Resources for Exalted Second Edition
Please note: You must create separate user accounts for Lore 5 and the ECR forums.Impressing the Landscape
By Wordman
Submitted on 27 Nov 2006 at 01:17:16 PM EST
Last updated on 28 Nov 2006 at 12:27:25 AM EST
Sable Disposition of Being Style
Cost: 25m, 2wp
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 5
Type: Simple (8, -2 DV)
Duration: One day
Keywords: Shaping
Prerequisites: None
Follow-ups: Sable Disposition of Being Form
Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 5
Type: Simple (8, -2 DV)
Duration: One day
Keywords: Shaping
Prerequisites: None
Follow-ups: Sable Disposition of Being Form
In the terrain of her mind…
While lesser artists idealize the landscapes in their paintings, the true artist alters the landscape to meet his painting’s ideal. Using a painting depicting a region within eyeshot, the artist shapes reality to make the landscape conform to his portrayal of it. The artist’s painting might show a spring welling up from the desert before him, and this charm makes the spring appear. The walled city he is laying siege to may be painted with crumbled fortifications, and the walls will fall.
The artist makes a Dexterity + Martial Arts roll against a difficulty proportional to how radical or unlikely the desired change is. For example, painting an avalanche into a mountain covered in loose rocks would probably only need one success, while palace of ice painted into a volcanic lava flow would probably require five. While the effects of this charm are open ended, there are a number of restrictions:
- The charm cannot alter, harm or otherwise directly effect living creatures, spirits or any other entity with a permanent Essence rating. So, if the artist paints a picture of the village he is in burning to the ground, the structures will burn, but all of the inhabitants will escape miraculously unharmed.
- The charm may only target an area the artist can see. As always, the painting used must image the exact area and effect.
- The charm can only affect mundane material. The marble used in manses, the five magical materials and any material altered by charms or sorcery are completely immune to this charm. The charm may not create or alter demesnes or manses in any way. This charm is a shaping effect, so items protected from shaping are likewise immune. Structures or terrain made from gossamer, however, may be altered by this spell.
- The charm can only affect terrain, including buildings and streets. For example, it could not be used to remove the armor from an army or the army from a battlefield, but could depict the land on which the army stands as being underwater (though somehow the soldiers would not drown).
- The charm can alter a million cubic yards (equivalent to a cube 100 yards on each side) of terrain per point of the artist’s Essence. The affected area must be at least one yard long on its smallest dimension.
- Effects can be as varied as the artist’s imagination, but cannot exceed celestial sorcery in power. For example, if the artist paints a building in the middle of an empty plain, a spell like Ivory Orchid Pavilion should act as a guide to the upper limits of what such a building can be. Even if the artist paints a city street under a rain of corrosive venom, he cannot produce the effects of a solar spell like Rain of Doom. In general, if an effect on a landscape cannot be a celestial spell (even a theoretical one), then it cannot be produced by this charm either.
From the time this charm is cast, events in the painting play out as real until the sun both rises and sets, though the artist may cancel the charm before this. Once the charm ends, all changed terrain returns to normal. Buildings burned to ash are now whole, walls are rebuilt, springs dry up. Memories, however, remain.
