Book of Bone and Ebony

EXALTED • BOOK OF BONE AND EBONY
bear the taint of their destruction and subsequent passage
into the sunless realm. These are the hekatonkhire.
As the Primordials died and fell in flesh that spanned
nations and encompassed the Wyld, their souls fell with
them. Their souls became different as they fell into the
altogether new realm of the Underworld. Living souls were
forced to become dead souls; souls already slain reformed
as things dead. These, too, are called hekatonkhire.
The Malfeans dream. When they shift in their tombs
as a man turns in his sleep, their nightmares come closer to
the vague reality of the Underworld. The things they fear,
the hopes they no longer have and their hatreds all surface,
from time to time. Tearing at the dreamstuff and stone that
binds them, these unthinkable creatures rip free from their
unwilling mothers and become frighteningly real. They
may also be called hekatonkhire.
This spell calls to the caster one of these great and
fearsome beasts. The spell requires a six-hour ritual,
involving the death of both a mortal and a ghost (or a
single Ghost-Blooded, see the Exalted Players Guide),
that ends at dusk.
Once a hekatonkhire is summoned, the necromancer
and her would-be servant enter a contest of souls. Roll
Willpower + Essence for each in an opposed test. During
the casting, the necromancer may spend additional Essence
in 7 mote increments to reduce the creature’s dice
pool; the hekatonkhire loses one die for each 7 motes
spent. Roll the opposed test once each turn until either the
necromancer or the summoned creature accumulates three
more successes than the other. If the caster wins, the
hekatonkhire will serve her loyally for a year and a day, or
the necromancer can set it to a single task of indefinite
duration. Should the beast win, it will most likely consume
the body and soul of its summoner and return, lumbering,
to the darkness it prefers to haunt.
Hekatonkhire are generally sleepy, like the dead gods
that long ago made them. Although they resent being
bound, they usually take joy in having motivation to wreak
death and pain upon the world from which they have been
severed. Some hekatonkhire feel animosity toward their
summoners, but many even forget that they were called.
Hekatonkhire are vastly varied in their might. The weakest
may be defeated by a single Solar warrior or a sworn
brotherhood of Dragon-Blooded, while the most powerful
are able to stand toe-to-toe with some of the most potent
beings in Creation or Malfeas. Whether a match for Ligier
or only members of the Dragon-Blooded Host, no
hekatonkhire can truly die. If slain, they reform in some
manner in the Underworld. Some become less powerful in
the process. Others lose none of their power.
144
SINS OF THE FATHER
Cost: 50 motes, 1 permanent Willpower
Target: One living person
The mighty necromancer who knows this spell can
lay a curse of eternal servitude upon any living creature.
As the spell concludes, the caster lightly brushes the
victim with her fingers, which sear his face and form a
scar that will never heal. With the aid of an arcane link,
the necromancer can curse her victim from afar. During
the casting, the chanting and burgeoning Essence about
the caster become increasingly visible until the climax of
the spell, when the caster touches him through the link
and scars him. Using an arcane link for this purpose
destroys the link.
The burn mark, most commonly placed on the face,
never goes away, despite any attempts at mundane or
magical healing, and identical scars appear on all of the
victim’s descendants. The curse inflicts no other miseries
while one who bears the mark lives. Once a living
creature so cursed dies, he infallibly becomes a ghost, and
the mark now glows softly on the face of his corpus. Any
person who becomes a ghost as a result of this spell
automatically possesses the Passion Obey She Who Cursed
Me at a rating equal to the new ghost’s Conviction. The
scar also acts as the representation of the Fetter Master of
rating •••••. Finally, a ghost bearing this mark has
absolutely no choice but to seek out his new master
immediately upon his death, and he must thereafter obey
every command given him by that master.
Even the death of the caster does not free the cursed.
They instead find themselves bound to the next incarnation
of the necromancer’s Essence, although they are free to take
retribution on the original caster should she rise as a ghost.
Obsidian Countermagic can free a single individual of the
affliction — even if he is the son of the son of the person
originally cursed, none of his cousins or brothers receive any
benefit. But a victim cleansed is free of the necromancer at
last, as are his future children. Adamant Countermagic, like
Obsidian, will free a victim from this doom, but the target
inevitably dies in the process.
The souls of the Celestial Exalted cannot be enslaved
through the use of this spell. But they can be marked, and
they pass the curse on to their children. Only through a
petition to the Unconquered Sun assisted by a Zenith
Caste priest and a Solar Circle sorcerer can free a victim of
the Sins of the Father without killing the subject or
resorting to the most powerful of dark magics.
Creatures without souls or creatures whose souls never
enter the Underworld, such as Dragon Kings or the Mountain
Folk, cannot be affected by this spell.