken automatically hits the snatched character instead, with one threshold success.

Doldrum-Conquering Beast (Latent): A tamed kraken can tow a ship via hawser. This adds +1 Speed and Maneuverability, and grants the crew access to its unique naval stratagems.

Storyteller Tactics
The armored kraken is both a sea battle and a regular combatant, usually both in the same encounter. It starts out attempting to crush ships with its stratagems and then pick off the survivors from the water afterward, but if it takes 10+ lethal damage from broadside, it snatches people from the deck to rid itself of obviously powerful individuals (like Exalts with flaring anima banners) or someone manning a ballista or other ship-to-ship weapon. Characters can use boarding actions to “mount” the kraken and fight it directly, as they would with an enemy ship.
A kraken has ten arms. In regular combat, characters can attempt a difficulty 5 gambit with a cutting weapon to sever an arm. The kraken prefers to grapple as many opponents at a time as possible, making savaging attacks or dragging them underwater until they drown. If it loses six or more of its arms, or takes damage to its last three −2 health levels, it attempts to flee.

A kraken is a 3-dot Familiar.

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	8. Ghostfisher
Out in the gray wilds of the Underworld, travelers may encounter a seemingly benign ghost requesting aid, such as a child chained to a stone or an old man trapped beneath a fallen log. This ghost is merely a simulacrum, a lure maintained by the dreaded ghostfisher. Come too close and the monster’s true form — an enormous worm, massive as a redwood, its striated flesh gleaming fish-belly white — bursts from the barren Underworld soil to feed. The ghost lure, now shriveled as a prune, dangles above a gigantic many-fanged maw. Ghostfisher burrows form vast three-dimensional labyrinths. Ghosts occasionally use these tunnel networks — which intersect with other corridors and chambers of diverse origins — as shortcuts to other Underworld realms. Such journeys are perilous, as the traveler risks encountering ghostfishers or even worse creatures down below.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 4; Join Battle: 4 dice
Personal Motes: 70
Health Levels: −0/−1x5/−2x10/−4x15/Incap.
Actions: Feats of Strength: 11 dice (may attempt Strength 7 feats); Disguise: 8 dice; Read Intentions: 5 dice; Senses: 5 dice; Social Influence: 6 dice (lure only)
Appearance 2 for lure, 4 (Hideous) for the ghostfisher;
Resolve 4, Guile 4

COMBAT
Attack (Bash): 8 dice (Damage 18)
Attack (Grapple): 8 dice (12 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 7 dice
Evasion 2, Parry 1
Soak/Hardness: 16/4

MERITS
Legendary Size: A ghostfisher suffers no onslaught penalties from attacks from smaller opponents, unless they’re magically inflicted. Withering attacks from smaller enemies cannot Crash it unless they have at least 10 post-soak damage dice, although attackers still gain the full amount of Initiative damage dealt. Decisive attacks from smaller enemies cannot deal more than (3 + attacker’s Strength) levels of damage to it, not counting levels added by Charms or other magic.

Tunneling: The ghostfisher burrows through earth and stone. It can establish stealth in combat by rolling its Combat Movement pool to dig down into the earth, and does not need to make new rolls to remain concealed while moving underground.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Spectral Lure (1m; Simple; Indefinite; Essence 1): Like an anglerfish, the ghostfisher extends an alluring organ from its snout to attract prey while the rest of its body remains concealed. The lure, taking the form of any ghost the monster has ever consumed, is only semi-intelligent; it becomes confused if conversation diverges from a simple script. If a character touches the spectral lure, the ghostfisher may pay a Willpower to emerge from the ground and ambush him with a grapple gambit. The ghostfisher makes a disguise roll when it creates the simulacrum to determine its quality. Characters who overcome it with one or two threshold successes notice the lure is strange without spotting the submerged monster; three or more threshold successes make the ghostfisher’s subterranean presence apparent.

Swallow Whole (15m; Reflexive; Decisive-only; Instant; Essence 2): After dealing 3+ levels of damage to a grappled enemy with a decisive savaging attack, the ghostfisher may swallow them alive. Within the beast’s gullet, they contend with its digestive acids, an environmental hazard with damage 3L/round and difficulty 5. A swallowed enemy may attempt to cut his way free with a difficulty 5 gambit, but cannot otherwise attack it from inside without a relevant stunt. Even then, they contend with Defense 2 and its full soak and Hardness. The ghostfisher can only swallow another human-sized character if its previous meals are Incapacitated or dead.

Quaking Slam (10m, 1wp; Simple; Withering- only; Instant; Essence 1): The ghostfisher slams its massive bulk downward with such force that the earth trembles. It makes an unblockable withering bash attack against each earthbound character within medium range, rolling once and applying each character’s Evasion separately. Each character it hits falls prone and loses Initiative equal to (3 + extra successes), but the ghostfisher only gains this Initiative from one target, plus one Initiative per additional hit target. This is usable once per scene, unless reset by going three turns above ground without either taking a movement action or suffering decisive damage. Enemies who lose more Initiative than their (Stamina + Resistance) tumble one range band toward the ghostfisher, as the earth cracks beneath their feet.

Storyteller Tactics
Ghostfishers lay their traps and wait — often for days at a time — for someone to take the bait. Fellow ghosts are their usual prey, but they’ll eat anything. They are also clever: In shadowlands and other haunted areas, ghostfishers set their lures near places where other ghosts regularly appear and mimic their forms, tricking mortals who come to aid ancestor spirits or learn from spectral tutors. Ghostfishers prefer to hunt alone, though adventurers who dare to travel via ghostfisher burrows learn that the giant worms act in concert to defend their territory. They’ll block off passages with their bulks, or collapse tunnels on intruders’ heads with feats of strength. A ghostfisher attempts to flee when it has taken damage in any of its last eight −4 health levels.

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	9. Dream Hawk
These Eastern raptors prey not on rodents or insects, but on dreams. The birds resemble their mundane cousins, brown-feathered and hook-beaked, but their extremities — the cruel curves of their beaks, the sharp points of their talons, the mesmerizing tips of their feathers — coruscate with brilliant colors leeched from stolen dreams. Particularly gluttonous dream hawks have more resplendent plumage and display it proudly, signaling their dominance over others in the flock.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 6; Join Battle: 6 dice
Personal Motes: 30
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4/Incap.
Actions: Fly: 6 dice; Threaten: 7 dice; Senses: 6 dice (see Keen Sight); Tracking: 5 dice
Resolve 2, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Peck): 5 dice (Damage 6)
Attack (Talons): 10 dice (Damage 11)
Combat Movement: 8 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 1
Soak/Hardness: 2/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Dream Feeding (Latent): The dream hawk regurgitates dreams it consumes using Dream Feast (below) into its master’s mouth, as though feeding its young. The player rolls (Wits + Occult), difficulty 3, for the character to piece the fragments back together, experiencing the dream as a vision and learning one of the dreamer’s Intimacies of the Storyteller’s choice. The dream hawk can also feed the dreams to a dreamstone without a roll.

MERITS
Dream Raptor: Gain one Initiative per turn in combat against a foe whose dreams the hawk has eaten within the last day.

Keen Sight: Double 9s on all sight-based Perception rolls.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Thousand Voices Defense (5m; Reflexive; Instant; Clash, Perilous, Uniform; Essence 2): The dream hawk cries out, bombarding its victim with snippets of nightmares. It may clash an attack from within short range with a disarm gambit (Exalted, p. 200), which counts as its action for the round. If the hawk has used Dream Feast on the target within the last day, the cacophony comes from his own dreams, and the hawk automatically succeeds on the gambit’s Initiative roll.

Dream Feast (8m; Simple; One day; Stackable; Essence 2): The hawk perches near its victim’s sleeping form, pulling dreams from his head. This process takes an hour. The victim doesn’t regain a Willpower from the night’s sleep; one full day afterward, the hawk digests the dream, regaining that Willpower instead and ending the Charm. The hawk may digest multiple victims’ dreams at a time, but can’t gain more Willpower than its usual maximum.

Storyteller Tactics
In the wild, dream hawks consume random victims’ dreams, and only fight in self-defense. Handlers train tamed hawks to prey on specific people. Some make a tidy profit selling these dreams. Dynasts hire them to spy on their enemies’ nightmares, while lovers separated by distance send sweet or scandalous dreams to one another.

A dream hawk is a 3-dot Familiar.

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	9. Nameless Wretch
She doesn’t know how long she’s been dead.
Some passing army’s hooves woke her, churned up the earth and pulled her from death’s slumber. Grave dirt clings beneath what’s left of her fingernails. She doesn’t know her name, has only a scrap of rotted silk for a clue, its pattern faded. Someone must know her, somewhere. She just has to find them.

Nameless wretches are walking corpses that rise when unmarked mass graves are disturbed. They have forgotten who they once were, and the need to remember drives them to begging, to violence, or worse.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 3; Join Battle: 5 dice
Personal Motes: 70
Health Levels: −0x2/−1x4/−2x2/−4/Incap.
Intimacies: Defining: “I must learn who I was.”; Major: “I must find peace.”; Minor: The Feeling of Home (Nostalgia)
Actions: Feats of Strength: 7 dice (may attempt Strength 5 feats); Read Intentions: 5 dice; Senses: 6 dice; Social Influence: 6 dice; Stealth: 4 dice
Appearance 3 (Hideous), Resolve 3, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Unarmed): 7 dice (Damage 12)
Attack (Sword): 10 dice (Damage 14)
Combat Movement: 3 dice
Evasion 2, Parry 2
Soak/Hardness: 2/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Anguish of the Flesh: When a wretch spends a Willpower to add a success to an attack against an enemy she is using violence to coerce into helping her, add that enemy’s current wound penalty in bonus dice to the roll also.

Piteous Plea (10m; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 2): The wretch appeals to her target’s own deathly fears. Add one automatic success to a persuade roll, and reroll 6s until none appear.

Storyteller Tactics
Buried in a nameless wretch’s mind is a guttering spark of memory: Presented with her true name and history, she recognizes it, and knows it to be real. Clever characters can trick or convince her to accept new ones, though, if for instance finding her original identity is impossible, or terrible actions in her past would prevent her from resting peacefully if she discovered them. When approaching someone for aid in discovering their identities and those of their loved ones from life, nameless wretches rely on their pitiable states: their graves disturbed, their bodies ravaged by rot, memories gone. Should their targets prove hard-hearted or unwilling to help, they have barely enough grasp of language and skill to demand — at sword-point, if necessary — a proper burial under their rightful name, alongside their kin. Reunited with her memories and laid to rest properly, the wretch’s body collapses, its spirit departed to Lethe.

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	10. Eight-Tailed Mole Hound
Once bred as fierce hunting animals for Southern Dragon-Blooded, eight-tailed mole hounds now run free and feral throughout the deserts. From afar, they resemble wolves in size and shape, but in addition to their eponymous eight tails, these creatures possess thick armored plates. Mole hounds are pack beasts, hunting in groups of six to twelve. With their wide feet, they tunnel with impressive speed, burrowing beneath sand or soil as fast as they can run atop it.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 3; Join Battle: 6 dice
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x5/−4x3/Incap.
Actions: Feats of Strength: 7 dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats); Threaten: 4 dice (6 with packmates); Senses: 8 dice (see Keen Nose), Stealth: 6 dice (7 while burrowing); Tracking: 7 dice
Resolve 2, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 7 dice (Damage 14)
Attack (Grapple): 6 dice (5 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 8 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 2 (4 when defending allies)
Soak/Hardness: 8/10

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Burrow: The mole hound burrows underground and moves a full range band to its target’s position with a single reflexive move action, ignoring difficult terrain. It can burrow through sand and soil, including packed dirt, but not through stone or other solid barriers. Unexpected attacks it makes after this movement in the same turn add two automatic successes to the damage roll.

Massive Charge: If the mole hound moves at least one range band toward a target and makes a decisive attack against it on the same turn, the attack gains the Smashing tag (Exalted, p. 586).

MERITS
Earthsight: While burrowing, a mole hound perceives through vibrations. It can pinpoint a target’s location and note its actions without seeing it, as long as it produces any vibrations in the ground; a flying foe, for instance, confounds this sense.

Keen Nose: Double 9s on scent-based Perception rolls.

Safety in Numbers: A mole hound protects injured packmates, granting an ally who has taken 3+ levels of damage one automatic success on disengage rolls as long as it uses the defend other action on their behalf. Enemies increase onslaught penalties by one per three hounds attacking together. A battle group of mole hounds can’t use this ability. By default, only other mole hounds count as packmates, but a master can train it to recognize human allies as part of the pack as a latent ability.

Storyteller Tactics
Although one mole hound is formidable on its own, the beasts prefer hunting in packs. They surround their targets, sending a few in to attack at a time and combining Burrow and Massive Charge to create daisy chains of unexpected attacks. The others corral the enemies, or break off into smaller groups to pick off escapees. Mole hounds are patient, tracking prey for hours or days until the perfect opportunity arises. A solitary mole hound flees with damage in any of its last two −2 health levels;
packs flee when every member has taken at least three levels of lethal damage or at least six of bashing.

Mole hounds are 2-dot Familiars.

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	10. Mahicara the Volcanic Earthwalker
At the beginning of days, the world’s makers shaped every kind of monster, wrought from Essence in forms familiar and forgotten. Among these was Mahicara. A colossus of earth and molten rock, the behemoth bears the vaguest shape of a man: one head, two legs, two arms, two hands, and two feet. It stands a mile high, each of its limbs vast enough to contain a human settlement. Skin like black granite glistens around its titanic frame, and in the seams where joints should be, the bright, yellow-hot glow of magma flickers. It has but one desire: to walk from pole to pole. Before the rise of humanity, its great steps rattled the foundations of ancient civilizations and flattened cities Creation has since forgotten. Creatures with no names fought the earthwalker and knew only death. From its conception, nothing could stop it.

During the First Age, a Circle of young Solars thirsty for glory and fame set out to defeat this monster. They fought for days, until Steel-Black Sky, the Circle’s Nightbringer, pierced the ever-burning stone at its heart and brought it to its knees. With chains of orichalcum, soulsteel, and white jade, they bound it and sealed it away, buried beneath Southern sands, a shimmer of intense heat the only hint to its hidden presence. Now, the binding words inscribed upon its chains have weakened, or have perhaps already broken. When earthquakes shake the desert, Mahicara strides again.

Essence: 5; Willpower: 8; Join Battle: 12 dice
Personal Motes: 90
Health Levels: Torso: −0x5/−1x8/−2x5/−4x2/Incap.
Limbs (4): −0x6/−1x4/−2x3/−4/Incap.
Head: −0/−1x8/−2x4/−4/Incap.
Actions: Endurance: 15 dice; Feats of Strength: 14 dice (may attempt Strength 10 feats); Masonry: 8 dice; Navigation: 12 dice; Senses: 8 dice; Threaten: 9 dice
Appearance 5 (Hideous), Resolve 4, Guile 4

COMBAT
Attack (Colossal fist/stomp): 14 dice (Damage 20, minimum 8)
Attack (Bite/slam): 11 dice (Damage 17, minimum 5)
Attack (Grapple): 8 dice (15 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 12 dice (see Titanwalk)
Evasion 2, Parry 6
Soak/Hardness: 17/10

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Mountain-Crushing Fist: Mahicara’s fist or stomp attack causes a shockwave, applying half its rolled successes as a reflexive, unblockable withering attack against everyone within short range other than the original target, with damage 10, minimum 4. The behemoth only receives Initiative from the damage roll among these with the highest result, plus one Initiative per additional target.

Overwhelming Might: Mahicara makes unopposed grapple control rolls against enemies of smaller size, unless they use magic that allows them to grapple larger foes, such as Dragon Coil Technique (Exalted, p. 280).

MERITS
God-Wrought Monster: Mahicara heals as an Exalt, and is immune to all poisons and illnesses. Fashioned from the undying primal Essence of earth and fire, each part of its body must be destroyed separately. When one part is destroyed, the behemoth loses access to any abilities that require it — for instance, if both arms are destroyed, it can’t make colossal fist attacks. If its torso is destroyed, its limbs and head collapse into the resulting pool of lava, able to function separately and move as their shapes allow. Destroyed parts heal two levels of damage per round, or one per round in which Mahicara takes any additional damage; once a part
returns to full health, it calcifies out of the lava flow and resumes normal functions. Destroyed parts stop healing while the behemoth is crashed.

When all six parts are destroyed at once, the creature dissolves into a massive lake of lava that soon cools into a wasteland, and the vast molten stone of its heart disappears into the blistering depths. It reforms after a century.

Legendary Size: Mahicara suffers no onslaught penalties from attacks from smaller opponents, unless they’re magically inflicted. Withering attacks from smaller enemies cannot Crash it unless they have at least 10 post-soak damage dice, although attackers still gain the full amount of Initiative damage dealt. Decisive attacks from smaller enemies cannot deal more than (3 + attacker’s Strength) levels of damage to it, not counting levels added by Charms or other magic.
Molten Core: Mahicara takes no damage from mundane fire or heat-based hazards, and halves raw damage from supernatural heat-based attacks. It bleeds lava: Whenever the behemoth’s torso takes lethal damage, characters at close range are exposed to an environmental hazard with damage 4L/round, difficulty 4. When the head or extremities take lethal damage, they’re instead exposed to one with damage 3L/round, difficulty 3. Characters resist these separately from any other hazards in effect, such as from Unleashing the Flow.

Titanwalk: Mahicara is immune to natural fatigue and can walk 800 miles in a day. It automatically succeeds on rush and disengage actions against smaller opponents with five threshold successes, unless they use magic to enhance their rolls.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Unleashing the Flow (9m, 2i; Simple; Three rounds; Essence 5): Mahicara belches or bleeds out a torrent of lava, creating an environmental hazard with damage 6L/round, difficulty 5, that fills an area around it out to medium range. After the Charm ends, the area becomes difficult terrain instead.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Molten Form Absorption (10m, 5i; Reflexive; Instant; Dual, Perilous; Essence 3): Halve post-soak damage from one withering attack (round down), or double Mahicara’s Hardness against one decisive attack. Activate this Charm after an attack hits, but before damage is rolled. If the attacker deals any damage, Mahicara may immediately use Foe-Swallowing Pit Formation without paying its cost. This Charm is usable once per scene; reset it whenever a destroyed part returns to full functionality.

