The Problem with Abyssals

Here is the section about Abyssal Limits from the Abyssal Book.

Abyssal Virtues

The Four Virtues are woven into Creation as tightly as the Five Elements, and the Neverborn could not sever their Chosen from that subtle quaternion. Abyssal Exalted can channel Willpower through their Virtues just like any other Exalted can, and they can find their Virtues challenged or conflicting. Still, the Black Exaltation gives deathknights a somewhat different interpretation of these fundamental concepts.

• Compassion: Like other Exalted, deathknights use Compassion to understand the thoughts and emotions of other people—something the Black Exaltation can make difficult, especially when dealing with the living. Loyal deathknights need Compassion to get along with the people they manipulate, even if it’s only to manage a pleasant smile while they ask for directions. Renegade Abyssals need Compassion to remind themselves that people matter and that they left the Deathlords’ service for a reason. Loyalist or renegade, some Abyssals consider themselves highly compassionate people. They end suffering through the gift of death.
• Conviction: The Abyssal Exalted need to believe in their cause, or some cause, anyway. Renegade or loyalist, it’s how they live with being a monster. The Deathlords ask their minions to do terrible things; Conviction helps a deathknight carry out these commands. And yet the Deathlords do not want too much Conviction in their deathknights, lest their servants value Oblivion more than obedience. Renegade Abyssals might find some other mission or ideal with which to justify their existence, serving it with all the fervor that they can.
• Temperance: Prudent self-control matters a lot for Abyssals. Like other Exalted, deathknights need to resist both temper and temptation. When your Deathlord sends you to find out what the scavenger saw in the tomb he explored, killing everyone in town in a fit of pique can make your mission harder than it needs to be. Renegades need to keep their cool too, when people they hoped to protect react with fear and anger… or to remind themselves that sometimes, the best way to care for mortals is to leave them, no matter how much you want to stay.
• Valor: Most Abyssals find this the easiest Virtue to follow. Whether loyalist or renegade, the bitter ironies of their existence fade away in battle. Deathlords, however, would prefer that their minions not be so brave as to consider defiance…

Going Rogue

A player initially chooses whether his Abyssal serves a Deathlord or not, but this situation can change during play. Throughout the course of a series, a Deathlord might be destroyed, or a character might betray his master. An unscrupulous player might even ask to play a loyal Abyssal in order to gain the superior Abyssal Command, Liege, Spies and Underworld Manse Backgrounds, then have his character promptly betray his Deathlord as soon as the game begins. Once a deathknight goes rogue, though, he loses those four Backgrounds. After all, he no longer has access to his master’s armies, manses, minions or benevolence (such as it was).

On one hand, a generous Storyteller might allow the player to replace these Backgrounds with new ones. Perhaps the rogue Abyssal managed to keep one of the soulsteel gifts he gained from his Liege (changing his Liege dots to Artifact dots), or perhaps a portion of the Deathlord’s army remained loyal to the deathknight (replacing Abyssal Command with Followers). This approach is particularly appropriate if the Storyteller engineered the betrayal for the continuation of her chronicle.

On the other hand, a strict Storyteller might simply declare the Backgrounds lost. Most renegade Abyssals start their new lives with seriously diminished resources. This approach is more appropriate if the player initiated the betrayal himself (especially if the betrayal hampers the series in some way and diminishes the fun of the other players).

Should an Abyssal choose to return to a Deathlord’s service, he does not automatically regain Abyssal Command, Liege, Spies or Underworld Manse. He must earn back these Backgrounds through play, just as he would gain any new Backgrounds.

Dark Fate

With their last spiteful gasps, the Neverborn cursed their murderers to an endless spiral of madness and betrayal. As the chosen weapons of the slain Primordials, the Abyssal Exalted no longer bear this curse. The slaves of Oblivion merely trade one burden for another, though, without even temporary insanity to excuse the atrocities their very presence inflicts upon the world. In the long term, Abyssals cannot make Creation a better place, for the unholy power of their Exaltation reaches out to poison and destroy the people they defend.

Instead of the Limit trait of the Great Curse, Abyssal characters possess a trait called Resonance. This trait tracks the displeasure of their malign masters and the accumulating force of death and destruction in their animas. Although Resonance resembles Limit in some ways, it functions quite differently in others. The most important difference is that Abyssal characters can reduce their Resonance at will… though not without cost.

