Cloud-Person

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.