Foe-Swallowing Pit Formation (8m, 2i, 1wp; Reflexive; Instant; Counterattack; Essence 5): If an attack at close range deals any damage to Mahicara, it may immediately attempt a grapple gambit as a counterattack. If successful, the target plunges through a crack in its rocky flesh and must contend with the appropriate environmental hazard as given in Molten Core until the grapple ends.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Earth-Titan’s Might (7m, 1wp; Reflexive; Instant; None; Essence 5): Automatically succeed on any feat of Strength 5 or less, or double 7s on any feat of strength.

Storyteller Tactics
Mahicara ignores anything that doesn’t prove itself a threat. It crushes anything in its path, caring nothing for what might be standing in the way of its chosen route on its journey across the width and breadth of Creation, whether it be a towering city or acres of crucial farmland.
Once it recognizes a threat, it attacks first with fist and foot. Then it unleashes its fiery might, drowning its foes in waves of lava and forcing attackers to contend with its molten blood. If characters came prepared to resist environmental damage, it relies heavily on Foe-Swallowing Pit Formation to keep those foes out of the way until it can dispose of the others. Once several parts are destroyed, it focuses on defense until it regains most of its functionality. Don’t reveal the behemoth’s piecemeal nature before the characters realize it in play, unless a player succeeds at an (Intelligence + Lore) roll, difficulty 5. Fighting Mahicara near anything the characters don’t want completely destroyed by a walking volcanic eruption is beyond risky. Characters must first lure it away from villages, people, and roads if they don’t want massive collateral damage.

Once destroyed, Mahicara does not reform for a century. Characters who defeat it often earn a nation’s gratitude, having saved thousands of lives. In extended campaigns where a hundred years can pass in play, the heroes might take up the sword again against their legendary foe with an all-new set of complications. Alternatively, a character could take up the legacy of a previous incarnation or Dragon-Blooded ancestor who once defeated the beast. Storytellers can also use the volcanic earthwalker as an impending menace, still bound but near freedom, through escape or someone’s dread purpose. Its prison weakens already; someone who learns of its existence may seek it out, free it, and perhaps even control it through sorcery or stranger magic. It would be a siege weapon beyond compare, a weapon of mass destruction from a primal time. If it’s free already when the characters encounter it, decide who controls it, if anyone, and how it changes the shape of the story to have a prehistoric titan free to crush cities beneath monstrous feet.

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	11. Aughdeighe
The aughdeighe is a creature of Northern legend, appearing as a tall white stallion with crystalline hooves to lost travelers in blizzards. When warm skin touches its icicle-encrusted mane, the unfortunate traveler sticks fast, and it carries them deeper into the storm. When the weather clears, it reveals frozen statues that once were victims. Survivors describe beasts with coats the stark white and dingy gray of ice. Asked how they freed themselves, they say frostbite, and hold up hands missing several digits.

Essence: 3; Willpower: 6; Join Battle: 6 dice
Personal Motes: 30
Health Levels: −0x2/−1x3/−2x3/−4x2/Incap.
Speed Bonus: +4
Actions: Deception: 6 dice; Feats of Strength: 6 dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats); Senses: 5 dice; Stealth: 3 dice (6 in a blizzard); Traversing Frigid Terrain: 10 dice
Resolve 1, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Kick): 8 dice (Damage 14)
Attack (Touch): 6 dice
Combat Movement: 12 dice (see Swift-Hooved)
Evasion 3, Parry 1
Soak/Hardness: 6/4

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Secure in the Saddle (Latent): For one Willpower, the aughdeighe reflexively makes its rider immune to unhorsing for the scene, mildly freezing her in place without damage.

MERITS
Icy Hide: The aughdeighe is an environmental hazard to anyone touching it, with Damage 1B/ round and difficulty 3. Anyone who dies from its touch turns completely to solid ice. An aughdeighe’s master may train it not to freeze her as a latent ability.

Swift-Hooved: Double 9s on rolls to disengage or withdraw. The aughdeighe can be trained to apply this to rush rolls also, as a latent ability.

MOBILITY CHARMS
Frozen Trail (1m, 1wp; Reflexive; One day; Eclipse; Essence 2): The aughdeighe’s icy hooves instantly freeze water and other liquids within close range, al-lowing it to create a frozen path for itself as it runs.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Hold Fast (10m, 2i; Reflexive; Instant; Essence 3): One victim in physical contact with the aughdeighe becomes stuck. It can make a touch attack to initiate contact, but this Charm can also affect riders, those making unarmed attacks against it, and others who touch it for any reason. Those not already astride can perform a difficulty 3 gambit to climb onto its back; otherwise, it drags them along, reducing their Initia-tive by one per turn and forcing them to move with it. Victims can pry themselves free as a difficulty 3 gambit; if successful, they take (1 + number of rounds stuck) lethal damage that ignores Hardness.

Storyteller Tactics
Folktales say aughdeighes exist only within a snow-storm, though brave riders who have tamed the beasts prove this false — perhaps taming them tethers them to the earth. In the wild, they act docile, giving frightened travelers hope that this placid animal will bring them to safety and shelter. By the time victims realize their folly, they’re already caught. A wild aughdeighe in a fight prefers brushing up against foes and dragging them into the storm’s heart to freeze them to death, rather than attacking outright, unless it’s desperate. Since aughdeighes only appear during bliz-zards in the wild, the severe cold environmental haz-ard (Exalted, p. 232) often accompanies an encounter. Aughdeighes flee combat when they take damage to their −2 health levels. Those willing to risk a few fingers can tame the aughdeighe as a mount (Exalted, p. 554).

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	11. Jungle Stalker
Ruthless bipedal saurians, muscular and lean, prowl Southeastern jungles. Scaly heads with snakelike eyes and elongated muzzles sport tufts of feathers that trail down the lizards’ spines. They stand taller than most humans, with long wiry arms and flexible tails. They boast a rudimentary social structure, gathering in packs like wolves, and can make and use simple tools and weapons, like stone-tipped spears. More intelligent than most beasts, but still creatures of predatory instinct and mindless, territorial violence, the stalkers claim wild dominions in far-flung rainforests. Their cunning makes them wily enemies for intruders, with a basic language of hissing and hand signs that they use to coordinate attacks or bicker over resources. They even command primal magics that come to them in dreams.

Those who study the jungle stalkers note strange discrepancies in their behavior and evidence in the forgotten ruins in which they squat, which suggest these savages might once have been more. Some scholars well-versed in ancient history make tenuous connections
between these half-sapient creatures and a long-lost saurian people that once flourished throughout Creation; others argue that such connections are wishful thinking at best.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 4; Join Battle: 7 dice
Personal Motes: 30
Health Levels: −0/−1x3/−2x3/−4/Incap.
Actions: Climb: 6 dice; Feats of Strength: 6 dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats); Threaten: 7 dice; Senses: 7 dice; Stealth: 8 dice; Tracking: 8 dice
Resolve 3, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Claw): 8 dice (Damage 12)
Attack (Short Spear): 9 dice (Damage 11)
Attack (Grapple): 5 dice (6 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 9 dice (see Darting Leap)
Evasion 4, Parry 3
Soak/Hardness: 7/4

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Pack Hunting: Add one success to attack rolls for each allied stalker within close range of the enemy, up to three successes. The stalker may also pay a Willpower to add that many dice to the raw damage of a decisive attack, representing its packmates’ opportunistic flanking attacks.

MERITS
Darting Leap: Double 9s on rushes.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Jungle Thorns (4m, 2i; Simple; One scene; Essence 1): One weapon the stalker wields grows sharp wooden thorns, gaining the Piercing tag.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Living Earth Restoration (3m, 3i or 6m, 6i; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): Once per scene, heal one bashing damage level for three motes and three Initiative, or lethal for six motes and six Initiative. The stalker can’t take a reflexive move action on the turn it uses
this Charm. Reset this Charm when the stalker takes enough damage to increase its wound penalty to −2 or −4 while using the defend other action to protect an ally.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Fiery Prowess (5m; Simple; One scene; Essence 1): The stalker may attempt Strength 5 feats.

Shimmering Mirage (3m; Reflexive; One round; Essence 1): The stalker reduces all penalties to Stealth rolls in combat by one and gains one Initiative at the end of the round if it remains unnoticed.

Breath of Clarity (4m; Reflexive; Instant; Essence 1): The stalker may activate this Charm whenever anyone uses a Charm or other magical ability in its presence, rolling Senses with a difficulty of the target’s Essence rating. If successful, it knows they used magic but nothing about it, and becomes more aggressive.

Storyteller Tactics
Jungle stalker packs are wary and belligerent, with between four and twelve members. They warn off intruders on their territory with threatening sounds, bashing spear hafts against shields and hissing. If characters display aggression, linger without permission, or use magic the stalkers notice, they attack. They allow foes to flee and accept surrender, sometimes taking captives if they need something done they can’t do on their own. The Storyteller can use this to pull characters into an Age Old mystery, exploring ruins filled with ancient and alien wonders. Stalkers never surrender, but may flee combat with damage in any of their −2 health levels. Whether a particular pack or individual prefers stealth and javelins or claws and melee spears is up to the Storyteller. The listed Charms are examples; different stalkers display different elemental affinities, and they don’t all possess every Charm. Likewise, they may have other Charms along similar themes.

Jungle stalkers are the remnants of a sapient and powerful people, the bygone Dragon Kings. Occasionally, one shows more intelligence than the others and leads several packs as one larger clan; it may gather them into a battle group with Size 2, average Drill, and Might 1. Packs frequently scrap amongst themselves over territory, and never abandon what they’ve claimed, providing potential ways for savvy characters to manipulate them. If they found a way to communicate, characters could win the creatures’ loyalty as the Command or Retainers Merit (Exalted, p. 157).

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	12. Barrow Hound
On the outskirts of Arjuf, where the last scents of sea air fade away, lie the hunting grounds of the Lady’s loyal hounds. The Lady herself is long gone. No one knows who she was — perhaps a daimyo before the Great Contagion, a spirit whose influence faded into obscurity, or something returned from the grave for some dread purpose. Creation might have forgotten her altogether centuries ago, but for her deathly hunting dogs, who remain to protect her lands — not from the living, but from ghosts who refuse to rest quietly. Barrow hounds, found anywhere the lonely roam, are corporeal creatures, neither quite living nor quite dead, with coats of mottled grey and red eyes that glow faintly in the shadows. They stand of a height with great jungle cats. Travelers hear sounds of something crashing through the forest in the distance, or panting and slavering just outside their campfire circles late at night. The hounds’ baying can be heard for miles. Spotting one on the road at night is an oft-rumored sign that a loved one will die soon. Some say the hounds read death omens in the Underworld’s stars, or perhaps foresee a satrap’s impending demise in the Neverborn’s dreams. Other legends suggest they sniff out the names of future prey in the entrails of a shadowland’s dead.

Essence: 3; Willpower: 7; Join Battle: 9 dice
Personal Motes: 40
Health Levels: −0x5/−1x6/−2x6/−4x3/Incap.
Actions: Feats of Strength: 6 dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats); Threaten: 8 dice; Senses: 9 dice (see Keen Nose, Spirit Hunter); Stealth: 6 dice; Tracking: 10 dice (see Dread Omens Augury, Ghost Tracking)
Appearance 3 (Hideous), Resolve 3, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 10 dice (Damage 14)
Attack (Grapple): 8 dice (10 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 10 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 2
Soak/Hardness: 4/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Harry: If a hound moves into close range with an enemy and deals 5+ damage to them with a withering attack on the same turn, that enemy cannot disengage or withdraw on their next turn.
Infectious Bite: The hounds’ saliva carries the tinge of the grave. If its bite deals damage with a decisive attack to a living target, they suffer an infected wound (Exalted, p. 235) with virulence 3, morbidity 1, and interval one day. Even the Exalted suffer this infection.

Pack Hunting: Add one success to attack rolls for each allied deathly creature or Exalt within close range of the enemy, up to three successes. The hound may also pay a Willpower to add that many dice to the raw damage of a decisive attack, as its allies join in.

MERITS
Ghost Tracking: Add three successes to any Senses or Tracking roll to notice or find ghosts. Double 7s on these rolls if the hound marked the ghost for death with Malignant Portent Pose.
Keen Nose: Double 9s on scent-based Perception rolls.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Chilling Barghest Howl (5m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Eclipse; Essence 2): A hound bays to alert its allies and warn its prey. The sound is terrifying, starting from a bass rumble in the bones and climbing to a high, clear note that evokes the wind whistling over a burial ground. Roll Threaten (Eclipse Castes use [Charisma + Presence]) against each enemy who hears it. It spooks those who succumb; they suffer a −4 penalty on all rolls except combat actions or actions to flee the barrow hound for one scene. Victims may pay one Willpower to become immune for the scene.
Ghost Hunter (1m, 1wp; Reflexive; One scene; Essence 1): A barrow hound can sense and attack immaterial ghosts.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Malignant Portent Pose (15m, 1wp; Simple; One scene; Eclipse, Psyche, Stackable; Essence 3): The hound creates a baleful, incorporeal copy of itself, manifested from its doom-laden Essence, within long range of its current position. Each activation of the Charm creates a new copy. Copies can move independently of the hound, and persist for the duration regardless of how far from it they roam. The copy seems like the original to anyone who fails a (Perception + Integrity) roll, opposed by the hound’s Threaten, when they first see it. Characters who fail suffer a premonition of doom upon seeing the malevolent harbinger the hound has sent, losing one temporary Willpower, and are marked for death until a year has passed. In combat, a victim also loses three Initiative upon failing her roll (which the hound doesn’t gain). Any attack she makes on the hound or a copy for the Charm’s duration increases its target number by one (Exalted, p. 184), as she can’t tell reality from illusion. No combination of effects can raise target numbers above 9. If this Charm crashes a victim, she suffers a Major Paranoia Derangement (Exalted, p. 169) for one full session.

MOBILITY  CHARMS
Labyrinth-Striding Step (10m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 3): Once per scene, a hound can step into the Underworld from Creation or vice versa as long as it’s nighttime. It can use the restrain/drag action during a grapple to pull a victim along with it. This Charm resets if the hound (or its master) discorporates a non-trivial ghost. Characters who travel between realms this way end up anywhere the Storyteller desires, whether it’s a place that resonates thematically with the situation or a place the hound feels comfortable. Those who don’t return via hound must find a shadowland to get back, and may end up miles — or hundreds of miles — from where they began.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Dread Omens Augury (8m; Simple; Indefinite; Essence 2): The hound spends an hour in the Underworld gazing at the sky, sitting with one ear cocked to the Neverborn’s murmurings, or consuming the corpse of someone it (or its master) killed. Afterward, it gains the scent of a living target likely to die soon, and can track them unerringly unless they use perfect concealment magic.

Scent of Dead Memories (4m, 1wp; Simple; One night; Essence 1): By pulling an unearthly scent from something that belonged to a ghostly target when they were alive, such as a scrap of clothing, the hound can track that ghost without scenting it directly.

Storyteller Tactics
Barrow hounds roam freely between the Underworld and Creation, hunting ghosts that haunt their territories and stalking shadowlands. They range farther afield when omens set them on a trail. A barrow hound hunts much like its mundane counterpart: harrying its prey,
cornering it, then snarling and biting until it’s dead or discorporated. A wild hound attempts to flee once it takes damage to any of its last three −2 health levels. Barrow hounds feel compelled to track down their Dread Omens Augury’s living targets. They don’t kill these people themselves, but use their Chilling Barghest Howl and Malignant Portent Pose to spook them and mark them for death. Storytellers can use this to create tension, kicking off stories in which the marked character tries to determine how they’re supposed to die and prevent it; or against Storyteller characters the players care about and wish to protect. If the hound is a familiar, use this to point characters toward story hooks.

A barrow hound is a 3-dot familiar. Ghosts are its natural prey, making it an excellent companion for the Liminal Exalted in particular.

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	12. Devil Stone
Excerpts from a journal recovered in a tide pool:
15 Ascending Water, RY 750
I’ve read that hidden among these scattered islands stand tremendous stones engraved with mystical secrets, said to possess fortune and power. They say one approaches the stones and returns with vast knowledge and godlike strength. When I asked the locals for more information, they became tight-lipped and nervous, calling them “devil stones” and warning me against further inquiry. I had to see for myself. One heavy bag of jade later, I’d found a fisherman willing to row me to one of the nearby haunts of these so-called devil stones.

19 Ascending Water, RY 750
I’ve found one! It measures at least fifteen feet in height, a black obelisk rising above the palms like a beacon. I’m keeping my distance for now, viewing it with field glasses. Consult my sketches on the next page. The writing is no language I’ve seen, and I’ve delved among the East’s most forgotten tombs. I must get closer. By Heaven, it’s alive! I hate to admit it, but I’m cowering. It has an eye, a great burning eye of judgment, and three spidery legs each thick as a man’s arm. I believe it disapproves of me trying to read its engravings, and now wishes me dead. No time to sketch, I must stay ahead of it. It’s fast, though, so fast I don’ The ink smears on a torn page. Splatters of blood discolor the paper.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 4; Join Battle: 8 dice
Health Levels: −0/−1x6/−2x4/−4/Incap.
Actions: Disguise as Stone: 7 dice; Feats of Strength: 10 dice (may attempt Strength 5 feats); Threaten: 6 dice; Resist Disease/Poison: 6 dice; Senses: 8 dice
Resolve 5, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Stone Body Slam): 9 dice (Damage 12); Tags: Smashing
Combat Movement: 6 dice
Evasion 1, Parry 3
Soak/Hardness: 10/8

SPECIAL ATTACKS
Furious Rampage: Whenever the devil stone attacks or rushes a crashed enemy, add two automatic successes to the roll.

Towering Obelisk Crush: A devil stone at Initiative 15+ may make a decisive attack with double 8s on the attack roll, as it uses its immense weight to crush bones. If the rolled damage exceeds the victim’s (Stamina x 2), double total levels of damage inflicted unless the victim accepts a crippling injury, which doesn’t count against their once per story limit (Exalted, p. 201).

Trample: If the devil stone reflexively pursues an enemy after a successful rush and makes a body slam attack against them on its next turn, a successful hit knocks the enemy prone. Apply the Defense penalty from being prone (Exalted, p. 202) retroactively when calculating the attack’s threshold successes.

MERITS
Epic Vigor: Devil stones don’t need to eat, drink, or sleep. They double 7s on rolls to resist poison or disease.

Made of Secrets: A character can decipher the cryptic hints inscribed on a devil stone to discover the identity of its secrets’ intended recipient, though even success only grants prophetic clues. Doing so requires an extended (Intelligence + Occult) roll with difficulty 2, goal number 15, and interval one round. Damaging the devil stone also damages its message; each time its wound penalty increases, cumulatively increase the difficulty to decipher its inscriptions by one.