Gaining Resonance

The Abyssal Exalted gain Resonance in three ways:

• Assertion of Exalted Will: A deathknight gains a point of Resonance if she spends Willpower to resist unnatural mental influence, just as other Exalted gain Limit. In asserting their sovereign will against mind-controlling influences, deathknights implicitly assert the ultimate triumph of Oblivion, and draw a bit more of the Void into themselves. Abyssal Exalted do not normally gain more than one Resonance per scene in this manner, even if the character resists unnatural mental influence more than once.
• Flawed Virtue: The Black Exaltation damages a deathknight’s soul so severely that she has difficulty using one of her Virtues. Each time her player rolls a dice pool involving that Virtue (which includes channeling Willpower through the Virtue), the character gains one point of Resonance. The forsaken Virtue need not be the character’s primary Virtue and rarely is.
• Transgressions Against the Void: The Neverborn created the Abyssal Exalted as champions of Oblivion, and they punish deathknights who act against their nihilistic crusade. (An Abyssal can gain Resonance for his sins — or maybe the taint of the Void in the Abyssal does this automatically — even in Malfeas, the deepest Wyld or any other place that might seem beyond the sight of the Neverborn.) Any deed that actively promotes or defends life counts as a transgression. In practice, Abyssals who refuse to play the part of dutiful world-killing weapons will probably gain some Resonance each scene, while those who embrace their purpose accumulate points only occasionally.

The first time in a scene that an Abyssal transgresses against his fate as a servant of Oblivion, he gains points of Resonance equal to the successes of an Essence roll. The more powerful a deathknight becomes, the more closely the Neverborn scrutinize his actions and punish offenses. This progression extends to its ultimate form in the Deathlords, who deal very carefully with their masters for fear of appropriately high-Essence punishments—such as the First and Forsaken Lion’s eternal imprisonment within his armor.

Sins of Life

Abyssal Exalted can sin against the Neverborn and the Void through inappropriate contact with the living world.

• They must not promote or defend life. Actively protecting a living being from harm is always a sin. (Fortunately the Neverborn do not consider deathknights living beings, so they can defend one another.) So is creating new life, whether by mundane conception or magical genesis. Birthing such offspring is an additional sin.
• Deathknights must never use or answer to their pre-Exaltation name, except to reject all claim to it.
• Reverence to any divine power other than the Neverborn or Oblivion is strictly banned, though some Moonshadows make an art of composing threatening prayer strips to bully local deities.
• Building or maintaining positive Intimacies with the living attracts the Neverborn’s wrath, especially when an Abyssal benevolently interacts with individuals she knew before her Exaltation. Indeed, simply living a normal, mortal life transgresses against the Abyss, unless the deathknight is doing so as a ruse or at the direct behest of a greater servant of the Neverborn.

Storytellers can use these examples to identify other liferelated sins. Keep in mind that Abyssals can atone for certain sins, explaining how their questionable actions actually serve the greater interest of Oblivion as a stunt. Doing so gives them a small margin of grace as long as their loyalty does not falter.

Sins of Death

The only thing the Neverborn punish more severely than supporting life is opposing Oblivion.

• Abyssals can torment and annihilate “normal” ghosts with impunity. Yet they may fight against nephwracks, spectres and ther servants of Oblivion only as commanded by the Neverborn or their greater servants (including Deathlords, powerful hekatonkhires and the worst chthonic horrors of the Labyrinth).
• Merely disobeying a greater servant of the Neverborn arouses their ire, to say nothing of disobeying a direct command from the deepest horrors of the Void. Unfortunately, it is hard to predict how the Neverborn will react when their servants turn on each other. The slain Primordials do not always object when their servants fight. Maybe they see the contest as winnowing out weaker minions. Maybe they just don’t notice. The Neverborn do recognize, however, that such infighting detracts from the greater war against light and life. Skirmishes between rival groups of deathknights sometimes break up the moment one or both sides manifest a Resonance warning shot. Some Deathlords even stage such skirmishes as a way of testing their masters’ stance on issues.

