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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 />
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