Runestone’s Instincts: Each time a devil stone’s wound penalty increases, it flies into a rage for one round. Incensed at the damage to its message, it adds the value of its wound penalty to the post-soak damage of withering attacks or damage of decisive attacks.
Sturdy as Stone: A devil stone cannot be knocked back or prone except by magical effects or creatures of legendary size. A grappled devil stone cannot be thrown or slammed unless magic such as Dragon Coil Technique (Exalted, p. 280) is used, or if the attacker is of legendary size.

Storyteller Tactics
Dormant devil stones appear as obelisks or menhirs of granite, basalt, or obsidian. Runes, glyphs, and mystical inscriptions cover their surfaces. From afar, travelers mistake them for simple monuments or occult markers. However, they are living beings, created by some unknown entity — a powerful god, dread demon, or something stranger — to deliver secrets to specific people; considering how long the devil stones have stood, scholars posit that whoever made them knew a thing or two about prophecy or fate. A character whose player succeeds at an (Intelligence + Occult) roll, difficulty 2, can tell the difference between a dormant devil stone and an ordinary runestone, and knows it carries a message on its stony skin. Characters who successfully decipher the runes (see Made of Secrets) gain cryptic hints couched in metaphor and vague portents about the true recipient and the message’s nature.

Whenever anyone who isn’t a foretold recipient approaches within close range — even if such a recipient is also nearby — the devil stone’s spidery legs, otherwise camouflaged as part of the main body, unfold and lift it off the ground so it can move. Its single, enormous red eye opens somewhere on its surface and it attacks. A devil stone is too bestial and simple-minded to realize how counterproductive killing someone who’s trying to decipher its inscriptions to find its recipient is. It isn’t a messenger, but the message itself, and has no understanding of its creator or greater purpose beyond basic instinct.

Destroying a devil stone not only obliterates the message, but angers whatever entity created it. Determine who the creator is ahead of time, whether each stone has a different one or whether they all come from a single source, and ensure their attentions have interesting and dire consequences for the characters, should they so transgress. For instance, they could task the characters with bringing the stone’s pieces to the correct recipient, but only grant vague symbolic visions to impart the recipient’s identity, and threaten innocents or the characters’ loved ones should they fail. The characters should also get something out of taking up this quest — a reward from the stone’s creator, perhaps, or the material gratitude of the recipient once they deliver the message.

When a proper recipient is alone within close range of a devil stone, its eye opens with a soft white light and illuminates the runes, which the recipient may read and intuitively understand. This encounter may impart wondrous knowledge or enable a feat of occult might. A mortal character might receive the power to perform thaumaturgy or become the Exigent of the stone’s creator, while an Exalted character could become a walking portal to Heaven or Hell, or discover the key to a long-forgotten sorcerous working. If one or more of the players’ characters are not themselves the stone’s intended recipients, be sure to include them in the final payoff one way or another. The mortal who Exalts as an Exigent is mystically bound to the characters in some way, while the Exalt who can’t help opening gates to Malfeas wherever he goes offers them a free trip to Orabilis’ great library, to name a few examples.

Try not to determine who the recipient is ahead of time if it’s not a player’s character — it can be more fun to follow the players down whatever rabbit hole they choose as they interpret the prophecy than to try to nudge them in a pre-determined direction.

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	13. Lodestar
During the First Age, three Twilights designed an ideal servitor for the Exalted host. Lodestar was the prototype: a powerful, durable automaton capable of both household feats and mounting an impressive defense. Keen-Eyed Kyujin proposed a fierce combat form, while Whispering Sapphire insisted it serve in the home without question, and Weeping Forge-Star demanded an ideal wilderness guide. The trio presented their prototype before the Deliberative, who rejected the plans and cut funding, citing the project’s “inconsistent nature.”

Lodestar consists of a pleasant, androgynous humanoid torso atop a wide scorpion-like body, covered with a hard carapace. Its arms end in powerful pincers, and a wicked, barbed tail extends behind and above, with sensory organ clusters at its tip. It is an exemplary guide and mount for inhospitable areas, and defends its charges from mundane dangers; the prototype was built for the frozen North by default, with custom capabilities suitable for other climes. Despite its fearsome shape, Lodestar is charming and affable, with a delightful (if archaic) sense of humor. It loves and serves all Exalted, by design.

After the Usurpation, it went dormant, slumbering beneath a sheet of ice. If the light of an Exalted anima banner falls upon it, Lodestar wakes and offers its services.

Essence: 3; Willpower: 7; Join Battle: 6 dice
Personal Motes: 60
Health Levels: −0x5/−1x7/−2x2/−4/Incap.
Intimacies: Defining: Solar Exalted (Servitude); Major: “Honor the Exalted host.”; Current Master (Loyalty)
Speed Bonus: +1
Actions: Etiquette: 10 dice; Feats of Strength: 9 dice (may attempt Strength 7 feats); Mediation between Hostile Parties: 6 dice; Read Intentions: 6 dice; Senses: 8 dice; Servant’s Tasks: 14 dice
Appearance 4, Resolve 4, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Pincers/Stomp): 6 dice (Damage 13)
Attack (Stinger): 7 dice (Damage 14)
Attack (Grapple): 6 dice (9 dice to control)
Attack (Sunbeam): 7 dice (Damage 10); Tags: Archery (Long) (10m, see below)
Combat Movement: 6 dice
Evasion 2, Parry 4 (5 defending charges)
Soak/Hardness: 8/6

MERITS
Built to Serve: Lodestar has Resolve and Guile 0 against Solar Exalts, unless another Exalt is currently its master.

Chosen Sense: Lodestar knows when any Exalt is within 10 miles, or when a Solar Exalt is within 20, but gains no other information about them.

Direction Sense: Lodestar can navigate Creation without a roll, reorienting itself based on its proximity from the elemental poles. It always knows its facing, acts as a living compass, and lowers the difficulty on attempts to navigate toward a fixed or known location or to retrace its steps by one.

Keen Sight: Double 9s on sight-based Senses rolls.

Survivor’s Adaptation: Lodestar is immune to mundane cold-based poisons, illnesses, environmental hazards, and attacks.

OFFENSE CHARMS
Sunbeam (3m or 10m; Simple; Instant; Essence 2): Lodestar unleashes sunlight from its tail’s sensory organs. For 3m, it radiates soothing heat, granting +3 to rolls to resist environmental cold effects (or the current element chosen with Elemental Shift) for anyone within short range. For 10m, it fires a concentrated beam of destructive magical force; see the Sunbeam attack, above.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Elemental Shift (5m; Simple; One day; Essence 1): Lodestar shifts its cold immunity to any other single element or environment type.

See the Sun’s Reflection (8m; Simple; One scene; Eclipse; Essence 3): Lodestar can see sources of heat, including living things, up to (Essence) miles away. It can see them through thin barriers, like curtains, tinted glass, or bushes, but not through walls. It can’t tell anything about the source except that it generates heat unless it could otherwise see the source clearly.

Servant’s Gift (2m; Simple; Instant; Essence 3): Once per scene, Lodestar may roll its current Willpower as a dice pool and donate (successes rolled) motes from its own pool to that of a character it touches. Reset this Charm if Lodestar upholds a Tie to its master or any Solar Exalt by protecting them.

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	13. Susurrus
Ghosts are not immortal. Some surrender to Lethe and rebirth, while others are consumed by oblivion or forged into soulsteel. Others endure terrible forces, from earth-shattering sorcery to a hekatonkhire’s jaws, that tear them asunder. Most such ghosts are too badly dismembered to recover, but when many are riven apart at once, their surviving fragments can come together to form a patchwork whole — a susurrus.

A susurrus at rest spreads itself thinly across its haunting place, manifesting as whispering voices and a chill in the air. Provoked, it coheres into a tattered mass of shadows, faces, and wisps of spectral flesh fluttering like banners in the wind. Hungry to be whole, a susurrus thrusts its sprawling piecemeal bulk into a human body to possess her, its fractured mind driving the victim to erratic bouts of elation, sorrow, lust, shame, homicidal rage, and suicidal melancholy.  The dead have even more to fear. A susurrus rips ghosts to fragments that it incorporates into its own pie-bald frame. The more ghosts a susurrus consumes, the larger and more powerful it becomes. Ancestral spirits beg Exalted descendants to free shadowlands from a susurrus’ hunger.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 3; Join Battle: 6 dice
Personal Motes: 70
Health Levels: −0/−1x5/−2x5/−4/Incap.
Intimacies: Defining: “I must become whole.”; Major: “We are no one and everyone. We are you.”; Minor: My Haunting Place (Familiarity)
Actions: Read Intentions: 5 dice; Senses: 6 dice; Social Influence: 5 dice; Stealth: 8 dice; Tracking: 7 dice
Appearance 5 (Hideous), Resolve 5, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Rend): 12 dice (Damage 17, minimum 3)
Combat Movement: 6 dice
Evasion 1, Parry 4
Soak/Hardness:10/3

OFFENSE CHARMS
Patchwork Possession (30m, 1wp; Simple; In-definite; Decisive-only; Essence 2): A susurrus cannot materialize, but it may possess a living character, pouring itself through her orifices and overwhelming her mind. This is a gambit with a difficulty equal to the higher of (target’s Resolve or Willpower). If successful, the susurrus takes control of the victim’s body, using her physical Attributes and health track in place of its own. Attacks capable of striking the immaterial damage both the victim’s health track and the ghost’s. The susurrus cannot use any of the host’s magic, but it may pull knowledge from her mind with a read intentions action.

At the end of each scene in which the host is present, she may roll (Wits + Integrity), difficulty 3, as one in-terval of an extended action with terminus 3 and goal number 10 to expel it. She may also roll whenever the ghost tries to force her to act against an Intimacy, adding the Intimacy’s rating in bonus dice.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Devour the Dead (1m, 1wp; Reflexive; Instant; Essence 2): When a ghost is destroyed or discorporated within short range, the susurrus can absorb the disintegrating remnants of the corpus, rolling the victim’s Essence as a dice pool and healing one level of damage per success. The susurrus can also do this when damage is dealt to a battle group made of ghosts within short range, rolling dice equal to (Magnitude lost + group’s Might). This Charm doesn’t permanently destroy discorporated ghosts.


Storyteller Tactics
A susurrus will never be whole, no matter how many ghosts it consumes or how many people it possesses. It never learns, though, and is always just as desperate to do both as ever. Its patchwork nature means only the stron-gest emotions from its many constituent minds drive it; it careens from one extreme to another, to another, sometimes over the course of a single conversation. On the hunt, its malleable form lets it squeeze through small spaces and cut its prey off from escape.

A susurrus that devours large numbers of ghosts grows in size and gains additional health levels. This typical-ly occurs over long periods, but a susurrus that tears into a ghostly battle group may grow mid-combat, gain-ing a new −1 or −2 health level (whichever it has fewer of ) whenever it uses Devour the Dead. At 10 additional health levels, a susurrus gains a dot of Essence and the Legendary Size Merit.  A susurrus of legendary size may use Patchwork Possession to take control of a human’s body via an ectoplasmic pseudopod at close range, without having to physically merge. Only the cost of the Charm limits the number of humans it may control this way.

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	14. Aurochs
Aurochs are wild cattle that roam the forests and plains throughout Creation, particularly in the South. They are huge herbivorous animals, weighing up to 3,000 pounds and standing six feet at the shoulder. Both the bulls and cows have horns, though the bulls’ are larger, their curves more pronounced. The aurochs’ skull is longer than that of its smaller cattle cousins, and its neck and shoulder musculature is thicker, to support its majestic horns. Aurochs fight savagely with other members of the herd over food, mates, or anything else that provokes their ire.

Several Icewalker tribes consider the aurochs a sacred animal. It is a symbol of fertility and fortitude, representing its worshipers’ ability to remain steadfast in the face of adversity. Elsewhere, the aurochs is a choice sacrifice to local gods and spirits, the leftover meat feeding worshipers for several months, and providing them with hides, bones, horns, and sinews to trade or use for tools and crafting. Nobles and tribal leaders drink from an aurochs’ horn decorated with precious metals and jewels as a sign of their wealth and stature.

In the South, the aurochs is sacred to the war god Ahlat and his Brides. They sacrifice the animals by the hun-dreds to their patron and receive the blessings of his strength and favor in return. Ahlat frequently elevates the aurochs’ spirit avatars, bringing them to live with him in Yu-Shan as glorious war-aurochs gods. In some regions, villagers capture an aurochs and pit it against young warriors as a show of the warriors’ skill and bravery. Surviving a gore wound is often as much an honor for the warrior as actually subduing the beast.

Farmers domesticate aurochs and put them to use plowing fields, drawing carts laden with trade goods, turning heavy mill stones, and performing other tasks that otherwise require several horses — or strong-backed people — to complete. During the harvest months, village festivals invite competitors to test their strength against that of an aurochs, piling sledges high with heavy stones and seeing how many people it takes to pull as much weight as one bull can by itself. The village parades the win-ners around town on the aurochs’ back, both human and beast crowned with the fruits of the harvest.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 7 dice
Health Levels: −0x2/−1x6/−2x6/−4x3/Incap.
Actions: Feats of Strength: 9 dice (may attempt Strength 7 feats); Intimidate: 7 dice; Senses: 5 dice
Resolve 3, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Horns): 10 dice (Damage 15)
Attack (Stomp): 6 dice (Damage 13)
Combat Movement: 10 dice
Evasion 5, Parry 2
Soak/Hardness: 7/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Deadly Charge: Every range band the aurochs moves toward a single enemy in a straight line grants it two Initiative. This Initiative accumulates until it closes to close range with that enemy and makes a decisive attack. If the aurochs takes any action other than moving directly toward the chosen enemy, it loses all Initiative built up with this ability.

Gore: Decisive horn attacks add extra successes to damage against enemies with lower Initiative, as long as the aurochs hasn’t taken any other actions (includ-ing reflexive movement actions) that turn.

Horn Toss: After dealing 3+ levels of damage to an enemy with a decisive horn attack, the aurochs may reflexively grapple and immediately slam him for ad-ditional damage, catching him in its horns and tossing him. Make a control roll with its Feats of Strength pool, and then it may throw the enemy out to short range. It can only use this ability once per scene and cannot attempt grapple gambits without using this ability.

Trample: If the aurochs reflexively pursues an enemy after a successful rush and makes a stomp attack against them on its next turn, a successful hit knocks the enemy prone. Apply the Defense penalty from being prone (Exalted, p. 202) retroactively when calculating the attack’s threshold successes.

Invincible God-Beast Hide (Magical, 12m): Reduce one decisive attack’s raw damage by the aurochs’ soak rating. An attack that fails to deal damage grants the beast three Initiative.

Strength of the Loyal Beast (Magical, 5m): Aurochs can work for long periods without rest, and require their masters to keep up. The aurochs lends her its implacable strength, allowing her to ignore all fatigue penalties and granting her one bonus success on all Resistance rolls, for the scene.

MERITS
Beast of Burden: Double 8s on feats of strength to haul or carry a heavy burden.
Stampede: Whenever a stampeding battle group of aurochs moves into close range with a character, it immediately attempts a reflexive engage gambit (Exalted, p. 209) against her; if successful, she takes one level of automatic bashing damage at the end of each turn she remains engaged.

Stubborn Survivalist: The aurochs’ hide is extremely thick, protecting it from the environment and from predators’ horns, teeth, and claws. Do not subtract wound penalties from its Defense. Attacks made from short range or further reduce their minimum damage against the aurochs by one unless they benefit from an Aim action.

Sturdy as Stone: An aurochs cannot be knocked back or prone except by magical effects or creatures with legendary size. A grappled aurochs cannot be thrown or slammed unless magic such as Dragon Coil Technique (Exalted, p. 280) is used, or if the attack-er is of legendary size.

War-God’s Blessing (Magical, 3m): Double 8s on Join Battle and rush rolls. Whenever the aurochs makes a successful decisive attack against an opponent with lower Initiative, it resets to a base Initiative of 4 rather than 3. Treat this as a latent ability while a Bride of Ahlat, or someone else the god favors, trains the aurochs.

Storyteller Tactics
Both male and female aurochs fight when provoked. Usually, they do so to display dominance within the herd, but humans can instigate an aurochs charge with just a bit of teasing. In battle, an aurochs uses its bulk and long legs to its advantage, rushing often and smashing anything that might provide cover to its foes. It fights aggressively and only uses defensive actions to protect its young or at a master’s command. To prove its dominance, it never stops pursuing fleeing enemies until they successfully withdraw or go to ground. An aurochs flees when it takes damage in its first −4 health level.

A herd of aurochs is a Size 2 battle group with poor Drill and Might 0, and stampedes when provoked en masse or frightened.

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	14. Walkure
Born of death-dreams on Northern battlefields, the walkuren appear as ghastly, majestic syntheses of divine warrior and carrion bird. Some manifest as winged and clawed avatars of battle; others are terrible women and men soaring astride black-plumed hippogriffs, their swords bright as pain, their hauberks red as blood. All dwell at the borderlands between life and death, prowling battlefields and shadowlands — alone or in flocks — in search of ghostly prey. And if all they find are the living, they can always make new ghosts. Although it isn’t a ghost itself, a walkure’s armaments evoke those of the battlefield from which it is born, making a walkure from Icehome visibly different from one who rose near Ascension. Yet the legends surrounding them are similar throughout the North. For example, many tribes believe that hearing a walkuren’s wail away from a battlefield is a death omen.

Frarithi strikes more subtly than many of its ilk. Tall and gaunt, swathed in furled black wings resembling a hooded feather cloak, it leans on its spear like an old man with a staff. But it moves swift as death on its stilt-like bird’s legs, while its horrid, shifting face is that of a killer seen through the eyes of a fever-struck child.

Most walkuren bring captured ghosts to their larders to assuage their own weird hungers. But Frarithi serves a mighty master, and it carries its victims aloft to that dark monarch’s citadel.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 9 dice
Personal Motes: 70
Health Levels: −0/−1x3/−2x3/−4/Incap.
Actions: Fly: 9 dice; Senses: 8 dice; Threaten: 7 dice; Tracking: 6 dice
Appearance 4 (Hideous), Resolve 4, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Long spear/straight sword): 9 dice (Damage 14)
Combat Movement: 9 dice, or 11 while flying/ mounted
Evasion 2, Parry 3
Soak/Hardness: 9/0 (Spectral hauberk)

OFFENSE CHARMS
Horrific Wail (5m; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 1): If a walkure successfully threatens an enemy, the enemy loses three Initiative, as terror overwhelms even the steeliest nerves.