Atonement

Abyssals can rid themselves of Resonance without a calamitous outburst—unlike other Exalts, who cannot mitigate their own Limit. Deathknights do this by reaffirming their loyalty to the Neverborn.

Atonement involves ritual prayers begun at sundown and ending at midnight, spoken in disturbing glossolalia. Magic cannot translate these words, though would-be translators can sense the malevolence beneath the inflections. When multiple deathknights gather in penance, their voices seamlessly join in eerie, spontaneous polyphony, though they do not understand their words any more together than alone. The deathknights also flagellate themselves and engage in other self-tortures.

At the conclusion of the ritual, the Abyssal’s player attempts a prayer roll to the Neverborn (Exalted, p. 132). The difficulty decreases by one for each level of lethal damage the Abyssal inflicted on himself. The Neverborn also accept human sacrifices or the senseless destruction of irreplaceable treasures whose loss diminishes Creation. If the prayer succeeds, the deathknight feels the Whispers of the Neverborn clawing through her soul. If the penance is sincere, the deathknight loses one point of Resonance per level of self-inflicted lethal damage. In case it even needs to be said, the Neverborn cannot be fooled, and attempting to trick them is a Resonance-worthy sin.

Venting Resonance

The simplest way for an Abyssal to reduce Resonance, however, is to suffer the punishment of the Neverborn. A deathknight can do so at any time with a reflexive Essence roll. Each success spends one Resonance point on black miracles such as Blight, Branding, Conduit or Stigmata. (Obviously, a player cannot spend more points than the character has accumulated.) Failing the roll, however, means the character suffers a Resonance effect with severity equal to the character’s Essence but gains another point of Resonance rather than losing any.

Although the character has no say in how or when a Resonance eruption occurs, his player spends these points and chooses their manifestation. The Storyteller can veto choices that don’t impose any actual drawbacks for the character or situation. Resonance effects are generally unpleasant enough, however, to make the selection an exercise in picking one’s poison. In addition, whenever a transgression raises a deathknight’s Resonance to 10+, the Storyteller spends 10 points on an eruption without needing a roll, choosing the most cruelly appropriate punishment(s) for the Exalt’s recent sins.

Whether under player or Storyteller control, a Resonance eruption cannot spend more points on Blight or Branding than the Abyssal’s Essence rating. A Resonance burst cannot allocate more Resonance on Conduit than the higher of the character’s Essence or Whispers. Stigmata is not limited in this way, so Abyssals who fail to provide loved ones or other buffers in the path of the Neverborn’s wrath run the risk of suffering terrible wounds if they displease their gods. A Resonance eruption can divide points among multiple effects, though, as long as each effect provides a disadvantage.

The Resonance effects listed here are cumulative, so spending three Resonance points on Stigmata makes all Essence peripheral for a scene and inflicts three levels of damage on the character. If the character already suffers from a particular Resonance effect, the same type of effect stacks to increase severity, resetting the duration from that point onward. The Storyteller can extrapolate higher-level Resonance effects for each of these categories to scourge wayward Deathlords or powerful Abyssals.

Resonance Eruptions Made Easy

Step One: Player Controlled: Roll Essence. Count successes. Storyteller Controlled: Skip this step.

Step Two: Player Controlled: Compare successes to current Resonance points. Use lowest number. Storyteller Controlled: The number is automatically 10.

Step Three: Player Controlled: The player allocates the determined number of Resonance points among Blight, Branding, Conduit or Stigmata. Up to (Essence) points of Resonance may be spent on Blight or Branding. Up to (greater of Essence or Whispers) can be spent on Conduit. Stigmata has no limit. The Storyteller may veto any part of this selection that confers no real drawback, requiring reallocation of points until he approves the selection. Storyteller Controlled: The Storyteller allocates spent Resonance among effects as described.

Step Four: Player and Storyteller Controlled: The selected effects occur immediately, including all lesser effects associated with spending fewer Resonance points on each type of eruption.

 

Blight

Any of these effects might occur as the power of Oblivion streams through the Abyssal into Creation:

1 Resonance

One natural animal toward which the Abyssal feels positively dies wherever it is, cut down by its brush with the Oblivion-tainted deathknight. The method of execution varies, but is always painful and rarely mistaken for natural causes. If no such target exists, this particular effect doesn’t apply, although other pertinent Blight effects resolve normally.

