Book of Bone and Ebony

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85 CHAPTER FOUR • CREATIONS OF BONE THE ZENITH PROBLEM Because of their innate abilities to affect the undead, no enemy causes trouble for armies of the Deathlords like Solar Exalted of the Zenith Caste (see Exalted, p. 121 for the specifics of the Zenith anima powers). Of all the Exalted, the Hammers of Heaven (and sometimes Fire-aspected Terrestrials) are singled out for early destruction in any conflict between the living and the dead. The Resplendent Suns can prevent the creation of hungry ghosts and zombies by burning the bodies of the fallen with a touch. The corpses of the walking dead can be similarly destroyed to prevent the Deathlord’s battlefield necrosurgeons from harvesting them for parts. The player of any ghost (including mortwights) whose body is thus consecrated to the Unconquered Sun must make a successful reflexive Willpower roll, or the ghost is pulled immediately into Lethe and freed forever from the grasp of the Deathlords (and their masters). The difficulty of this roll is 7, -1 for every point of the ghost’s permanent Essence, and the ghost’s player may add an extra die to the roll for every two dots of Fetters she has. For Example: If Skyhammer, a Solar of the Zenith Caste, finds the withered mortal remains of Crimson Petal and uses his anima flare to destroy those remains and consecrate the spirit to the Unconquered Sun, Crimson Petal, a powerful ghost with an Essence rating of ••••, would need to get at least three successes on a Willpower roll or fall instantly to Lethe. In theory, a Zenith could use this power as a powerful bargaining chip with the dead, but in practice, few Resplendent Suns would do anything but return a soul back to the great cycle if he knew it had not found its own way to Lethe. Still, the Unconquered Sun is pragmatic, and Zeniths can be as well. What’s more, the Zenith can appear as a blazing and terrifying incarnation of the Unconquered Sun himself (as the Dawn anima flare on page 119 of Exalted, but only against undead, demons and other creatures of darkness). Zombies are not affected by the fear elicited by this ability (as they always succeed on Valor rolls), but they still cannot withstand the shining visage of the sun and cannot go near him. The walking dead may ignore the Zenith using his anima in this way, surround him or bypass him entirely, whichever’s easiest, but they cannot safely approach closer than his Essence in yards. Walking dead who enter this radius fall to the ground inert until the Zenith leaves the area or his anima fades away. Worse, the Zenith can inflict damage on undead troops with a glance, like the Unconquered Sun himself. The Zenith anima flare causes grievous wounds to ghosts, hungry ghosts, walking dead and Abyssals alike and automatically destroys any undead extra. Only deathknights, their Deathlord masters and the Infernal Exalted can resist the power of the Zenith anima flare. To do so, the deathknight spends 5 motes of Essence, and her player rolls the Abyssal’s permanent Essence rating. Every success subtracts one success from the Zenith player’s roll. This counts as a reflexive action. Nemissaries possessing host corpses never take more than one level of damage from the Zenith’s anima flare. If the Solar does more damage than that, the remainder affects the nemissary’s host body, but not the possessing ghost itself. The power works differently against a ghost or demon possessing a living body, in which case the host takes one level of bashing damage from the Zenith flare and the invading spirit takes the remaining successes as levels of aggravated damage. Any war machine composed wholly or in part of the remains of the dead, that is animated by necromancy or that is fueled by soulfire crystals, Essence-containing gems or an Underworld Hearthstone takes full damage from the Zenith’s anima flare. Soulsteel retains its usual invulnerability, but the black metal shrieks in agony. Those using the Void Circle spell Abyssal Aegis (see Exalted: The Abyssals, p. 228) are completely immune to any and all effects of the Zenith Anima flare. The Deathlords always don such protection on the rare occasions when they must personally do battle with the Resplendent Suns. Although it is not common knowledge, the armor of the First and Forsaken Lion has such an enchantment built into it, though this offers scant consolation to the Deathlord trapped within its riveted plates. of these amulets almost by reflex. During times of war, they make use of them, often as siege weapons. These amulets are placed between two large, flat rocks that have been tied together and are carefully launched from a catapult. The rocks crush the amulet upon landing, releasing the hungry ghost. Several such amulets can be sent with even a single launch, and the Deathlords’ engineers have formulated ways of launching an entire offensive force into a city with just a few large boulders. Depending on how many amulets and how many catapults the besieging party
EXALTED • BOOK OF BONE AND EBONY controls, hundreds of hungry ghosts can be launched into a city in the space of a few hours. The Deathlords have worked out many, many versions of this tactic (and other tactics using Bauble of the Captive Soul). Some involve raitons dropping amulets from high above the city, while others involve sending in ghosts who can possess the living (to open gates, for instance). The catapult operators learn quickly how not to launch these “ghost boulders” as well. Improper launching crushes the amulet prematurely and frees the hungry ghosts on the catapult’s operators (although Soul Brand tattoos and amulets protect against this eventuality). MOLIATED GHOSTS The Arcanoi of the Shifting Ghost-Clay Path let a ghost modify her form — radically in many cases. Some of these changes make the ghost far more lethal in battle and therefore more worth the great cost they pay to materialize in Creation. Talented moliators are well worth their pay to their masters and often receive benefits beyond what their standing would normally offer. When quick surgical strikes on Creation are called for, a cadre of materialized moliated ghosts can serve as excellent shock troops, softening up the resistance in preparation for nemissaries and deathknights. The modifications a ghost can make to her plasm using Ghost-Devil Form are nigh unlimited. Some are 86 listed in Exalted: The Abyssals on page 237. Others are given below: Huge Size: The character is over nine feet tall and gains two extra -2 health levels. Maw: The ghost has an enormous mouth with rows of sharp teeth, and on a successful Brawl attack, he inflicts Str + 4 lethal damage. Prehensile Tail: As with Extra Arms Spikes: Any successful hand-to-hand attack on the ghost inflicts three lethal health levels of damage on the attacker. Suckers: Like the suckers of an octopus, these can be on the ghost’s body, arms or even tentacles (stats same as those of Extra Arms). They give the ghost an extra four dice on all clinch attacks. Ghosts skilled in the Shifting Ghost-Clay Path can also manifest their Ghost-Devil Form without materializing by possessing a mortal with Puppeteer’s Masterful Hand and altering the mortal’s body (see Exalted: The Abyssals, p. 249). Combined with the tactics mentioned above, this ability can be used to devastating effect. This tactic does not work on possessed corpses, but nemissaries have many other options. As another option, it’s worth noting that the Labyrinth can warp ghosts just as the Wyld mutates the living (see Exalted: The Abyssals, p. 66). While relations
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