Sky-Catch Talons (6m, 4i; Simple; Instant; Per-ilous; Essence 2): The walkure reflexively swoops down up to three range bands from above to initiate a grapple gambit; this Charm doesn’t work if the walkure can’t dive downward at least one range band toward the target. Add one extra success to the grapple control roll. Whether the clinch is successful or not, the walkure may reflexively move one range band in any direction; if it is successful, the walkure pulls the grappled target along, without requiring a drag action. This is usable once per scene, unless reset by spending two consecutive turns moving upwards to build altitude.

DEFENSE CHARMS
Shadow-Veiled Deflection (3m, 1i; Reflexive; Instant; Perilous; Essence 1): Streaming shadows behind its spear, the walkure gains +1 Parry against a single attack, or +2 if the attacker is at close range.

Storyteller Tactics
Walkuren haunt shadowlands and battlefields seeking ghostly prey. They prefer the ghosts of soldiers and war-riors, but any will do in a pinch. When a walkure comes to a place where no ghosts walk, it targets living cham-pions who display fighting prowess, considering such a one’s ghost a delicacy and a trophy once won. In com-bat, a walkure uses its wail strategically to enact sudden turnarounds when foes have the advantage or crash op-ponents just after they reset to base Initiative. Then, it carries prey high into the air, either to drag ghosts off to its lair or to dash the living to the ground below. A walkure attempts to flee after taking damage to its first −2 health level.

Despite its voracious appetites, a walkure doesn’t always immediately consume its prey as soon as it returns to its nest, keeping a stash for lean times. Bereaved loved ones and surviving members of Sworn Kinships might still be able to lay their fallen friends to rest, if they can track the walkure to its sanctum. Some walkuren are willing to strike up a bargain, if the living offer a worthy exchange for its lost meal. Others only view the living as extra stew meat for the pot. Those Frarithi takes face not only that horrifying walkure, but also the perils of its master’s citadel.

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	15. Gem Seeker
Gem seekers look like small salamanders, growing up to a foot long, with brilliant jewel-toned skin. Local lore says the colors come from the gems they eat: ruby reds, deep sapphire blues, the shifting hues of an opal, the cool glow of moonstone. While they’re not known for their battle prowess, any creature that crushes gemstones between its teeth possesses incredibly strong jaws. If no precious gems are available, gem seekers can subsist on plain rocks or crystals, though they lose their brilliant colors and grow lethargic.

In the city of Gem itself, traders use gem seekers to verify the authenticity of precious stones: They turn their rounded noses up at fakes. Farther abroad, treasure hunters put their gem seekers on leashes and take them into ruins in search of forgotten riches. Gem seekers were key to several famous jewel heists in the Realm, where clever thieves smuggled them into well-guarded estates and set them to sniff out the Dynasts’ secret storerooms.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 3; Join Battle: 5 dice
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x3/−4/Incap.
Actions: Senses: 6 dice; Stealth: 4 dice; Tracking: 7 dice Resolve 1, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 3 dice (Damage 7)
Combat Movement: 6 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 1
Soak/Hardness: 3/1

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Crushing Bite: Withering bite attacks ignore up to four armored soak, plus an additional one for each extra success on the attack roll.

MERITS
Jeweled Camouflage: The gem seeker’s body contorts into the shapes of jewels nearby, and its scales mimic the style and filigree of the jewels’ settings. Its body seems to catch the light exactly as a sparkling gem would. It doubles 8s on Stealth rolls to blend in with any stone or crystal, and doubles 7s to hide among jewelry.

Pass Through Stone: By sampling a piece of stone or crystal and paying a Willpower, the gem seeker can phase through obstacles made from that same substance for the scene.

Storyteller Tactics
Gem seekers are intelligent and respond well to training. The most valued retrieve baubles for their owners with nary a toothmark. This type of training takes months, and trainers often sacrifice a small fortune in precious stones to control the seeker’s appetite and instincts. Though gem seekers aren’t violent by nature, one merchant in Gem taught his to clamp its jaws onto the fingers of those who would swindle him.

Gem seekers are 3-dot Familiars.

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	15. Steel Eater
Beneath Southern sands, a patient opportunist with a gleaming metal shell awaits. The steel eater is an insectile earth elemental, beetle-like but with a long, flexible neck, that eats metals, digesting them to layer upon its exoskeleton. It grows until it rivals the yeddim in size, and then its shell warps into an enormous cocoon. From this cocoon emerges a giant lacewing that lays 100 eggs and expires soon after. This fly’s chitin and the cocoon it leaves behind are of the strongest alloys, made from all the metals it has consumed. In quieter times, steel eaters were content to find their repast deep beneath the earth, but in the war-torn Time of Tumult, they dig pits and hide at the bottom, waiting for armor-girded humans to stumble in.

Steel eaters hatch from burnished iron eggs, beginning their lives as juveniles the size of a large dog. Younger ones live in groups of three to five; fully grown ones are more solitary and spend most of their lives about the size of a horse, until just before their chrysalis. Then, they become ravenous and gorge themselves until they grow large enough to metamorphose.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 6 dice
Personal Motes: 70
Health Levels: −0x3/−1x3/−2x3/−4x2/Incap.
Intimacies: Defining: “All metal is rightfully a part of me.”; Major: Exalts (Jealousy)
Actions: Bargain: 6 dice; Climb Earth/Stone: 12 dice; Senses: 7 dice (see Metal Scent); Stealth: 7 dice; Track Metal: 10 dice (see Metal Scent)
Appearance 2, Resolve 4, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 8 dice (Damage 10)
Combat Movement: 5 dice (6 underground)
Evasion 1, Parry 2
Soak/Hardness: 10/8 (see Implacable Hunter’s Aegis)

MERITS
Burrow: The steel eater burrows underground and must move to a specific target’s position, up to one full range band away, with a reflexive move action, ignoring difficult terrain. It can burrow through sand and soil, including packed dirt, but not through stone or other solid barriers. Unexpected attacks it makes after this movement in the same turn add two automatic successes to the damage roll.

Metal Scent: Add three successes on Senses and Track Metal rolls to notice or find any kind of metal, up to a mile away.

Ravenous Hunter’s Banquet: For each mundane metal object smaller than a great sword the steel eater consumes, it regains a mote of Essence, to its usual maximum; larger such objects grant three motes each instead. A steel eater can’t digest or bite through artifacts, but it can swallow them whole, gaining motes equal to the artifact’s rating. Characters can cut the steel eater open, or force or cajole it to vomit up its latest meal, to recover their wonders (or someone else's). The steel eater must succeed at a disarm gambit before eating something another character holds, wears, or wields.

Vibration Sense: Steel eaters have no eyes and don’t rely on sight. Instead, they feel vibrations on the wind and through the ground. They take no penalties from poor lighting, and double 9s on Senses rolls whenever vibrations are present.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Patient Hunter’s Sandtrap (8m, 1wp; Simple; One scene; Eclipse, Perilous; Essence 2): The steel eater burrows beneath sand or soil, forming a trap that extends out to short range from the elemental, horizontally and vertically. The topmost layer appears undisturbed, but when trod upon it immediately collapses into a swirling vortex of earth. Observers may notice the trap with a (Perception + Awareness) roll, opposed by the steel eater’s Stealth (or an Eclipse’s (Stamina + Stealth)). When the trap collapses, it creates an environmental hazard that deals 3i/ round, with difficulty 3. The interior is difficult terrain and imposes a −2 visibility penalty to actions that rely on sight. It requires a successful (Strength + Athletics) climbing action, difficulty 4, to escape without a rescue from above.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Implacable Hunter’s Aegis (7m, 1i; Reflexive; Instant; Perilous; Essence 2): Gain +5 Hardness against a single decisive attack. Any 1s rolled on the attacker’s damage roll subtract from successes.

Storyteller Tactics
Steel eaters are tough, stubborn, and patient. They rarely act rashly or attack without putting their prey at some disadvantage, like trapping them in a sand pit, ambushing from under the earth, or disarming them. Exalts with their panoplies draw steel eaters like moths to flame and the elementals are jealous of the Exalted ability to work magical materials, but careful negotiations can create profitable situations for both parties. Individual steel eaters have one or two unique Intimacies in addition to the Defining one they all share.

Juvenile steel eaters are Essence 1, while adults are Essence 2. Those close to chrysalis are even larger and more powerful; represent this by adding health levels and, at their largest, the Legendary Size Merit (Exalted, p. 522) and Essence 4. A steel eater flees combat when it takes damage in its first −4 health level.

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	16. Gravehound
The necropoles of Sijan and nearby shadowlands spawn gravehounds: lanky, emaciated canines with short, ash gray fur, mottled with bone-white spots. Sad-eyed and melancholy, they wander lonely roads and dusty crypts, seeking spirits whose unfinished business they might lay to rest. Grim as it seems to many, Sijanese morticians let these deathly — though living — hounds feed upon corpseflesh, that they may take on the voice and mind of the dead for a time and seek restitution for buried wrongs. Fearless in the face of eerie ghosts and walking cadavers, gravehounds make choice companions for the Abyssal and Liminal Exalted, and anyone else who trucks often with death.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 4; Join Battle: 4 dice
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4/Incap.
Actions: Threaten: 5 dice; Read Intentions: 6 dice; Senses: 8 dice (see Keen Nose); Stealth: 4 dice; Tracking: 9 dice (see Keen Nose)
Appearance 2, Resolve 3 (5 vs. fear), Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 9 dice (Damage 9)
Attack (Grapple): 6 dice (5 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 8 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 3
Soak/Hardness: 4/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Consume the Fallen: By eating a significant portion of meat from a corpse, a gravehound gains the voice, memories, and personality of the deceased. It speaks any language the dead person knew, and gains additional dice pools based on the Abilities she had in life, including social pools such as Bargain, Persuade, and Threaten. It still can’t do anything it couldn’t physically do before, so although it consumes the corpse of a renowned sculptor, it cannot hold a chisel.

The gravehound takes on the deceased’s Intimacies, as well. This drives it to complete tasks on her behalf: sending word to family, getting revenge on a killer, etc. The gravehound retains these memories for days equal to the departed’s permanent Willpower rating, and can only maintain one such personality at a time. As a magical ability, a master may commit eight motes to allow the gravehound to retain the dead person’s memories indefinitely instead. Gravehounds are immune to any diseases a body carried or infections it would otherwise suffer from eating decayed flesh.

Snarling Guardian Attack (Latent): Whenever an enemy attacks the gravehound’s master while it protects her with a defend other action, it may respond with a decisive counterattack, which it may use for a disarm or distract gambit.

MERITS
Deathsense: Gravehounds sense dematerialized ghosts with all five senses, including touch, and can attack them.

Fearless Companion: Where other dogs turn tail and flee or whine and balk when ordered to enter a shadowland or battle the undead, gravehounds know no such terror. They are immune to any fear effect a deathly source inflicts.

Keen Nose: Double 9s on all scent-based Perception rolls.

Loyal Guardian (Latent): Ignore the usual flurry penalties on a defend other action flurried with any other action.

Wary Watchdog Vigilance (Latent): Add one automatic success to rolls to notice hidden characters. Upon success, the gravehound barks loudly enough to wake its master from sleep, if needed.

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	16. Tiger’s Eye
Appearing initially much like a gemstone or mineral cluster the size of a melon, the tiger’s eye — so named for one of its more common manifestations — is actually an ambush predator par excellence, possessed of a stone’s own patience as well as its fantastic durability. When it attacks, it opens along all-but-invisible seams to reveal its true form: not a spirit of the earth, but an armored stone beast reminiscent of a thin, sharp-edged pangolin the size of a large dog. Crystals encrust its underbelly like a geode, and it has jaws and claws to match. Tiger’s eyes frequently crunch their prey’s bones between their crystalline teeth and devour them, but when shattered the beasts’ bodies are stone through and through.

Despite its lanky form, a tiger’s eye’s mineral construction means it masses much more than it looks like it should. Threatened by something more dangerous, a tiger’s eye curls up into its gem-like form to protect its comparatively fragile crystalline belly, becoming rock hard and almost impossible to injure. Miners and scavenger lords encounter these creatures more than anyone else, but they are sometimes found on the surface, particularly in rocky or mountainous regions. They are extremely territorial and attack anyone or anything that intrudes near their nests, which they line with gems of similar substance to their bodies; given time, these hatch like eggs, giving rise to a litter of young tiger’s eyes.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 5
Health Levels: −0x4/−1x4/Incap
Actions: Disguise: 8 dice; Navigating Underground: 5 dice; Resist Disease/Poison: 10 dice; Senses: 6 dice; Threaten: 6 dice
Resolve 2, Guile 3

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 6 dice (Damage 9); Tags: Piercing
Attack: (Claw): 9 dice (Damage 5)
Attack (Body Slam): 7 dice (Damage 7); Tags:
Smashing
Combat Movement: 6 dice
Evasion 1, Parry 3
Soak/Hardness: 15/7

AN UNDEFEATED CHAMPION
Glassjaw is famous in some circles in Nexus. An obsidian-edged jet tiger’s eye captured by a scavenger lord and sold to a pit-fight maestro, it’s won over a hundred bouts against attack dogs, armed gladiators, and once, a wild bear. This lithe creature’s fans credit it with an animal cunning as sharp as its claws, known to circle and observe opponents before attacking.

Perhaps it’s too clever for its own good — it’s killed more than one handler over the last year, and the last match was a total bust, with Glassjaw refusing to uncurl and fight a claw strider. Only the maestro knows the truth, and it terrifies him: that chunk of jet they turned loose in the ring wasn’t Glassjaw, and he has no idea where his prize fighter really is.

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Ambush Hunter: The tiger’s eye gains +3 on attacks made while successfully disguised as stone.

As Stone Itself: The tiger’s eye curls up into its stone form and can roll Disguise to fool observers. It may also spend a Willpower to add +5 to its Hardness while in this form. This lasts until it uncurls again. It can’t take any actions while in this form.

MERITS
Flawless Visage: Observers can’t differentiate a tiger’s eye in stone form from a large gemstone or mineral deposit without magic.

Sturdy as Stone: A tiger’s eye cannot be knocked back or prone except by magical effects or creatures  of legendary size. A grappled tiger’s eye cannot be thrown or slammed unless magic such as Dragon Coil  Technique (Exalted, p. 280) is used, or if the attacker is of legendary size.


Stone Cannot Bleed: A tiger’s eye takes one fewer health level of damage from successful decisive attacks using blunt weapons, but one extra health level from those using sharp or thrusting weapons.

Storyteller Tactics
Tiger’s eyes like to nestle among other rocks, then burst open and slam into victims, stunning them long enough to sink their diamond-hard fangs in. They are protective of their comparatively fragile, geodic underbellies, and retreat or curl up into stone form if a foe lands a solid blow there. Doing so is a difficulty 3 gambit that reduces its soak and Hardness each by two for the scene. Tiger’s eyes reside most often in caves, much to spelunkers’ surprise. Some particularly courageous (or foolhardy) treasure hunters make a living trapping and killing tiger’s eyes, whose valuable gemstone bodies are worth a fortune.

Most tiger’s eyes are solitary, tolerating each other only lukewarmly — while they may be encountered in numbers, each looks out for number one. Tiger’s eyes made of lazurite, however, while rare, are far more likely to congregate and engage in complex pack tactics. Since lazurite composes the majority of lapis lazuli, miners extracting this valuable commodity must take especial care, lest the promise of a mother lode lead them down a tunnel from which they will not return.

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	17. Austrech
The austrech is one of the largest predators in the Southeastern deserts — the average specimen stands just over nine feet tall, and bears talons that put fine knives to shame. Though well-adapted to their arid home, these flightless birds are equally comfortable in plains, scrublands, and forests. Relatives of the desert austrech are common along the southern coast of the Inland Sea, even ranging as far as An-Teng. In addition to hunting their own prey, they’ve been known to squabble with lions and claw striders over kills. Wherever they’re found, these territorial beasts are an important natural resource for neighboring human tribes. They make an abundant source of food or leather for tribes that can feasibly hunt them, while any hero brave enough to tame the so-called “terror bird” earns a fiercely loyal mount.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 4; Join Battle: 4 dice
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4/Incap.
Speed Bonus: +2
Actions: Endure Arid Conditions: 7 dice; Feats of Strength: 5 dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats); Find Water: 5 dice; Senses: 5 dice
Resolve 2, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Peck): 6 dice (Damage 14)
Attack (Talon kick): 8 dice (Damage 10)
Attack (Grapple): 6 dice (6 dice to control) (Iron Talon Stomp only)
Combat Movement: 8 dice
Evasion 3, Parry 2
Soak/Hardness: 4/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Brutal Kick: Enemies smaller than human size that take 5+ damage from the austrech’s withering talon kicks are knocked back one range band and fall prone.

Swift Advance: Whenever the austrech reflexively pursues an enemy after a successful rush, it may pay a Willpower to reflexively make a decisive attack against him.

Flesh-Rending Beak (Latent): An austrech hunts large prey animals, such as camels and wild dogs, by kicking them savagely with taloned feet to weaken them, before finishing them with its huge beak. If the austrech crashes an enemy with a withering talon attack, add two automatic successes on decisive peck attacks it makes against him until he recovers from crash.

Aspect of the Garda (Magical, 5m): The austrech’s master imbues it with the fiery-winged aspect of the garda, turning its feathers to dancing sprays of flame. The austrech may use its movement action to fly, and its fiery glory adds one automatic success to all attacks and one bonus die to all damage rolls. These benefits last for one round. If the austrech does not end its movement on the ground, it falls unless its master activates Aspect of the Garda again on her next turn.

Iron Talon Stomp (Magical, 6m): The austrech’s Brutal Kick attack works against enemies of human size. If it successfully knocks an enemy prone, it may reflexively move one range band closer to him and initiate a grapple gambit against him. The austrech can only restrain or savage a clinched enemy, and cannot move without ending the grapple.

MERITS
Desert Endurance: An austrech is suited to survival in deserts where water is scarce, allowing it to survive for a week without water. Even in its final hours, it ignores the usual −3 penalty for dehydration, giving it one last chance to make it to a water source.

Oasis Rider (Latent): An austrech whose master succumbs to dehydration takes her to the nearest source of water it can find — carrying her on its back if she fainted in the saddle, or dragging her with its beak if not.