For the rest of the day, the Abyssal’s presence also puts out all natural fires of candle size or smaller and wilts natural vegetation. This effect has a radius in yards equal to the character’s Essence. Seeds are sterilized; cut flowers wilt. Plants larger than the Abyssal survive, but their foliage does not. Any recognizable, personal symbols of gods within the radius darken with a patina of soot, tarnish or mildew.

Besides being unsettling and revealing the character as a supernatural being, this effect makes it easier to follow a deathknight through environments containing plant-life. The effect imposes a -2 internal penalty to evade trackers (or -4 through forests, fertile grasslands or similarly dense vegetation).

2 Resonance

The zone of destruction extends to (Essence x 10) yards. In addition, it puts out natural fires up to torch size, freezes standing water, spoils all food in the area and twists divine symbols into scrap. Together, these effects double the penalties to evade trackers through appropriate terrain. Natural animals exposed to the energies may develop a gruesome wasting sickness. (Check for leprosy as per p. 351 of Exalted, with a Virulence equal to the Abyssal’s Essence.) Thankfully, this disease is not contagious.

3 Resonance

One mortal the Abyssal cares about dies. Mortals who share a reciprocal Intimacy with the deathknight are the most-favored target. Next come mortals who do not return the Abyssal’s Intimacy to them, followed by mortals whom the deathknight merely likes a bit, if only because he finds them useful.

The Abyssal’s zone of entropy—still (Essence x 10) yards—puts out natural fires smaller than a bonfire, burns divine symbols to cinders or slag and instantly kills natural animals of mouse size or smaller, carving a swath of dead insects and vermin. The energy also terminates all pregnancies and eggs, though miscarriages might not occur until days later. Mirrors that catch the Abyssal’s reflection crack.

4 Resonance

The Abyssal’s zone of destruction extends to (Essence x 100) yards, quenching all natural fires. The deathknight suffers a -4 internal penalty to evade tracking through barren terrain and automatically fails to evade trackers through areas with any vegetation.

The weather around the Resonance epicenter grows unnaturally turbulent, with dense storm clouds, chill gales and sporadic rain that smells faintly of rot, blood or ash. Mushrooms and mildew grow wherever this rain collects, decreasing the output of farmland by half for the coming year. The clouds extend over a radius in miles equal to the Abyssal’s Essence, dissipating one day later.

5 Resonance

The aforementioned zone of entropy lasts for a number of days equal to the Abyssal’s Essence, traveling with the Abyssal wherever she goes. Furthermore, mortals who come within (Essence x 10) yards of the Abyssal suffer one level of lethal damage per scene, causing them to bleed a thin trickle from the eyes, ears and mouth. These unfortunates also suffer a lingering -1 wound penalty while in the area from the agony of the Abyssal’s malignant presence.

A shadowland with a radius of (Essence x 10) yards opens around the Abyssal at the moment of Resonance eruption, halting any nocturnal travel through Creation until morning. Its radius contracts by 10 yards per day until it closes. While it lasts, it serves as a beachhead for hungry ghosts and spectres to rampage into the stormwracked Creation. Sensors in the Realm Defense Grid as well as instruments in the Bureaus of Seasons and Fate register such incursions of Abyssal Essence into Creation, though Yu-Shan lacks the resources to follow up on every incident.

 

Branding

1 Resonance

The Abyssal’s mien assumes any number of minor spectral qualities for a scene, such as an inhuman rasping voice, glowing red eyes, deathly cold skin, audibly creaking bones or a noticeable scent of decay. The unnerving effect reveals the Exalt as a supernatural being and imposes a -2 internal penalty to all disguise-based Larceny rolls, Stealth rolls and social rolls not based on intimidation.

2 Resonance

Spectral effects last for a full day and can manifest anywhere within (Essence x 100) yards. While unnerving, these effects have no real power to affect the world. Typical effects include animating people’s shadows as monstrous phantasms, creating chill winds that follow in the character’s wake or mirrors showing no living being’s reflection. Relevant internal penalties increase to a value equal to the character’s Essence.

