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

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the tainted Exaltation empowered his soul, his time in the
chrysalis also worked a change in his very body.
The first level of change is mostly cosmetic. The Exaltation
clears up scars, blemishes, modest asymmetry and
other subtler imperfections in the Infernal’s appearance. It
straightens his limbs, rids him of disease and restores him to
the prime of youthful vigor regardless of how old he is. The
Green Sun Prince rises from his cocoon a more pristine and
beautiful specimen than he ever could have been in the life
he leaves behind.
There is a more overt physical element to the transformation
an Infernal undergoes in his chrysalis as well. While
he’s encased, he absorbs the simple soul of the demon who
carried his Exaltation to him. That demon’s essence (and
Essence) seeps into his every component particle, making
him not only stronger and tougher and better looking, but
more physically demonic as well. The degree to which the
demon’s physique influences the Infernal’s own varies from
Exalt to Exalt, but the transformed traits are clearly visible to
one who understands infernal morphology and knows what
to look for. For instance, a blood-ape might leave its Infernal
charge simply broader in the shoulder or more hirsute, but
it might also leave him with slightly elongated and overly
muscled arms as well as a thicker jawbone and gleaming red
eyes. An Infernal whose chrysalis was a luminata might emerge
with porcelain-pale skin and ropy strands of… something…
wriggling visibly beneath. Then again, he might find that in
place of skin or flesh he is covered with nothing but a mass
of ropy, white tendrils. An agata might change a mortal’s
fingernails and toenails from translucent keratin to venous
panels similar in appearance to its own wings. Alternatively,
the Infernal might find that he has iridescent compound eyes
and that in place of his human genitals he now has a wickedly
barbed stinger. One who transforms within a teodozjia
chrysalis might come out with skin that gleams like jade in
certain light, or he might have leonine facial features and
a lush mane. The influence of a chrysogona chrysalis might
cause an Infernal’s eyes to continuously seep yellow-green
tears, but it could just as easily elongate the Infernal’s fingers
to extreme lengths, adding additional knuckles so as not to
interfere with the Green Sun Prince’s dexterity.
The variety of possible demonic physical characteristics
is as wide as that of the multitudes of First Circle demons at
the Yozis’ command. The extent to which one resembles the
demon that brought him his Exaltation is random, though
many akuma and demon-cultists consider such characteristics
to be indicative of the Yozis’ esteem. The Green Sun Princes
hold no such prejudices over one another, however. They
know that they are equal in their masters’ eyes. Those who
are wise speculate no further along those lines.
THE INFERNAL MIND
For all that an Infernal Exalt’s body changes within the
Chrysalis Grotesque, her mind undergoes just as thorough a
transformation. The human mind, it seems, does not come
naturally predisposed to serve and please a Yozi master. To
make a mortal into a valued, loyal servant takes some tinkering.
The first round of this tinkering occurs within the chrysalis, as
the erstwhile demon’s flesh flows over the mortal’s body and
her vision is plunged into darkness. When the initial darkness
clears, the mortal finds herself in a nightmarish hellscape in
which she is deluged by a torrent of alien memories of loss
and tragedy and frustrated rage. (It is unclear whether these
memories come directly from the Yozis or from the Solar
Exalt who once possessed the tainted Exaltation.) Snatches
of memory—some of which goes all the way back to the
Primordial War—blast through the Infernal’s mind, and the
shinmaic design schema on which Creation itself was based
dance in tantalizing swirls just at the edge of comprehension.
The experience is ecstatic, sublime, agonizing and heartbreaking,
and most Infernal Exalts remember only vague, dreamlike
fragments of it. As intense as it is, however, it is nothing more
than an anaesthetizing distraction from the delicate work the
Yozi must perform on the Exalt’s mind and soul.
THE TRIUMPH OF THE WILL
The mental reconstruction a Yozi forces a Green Sun
Prince to undergo is, indeed, quite delicate, for the Green
Sun Princes must retain their free will. For all that the Yozis
alter their Exalts’ minds, they must be careful not to break or
extinguish that characteristic. At first, however, there was
considerable disagreement on the subject of free will. She
Who Lives in Her Name objected vociferously and at great
length against it, claiming that their original decision to grant
the gods even their limited freedom of choice ultimately
resulted in tragedy and imprisonment. In her opinion, the
Green Sun Princes should have been spiritually shackled to
their masters more so even than the akuma are. Malfeas supported
this view, fearing treachery from those whose purpose
it was to set the Yozis free.
As the primary architect of their shared agenda, the
Ebon Dragon argued against making the Infernal Exalted into
simple slaves. His reasoning was threefold. First, he pointed
out that a being with free will has greater power to adapt to
unexpected circumstances and is far more capable of taking
initiative when events warrant it. (Such, he added, was the
reason they had allowed the gods what free will they had.)
Second, the Ebon Dragon argued, the nature of the
allied co-conspirators had to be considered. Even though
they all wanted to achieve the same thing—freedom, followed
by conquest and ultimately reclamation of what they’d
lost—they all had different ideas about how achieve it. They
would work together as well as they could be convinced to,
but there would definitely come times when one or more
Yozis would want to deploy his assets as he saw fit without
his peers vetting his strategy. If that happened (and here the
Ebon Dragon had to tread carefully), it was just possible that
an independent deployment might, in hindsight, turn out to
have been a rash, ill-conceived flight of fancy. Given what
rare and precious assets the Green Sun Princes would be, the
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