Storyteller Tactics
In the wild, austreches mainly travel in pairs or alone. When hunting, they lay down on the ground and stretch their heads and necks out flat, appearing to their quarry as nothing more dangerous than an earthen mound. Austreches who hunt in pairs often settle several dozen yards apart, wait for their quarry to pass between them, and charge forward in a pincer movement. They focus their swift, sharp attacks on their victims’ soft spots: eyes, throats, bellies. When faced with an armored opponent, clever austreches learn to focus on gaps in the plates. Some even slash at leather straps and other fasteners. They use gambits to perform these feats. An austrech flees after taking damage in its last −2 health level.

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	17. Unicorn
White as Northern snow with eyes that glow an unearthly blue, bearing an iridescent horn that glitters in cold sunlight, graceful beyond the finest poetry — a unicorn seems like a dream given life. Unicorns have served as war mounts for raksha nobles for ages, and as the subjects of stories and nightmares for many a mortal. A unicorn’s horn, while lovely, is a deadly weapon, and those who approach unwisely find their blood staining the snow. Masterless unicorns run solo or gather in groups of three to ten in the northern Wyld’s bordermarches, defending fantastical lands of pristine allure from any who would despoil or reshape them. Some unicorns boast glorious wings, with massive spans and feathers as pure white as their coats. Unicorns are highly intelligent, and happily converse with those who don’t offend them; but they’re Wyld creatures, not animals, with alien drives that make them highly unpredictable.

Unicorns obsess over harmony and pleasing aesthetics. Unity, symmetry, and wholehearted dedication — to anything, be it love, wealth, or the basest cruelty — attract them. By contrast, contradiction and turmoil are unspeakably ugly to them. Beauty, too, draws a unicorn, but its idea of beauty is as strange and ever-shifting as the Wyld itself. A unicorn smiles upon a blood-spattered battlefield as often as a sublime flower arrangement, as long as the latter doesn’t mar the former; it would stamp the flowers into pulp to keep them from spoiling war’s gruesome elegance. Unicorns are proud, haughty beings who spare no mercy for any who insult or mistreat them; they view captivity as the worst offense of all, and those held against their will sicken and die quickly. But unicorns don’t stay dead: They rise again from the ice in Wyld lands after a year and a day, and hold grudges that last centuries.

Essence: 3, Willpower: 8, Join Battle: 8 dice
Health Levels: −0x2/−1x2/−2x3/−4x2/Incap.
Intimacies: Defining: “I must preserve perfection in all its forms.”; Major: “Insults are forever.”; Myself and My Kind (Pride)
Speed Bonus: +5
Actions: Feats of Strength: 8 dice (may attempt
Strength 3 feats); Fly: 10 dice (winged only); Inspire: 9 dice; Northern Navigation and Survival: 7 dice; Occult Knowledge: 12 dice; Persuade: 6 dice; Read Intentions: 5 dice; Resist Disease/Poison: 10 dice; Senses: 8 dice; Threaten: 8 dice; Tracking: 5 dice
Appearance 5, Resolve 5, Guile 5

COMBAT
Attack (Horn): 12 dice (Damage 16)
Attack (Kick/Stomp): 9 dice (Damage 13)
Combat Movement: 10 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 3
Soak/Harness: 7/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Gore: Decisive horn attacks add extra successes to damage against enemies with lower Initiative, as long as the unicorn hasn’t taken any other actions (including reflexive movement actions) that turn.

Sky Runner: In Creation, unicorns can run across the surface of snow or water without sinking in. In the Wyld, they can take to the sky, galloping over clouds and mist as though they were solid ground. Winged unicorns can fly normally in any environment.

MERITS
Cold Iron Bane: Weapons of iron deal aggravated damage to unicorns.

Glorious Aura: A character must pay one Willpower to attack the unicorn as long as it hasn’t attacked her yet this scene; once she spends a Willpower, she may attack at will for the scene. The unicorn’s Inspire rolls have a target number of 5, as long as the emotion it’s inspiring aligns with its Intimacies in context.

Hearts Unmasked: Unicorns can sniff out the stench of dissonance and asymmetry. The unicorn may use its Senses and Tracking pools to detect conflict of any kind, including physical combat, arguments, or internal turmoil such as clashing Intimacies. They can also sense magical conflicts, such as the use of Wyld-Shaping Technique (Exalted, p. 335) to carve reality out of chaos.

Oaths Eternal: A unicorn cannot go back on its word once given; its pride is a magical force that prevents it from doing so. However, it doubles 8s on non-attack actions to uphold a promise or agreement.

Storyteller Tactics
Unicorns are quick to slay those who offend them, and focus single-mindedly on destroying these offenders before moving on to other targets, regardless of relative danger. They leave injured kin to die if the wounded can’t recover quickly — to see their perfection marred thus is disgusting to them. Many unicorns now serving as mounts for the Chosen were abandoned this way, only for an Exalted champion to rescue them. Such acts win the fae creatures’ undying loyalty, as long as their masters live up to their high expectations.

A unicorn is a 3-dot familiar.

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	18. Black Hollow
Most people never see a black hollow — only the effects of its passage. Concealed within a featureless, blacker-than black sphere, it drains color from whatever it touches, stripping it from surfaces and tearing into anything thicker than paper to get at the hue hidden within. It’s fond of the brilliant carmine red of human blood, and leaves victims a twisted fractal of gray pulp and fluid after it shreds them alive. No evidence of the black hollow’s true shape remains when it perishes, only an explosion of color that stains anything nearby with the colors it most recently consumed. Some savants believe the black hollow doesn’t have a true shape, nothing more than its endless hunger. The light of the Exalted soul spilling out into the world gives off pure, sublime colors a black hollow cannot resist.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 7 dice
Personal Motes: 20m
Health Levels: −0x5/−4x2/Incap.
Actions: Feats of Destruction: 6 dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats); Senses: 7 dice (see Color Scent); Stealth: 4 dice (see Pitch Black); Tracking: 10 dice
Resolve 1, Guile 5

COMBAT
Attack (Flense): 9 dice
(Damage 9/3); Tags: Melee (see Anima-Devouring Maw)
Attack (Grapple): 8 dice (10 to control) (see Oubliette)
Combat Movement: 7 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 1
Soak/Hardness: 12/6

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Starved for Hue: With a successful flense attack on an Exalt whose anima banner is visible, the black hollow steals the character’s Essence for itself: two motes if the banner is at the glowing level, four at burning, or six at bonfire/iconic. This can increase the black hollow’s pool beyond its usual maximum, up to 30 total motes; however, unused motes in excess of 20 vanish at the end of the scene.

MERITS
Color Scent: Black hollows are blind, but they can sniff color out, even beneath skin or behind a wall, and then destroy those barriers to get at it. They can’t detect things that are completely black or white, transparent objects like glass, or each other.

Oubliette: A successful grapple gambit pulls the foe into the sphere, where the black hollow devours all light. The victim is blinded until they escape, suffering a −3 modifier on actions that rely on sight. Pitch Black: Characters who can’t see in total darkness increase penalties to find or notice the black hollow in dim light or darkness by two.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Fractal Strike (1-5m; Supplemental; Instant; Dual; Essence 2): The black hollow’s attacks twist around obstacles in impossible ways. A supplemented withering attack ignores soak from armor equal to motes spent, up to five; a decisive attack ignores Hardness from armor equal to motes spent, up to five.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Chaotic Veil (2m, 2i per +1; Reflexive; One scene; Essence 1): A thin, almost invisible ribbon of warped prism always surrounds the sphere. This Charm expands that ribbon to fill more space; all characters within short range, including the black hollow itself, gain +1 Evasion per two motes plus two Initiative spent against any attackers that rely on sight, to a maximum of +3. The black hollow cannot end this Charm prematurely.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Anima-Devouring Maw (6m per anima level; Simple; Instant; Essence 2): The black hollow consumes one level of an Exalt’s visible anima banner per six motes spent, absorbing the divine light into itself and diminishing the target’s anima display accordingly. This Charm can target anyone within range of a flense attack. The sphere can hold up to three total anima levels, whether from the same target or different ones. For each anima level it has absorbed, its flense attacks increase their reach by one range band as the sphere grows in size; thus, with one anima level its attacks can reach to short range, with two to medium, and so on. All consumed anima levels vanish at the end of the scene.

Storyteller Tactics
Black hollows only care about eating color, the brighter the better, and blood red is their favorite. Though they’re silent and their matte-black spheres are easy to miss in darkness, they’re too single-minded to deliberately employ stealth. A difficulty 3 gambit to distract a black hollow with a brighter color can pull it away from its current combat target. Whenever a black hollow deals damage to an enemy or breaks an object, it consumes some of the target’s pigment, turning its colors paler and less saturated. The effect reverses at the end of the scene unless the target is destroyed. A black hollow flees combat when it has taken damage in  its first −4 health level.

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	18. Cockatrice
Betimes, a hen lays an egg without a yolk. These “cock’s eggs,” so named because many believe a cock laid them rather than a hen, never hatch under normal circumstances — but sometimes, in places where Creation’s fabric wears thin and the Wyld seeps through, a cock’s egg hatches. It’s not a chick that crawls out of the broken shell, but a winged lizard with a rooster’s head and a long, serpentine tail. Blessed with deadly sight, its first victim is usually its mother, followed by the remainder of her flock. Hunting is never difficult for the cockatrice, and it has little to fear from predators; even if they slip by its gaze, they perish at its touch. A cockatrice never learns fear, not even of humans, who die just as easily under even a juvenile cockatrice’s gaze. A single cockatrice can wipe out entire villages, so mortals in the Threshold smash cock’s eggs when they find them just in case, to keep disaster at bay.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 6 dice
Health Levels: –0/–1x2/–2x2/–4/Incap.
Actions: Fly: 6 dice; Senses: 8 dice; Stealth: 7 dice
Resolve 2, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 6 dice (Damage 9)
Attack (Tail lash): 9 dice (Damage 11)
Attack (Toxic breath): 8 dice (Damage 7); short range (see Vile Fumes)
Attack (Tail grapple): 8 dice (7 to control)
Attack (Paralysis grapple): 10 dice (12 to control) (see Eyes of Flame)
Combat Movement: 9 dice
Evasion 5, Parry 1
Soak/Hardness: 6/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Eyes of Flame: The cockatrice’s gaze has a hypnotic effect. It performs a difficulty 3 ranged grapple gambit at up to medium range. (Wits + Integrity) opposes the control roll. Success indicates the cockatrice locks eyes with the victim, paralyzing them; blind characters are immune. It doesn’t suffer Defense penalties while using this ability. It may only savage or release a grappled target; savage attacks burn the victim from the inside out.

Another character can intervene, but the cockatrice reflexively makes a new control roll as though it had succeeded on the grapple gambit against the interloper. Failure transfers the paralysis to that character, resetting the cockatrice’s rounds of control based on the new result. The original target is then free to move, as the cockatrice can only stare a single target to death at a time. However, it can maintain Eyes of Flame and a tail grapple simultaneously.

MERITS
Cold Iron Bane: Weapons of iron deal aggravated damage to cockatrices.
Vile Fumes: The cockatrice’s breath and bite are toxic, exposing victims to its venom when it succeeds on these attacks. Its touch is also a vector. The poison deals 4i/round (lethal in Crash), lasts for three rounds, and imposes a −3 penalty (see Exalted, p. 232).

Storyteller Tactics
A cockatrice is deadly, and it knows it. This makes it foolhardy, brazenly confronting humans face-to-face. It likes to stare down at foes from a high, haughty perch, and engages those who sneak up behind it by grabbing or lashing them with its tail while it paralyzes those who face it head-on. Clever gambits, such as distractions or traps, are the best way to deal with a cockatrice without falling prey to its lethal stare and toxic touch. Indirect attacks, such as fire or volleys of arrows, can work, but don’t always guarantee a quick death — and a cockatrice can fly away from threats.

Fighting blind protects against its stare but not its poison, and few can boast the training needed to survive against such a foe without sight. The most reliable way to kill a cockatrice is with a mirror: It locks eyes with itself and thinks its reflection is an enemy, performing its Eyes of Flame gambit against its own defenses. Trapping a cockatrice with a mirror is a difficulty 4 gambit and requires finding a mirror with sufficient polish and of a size that the cockatrice paralyzes itself before whoever holds it. Such treasures are rare in the Threshold.

“I CLOSE MY EYES!”
A character guessing when it’s safe to open her eyes and attack, and when to close them because she thinks the cockatrice is about to look at her, leaves herself vulnerable to Eyes of Flame; no one can perfectly anticipate those moments. The cockatrice’s gambit roll represents the constant interplay of these guessing games and the creature’s own ability to catch victims off-guard. From a systems perspective, players must choose at the beginning of each round between fighting blind for the entire round or risking the cockatrice’s success on the staredown gambit. Even those choosing to fight blind must peek to interpose themselves effectively between the cockatrice and a paralyzed ally; doing so always risks the gambit. See Exalted, p. 188, for blindness penalties.

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	19. The Forlorn Manor
On a hill overlooking a city sits a house. The road below bustles with caravans and wandering monks. Legions marching to a nearby outpost stir up the dust. On the horizon, ships fly the flags of Peleps, or Lookshy, or Cherak. The sprawling house is three grand stories tall. Large windows reflect the sunset; terraces catch the cool breeze. But paint has faded and chipped, and the house sags in the middle. Peering through the windows reveals once-opulent furniture blanketed in dust, and once-majestic stairways with missing railings and broken treads.

Five hundred years ago, this enormous estate was the multigenerational dwelling of the wealthy Dutan family. Then, disaster struck. Everyone who entered the house succumbed to sudden, inexplicable death. Even the few members of the household away on business fell to the same doom once they returned. The house itself declined rapidly, within days appearing decades abandoned. Now, Dutan Manor is a ghost, still in mourning for the family that loved it. But in the lonely years since their deaths, the manor has gone from melancholy to malevolent. It traps trespassers within, the rooms ever-shifting, whether they come seeking lost riches or a simple night’s shelter. It spurs them to anger and fear, makes the weak willed turn against companions, and leads even the most clear-headed down tortured hallways into impossible rooms, until they collapse from exhaustion or starvation, or kill each other.

Essence: 4; Willpower: 8; Join Battle: 11 dice (heart only)
Personal Motes: 90
Health Levels: −0x10/−1x15/−2x15/−4x10/ Incap. (heart only)
Intimacies: Defining: The Dutan Family (Mourning); “Everything within these walls is mine, including you.”;  Major: “I will show you what it means to despair.”
Actions: Bargain: 8 dice; Lore: 5 dice; Persuade: 7 dice; Read Intentions: 7 dice; Senses: 7 dice (see Something’s Watching); Threaten: 12 dice Appearance 3, Resolve 5, Guile 3

COMBAT
Soak/Hardness: 10/10 (heart only)

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Endless Hallway, Shifting Staircase: Dead ends replace intersections. Nonsensical stairways appear and disappear. Doors open onto different places from one moment to the next. Navigating to any specific destination inside the house requires a (Wits + Survival) extended action (or Strength + Athletics, to smash directly through walls), difficulty 4, with goal number 10 and interval five minutes. If the manor wins, the character still gets there but the house anticipates them, gaining double 8s on all rolls to oppose or influence them when they arrive.

If the character botches a roll, the house traps them in a room without exits, a never-ending stairwell, or another impossible area, requiring creative solutions to escape. Each character must roll individually, as failure leads the house to separate them. Something’s Watching: Double 9s on sight- and hearing-based Perception rolls.

MERITS
Unforgiving Terror House: Any part of the manor or object that was present when the house became a ghost rebuilds itself again completely one round after it’s destroyed, except its heart. The manor itself has no health levels and can’t engage in combat. In its deepest bowels pulses its dead heart, within a pitch-dark chamber, protected by a half-digested mass of rotted sinew and dry bone. The heart may produce any number of zombies (Exalted, p. 502) from the mass at a time, as a combat action, for either five motes or three health levels per zombie. A character can destroy the heart by attacking it directly, which also destroys the ghost itself, but it can’t take decisive damage and doesn’t suffer Initiative Crash until it has no zombie guardians left; withering attacks still award the attacker their full Initiative.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Crushing Despair (8m; Simple; One scene; Essence 2): The room hides the exit and shrinks the distance between its walls. This is an environmental hazard (Exalted, p. 230) with difficulty 5, dealing two bashing damage per round and granting the manor Initiative per round equal to the number of characters who took damage that round, to a maximum of five Initiative. Characters may resist the hazard with (Strength + Athletics) to hold the walls at bay; (Perception + Awareness) to find the exit; and either a feat of strength or (Dexterity + Larceny) to open it.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Hundred Chambers Maze (8m; Reflexive; One scene; Eclipse; Essence 3): Change any portal’s destination, including external windows and doors, to any other portal’s destination on the manor’s grounds. Eclipses may use this Charm in any building, but both target and destination portals must be within medium range of the Eclipse.

Foundation of Bones (5m; Simple; Instant; Decisive-only; Essence 3): The manor instantly consumes one corpse (inanimate or otherwise) anywhere on the grounds to heal three health levels or regain five Initiative.

SOCIAL CHARMS
Ember-Stoking Delusion (8m, 1wp; Simple; One scene; Psyche; Essence 4): On a successful threaten action, the manor convinces a character within its walls that one of her companions secretly plots against her and unearths long-buried conflicts. The target temporarily develops a negative Major Tie toward her companion and temporarily loses the benefits of any positive Tie toward him. Interactions with him prompt her to physically attack unless she spends one Willpower to hold back for one round, or one minute outside combat. Exalts end the effect early by spending four Willpower this way; mortals have no such recourse.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Materialize (45m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): The forlorn manor can materialize whenever it senses someone approaching its territory or looking up at its hill from below. See Exalted, p. 510, for full materialization rules.

Storyteller Tactics
Because the forlorn manor only occasionally materializes, locals don’t agree on whether it really exists. No specific location is given here for the manor, so the Storyteller can place it wherever she needs to for her game. The manor lets trespassers get comfortable at first, until they think the stories were just that, passed down by the family’s heirs to scare off scavengers. Then it shifts rooms and increases paranoia until the intruders become hopelessly lost and turn on each other. It reserves Crushing Despair for when characters come too close to finding its heart. It uses items its owners and sundry trespassers left behind as tools for social influence. A book falls from a shelf, opening to the exact page that conveys the manor’s message. Quills scratch out names and broken sentences on old parchment. Faded dolls with smiling faces turn up unexpectedly, suggesting approval or smug triumph.

