[ww80105] Manual of Exalted Power - Infernals.pdf - Vakermit.com

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candidate prove very likely to fall short of his prospective
masters’ expectations, the Yozis can cast him aside before he
takes his poisoned Second Breath, redirecting the Exaltation
that might have been his to a more worthy hero.
THE TAINTED EXALTATION
The Solar Exaltations stolen from the Jade Prison are the
crucial components on which the Yozis’ plans depend, and
so, they deserve special care and attention. Working together
as they had not since the Primordial War, the Ebon Dragon
and his four main allies laboriously unraveled the secrets of
what the deserter Autochthon had wrought. Having done
so, if only theoretically, they understood exactly how the
Exaltations worked and how they turned human beings into
titan-slaying powerhouses. Despite their knowledge, however,
the Yozis could not create fresh Exaltations of their own from
whole cloth. The alteration of their natures resulting from
the destruction of their integral souls makes such feats of
creation impossible. Instead, the Yozis chipped away certain
undesirable aspects from the Exaltations the Deathlords
gathered for them. They warped other aspects infinitesimally
and tainted what was left with a tremendous outpouring of
their power. The result is a collection of Exaltations that are
functionally similar to Solar Exaltations but wholly different
from and antithetical to them nonetheless.
One aspect of the Exaltations that the Yozis could
not safely overwrite is the Exaltation’s imperative to move
unseen and at speeds beyond thought to seek out mortals
whose fates resonated with echoes of heroic destiny. The
Yozis were able to hold the Exaltations while they worked
on them, but they knew well that once they implanted them
into their first generation of Infernal Exalts, they would lose
control of those Exaltations if (rather, when) their first Green
Sun Princes were struck down. As a safety precaution, then,
they added a specific alteration to every Exaltation in their
possession. This alteration can be conceived of as a minute
anchor point, and to each such anchor the Yozis attached an
unbreakable filament of personal destiny. They then braided
the ends of these filaments to one another and spliced the
braid onto the frayed end of the destiny of a certain human
girl in their possession, whose mother offered her to the Yozis
several years ago. Now, whenever an Infernal Exaltation is
not currently bonded with a once-mortal’s soul, its tether
filament retracts toward this girl and is cradled within her
body—yet not affixed to her soul—until the time comes to
grant that Exaltation to another.
The presence of so many infernally tainted Exaltations
circulating within her has had undeniable effects on her.
Not surprisingly, the constant deluge of Hell-taint coursing
through her every nerve, blood vessel and chakra has
driven her completely insane. On her best days, she is simply
catatonic, peering into the middle distance and occasionally
weeping tears of vitriol and poison gossamer. On the
worst days, she raves demented prophecies at the top of her
voice while thrashing spasmodically, chewing at her ever-
regenerating flesh or furiously pleasuring herself with whatever
doomed First Circle demon she can snatch unawares.
For all that her mind has been ruined, the changes her
physical body has undergone are worse. Gone is the beautiful
12-year-old girl whose flesh the Ebon Dragon refused to
mar with his fangs as he carried her into Hell in his mouth,
even as his tongues tore away her clothes and explored her
succulent flesh. What was once that girl has warped and
stretched and bloated into a blasphemous caricature of
feminine hideousness. Her skin is discolored with rot and
diseases unknown even within the Well of Udr, sometimes
eerily lit from within as a trapped Infernal Exaltation comes
too close to the surface. Drooling orifices of all sizes and descriptions
(often combining characteristics of different types
in one) open periodically in her flesh, occasionally crawling
languidly across her like insects on a corpse. New varieties
of the Things That Dwell in Corners sometimes seep from
these openings and skitter into the darkness.
Ranks of erymanthoi guard this treasured monstrosity,
and hosts of anhules take care of her as best they can. For all
the power that courses through her tortured body, she has
no access to any of it and can barely tend to the needs of
her still-living body. New Infernal Exalts are taught to love
and revere this poor thing as the phylactery-womb whence
comes their awesome power. Some take perverse delight
in calling her “Mother.” Others refer to her with endless
condescending pity as “Sister.” Most cannot bear to speak
of her at all. Of the rest, those who are aware of it use the
name given her at birth in Creation—Lillun.
THE MECHANISM
With the Infernal Exaltations bound to their phylactery-womb,
the process of finding a worthy mortal and
empowering him is necessarily a more active one than is
typical of Solar or Abyssal Exaltation. When a new Green
Sun Prince is needed, the Ebon Dragon or one of his coconspirators
approaches Lillun with a First Circle demon
in tow. The Yozi presents the demon to Lillun and gives
specific orders to both about what it expects of them. The
demon and the phylactery-womb then come together in a
grotesque act that is simultaneously copulation and ingestion.
Lillun takes the demon wholly into herself and holds
it there. At that point, the Yozi fishes up one of the Infernal
Exaltations from within Lillun’s soul and places it within the
First Circle demon. The Exaltation need not be one that the
Yozi has claimed for himself, but the demon into which the
Yozi implants the Exaltation must come from the Yozi who
lays claim to the Exaltation. For instance, the Ebon Dragon
can call forth one of the erstwhile-Night-Caste Exaltations
on Adorjan’s behalf, but he cannot implant it into one of
his own First Circle demons. He must implant it into one of
Adorjan’s First Circle demons. Regardless, when the Exaltation
is safely enwrapped thus, Lillun regurgitates (excretes,
delivers…) the demon back to its master. The Yozi then
pays out a measure of slack into the filament connecting the
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