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It is not in the nature of the Solar Exalted to be surpassed in anything. Thus, when it became increasingly obvious that the Maiden's Chosen easily surpassed them in mastery of the Martial Arts, this did not sit well with many Solar Martial Artists. Some simply took the blow to their pride, and accepted the Five-Score Fellowship's offer of remedial training in these new Martial Arts or tasked their Sidereal Advisors with developing Sidereal-level Styles specifically for their use. Many Solars were unsatisfied with this option, however. While quite powerful, some Solars decried the Sidereal's new Charms as being gimmicky, overly focused, and far too inefficient if one wasn't able to master the use of Sutras (which had weaknesses of their own). These Solars simply avoided much involvement in the Martial Arts, beyond dabbling on a hobbyist level, and focused on other fields. Other Solars devoted themselves to finding another path, more suitable to their own natures. Many of these Solars created exceedingly powerful Celestial Martial Arts Styles, but the secret they sought seemed to elude them.
It was ultimately a Lunar that made the critical breakthrough. A No Moon caste, Unblooded Viper, managed to discover a charm that he termed Intrinsic Mastery which had allowed him to "discover" two new charms in the Snake Style and then later teach all these charms to his Solar Mate. It wasn't long before other Solar Martial Artists learned Mastery Charms of their own, even discovering entirely new forms of it unrelated to Intrinsic (Style) Mastery.
| New Keyword: Mastery |
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| A Charm with this keyword enables a Solar, Abyssal or Lunar to perceive and channel essence for use with a single Martial Arts style as intuitively as he channels essence with those Charms natural to his Exalted type. Thus, a Charm with this Keyword allows it's purchaser to create unique expressions of the Style he's mastered, similar to how they're able to expand the list of their "natural" Martial Arts style. These "secret" charms can only be learned by an Exalt who has bought a Mastery-type charm with the Style in question. A Solar or Abyssal can learn a maximum number of Mastery-type charms equal to their Essence, while a Lunar can only learn a single charm with this Keyword and this is most often with an Animal Style of some kind. Once you've learned a Mastery-type charm you can never progress to the Blossom of the Perfected Lotus; Sidereals, thus, very rarely take this path. |
| New Keyword: Secret |
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| A Charm with this keyword is a hidden charm associated with its Martial Arts style. It can only be learned by an Exalt with a Mastery of the Style, given by a charm such as Intrinsic (Style) Mastery or a similar charm with the Mastery keyword. If not learned from another Martial Artist who knows such a charm, these charms take three times as long to "discover". A player may attempt to discover new Secret charms not already defined by the Storyteller, with the risk that he might spend the training time and then discovering the charm he wishes to discover isn't possible. |
Intrinsic (Style) Mastery
Cost: --; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4; Type: Permanent Keywords: Mastery Duration: Permanent Prerequisite Charms: Celestial Exalt, Any Celestial Form-type Charm.
An Exalt with this Charm achieves Mastery with a single Martial Arts style, of which she must have the Form Charm and which she selects when purchasing this charm. She may assume that Style's Form charm without it counting as her Charm Activation for that turn, allowing her to use other Charms in the same turn or even thread the activation of his form into the actions granted by an Extra Action charm (provided the actions granted by that Charm permit non-Attacks). She may still only have one Form-type Charm active during a turn, and cannot activate two Form-type Charms in the same turn even with an Extra Action charm. The Exalt also gains the ability to learn his styles Secret Charms from a teacher, or attempt to discover such charms on his own. A style's Secret Charms are considered Martial Arts charms, not Charms of the character's Exalted type, but don't have arbitrary limits on their power and can have any minimum Essence rating. Any Secret Charm will conform to the thematic of the style, and many charm effects are simply not possible within a given style.
This charm does not allow you to achieve Mastery with another Exalted types natural Martial Arts Charms, such as Dark Messiah Style or Violet Bier of Sorrows Style. Solar and Sidereal Exalted can purchase this charm a number of times equal to their Essence; the Lunar Exalted may only purchase this Charm once and are restricted to only mastering Animal Styles (often the one related to their Totem). The first time you learn this charm, you immediately lose all access or potential access to Sidereal-level Martial Arts. If you've already purchased such charms, you can no longer activate them, though with time and training the Storyteller might allow you to rework them into your Style somehow and usually in greatly differing form.
The charms that Exalted with Mastery over a specific Martial Arts Style discovers are commonly referred to as that styles "Secret Charms". These charms can only be learned if you have Intrinsic (Style) Mastery, or a similar Mastery-type Charm, with the Style in question. This forbids Dragon-Blooded, and the greater majority of Sidereals, from ever learning such charms. These charms are ordinary in almost every way; they cost the usual amount of experience points to learn, can be placed in combos with other Martial Arts charms if they have the proper keywords, and so on. The only difference is the training time required to learn such charms.
If being trained in a Secret Charm by another Martial Artist that already knows the charm, it takes the normal (Min. Ability) days of training to pass on the knowledge of the Secret Charm. If attempting to discover the charm on your own, however, this process takes three times as long. The fact that it's slightly easier to discover a new Style charm than it would be to actually create a new Unique Charm is one reason the First Age Solars termed the process "discovering" a charm, rather than "creating" the charm. The other reason is that many "theoretically possible" charms simply don't exist for a given style and cannot be discovered. It takes the usual amount of time to discover that a charm is impossible, but no experience points are spent.
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