Characters can bargain with the manor if they take the time to unlock its secrets and earn its trust. The truth of why its family met its grisly end and what caused it is buried deep in the past; solving that mystery would let the manor rest at last. Although it’s hostile and takes pleasure in watching victims murder each other, it also wants to rest, so it subconsciously leaves clues lying around for savvy investigators to pick up — a charcoal scribble on a wall reading Where’s Samandra??, or a drawer that opens at an opportune time containing specific documents, for instance. Characters can find some clues inside the house itself, but must investigate in the city as well or find another way to learn the full story. The house’s victims may also find hints to how to destroy it by investigating evidence left behind by previous unfortunate visitors — messages left half-written, recent corpses not yet consumed, and so on. Once they learn about the heart and find it, the house spawns as many zombies as it can afford to protect itself, balancing motes, zombies, and health levels to survive as long as possible. It uses Ember-Stoking Delusion liberally if it starts to lose, or makes Bargain or Persuade actions to convince its assailants to help it solve the family’s mystery instead.


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	19. Giant Constrictor
Legendary terrors of the Eastern jungles and Western bogs, giant constrictors are any variety of constricting snakes, such as the anaconda or boa, that can grow to monstrous sizes in Creation, reaching extremes of fifty or sixty feet in isolated ecosystems. They use their massive coils to crush the breath out of prey such as deer, capybaras, and unfortunate humans, while swallowing smaller animals like fish or birds whole. Some make their homes among the treetops, blending in with foliage before falling onto an unsuspecting victim. Others hunt in rivers, swimming under the surface of water before lunging out to claim a hapless animal that stopped for a drink.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 4; Join Battle: 4 dice
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x3/−4x3/Incap.
Actions: Climb: 6 dice; Feats of Strength: 7 dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats); Resist Disease/ Poison: 7 dice; Senses: 5 dice (see Thermal Sense); Stealth: 5 dice
Resolve 2, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 8 dice (Damage 15)
Attack (Grapple): 10 dice (14 to control)
Combat Movement: 6 dice
Evasion 3, Parry 1
Soak/Hardness: 8/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Crushing Coils: A giant constrictor takes no Defense penalties from grappling, and can drag an enemy on the same turn it makes a savaging attack against them.
Uncoiling Serpent Rush: Every turn the constrictor does not take a movement action, it stocks a single success, to a maximum of three. Each stocked successes adds +1 Evasion. It adds all stocked successes to a rush roll, and to any grapple gambit it initiates on the same turn in a flurry, resetting stocked successes to zero. With three stocked successes, it may also reflexively move one range band closer to the enemy without counting as its movement action for the turn. Any other movement actions waste all stocked successes.

MERITS
Camouflage: Double 9s on Stealth rolls while hidden amid treetops or dense foliage. Aquatic variants gain camouflage while swimming or slithering through mud.
Thermal Sense: Giant constrictors sense their prey’s body heat, doubling 9s on any roll to notice a warm-blooded character and ignoring penalties for visual obstacles such as darkness or mist.

Storyteller Tactics
Giant constrictors depend on the element of surprise when they hunt. Though they’re capable of moving swiftly to catch their prey, they prefer to wait, hidden, until a tasty and unsuspecting morsel happens by. The snakes are also nocturnal creatures, doing the majority of their hunting at night. Legion soldiers on late night watches in the East keep an eye out for constrictors, lest their sleeping comrades-in-arms end up with bone-crushing blankets. Giant constrictors flee when they take damage to their last −3 health level, unless they are in the middle of crushing their prey to death; then they flee after the grapple ends instead.

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	20. Northern Ursidae
Iceship crews from Tusk tell stories of sleek, white-pelted water bears that prowl Mela’s Fangs, attacking boats and stealing fishermen’s catches. Their webbed paws end in wicked claws. Gills in their necks allow them to dive for long periods to hunt fish that live in caves deep below the water’s surface, or to evade human hunters’ spears and harpoons.

Down on all fours, these sea bears are four to five feet high at the shoulder, and weigh between 800 and 2,000 pounds. Standing on their hind legs, they tower over humans at heights of up to 11 feet. Hunting parties brave the bears’ ferocious attacks, as their pelts fetch excellent prices, and one ursidae’s meat can feed a family for months. Icewalker tribes who take its avatar as their totem train the animals to fight and fit them with armor for riding into battle.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 3; Join Battle: 7 dice
Health Levels: −0x5/−1x5/−2x5/−4x3/Incap.
Speed Bonus: +3 (+4 in the water)
Actions: Feats of Strength: 7 dice (may attempt Strength 5 feats); Intimidate: 7 dice; Senses: 5 dice (see Keen Nose); Tracking: 5 dice
Resolve 3, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 8 dice (Damage 15)
Attack (Claw): 12 dice (Damage 11)
Attack (Grapple): 8 dice (9 to control, or 10 in the water)
Combat Movement: 7 dice (8 in the water)
Evasion 3, Parry 3
Soak/Hardness: 10/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Capsize (Latent): The bear grabs lines dangling from a small boat or other vessel no larger than a fast courier (Exalted, p. 246) in its powerful jaws, or embeds its claws deep in the vessel’s underside, and dives. Treat this as a Strength 5+ feat of strength with required successes equal to the pilot’s (Strength + Sail). Upon success, the boat capsizes, dumping anyone and anything aboard into the water.

Roaring Charge (Latent): After moving at least one range band toward a target on the ursidae’s current turn, roll Intimidate against the target’s Resolve as a miscellaneous action. If successful, the enemy reflexively flees one range band in the opposite direction, and the bear or its rider receives one automatic success on the next attack roll against anyone who witnessed the charge.

MERITS
Berserker: Convert wound penalties to bonus dice on attack rolls.

Keen Nose: Double 9s on all scent-based Senses rolls.

Storyteller Tactics
Northern ursidae make their dens away from humans, in caves near the sea, and those who would tame them must defeat them in combat first. In battle without riders, an ursidae’s preferred tactics are to grapple an enemy and drag her underwater in a bear hug until she drowns, or the clinch crushes her bones, whichever comes first. A water bear attempts to flee if it takes damage in its first −2 health level, unless commanded otherwise by a rider.

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	20. Forest Strider
Eastern forests are home to an unusually large breed of stick bugs that blend in with trees and disappear from plain sight like their smaller cousins. The abundant food and fecund Essence near the Pole of Wood allow creatures to grow to massive sizes. A forest strider’s swift ground speed, and their ability to quickly climb towering trees and fly short distances, make them popular mounts. While some forest striders look like bare tree trunks, with six branch-like limbs, others resemble giant leaves. Some varieties have iridescent wings, almost invisible, that let them glide from one branch to another.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 4; Join Battle: 6 dice
Health Levels: −0x2/−1x4/−2x4/−4/Incap.
Speed Bonus: +3
Actions: Climb: 7 dice; Glide (winged only): 6 dice;
Read Intentions: 4 dice; Resist Disease/Poison: 5 dice; Senses: 5 dice; Stealth: 7 dice
Resolve 2, Guile 3

COMBAT
Attack (Grapple): 5 dice (7 to control)
Attack (Leg spikes): 5 dice (Damage 7)
Attack (Poison spray): 6 dice (Damage 0); Tags: Thrown (Short)
Combat Movement: 5 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 2
Soak/Hardness: 4/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Ambush Hunter: Gain +3 on all unexpected attacks.
Poison Spray: Forest striders secrete a poison (Exalted, p. 232), with which they can make poison spray attacks that expose the enemy upon success. The poison deals 2i per round (L in Crash), with a duration of 3 rounds and a −3 penalty. Spike Swipe (Latent): The forest strider lashes out with its leg spikes to protect its rider. She does not lose Initiative when she disengages while astride.

MERITS
Camouflage: The forest strider appears to be part of a tree, or a stump or leaf on its own. In a forest, double 9s on Stealth rolls.

Sudden Escape: The forest strider can shed a leg to get away from an enemy. It may automatically disengage without a roll, but suffers a cumulative −1 penalty to combat movement rolls. This penalty lasts until the leg regenerates during molting, which it does once a week.

Storyteller Tactics
Forest striders’ nimble limbs and aerodynamic shapes allow them to ascend to high points quickly, giving riders the high ground and the ability to swoop down upon their foes. Riders can train forest striders to attack on command, much like war horses. In the wild, forest striders keep to the trees and avoid contact with humans. A character who is patient, moves softly, and has a good supply of succulent leaves and berries may lure one from hiding with a Charisma + Survival roll, opposed by the strider’s Read Intentions pool. Untamed forest striders are timid; they attempt to flee after taking any damage.

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	21. Flickerfeather
A common sight in Eastern rivers and lakes, a flickerfeather isn’t an animal as many think, but a water elemental. It resembles an overlarge cuttlefish, with a mantle over a meter long limned with small, waterproof feathers that change color rapidly as it swims — hence the name. While clumsy and sluggish on land, able to do little more than drag itself along, a flickerfeather can respire air. It must do so to use its peculiar talent for mimicking voices, which it uses to lure humans to play with. Its tentacles appear proportionate to its body, but can deform radically, extending out to several meters to snatch people up.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 8 dice
Personal Motes: 60
Health Levels: −0x1/−1x2/−2x2/−4x1/Incap.
Intimacies: Defining: “I love to play!”; Major: “My curiosity about the unknown knows no bounds.”
Actions: Deception/Disguise: 6 dice; Leaping: 5 dice; Read Intentions: 4 dice; Senses: 6 dice; Stealth: 8 dice; Swim: 8 dice
Appearance 3, Resolve 1, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 4 dice (Damage 6)
Attack (Tentacle): 6 dice (Damage 4)
Attack (Grapple): 7 dice (9 to control)
Combat Movement: 7 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 2
Soak/Hardness: 5/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Perfect Mimicry: Flickerfeathers can mimic any individual sound and are intelligent enough to form short sentences from words they have learned by mimicking others. A (Wits + Awareness) roll, difficulty 3, is required to realize a flickerfeather’s mimicry isn’t the real thing.

MERITS
Deceptive Reach: The flickerfeather’s tentacle and grapple attacks can reach to short range; it immediately drags enemies grappled at short range to close range.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Ink Clone (5m; Simple; Three rounds; Eclipse; Essence 1): The flickerfeather vents a cloud of ink that, even in the air, coalesces into the shape of another, identical flickerfeather, changing color in a slow cycle. Onlookers must succeed at a difficulty 3 (Perception + (Awareness or Survival)) roll to distinguish the clone from the original. The false flickerfeather is not alive, nor can it act other than to take reflexive move actions on the real flickerfeather’s turn. It moves realistically, but it’s simply a decoy, and dissolves when the Charm ends or when an attack deals any damage to it.

Strobe (4m; Reflexive; Instant; Essence 1): The flickerfeather rapidly cycles its feathers through every possible hue, hard to focus on. It gains +2 Evasion against a single attack, but it can’t use this Charm while Chromatoflage (see below) is active.

MOBILITY CHARMS
Fluid Is Fluid (10m; Simple; One scene; Withering-only; Essence 1): Exuding watery Essence, the flickerfeather saturates the air around it as it moves. It can swim through the air as though it were underwater. Opponents within close range treat the area as difficult terrain, unless they could normally move freely underwater. The flickerfeather doubles its soak against withering ranged attacks.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Chromatoflage (7m, 1wp; Simple; Indefinite; Eclipse, Perilous; Essence 1): The flickerfeather changes its colors to fool onlookers into thinking it’s some false feature of the environment no bigger than itself, such as a stepping stone or an underwater treasure. This functions as normal concealment, but doesn’t require adequate coverage. Observers can make a (Perception + Awareness) roll, opposed by the flickerfeather’s Stealth (or an Eclipse’s (Appearance + Stealth)), to pierce the deception. If the flickerfeather moves, takes any action, or takes damage, this Charm immediately ends.

Storyteller Tactics
Flickerfeathers are simple spirits that do what more powerful elementals tell them when pressed, but otherwise exist to amuse themselves and play pranks on unsuspecting passersby. They normally only attack to harm if threatened, but they like to engage in combat just to play keep-away, lead someone on a merry chase, or grab new playmates so they don’t leave and end the game. Flickerfeathers don’t understand the idea that some creatures can’t survive without air, so they have an unfortunate tendency to drag people underwater and hold them captive there. When a flickerfeather’s unwilling playmate inevitably drowns, it gets upset and takes it out on the next person it sees.

About as clever as a toddler, flickerfeathers take direction well. Sorcerers and other savants who live by the water keep flickerfeathers as guardians, and their talent for mimicry makes them ideal spies — stalking a target, learning what it says, and coming home to repeat it is barely work for them. They grow bored easily, however, and the wise provide them with means to entertain themselves, such as elaborate puzzles or opportunities to trick others, lest the elementals decide to make their own fun.

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	21. Grelidaka the Thousand Hungry Wings
Every flock of birds sighted in the far West brings a moment of dread: “Is this the day I die?” Usually, it’s only a flock of starlings. But one time in a thousand, the flock only gets louder, larger, and angrier as it approaches. When it descends to attack, it’s already too late to run. The grelidaka is an ever-growing mass of Wyld-crazed mutant birds, each one jet-black, that exists only to strip the flesh from anything that lives. It can wipe entire villages off the map in moments. The grelidaka is a truehive being: Individuals removed from it sicken and die in days, no matter how they’re cared for. They tear themselves apart to reproduce, one bird birthing two or more others. Sometimes they do this of their own accord; other times, it happens as someone frantically defends himself, not knowing that for every bird slain, two more squirm out of the corpse to take its place.

A grelidaka is a battle group by default. The traits below already include calculations for battle group traits where appropriate; for instance, values given for Evasion and Parry already include the group’s Drill and Might bonuses. Components of a grelidaka never act alone.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 8 dice
Magnitude: 5 + Size
Actions: Feats of Destruction: (5 + Size) dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats, or 5 at Size 5); Flight: 8 dice; Resist Disease/Poison: 6 dice; Senses: 6 dice
Resolve 4, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Claw): (7 + Size) dice (Damage 11 + Size)
Attack (Peck): (7 + Size) dice (Damage 7 + Size);
Tags: Piercing
Combat Movement: (7 + Size) dice
Evasion 6, Parry 4
Soak/Hardness: (2 + Size)/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Blot Out the Sun: Terrain within short range of a grelidaka is considered difficult, and characters within it suffer an Evasion penalty equal to the grelidaka’s (Size/2), rounded up. At Size 5, the area of effect increases to medium range. Characters who otherwise ignore difficult terrain still suffer the Evasion penalty.

From One, Many: A grelidaka comes into being as a Size 1 battle group with elite Drill and Might 1. When its Magnitude track fills with damage, it gains a level of Size instead of losing it. For every Magnitude box marked with damage, add +1 to the grelidaka’s dice pools; these bonuses vanish whenever Magnitude refreshes. If the group grows to Size 5, the next time its Magnitude track fills with damage, it splits into two Size 3 grelidaka. Once the two flocks finish off their current prey, they go their separate ways.

MERITS
Legion Swarm Tactics: The grelidaka adds Size to its pools for feats of destruction and combat movement in addition to the usual traits.
Mindless: Grelidaka treat all social influence as unacceptable and have perfect morale.

Storyteller Tactics
A grelidaka is not especially smart. It cares only about killing, attacking the most obvious target rather than swarming weaker prey. It cannot open doors, though it smashes through obstacles when it can; only sturdy cover and silence keep a grelidaka out. Once it scours the area clean, it moves on. It’s not vindictive and doesn’t hunt down stragglers if it doesn’t immediately perceive them. It doesn’t recognize individuals as separate from groups, so if one piece of the whole vanishes during the fight, it doesn’t realize that “piece” still exists in any meaningful way afterward.

The specific means of destroying a grelidaka are subject to Storyteller discretion and player ingenuity. As a rule of thumb, allow a solution to reduce Size by one if it can destroy birds wholesale and en masse rather than merely injuring or killing them piecemeal, but give the flock the usual defense the threat allows to avoid it. Options include large explosions and other massive applications of fire; aerial environmental hazards, such as poison mists; attacks and spells that affect a large area, such as Death of Obsidian Butterflies (Exalted, p. 472) or the Dragon- Blooded Charm Arrow Rain Tempest; creative gambits with high difficulties that use the environment; and the like. Characters can also find non-violent solutions, such as putting the flock to sleep, luring it away from vulnerable mortals, or sealing it away. A grelidaka doesn’t flee combat unless a raksha warlord or Exalted master commands it to.

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	22. Metody - the Malfean Elemental, Demon of the First Circle
The demon realm of Malfeas lies wholly apart from the mortal world, subject to its baleful masters’ whims and never graced with the orderly presence of Creation’s elements. Instead, its cracks ooze with Theion To, or vitriol: the acid of Hell. The metody are vitriol spirits, alien cousins to Creation’s elementals. They can assume any sort of twisted or distorted human form, often horned or hooved; a few prefer disfigured animal shapes. They only take unblemished forms under compulsion. Their passage etches smoldering footprints into stone and trails a sulfurous stench.

Their personalities are consumptive and as acidic as their natures, passive-aggressively tearing others down and pointed in their commentary. They approach obstacles with lazy defiance, believing nothing lies beyond their ability to dissolve eventually, whether physical materials or ephemeral relationships. When a metody establishes a rivalry, it evolves, taking on some of its foe’s qualities.

Essence: 3; Willpower: 6; Join Battle: 5 dice
Personal Motes: 80
Intimacies: Defining: “Everything exists for me to dissolve.”
Health Levels: −0x2/−1x3/−2x3/−4/ Incap.
Actions: Feats of Destruction: 9 dice;
Resist Disease/Poison: 8 dice; Senses: 5 dice; Weaken Intimacy: 9 dice
Appearance 1, Resolve 4, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Strike): 7 dice (Damage 10)
Attack (Grapple): 7 dice (6 to control) (see Acidic Body)
Combat Movement: 6 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 2
Soak/Hardness: 8/0

MERITS
Blessed Acidic Body: Targets grappling or grappled by the metody suffer an environmental hazard (Exalted, p. 230) that deals 3L/round, with difficulty 5. The demon heals health levels equal to damage it would take from any other acid source.

Rival Nature Subsumption: Once per story, a metody may establish a rivalry with someone toward whom it has a negative Major or Defining Intimacy (other than its summoner). It chooses three total dice pools and/or static values relevant to the rivalry’s nature, adding two dice each to pools or +1 each to static values, to a maximum of the rival’s unmodified value. It also copies one of the rival’s iconic Charms,non-Story Merits, or other powers for which it has the prerequisites.

