Book of Bone and Ebony

EXALTED • BOOK OF BONE AND EBONY
all varieties. Some are simply mechanical, others mimic
the powers of First Age artifacts, and still others harness
the power of the Void.
MECHANICAL
Almost all walking war machines have some kind of
common weapons implanted in the flesh or screwed into
bone. Barbed hooks, bone spine arrays and blades spinning
on axles are all common on larger war machines. Most of
these cut or skewer, but some are meant to crush — a solid
iron metal drum attached to the front of an engine or war,
for example.
ARTIFACT
The weapons built by First Age warriors were designed
to fight the Primordials and had to work in a myriad
of spirit realms. As a result, they work just as well in the
Underworld as they do in Creation. The problem with
these weapons is that the war machine’s builder must
actually get them, a process that can be difficult or, if not
difficult, extraordinarily expensive.
Few artifact weapons from the Shogunate period (or
later) work in the Underworld. The realm of the dead is a
spirit realm with its own principles and its own set of rules, and
the builders of that time slowly began forgetting (or never
learned or didn’t have the power to achieve) the techniques
for making artifacts work in radically different theaters of war.
That said, the First and Forsaken Lion, a master of First
Age weapons, has modified some powerful artifact weapons
to work in the Underworld, powered by the Hearthstones of
Underworld Manses or by Essence-containing gems. It is
known that he has Underworld equivalents of at least some
powerful artifact weapons — ghosts have seen him deploy
pyre-flame lances and implosion bows that focus pure entropy
at their targets — and it is suspected that he has much
more than that. The other Deathlords, while not so knowledgeable
as the Lion, may have tricks up their sleeves as well,
although what artifact weapons they have been able to
retrofit to work in all theaters of battle remains to be seen.
NECROMANTIC
The Deathlords may not have much in the way of First
Age weapons, but what they do have is necromancy. The
ability to channel the destructive abilities of the Void is
easily the equivalent of many First Age artifacts. The
Deathlords have weapons that wither crops, curse those
who see them, cause disease, sicken and kill livestock and
taint water so that it will never be potable. Some of these
they install in their war machines, while others, such as the
weapon of mephitic desolation, are the war machine.
THINGS FALL APART
For all its many strengths, dead flesh is not an ideal
substance for war engines. Flesh may be tough, but it rots
quickly. Bone is weak compared to soulsteel. Knowing
102
VOID CIRCLE NECROMANCY SPELL:
OBLIVION’S AVATAR
Cost: 10 motes (committed) per power, or 40 motes
and 5 experience points per power to make the
effect permanent
Target: One war machine
Animating a war machine is sometimes just
the first step in creating a truly devastating weapon.
Oblivion’s Avatar invests a walking war machine
with a portion of the power of the Malfeans themselves,
granting it the ability to carry pure entropy
into Creation, which might manifest as a black
nimbus of destruction akin to Crypt Bolt or (Material)
Withering Method (see Exalted: The Abyssals
pp. 191 and 187-188, respectively), the ability to
spread disease or some other form of direct channeling
of Oblivion into the realm of the living. The
prayer-blocking ability of the weapon of mephitic
desolation is a product of this spell. Other examples
of the power of Oblivion’s Avatar are listed in the
sidebar “Necromantic Weaponry” on page 109.
how to maintain the war machines of the Underworld is at
least as important as knowing how to create them.
ROT
A carefully constructed, perfectly lethal battle engine
can decay beyond repair in just a few weeks in a warm,
moist environment. Human sized and smaller devices of
reanimated flesh can be protected from rot fairly easily.
The Deathlords have long since plumbed the depths of
mummification lore, and they’ve learned to keep smaller
war engines in alchemically prepared preservative baths.
Larger war engines are typically kept in silos full of preservative
tallow. It is likely that the larger war engines have
all benefited from the Abyssal Charm Decay Resistance
Preparation (see Exalted: The Abyssals, p. 188), and
many nemissaries use advanced Arcanoi to suspend, halt
or reverse rot in the engines they animate.
WEAR
When dead flesh and metal come into conflict, the
metal wins, and the flesh needs to be mended or replaced.
This is just as true when the metal involved is part of the
war machine itself as it is when the metal is an enemy’s
daiklave. Simple, standard operations such as walking take
their toll on war machines. Dead feet get worn down to
frayed and splintered shins, turning gears amputate poorly
placed arms, and any kind of repetitive percussion can
ultimately pulverize a zombie. A size class 3 war engine
wears out the equivalent of a zombie’s worth of flesh in a