Charms


Beyond their basic abilities, Princesses can develop Charms, means of applying the Inner Light to perform supernatural feats.  Charm families are rated from 1 to 5 dots, and are organized into paths; to buy an individual Charm you must have all the predecessors on its path.  Or should you? Might a system where you can skip levels for increased cost be a good idea? A Princess's Inner Light is capable of performing miraculous feats, but is almost impossible to focus normally, a Charm is like a tool the Princess learns how to use in order to focus her power and emotion to achieve a specific goal. As a Princess gains power, she is able to use Charms more effectively; each Charm has a basic effect and is "upgraded" upon attaining a certain rank of Inner Light, increasing the Charm's power or broadening its effects.

 

Casting a Charm usually involves shouting its name or something that represents it as a sort of kiai to help focus the spirit; additional words of power, called Invocations, can be added to this declaration to alter its properties; by learning a Charm family a Princess may also learn how to use it to affect other Charms in her repertoire. Each Charm family has two Invocations that can be added to the casting of any of the Charms a Princess knows. When a Princess has at least two dots in a given Charm she may spend 5 XP to learn one of its Invocations of her choice; if she has four dots in a given Charm she may spend an additional 5 XP to learn its other Invocation. I am thinking the requirement might need to be 3 dots for both instead of 2 for one and 4 for the other, not decided. When casting a Charm, a Princess may add one Invocation she knows for free, and may add additional Invocations by increasing the Wisp cost of the Charm by one for each Invocation she adds. Charms can be cast without a spoken Invocation, but it's harder: casting a Charm silently incurs a -2 penalty to the die roll and Invocations may not be added to its effects.

 

Each Calling has an affinity to three Charm families, each Queen has an affinity to one elemental Charm family, and all Princesses have an affinity for the Volley charm of basic magical attacks. Learning a new dot in an affinity Charm costs 5 XP times the dot rating of the Charm, learning a non-affinity Charm costs 7 XP times the dot rating of the Charm.

 

List of Charms

Arete

Balm

Illusion

Kiai

Plainsong

Volley

 

Charms Yet To Be Updated

Source

Destiny

Salvation

Twining

Veritas