Each time the rivalry persists into the next story, the metody may improve three more dice pools or static values (including ones previously enhanced by the rivalry), and choose an additional Charm, Merit, or similar power. All benefits disappear if all of the metody’s negative Intimacies toward the rival drop below Major. Otherwise, the benefits become permanent if the metody personally and decisively defeats the rival.

Shifting Mutable Form: The metody assumes any humanoid or similarly sized animal (or animal-like) shape as a miscellaneous action. In fluid form, it ignores difficult terrain and can fit through any space a liquid could squeeze through, but can’t take any non-movement actions.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Fluid Embrace (8m, 2i; Supplemental; Instant; Aggravated, Dual; Essence 3): One withering attack ignores all soak, or one decisive attack ignores all Hardness.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Liquid Evasion Tactic (4m; 4i; Reflexive; Instant; Uniform; Essence 1): The metody disperses into sizzling globules, gaining +2 Evasion against one attack. On a successful dodge, it moves one range band in any direction it can flow, unless in Devouring Acid Form.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Devouring Acid Form (6m, 1wp; Simple; One scene; Essence 1): The metody dissolves into frothing, acidic foam. It devours mundane objects and structures, burrowing through soil, sand, or other soft substances with movement actions, or through one yard of harder substances per minute. It cannot take non-reflexive actions except feats of destruction, and ignores damage that wouldn’t harm ordinary acid. It also counts as an acid bath environmental hazard (see Blessed Acidic Body).

Hurry Home (10m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): The demon flows back to its summoner’s side; unavailable when unbound.

Materialize (40m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): Reality peels back, smoldering, as the metody sears its way into Creation.

Measure the Wind (5m, Simple; Instant; Essence 1): The metody can discern the nature of anyone burned with its acid.

Storyteller Tactics
Metody love to dissolve things — whether objects, structures, agreements, organizations, or relationships. They take their time, though, believing it’s inevitable that one day they’ll dissolve all of Creation; thus, unless bound to the task, clever would-be victims might divert a metody’s attention to dissolving something more urgent, with sufficient social influence. The Malfean elementals meet aggression in kind, however. Known for spite, they’ll destroy an enemy’s possessions before they kill her, just because they can. A metody without specific orders assumes liquid or foam form to flee while dealing maximum collateral damage upon taking damage to its first −2 health level.

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	23. White Robe
An echo of professional mourners such as Sijan’s famed sorrowers, white robes are empty garments radiating grief, endlessly wandering in a funeral procession to nowhere. The vast burden living mourners carry creates powerful emotional imprints from which white robes spawn. These sublime, hollow robes are inscribed with beautiful, ever-changing symbols in gray and bronze; those who can decipher the writings learn secrets from the Underworld’s forgotten reaches. Though pale and ethereal, white robes are plasmic creations of emotion and Underworld Essence, rather than ghosts.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 5 dice
Personal Motes: 30
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4/Incap.
Actions: Inspire: 10 dice; Instill: 10 dice; Navigation: 6 dice; Read Intentions: 8 dice; Senses: 6 dice
Resolve 4, Guile 2

COMBAT
Combat Movement: 8 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 1
Soak/Hardness: 4/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Weeping Aura: Mere proximity to a white robe is enough to drive even strong-willed warriors to tears. The first time in each scene a given character comes within short range, roll the white robe’s Inspire against that character’s Resolve. If it succeeds, she’s impassioned with grief and suffers a −3 penalty to all non-reflexive actions for the scene, unless she spends 1 Willpower to resist. Any given character only needs to resist any white robe’s Weeping Aura once per scene. Ghosts this aura successfully affects instead succumb to Lethe unless they spend 1 Willpower

MERITS
Echoes of Grief: White robes gain +3 dice and double 8s on read intentions actions to discover Intimacies with contexts of grief, sorrow, loss, despair, or similar.
Incorporeal: White robes are immaterial but always visible, even in Creation. Only attacks capable of harming immaterial beings, such as Spirit-Cutting Attack (Exalted, 354), can target them.

SOCIAL CHARMS
Incite the Grieving Tide (5m; Reflexive; Instant; Psyche; Essence 1): The white robe sings a dirge, stirring its target’s heart. Double 9s on one instill action to create or increase the intensity of any Intimacy to which Echoes of Grief would apply. If two or more white robes target the same character with this Charm at the same time, she suffers a −1 to Resolve against that action per two participating white robes.

Storyteller Tactics
White robes wander the Underworld and Creation, mourning not specific deaths, but all death as their raison d’être. They travel in solemn processions of four to 10, and though they rarely stray from their intended path, their presence alone is enough to overcome onlookers with grief. White robes don’t speak or respond to much, even when threatened, focusing almost exclusively on their procession; they attempt to escape if attacked, and although they don’t communicate directly, they do sometimes sing hymns or dirges as they float eerily along inches above the ground. They read intentions to discover grief-based Intimacies and use Incite the Grieving Tide instinctively, rather than as any kind of ploy or deliberate provocation. This attracts griefees that follow them around to feed on the ambient emotion the white robes produce in passersby (see sidebar).

As white robes move along their unending funeral march, the symbols upon their bodies shift and change. A character can decipher the writing with an extended Intelligence + (Linguistics or Occult) roll, with difficulty 3, goal number 20, and interval ten minutes. The scripture reveals ancient and forgotten secrets of the Underworld, of the Storyteller’s choice; they may include paeans to forgotten gods that could summon or entreat such entities, the location of a deathknight’s hidden lair, teachings of the Dark Mother that might lead characters to a Liminal Exalt, necromantic initiations or deathly thaumaturgical rituals, and so on.

Griefbees
The Underworld’s bees glow the sickly gray-green of Contagion ghosts and bear ashen-hued stripes. they feed on emotion rather than nectar, preferring the vibrant emotions of the living to the dulled ones of the dead, and the weeping honey they produce imparts these strong feelings to those who taste it. When a griefbee feeds upon powerful emotion, it emits a soft greenish-white light, illuminating its surroundings out to short range. that light makes corpses within its radius glow in response, granting +3 dice to find them if they’re hidden or identify them if they’re disguised or disfigured. if the person died as a result of anyone’s intense feeling — for example, if their murderer killed them in a rage, or they committed suicide out of despair — the glow shifts to a lurid orange and also grants investigators +3 dice to determine how they died and other details about the circumstances surrounding the death.

Characters are more likely to encounter griefbee honey, rather than the bees themselves, unless they run across a procession of white robes or come within a mile of a griefbee hive in the Underworld and experience powerful emotions. Griefbees do not attack unless threatened, or unless the hive is endangered. When provoked, they attack as a battle group swarm with Size 1, Poor Drill, and Might 1.

A hive of griefbees makes a pint of weeping honey in a day, which is a Resources 3 purchase, or Resources 2 in the Underworld.

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	24. Haloed Husk
Sometimes, when it rains in a Wyld-touched area in the Northern Threshold while the sun shines, chaos taints the clouds, turning a normal sun shower into a Wyld one. The altered rain burns where it lands, not with flame but with searing heat. The storm scorches crops and severely burns anyone caught in the deluge. Even after the skies clear, a secondary threat lurks in puddles of pooled light. When a person or animal drinks of the liquid sunlight, their core catches ablaze. Light coruscates from every orifice as their body sizzles and steams. The false sunlight boils away their minds and personalities, until all that remains is the haloed husk — a being of pure radiance and raw instinct wrapped in its still-living flesh. Some people nickname these creatures “sun dogs,” as their most common forms in human settlements are those of beloved pets turned monstrous.

A haloed husk needs to feed on light to survive. Despite their animal cunning, husks can’t kindle flames or light lamps, instead stealing illumination from their surroundings. Ambient sunlight nourishes them during the day, but after sunset, they approach human settlements or campsites and attack the inhabitants to steal light from lanterns and hearth fires; in cold Northern climes, losing one’s campfire to a desperate husk can prove deadly. Exalted anima banners provide particularly potent sustenance.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 3; Join Battle: 6
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4x1/Extinguished
Actions: Feats of Strength: 6 dice (can attempt Strength 5 feats); Sense Light: 10 dice; Senses: 6 dice

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 6 dice (Damage 9)
Attack (Claw/Pummel): 7 dice (Damage 11)
Combat Movement: 5 dice
Evasion 2, Parry 1
Soak/Hardness: 3/3

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Blinding Light: Once per turn, reflexively spend one Willpower to gain +3 Evasion for one turn, as the light within becomes blinding. Anyone who can perceive the haloed husk must roll (Wits + Awareness), difficulty 3, to react quickly enough to look away; failure leaves them blinded (Exalted, p. 188) for the next round.

Luminescent Feast: For one Willpower, the husk rolls 10 dice at difficulty 1 to steal from a single light source within short range as a miscellaneous action, decreasing that source’s illumination level by one (see chart) and healing one bashing or lethal health level. Exalted anima banners pilfered this way decrease by one intensity level; however, if the light source has an Essence rating, the Luminescent Feast roll’s difficulty becomes (source’s Essence). If the husk spends consecutive rounds successfully stealing light from the same source, it doesn’t need to spend more than one Willpower.

Call the False Rains: For one Willpower, a haloed husk induces a Wyld sun shower as a miscellaneous action, as long as full sunlight or equivalent illumination shines upon it. This creates an environmental hazard with damage 1B/2 rounds, difficulty 5. The liquid sunlight left behind is a poison when ingested, dealing 4i/round (L in Crash) with duration 5 rounds and a −3 penalty; characters who would die to this poison transform into haloed husks instead. Husks are immune to these effects.

MERITS
Lambent Salve: Real light, such as Creation’s sunlight, frelight, Exalted anima banners, or light cast by artifacts, grants a haloed husk vigor and endurance. Add one −0 health level per level of light currently shining on the husk based on the chart below, which breaks illumination down into discrete levels for purposes of haloed husk systems. Without a source of real light, a husk takes one level of lethal damage per hour, ignoring Hardness. Wyld-generated light, including a husk’s own inner glow, provides no benefits.

Storyteller Tactics
Haloed husks are creatures of instinct. They create Wyld sun showers out of pure revelry; new husks born this way are just side effects. When sated, they’re violent and impulsive, while waning light or darkness makes them cunning in their desperation. They can operate doors and even use rudimentary tools if they have opposable thumbs, but are incapable of speech beyond guttural cries. While they’re not predisposed to pack tactics, a lone light source can draw several to the same point, and a pecking order quickly develops.

Animals with the Tiny Creature Merit are too small to become haloed husks; the liquid sunlight kills them outright. Conversely, creatures of Legendary Size suffer superficial burns if they drink the false sunlight, but are too large to be transformed. If a haloed husk suffers damage to its −4 health level due to lack of light, it curls in on itself like a banked coal and lies dormant rather than being Extinguished. It uses Luminescent Feast reflexively and subconsciously while dormant whenever sufficient light shines on it, and reawakens when it heals its first −1 health level.

Lambent Salve
# of Added −0
Health Levels Illumination Level
+0 Total darkness; no moon
+1 Candle; waning moon
+2 Torch; full moon; glowing anima banner*
+3 Campfire; burning anima banner*
+4 Massive bonfire; dawn/dusk; overcast/shaded daylight; bonfire anima banner*
+5 Raging inferno; full sunlight

* Solar Exalted anima banners count as one illumination level higher
If the light source is focused from a single point rather than ambient, lower its effective illumination by one step per range band the husk is from the source.

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	25. Anuhle, the Demon Spider, Demon of the First Circle
Anuhles are not a single type of First Circle demon, but a category of them. Most First Circle demons with the shape and behavior of a spider are called anuhles, though their purposes, colorations, and personalities differ depending on their Second Circle forebears, and they are many and varied. Generally, anuhles are web-weaving predators ranging in size between a large dog and a draft horse.

Anuhles descending from Calondra, Scribe of Tides Forgotten, attend to lost lore stashed within her manse. They weave forbidding tomes from their silk that can withstand the manse’s acidic environment, meticulously recording the activities of every being in the Demon City and the movements of its celestial bodies. In Creation, they weave alien structures instead, to lay eggs within that hatch not into more anuhles, but into eerie words — tales of demonic exploits written into earth, sea, and sky, imparting mind-warping lessons or prompting spontaneous quests to discover long-lost songs. These dog sized anuhles have bulbous abdomens like an orb-weaver, ranging in color from dusty blue to deep indigo.

Riotous anuhles descend from Stanewald, She Who Surmounted the Omphalos. Boisterous and destructive, these demon-spiders crawl out from rubble left behind after her dances. They cannot abide stoicism and prey upon those who refuse to dance. These anuhles possess a splash of rainbow color, with eight graceful legs and slender bodies riding low to the ground.

Octavian, the Living Tower, raises anuhles from his black oil and the viscera of those he’s slain. These vindictive, warlike anuhles gleefully hunt and kill lovers. They have a huntsman spider’s frightening shape and a warhorse’s size, and drip black ichor when they move. A sorcerer may summon the specific breed of anuhle she wishes to command, or leave it to Malfean whim.

Summoners call up anuhles to pursue or slay targets, weave their magical hell-silk, or perform more unique and disturbing deeds. Anuhles universally delight in the hunt, though their favored prey isn’t always people.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 6; Join Battle: 7 dice
Personal Motes: 70
Health Levels: −0x2/−1x6/−2x5/−4/Incap.
Speed Bonus: +3 (breeds large enough to serve as mounts)
Actions: Conceal/Disguise Webs: 8 dice; Feats of Strength: 7 dice (may attempt Strength 3 feats); Intimidate: 7 dice; Senses: 10 dice; Spin Silk: 12 dice; Stealth: 8 dice; Tracking: 8 dice
Resolve 3, Guile 3

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 10 dice (Damage 13)
Attack (Webbing grapple): 10 dice (10 to control)
Combat Movement: 12 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 3
Soak/Hardness: 8/5

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Dripping Fangs: An anuhle’s decisive bite attacks are venomous. The most common anuhle venom is a vitriolic toxin that deals 3i/round (L in Crash), with duration 5 rounds and a penalty of −4. Different breeds may have others.

MERITS
Sharp-Eyed Terror: Double 9s on all Senses and
Tracking rolls. Anuhles suffer no sight-based penalties for dim conditions or darkness, mundane or magical.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Hell-Silk Weaver (7m or 7m, 1wp; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 1): For seven motes, the anuhle may supplement a Spin Silk roll to create hell-silk instead, a lightweight material with the strength of a steel cable. Each supplemented Spin Silk action creates enough hell-silk to make one square yard of fabric. Alternatively, for seven motes and 1 Willpower, this Charm can supplement a grapple gambit, doubling 8s on the control roll and dealing one level of lethal damage to the grappled victim for every non-reflexive action she performs while clinched.

Principle of Motion (10m, 1wp; Reflexive; Instant; Essence 2): The anuhle moves with blinding speed, taking a flurry without the usual restrictions — it can flurry two of the same action if desired, and ignores the usual penalties to dice pools and Defense.

Silken Spike Offense (8m; Simple; Instant; Decisive-only; Essence 2): The anuhle weaves a footlong spike of hell-silk and propels it at a target within medium range, as a decisive attack with 10 dice that ignores up to 3 Hardness. An enemy damaged by the spike suffers one lethal damage die per round until she removes the spike, which requires destroying it or a difficulty 3 feat of strength.

Thread-Spinning Snare (3m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Eclipse; Essence 1): The anuhle sets a trap that deals no damage, filling the area out to close range from it with webbing. Anyone who enters the area is subject to a webbing grapple gambit using the anuhle’s traits, even if the demon isn’t present; the web itself performs the clinch, and can only restrain victims, although the anuhle is free to perform other actions and suffers no Defense penalties. In combat, this Charm requires a successful gambit with difficulty equal to motes spent. Hell-Silk Weaver and Web-Snaring Nightmare can supplement this Charm.

Web-Snaring Nightmare (5m; Supplemental; Until the clinch ends; Essence 2): If the anuhle restrains a grappled opponent after its first round of control, it may wrap the victim in webbing, allowing it to take other non-reflexive actions while the grapple continues and suffer no Defense penalties. The opponent’s penalties to attacks while clinched increase by one.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Leaping Demon-Spider Dodge (4m, 2i; Reflexive; Instant; Perilous; Essence 2): After successfully dodging an attack, the anuhle moves one range band away from the attacker in any direction. This Charm is usable once per scene, but it resets whenever the anuhle Incapacitates or kills a non-trivial opponent.

MOBILITY CHARMS
Monstrous Flying Leap (5m; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 1): The anuhle leaps, pounces, or sails on a string of silk, moving two range bands with one reflexive move action.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Bloodthirsty Stalker (5m; Simple; Indefinite; Essence 1): If the anuhle has tasted the target’s blood before (having dealt at least 1 level of lethal damage with a bite attack), it doubles 7s on rolls to track, follow, and find her; if she uses concealment magic, use an appropriate pool to roll off against the anuhle’s Senses or Tracking pool, depending on the situation.

Hurry Home (10m; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): The demon returns to its summoner’s side; unavailable when unbound.

Materialize (35m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): Spinning itself from fears and venom, the anuhle enters Creation in physical form.

Measure the Wind (5m; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): The anuhle can read anyone it has hunted and caught, or is currently hunting.

Storyteller Tactics
These traits reflect the basic competencies of any anuhle; each specific type has a few additional Charms, Merits, and/or special abilities to reflect its unique nature. For example, Calondra’s anuhles also possess Demon Lore: 7 dice. If requested, they may spend 3 motes to recite one random fact about Malfeas, demons and yozis, or celestial and seasonal cycles. Stanewald’s anuhles also possess Many-Legged Dances: 8 dice. By spending 5 motes and 1 Willpower, they automatically succeed at a feat of demolition requiring fewer than 10 successes.

Armor crafted from hell-silk gains the Silent tag and +2 Hardness. Mundane means cannot harm or destroy it, and it is immune to Dragon-Blooded anima flux.

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	25. Bat
Bats reside in all corners of Creation, from frosty caves amid Northern peaks to wooded habitats in the East, to Southern jungles and Western isles. Some Dynasts even keep them as curious pets on the Blessed Isle. Anywhere darkness offers shelter and fruits or insects abound, bats  thrive. These small creatures pose little harm to humans, though their erratic flight and tendency to rush the nearest target when startled inspire tales of bats as nightmarish, bloodthirsty creatures that gouge out eyes or excoriate flesh. Several larger, carnivorous species feast on frogs, mice, and other bats. As nocturnal hunters, they prefer to rest until nightfall. Abandoned ruins make ideal homes for them, and the sudden swarming of an agitated colony has driven away many an aspiring scavenger lord.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 3; Join Battle: 4 dice
Health Levels: −0/−1/−2/−4/Incap.
Actions: Fly: 8 dice; Senses: 7 dice (see Echolocation, Keen Hearing); Stealth: 4 dice
Resolve 1, Guile 2
COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 6 dice (Damage 5)
Combat Movement: 8 dice
Evasion 3, Parry 1 (see Tiny Creature)
Soak/Hardness: 1/0

MERITS
Echolocation: Bats perceive their surroundings via bursts of sound too high-pitched for humans to hear. They never take penalties to Senses rolls for low light or blindness, and they double 8s on rolls to find or notice characters in concealment.

