sol invictus.indd

CHAPTER 1 • CHARM DESIGNthematically with its effects? See below for a morein-depth discussion of Solar Charm costs.Look over the Charm one last time. This is the stagewhere you have to rely on intuition — compareyour completed Charm to other Charms and see if it“feels” right. After applying whatever final tweaksare necessary, your Charm is complete.SOLAR CHARM EFFECTSSolars are in some ways the most flexible of theExalted. Because they have the fewest ties tospecific methodologies and styles, Solar Charmsaren’t limited to a narrow range of special effects;because they represent the pinnacle of basic humanachievement, Solars can perform incredibly wellin any field. There are still limits on what sorts ofpowers the Solar Exalted may develop, however. Ingeneral, their Charms fall into one of the followingcategories.Peerless Skills. By far the majority of Solar Charms arestraightforward extensions of their mortal abilities.These Charms let Solars perform actions that arenatural extensions of human skill in a certain field.Combat skill Charms let a Solar fight faster, harder,and more accurately than normal. Productiveabilities let a Solar create things of inhuman quality.Social skills allow a Solar to influence people beyondwhat the greatest mortal statesman or courtiercould do. As a Solar grows in power, these abilitiesmove further and further beyond what humans arecapable of, but they always derive at some levelfrom the mortal ability.Leadership Effects. Regardless of her Caste, everySolar Exalt is a natural leader — only the style ofthis leadership is shaped by her Caste. As such,Solars of every Caste have access to effects whichallow them to lead and instruct men, or provide forthose they do lead.Some of these effects directly improve the abilitiesof a single person. Effects like Masterful TrainingManual can assist in the normal learning process;other higher-level Charms could reduce trainingtimes, or possibly even XP costs.Yet other Charms temporarily or permanentlyimprove the skills of a group of people. SeveralBureaucracy Charms (which can slow or speedan entire organization) and Performance Charms(which can train, inspire, and survey an entire army)are solid examples. This sort of effect could easilybe generalized to several other abilities, allowing aSolar to inspire and strengthen her followers in anyappropriate ability — Survival, Craft, Investigation,Medicine, Larceny, and Sail would all be viablecandidates.The Supernatural. Some of the Charms available toSolars have effects which are straightforwardlysupernatural. Some of these fall into specificcategories discussed below. Those that do nottend to be the purview of two abilities, Occult andLore.Solar Occult Charms, other than those used toperform Sorcery (discussed below), generally dealwith spirits and the flows of Essence. While theseare supernatural effects to a modern mindset, itshould be kept in mind that Essence is a naturalpart of Creation, and basic Essence manipulationcan be performed by mortals. With this in mind,these Charms can be seen as a natural extension ofmortal thaumaturgy, which can be used to detect,summon, and ward spirits, as well as measureEssence flows.Some Solar Lore Charms are more directlysupernatural in their effects. In general, these effectsstem from Solars’ unsurpassed mastery of Essence.This allows Solars to transfer Essence and otherforms of energy from one person to another, orto enforce their wills directly upon the unshapedEssence of the Wyld. Other supernatural effectswould be allowable as long as they also derivedfrom this mastery of Essence.Solar Fire. Most of the Exalted have powers dealingdirectly with their associated energies and materials;Solars are no exception to this. Therefore, the Solar9