3 Resonance

For one day, the Abyssal’s unnatural presence upsets all natural animals within (Essence x 100) yards. Wild animals flee from the character and attack anyone who prevents them from doing so. Handlers can keep domesticated animals from bolting with a (Charisma + [Ride or Survival]) roll—Ride for mounts, Survival for other animals—at a difficulty equal to the deathknight’s Essence. Friendly animals are not exempt from this panic. The disturbance makes the character much easier to follow, applying spectral-effect internal penalties to evade tracking.

4 Resonance

For one day, mortals find the Exalt’s presence unbearable. In this time, mortals must spend one Willpower per scene of interaction not to instantly develop an Intimacy of hatred and/or fear toward the Abyssal. Only those with existing positive Intimacies toward the character automatically resist this aversion, but each scene of interaction counts as a scene of weakening such Intimacies, regardless of what the deathknight does.

5 Resonance

The preceding Branding effects follow the character for a number of days equal to his Essence.

 

Conduit

1 Resonance

The Abyssal forfeits one Intimacy that the Neverborn find objectionable. He remembers the severed attachment clinically like a half-forgotten dream, unable to understand why he felt attached to anything (or anyone) so irrelevant.

2 Resonance

Rather than simply excising love, the Neverborn poison it, converting an offending positive Intimacy to an equally strong hatred.

3 Resonance

For the rest of the day, the Abyssal must spend one Willpower to take an action that would offend the Neverborn enough to add to his Resonance. This compulsion applies even if the character already received Resonance from sinning earlier in the same scene. If the Exalt runs out of Willpower, he must submit to his Dark Fate and cannot take the offending action.

4 Resonance

Once per scene for the rest of the day, the Neverborn can actively force the character to take any one action they wish unless the character pays one Willpower point to resist the compulsion. In conjunction with the Willpower drain associated with fighting Dark Fate in general, this effect often creates situations in which the Abyssal cannot stop himself from becoming the instrument of his own punishment. It is small comfort that an Abyssal who resists to the last cannot be made to use powerful Charms that require Willpower against his own will.

5 Resonance

The Abyssal is fully possessed by the Neverborn for a scene, displacing and blocking any other forms of competing unnatural mental influence. The character might remain conscious but helpless during this time like a ghost in his own flesh, or he might black out and enter a fugue state, awakening later with no memory or explanation for the gore on his hands.

 

Stigmata

1 Resonance

All motes the Abyssal spends for the rest of the scene are considered peripheral Essence for anima display.

2+ Resonance

The Abyssal suffers levels of unsoakable lethal damage equal to the Resonance spent, experiencing this injury in a blatantly supernatural and horrific manner. This damage will not reduce a character below Incapacitated, though falling unconscious at the brink of death in the middle of a battle usually results in a de facto death sentence.

4 Resonance

Some part of the deathknight’s body withers and becomes as useless as if it were amputated. This Crippling effect lasts until the Abyssal heals all lethal damage.

 

Cheating

The rules for gaining Resonance make it extremely difficult and arduous for an Abyssal to directly challenge his Dark Fate. Careful renegades can minimize the wrath of the Neverborn, however, by opposing them indirectly. Fighting the forces of death is a no-no, but the dead Primordials have no problem with their deathknights slaying demons, Fair Folk, violent criminals and other monsters. Indeed, such deaths often glorify Oblivion more than spilling helpless mortal blood does. Staying in one place and building relationships as the local defender causes Resonance buildup, but renegades who roam from place to place as vigilante antiheroes can fulfill their purpose as lonely death-dealers without building up more than occasional Resonance.

Players might wonder if their character can harm enemies by deliberately venting Resonance in massive blights. Why, yes, they can. If an Abyssal wants to poison the very Essence of Creation for the sake of victory in battle, that suits the Neverborn just fine. Keep in mind that invoking such powerful Blight effects necessarily involves killing someone the Abyssal likes (or at least values in some way). Any Storyteller worth her dice can easily turn this “power” against the Abyssal: a village destroyed in the course of saving it, irreplaceable allies slain (or captives the character’s Deathlord wanted alive, damn it!), a Wyld Hunt called against this highly visible Anathema, and so on.