Keen Hearing: Double 9s on hearing-based Senses rolls.

Tiny Creature: Gain +2 Evasion against foes larger than a housecat. Characters of that size subtract two successes from Awareness rolls to notice the bat.

Storyteller Tactics
Individual bats rarely attack people, but many find their flight patterns and sudden movements alarming. Some bats feed on blood, and when intruders enter such a bat’s hunting ground, it bites the target with the least armor or most exposed skin. Once it deals one level of decisive damage, it flies off to avoid retaliation. Although the injuries are small, the bat’s saliva prevents wounds from closing. The punctures continue bleeding until the victim can clean them. A lone bat flees when it takes damage to its first −1 health level. Bat colonies swarm intruders near their nests, flying in a chaotic pattern as a battle group with Size 1, Poor Drill, and Might 0.

Alchemists seek out bat nests for their deposits of guano, a potent ingredient in many thaumaturgic rituals. It can also be refined into an explosive reagent as a major project, requiring a week’s worth of labor and a difficulty 3 Craft (Alchemy) roll. This transmutes one fstful of bat guano with a sprinkling of red jade shavings into a half dozen charges of fredust, or enough for two fredust grenades.

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	26. Sky Titan
Native to Southeastern jungles, these massive creatures are both tremendous lizard and terrible raptor. Immense, broad wings stretch to more than 50 feet across. Their feathers, arrayed in a violent spray of colors, form fearsome patterns when their wings unfurl. Many an explorer’s last moments come while glancing up to see the beast’s razor-sharp beak as it strikes like a comet. If a victim is unlucky, the sky titan toys with its prey, shaking and flinging him around to soften him up before devouring him.

The sight of its crested head and enormous beak rising above the treeline, or the fierce winds from the downbeat of its gigantic wings, is enough to turn squads of hardened soldiers back to seek another route. The sky titan has snatching talons powerful enough to seize an adult and fly away with him, and is covered from head to toe in glittering, impenetrable scales. Only the boldest heroes can tame a sky titan as a mount — for they must survive battle with the beast — but those who succeed become masters of the air.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 6; Join Battle: 8 dice
Health Levels: −0x2/−1x5/−2x5/−4x2/Incap.
Speed Bonus: +4
Actions: Feats of Strength: 10 dice (may attempt Strength 5 feats); Fly: 5 dice (9 dice at vertical long range or higher); Intimidate: 12 dice; Senses: 9 dice (see Keen Nose); Tracking: 8 dice
Resolve 3, Guile 1

COMBAT
Attack (Beak): 9 dice (Damage 18, minimum 6; Piercing)
Attack (Talons): 10 dice (Damage 16)
Attack (Wing): 8 dice (Damage 14)
Attack (Talon Grapple): 11 dice (10 to control)
Combat Movement: 12 dice (see Master of the
Sky)
Evasion 4 (see Master of the Sky), Parry 3
Soak/Hardness: 12/4

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Clamp Down: Once per scene, a sky titan that deals 3+ levels of damage with a decisive talon attack may pay one Willpower to immediately begin grappling its victim without a gambit, reflexively making the opposed control roll. Add +1 to the base Initiative the creature resets to for every round of control it gains.

Dominating Battlecry: The sky titan surveys the battlefield and trumpets its supremacy. When its Initiative is the highest among battle participants by 15 or more, it may spend 10 Initiative to regain one Willpower.

Fearsome Display: Spreading its wings, the sky titan terrifies all who behold it. Once per scene, roll Intimidate once and apply it against the Resolve of each character who can see it. Those whose Resolve it overcomes must flee in terror until they reach extreme range from the titan, or pay one Willpower to resist. Mundane animals and mortals automatically flee without magical intervention, and can’t resist with Willpower. If the sky titan Incapacitates or kills a non-trivial opponent, this ability resets.

Ground-Churning Strafe Attack: The sky titan drags its massive talons across the battlefield as a combat action, clawing at the turf as it charges. The upturned earth and deep gouges it leaves create a swath of difficult terrain.

Horizon-Sweeping Wingspan: Spend one Willpower. With a mighty downbeat of its wings, the sky titan makes a single withering wing attack applied against all enemies within close range. This attack knocks any enemies who take damage from it back one range band, and the titan may take a reflexive move action in any direction, which doesn’t count as its move action for the turn. It gains full Initiative from the target who took the most damage, +1 for each other target who took any damage. For a second Willpower point, it may flurry the initial wing attack with a withering or decisive beak attack. This ability may be used once per scene, but resets whenever the sky titan’s wound penalty increases.

Spine-Shattering Emperor’s Beak: Striking with an apex predator’s skill and all the force its impressively elongated neck can provide, the sky titan may make beak attacks at short range. If the target hasn’t acted yet this turn or is in Initiative Crash, successful decisive beak attacks made at short range reset the titan to 6 Initiative instead of 3, and successful withering piercing beak attacks made at short range ignore up to 7 armor soak instead of 4.

MERITS
Keen Nose: Double 9s on scent-based Senses rolls. Sky titans use their tongues to aid in smelling.

Legendary Size: The sky titan suffers no onslaught penalties from attacks from smaller opponents, unless they’re magically inflicted. Withering attacks from smaller enemies cannot Crash it unless they have at least 10 post-soak damage dice, although attackers still gain the full amount of Initiative damage dealt. Decisive attacks from smaller enemies cannot deal more than (3 + attacker’s Strength) levels of damage, not counting levels added by Charms or other magic.

Master of the Sky: The sky titan suffers no penalties for moving over difficult terrain while on the ground, but takes a −3 penalty to combat movement actions while flying at low altitudes (vertical medium range from the ground or lower). It gains +3 Evasion while soaring at vertical long range or higher, as long as it hasn’t taken any combat actions within the scene. It can fly continuously at 80 miles an hour for up to 10 days without rest at high altitudes.

Overwhelming Might: Sky titans make unopposed grapple control rolls against enemies of smaller size, unless the victims use magic allowing them to grapple larger foes, such as Dragon Coil Technique (Exalted, p. 280).

Thick Scales: The sky titan does not subtract wound penalties from its Defense. In addition, attacks made from short range or further reduce their minimum damage against the sky titan by one unless they benefit from an Aim action.

Storyteller Tactics
The sky titan dominates the battlefield from the ground, keeping enemies at bay with Fearsome Display and Horizon-Sweeping Wingspan, stymying their advance with Ground-Churning Strafe, then picking them off one by one with its beak, using its elongated neck to its advantage. It’s a clumsy flier at low altitudes due to its bulk, so it usually refrains from getting airborne unless it’s trying to disengage or withdraw — or it’s already won. When a challenger does get within close range, the sky titan lashes out with its sharp, deadly talons. Grappling an opponent and dropping him from an impressive height is simultaneously an attempt to harm the enemy and a display of the titan’s dominance, but a foe’s allies can take advantage of its poor flying skills at low altitudes to rescue him before it climbs too high. Fiercely territorial, a sky titan defends its domain against any who would challenge its sovereignty. Because of its extensive flight range, it considers its domain to extend out to the horizon — and sometimes beyond. A sky titan only flees battle after taking damage to its fifth −2 health level.

A sky titan is a 3-dot Familiar.

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	26. Storm Serpent
Born of the fury of a thunderstorm, storm serpents are wild, terrifying expressions of elemental might. Draconic in form, they can stretch for more than 100 meters. Their iron-hard scales are the color of storm clouds, letting them blend in exceptionally well with their native habitat and strike without warning. Like lightning, they lash out at the tallest targets fest; unlike lightning, they are vindictive, even petty, fixating on a single individual and tormenting him with lightning strikes like a cat playing with its prey. However, for all their power, storm serpents are short-lived: They expire with the end of the storm. As they shatter, they precipitate a white dust valued by savants for its curative properties.

Essence: 4; Willpower: 7; Join Battle: 9
Personal Motes: 90
Health Levels: −0x4/−1x4/−2x4/−4x2/Incap.
Intimacies: Defining: “Strike! Smash! Destroy!”; Major: That Which Will Outlive Me (Jealous Fury); “I despise trickery!”
Actions: Feats of Destruction: 12 dice (can attempt Strength 7 feats); Fly: 10 dice; Resist Disease/Poison: 8 dice; Senses: 9 dice; Stealth: 7 dice
Appearance 4, Resolve 5, Guile 2

COMBAT
Attack (Tail strike): 11 dice (Damage 10)
Attack (Bite): 9 dice (Damage 8)
Attack (Claw): 12 dice (Damage 6)
Combat Movement: 12 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 4
Soak/Hardness: 14/12

Offensive Charms
Fulminating Blast (11m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Decisive-only; Essence 3): The storm serpent gathers Essence in a crackle of electricity, then lets fly with a tremendous lightning bolt. Roll 12 dice for this unblockable decisive attack, which adds up to 8 extra successes on the attack roll as dice of damage.

Thunderous Rebuke (8m; Supplemental; Instant; Withering-only; Essence 3): This Charm applies a single withering tail strike attack to the individual Defenses of all targets within short range; the storm serpent gains full Initiative from the target who took the most damage, +1 for each additional target who took any damage, plus any gained from Initiative Break.

DEFENSIVE CHARMS
Evaporating Defense (7m; Reflexive; Instant; Perilous, Uniform; Essence 2): The storm serpent was born from lightning, wind, and water, and can become them. The storm serpent gains +2 Evasion until its next turn, and reduces withering damage by half before applying soak (rounded up).

Live Wire (5m; Reflexive; Instant; Counterattack, Withering-only; Essence 2): The storm serpent responds to any ranged or close attack it attempts to parry with an 11-die withering counterattack, representing a shock of lightning. It occurs after the attack is rolled but before damage is rolled; it doesn’t count as the serpent’s combat action, and the serpent only gains 1 Initiative no matter how much damage it deals with this counterattack.

MOBILITY CHARMS
Ascending to the Heavens (5m, 5i; Simple; Instant; Eclipse, Perilous; Essence 3): Storm systems can stretch for miles, and storm serpents are impatient. The serpent transforms into a massive fusillade of lightning, arcing from cloud to cloud; at the beginning of its next turn, it arrives at a new location, ready to act. This Charm functions from any location within the storm that birthed the serpent where lightning could plausibly strike, including within storm clouds, and can take the serpent to any such location within the bounds of the same storm. Attackers cannot target the storm serpent while it’s in transit. Eclipses can use this Charm in any storm, but using it in a storm with an active storm serpent is dangerous — they’re highly territorial. A wise Eclipse plans to land somewhere solid for her final location — a rooftop, a spire, a high cliff ledge — or risks plummeting from the sky.

Storyteller Tactics
A storm serpent isn’t given to negotiation, nor is it easily controllable without binding it to one’s will through summoning. However, an Exalt (or a brave mortal) may be able to talk one of these elementals into fixating on a specific target by appealing to its vanity and pride. Storm serpents have precious few weaknesses save their short lifespans, and are usually only vulnerable to attack when near the ground.

Challenged directly, a storm serpent dashes every structure it can find to flinders before turning its rage directly upon those who oppose it, relishing the moment when they realize they have no shelter. Storm serpents never turn aside their destructive fury, never flee or surrender — their lives are too short to shamefully waste, and they punish foes for thinking they could challenge the spirit of the storm itself.

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	27. Makarios, the Sigil’s Dreamer, Demon of the Second Circle
Makarios appears as a youth with hair of copper wire and a rainbow shimmer upon his eyes. His foremost desire is to spread his sigil across Creation, binding mortal dreams to him. Sorcerers call Makarios to advise them in trade negotiations or to bargain for his otherworldly treasures. Crueler summoners set the demon to tormenting foes in dreams.

Those wishing to bargain with Makarios must do so in dreams, where he resides in a citadel of apple-green chrysoprase and white alabaster, filled with sensual delights. The wonders Makarios offers are rarely found in Creation: gems of crystalline sorrow, nightmare-scented perfumes, the language of toads. His cost is always fair, though well-negotiated.

Essence: 5; Willpower: 7; Join Battle: 8 dice
Personal Motes: 100
Health Levels: −0x1/−1x3/−2x5/−4x3/Incap.
Intimacies: Defining: “Expand the ranks of my sigil-bearers.”; “Breaking bargains is unforgivable.”; Major: “Bring my goods to broader markets.”; Sigil-Bearers (Possessiveness); Minor: The Guild (Fondness)
Actions: Appraise Goods: 12 dice; Bargain: 14 dice; Crafting: 12 dice; Demon City Lore: 7 dice; Economics: 10 dice; Investigate: 7 dice; Read Intentions: 9 dice; Senses: 8 dice; Social Influence: 10 dice; Tracking: 5 dice
Appearance 4, Resolve 5, Guile 4

COMBAT
Attack (Unarmed): 10 dice (Damage 10)
Combat Movement: 6 dice
Evasion 3, Parry 3
Soak/Hardness: 8/4

MERITS
Cult 2: Sigil-bearers pray for relief that never comes.

Demon-Merchant’s Prerogative: Any social influence that would compel Makarios to give away his wares without a fair deal is unacceptable (Exalted, p. 220), including commands from a sorcerer who’s bound him.

Dream-Binding Sigil: A character with Occult 5, or Occult 3 and a specialty in Demons, may make a difficulty 3 (Intelligence + [lower of Linguistics or Occult]) roll to draw Makarios’ sigil on the brow of a willing or helpless mortal. Marked mortals can’t regain Willpower from sleep, and can’t dream at all unless Makarios visits them. Every (10 – Integrity) days a marked character with zero Willpower goes without recovering any Willpower, she either gains the Minor Madness Derangement (Exalted, p. 168), or increases the Derangement’s intensity one step if she already has it.

Removing the mark unbinds her dreams, but doesn’t remove Derangements. She can wash away an inked or painted sigil, but a branded or scarred sigil must be removed either with magic capable of healing crippling injuries or by cutting away the marked flesh, which inflicts four dice of lethal damage that can’t be negated or prevented.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Prismatic Cloud Touch (6m, 3i; Supplemental; Instant; Dual, Eclipse, Perilous; Essence 3): Wreathing a hand in a colorful haze of dreams and nightmares, Makarios saps his foe’s will. A withering attack that crashes an enemy, or decisive attack that hits an enemy, supplemented by this Charm steals one Willpower from the target; this can increase Makarios’ Willpower beyond its maximum, but excess unspent points vanish at the end of the scene.

Tarnished Trinket Glint (7m; Simple; Instant; Decisive-only, Eclipse, Psyche; Essence 3): Roll 12 dice (Eclipses use [Manipulation + Bureaucracy]) against the Resolve of an enemy within medium range as a difficulty 4 gambit. Success makes the victim see an illusory treasure somewhere within medium range of Makarios, tailored to appeal to one of her Major or Defining Intimacies. She must move toward it, and can’t attack any target until she reaches it. The Solar Charm Eye of the Unconquered Sun and comparable effects render characters immune to this Charm.

SOCIAL CHARMS
Gates of the Dreaming Market (5m, 1wp [+10m, 1wp]; Simple; One dream; Eclipse; Essence 3): Makarios enters the dreams of a sleeping character whose approximate location he knows, letting him speak to and engage in social influence with her. Objects held or worn by both participants’ physical bodies accompany them; any exchanged objects appear at the recipient’s physical location. Makarios doubles 9s on all actions if the dreamer bears his sigil. (Eclipses can’t gain this benefit.)

At any time, Makarios can commit a 10-mote, 1-Willpower surcharge to change the dream into a nightmare in which he and the dreamer can harm each other, with damage and other deleterious effects carrying over to their physical bodies. It’s not possible to die this way — Incapacitated characters lose all Willpower instead.

Lotus-Gilding Tongue (5m; Supplemental; Instant; Essence 5): Double 8s on a bargain roll. Double 7s instead if Makarios offers something he crafted from otherworldly materials.

Waking Dream Affliction (10m, 1wp; Simple; One scene; Eclipse, Psyche; Essence 3): Roll 12 dice (Eclipses use [Manipulation + Bureaucracy]) against the Resolve of one or more characters. Affected characters perceive an illusion — either an alteration to the environment, or an illusory entity up to the size of a house — as real, unless physical interaction with it reveals otherwise. Characters can spend 1 Willpower to resist if their belief in the illusion imperils a Major or Defining Intimacy.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Heartfelt Treasures Appraisal (8m, 1wp; Simple; One scene; Eclipse; Essence 4): Makarios perfectly ignores attempts to misrepresent the value of objects offered for sale or trade, including Psyche effects like the Solar Charm Soul-Snaring Pitch (Exalted, p. 286), unless the seller’s sole motivation is upholding a Defining Intimacy, not profit. Makarios can free others from such influence by informing them of the truth. He automatically discerns any Ties a seller has to her wares.

Hurry Home (10m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): On his next turn, Makarios vanishes to his summoner’s side; unavailable while unbound.

Materialize (50m, 1wp; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): Makarios appears from a swirl of prismatic mist.

Measure the Wind (5m; Simple; Instant; Essence 1): Makarios determines the nature of a sigil-bearer or someone bargaining with him.

Sigil-Seeking (10m; Simple; One scene; Essence 3): Double 7s on Senses-based rolls against sigil-bearers.

Storyteller Tactics
Makarios offers unique and valuable treasures. He accepts many forms of compensation — vast sums of currency, artifacts, favors, and so on — but his favorite deal by far is payment in unwilling mortals marked with his sigil. Confronted with moral objections to this, he expresses polite bemusement. Makarios can’t threaten the Exalted in combat. If negotiations fail, he disorients enemies with Waking Dream Affliction and stalls the strongest foe with Tarnished Trinket Glint, then dematerializes and flees. His true weapons are his connections in Creation; take this opportunity to introduce unique and colorful antagonists — cultists, sorcerers, Exigents, the Guild, etc. He has no mercy for those who renege on deals with him, and exacts punishments ranging from tormented dreams to sending minions or the indebted to harass the perpetrator in the waking world.