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Martial Arts - Voidstate

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Enacting this Form, the House of Endings<br />

adept takes on the relaxed posture of<br />

a professional killer. By allowing the<br />

destinies of Endings to guide him, he can<br />

hurry people along to their ends, gaining<br />

a damage bonus to his attacks equal to the<br />

target’s current wound penalty, ignoring<br />

any wound-penalty reducing effects, such<br />

as Insensible Corpse Technique.<br />

The Sidereal’s attitude of professionalism<br />

gains him the favor of the College of the<br />

Crow. Under its auspices, his attacks gain<br />

an air of fated certainty, and only those<br />

adept at escaping the strictures of Fate<br />

can avoid them. The maximum number of<br />

successes on a parry or dodge against the<br />

martial artist’s unarmed <strong>Martial</strong> <strong>Arts</strong> attacks<br />

is equal to the defender’s relevant Ability,<br />

plus her permanent Essence for defenders<br />

whose Essence is awakened. This favor<br />

is incompatible with effects that forcibly<br />

give the adept automatic successes on his<br />

attacks, such as the Five Jade Fury; for any<br />

given attack, the martial artist much choose<br />

which effect she benefits from.<br />

Finally, Sidereal masters of the Colleges of<br />

Endings (those who have at least five dots in<br />

a particular College) are able to use unusual<br />

weapons with the House of Endings Style;<br />

deep initiation into the study of destiny<br />

allows them to manipulate these items in<br />

ways that reinforce the sorrowful edges of<br />

their fates. All of these unusual weapons<br />

are treated as wind-fire wheels.<br />

Corpse: Textbooks.<br />

Crow: Feathered cloaks.<br />

Haywain: Sleeves of a tattered robe.<br />

Rising Smoke: Good luck prayer strips.<br />

Sword: Wreaths of withered flowers.<br />

This is a <strong>Martial</strong> <strong>Arts</strong> Form-type Charm<br />

and is incompatible with other Charms of<br />

like type; should the martial artist activate<br />

another Form, this one immediately ends.<br />

This Charm is incompatible with armour.<br />

DRAGONFLY-AND-NYMPH<br />

DEFENCE<br />

Cost: 3 motes, 1 Willpower<br />

Type: Simple<br />

Duration: One Scene<br />

Min. Ability: 4<br />

Min. Essence: 3<br />

Prereqs: House of Endings Form<br />

The College of the Corpse governs the<br />

end of lives and metamorphic creatures.<br />

With his understanding of this College, the<br />

Reckoner can transform one defence into<br />

another, escaping his end in the process<br />

- he can apply any effect that specifies a<br />

<strong>Martial</strong> <strong>Arts</strong> parry to a dodge as well, and<br />

vice versa.<br />

NAMELESS SALT, DISTANT IRON<br />

Cost: 5 motes, 1 Willpower<br />

Type: Simple<br />

Duration: One Scene<br />

Min. Ability: 5<br />

Min. Essence: 3<br />

Prereqs: Dragonfly-and-Nymph<br />

Defence<br />

Settling his anima in the constellation of<br />

the Haywain, the Exalt makes his boundaries<br />

indistinct. His weapons become misty rings<br />

in his hands, and his outline shifts and<br />

blurs. To parry these half-unseen strikes,<br />

the defender must succeed at a Perception<br />

+ Awareness roll at a difficulty of the martial<br />

artist’s Essence; failure indicates that she<br />

miscalculated the attack’s position and her<br />

parry fails.<br />

In addition, while this Charm is in effect,<br />

the adept’s own demise is blurred, and<br />

he may continue on fighting after he is<br />

reduced to the Incapacitated Health Level,<br />

though at a -4 penalty to his dice pools, for<br />

as many turns as his Essence. This Charm is<br />

incompatible with armour.<br />

WEEPING SURGEON CHANT<br />

Cost: 3 motes<br />

Type: Supplemental<br />

Duration: Instant<br />

Min. Ability: 4<br />

Min. Essence: 3<br />

Prereqs: House of Endings Form<br />

Softly singing the 53 Names of the Sword<br />

helps the adept to craft attacks so savage<br />

that they cause the heart to quail and<br />

wives to burst into tears upon seeing their<br />

wounds. An unarmed <strong>Martial</strong> <strong>Arts</strong> attack<br />

supported by this Charm inflicts wounds<br />

that cannot be healed naturally, and when<br />

healing is assisted by magic, they are<br />

healed as wounds of the next higher level<br />

of severity, with regard both to the penalty<br />

the wound assesses and its damage type<br />

(bashing, lethal, or aggravated).<br />

MEASURE-OF-IMPEDIMENT PALM<br />

Cost: 7 motes<br />

Type: Supplemental<br />

Duration: Instant<br />

Min. Ability: 5<br />

Min. Essence: 3<br />

Prereqs: Weeping Surgeon<br />

Chant<br />

With an opened hand and the mudra of<br />

the Rising Smoke, the Exalt pushes his<br />

opponent backward along his path toward<br />

a goal, causing his progress to break<br />

down and ruining any momentum he had<br />

collected. He makes an unarmed <strong>Martial</strong><br />

<strong>Arts</strong> attack and determines his damage<br />

pool as normal; he may, instead of dealing<br />

damage, give an injury to the target’s future.<br />

He may exchange any number of dice out<br />

of his damage pool after soak, for each<br />

die exchanged, one roll the target makes<br />

toward accomplishing a particular goal<br />

has its difficulty increased to the martial<br />

artist’s Essence. This goal may be as simple<br />

as “Survive attack” or as complex and farreaching<br />

as “Find and restore the Manse of<br />

my ancestors.” This impediment manifests<br />

indiscriminately, at every available<br />

opportunity.<br />

CROW FIST<br />

Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower<br />

Type: Simple<br />

Duration: Instant<br />

Min. Ability: 5<br />

Min. Essence: 3<br />

Prereqs: Nameless Salt, Distant<br />

Iron and Measure-of-<br />

Impediment Palm<br />

Making the Superior Sign of the Crow,<br />

the master of the House of Endings shatters<br />

the illusions and dreams of his opponents.<br />

This is an unarmed <strong>Martial</strong> <strong>Arts</strong> attack that<br />

can destroy any object that exists mainly<br />

in the mind: love, ambition, a career, an<br />

organizational structure, a problematic<br />

personality trait, and so forth. It can<br />

be used against this object itself--this is<br />

useful when dealing with relationships<br />

and organizations--or it can be used on a<br />

physical target whose mind contains the<br />

thing to be destroyed.<br />

In the first case, the martial artist rolls<br />

his <strong>Martial</strong> <strong>Arts</strong>, adding successes equal to<br />

his Essence, at a difficulty of the highest<br />

Essence of beings that are a part of the<br />

object in question. Success indicates that<br />

the object is destroyed, though its collapse<br />

may not be immediate, especially in the case<br />

30

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