The ancient masters from the Long, Long Ago once wielded pillars of steel that could split mountains and spark a city-eater inferno. While the age of myth feels an eon ago, there are those spread across the Grassland that still manifest a whispering of this once-terrible power: Blades Esoterica. Some say they’re an order of magical swordsmen, others say they’re no more than dangerous mad-men with sharp knives. The truth, in fact, lies somewhere in the middle. So it goes.
NEW TRAITS FOR THE MYSTIC WARRIOR
CHARACTER Trait: Praxis Esoterica
You hold that sliver of terrible power within your practiced hands. Skilled with all blades and blade magicks, calligraphy, strange numerology lore, and the flowing form such as dancing. Subtract 1 from the cost of blade magicks (minimum 1), and you can add your aura score to damage with blades.
Tier 2: Master Esoteric
Subtract 2 from the cost of blade magicks (minimum 1), and your unleash range is increased by 1.
Tier 3: Sword Saint
Subtract 3 from the cost of blade magicks (minimum 1), increase your unleash range by 2, and learn a new dance.
Character Trait: UNLOCKED POTENTIAL
You are more capable at summoning out the inner spirit of your weapons. Increase your Unleash and Critical Range by +1.
TIER 2: OVERCLOCKED WEAPON
Your Unleash and Critical Range is instead increased by +2.
TIER 3: TRUE EVOLUTION
Your Unleash and Critical Range is instead increased by +3.
CHARACTER TRAIT: SOULBOUND ARMIGER
Your Hallmark items become invulnerable to nearly all damage, never rust, and gain +1 to attack rolls or defense.
WEAPON TRAIT: Unleash
When you roll the Unleash value or higher on your die to hit with an Attack roll, you unleash an additional empowered effect. If you have a feature that increases the Unleash Range, it subtracts that value from the roll needed, similar to increased Critical Range.
Example: Unleash Ghostfire [15]
When you roll a 15 or higher on the die to Attack, you would add +1d6 to your damage and the foe is engulfed in hexed flames, imposing -1d6 to their rolls until your next turn. If you had the character trait Unlocked Potential from above, you’d instead Unleash on a 14 or higher.
The table below gives some examples and inspiration as a jumping off point.
| Unleash [X] | Effect |
|---|---|
| Ghostfire [15] | Add +1d6 damage and the foe is engulfed in hexed flames. -1d6 to their rolls until your next turn. |
| Blood Rain [17] | Add +2d4* damage and if the dice explode, increase them by one die step for the exploding roll. |
| Rend Flesh [17] | Add +1d8 damage and the foe screeches in pain as its defense is reduced by the same. |
| Crush Soul [18] | Add +1d10 damage and force a Morale test on foes in short range. |
| Fractalize Psyche [19] | Add +2d6* damage and the foe Saves with a -1d6 penalty. Fail: Lose their next turn. |
New Powers for the Mystic Warrior
Sunder Ideology // Thief of Golden Fate
P: 2, R: Close, T: A creature, D: A few minutes
Four steps to the left with a single foot, and the other drives a partition forward across the sand. In that moment, you unsheathe your blade and trace the electro-sigils of the Bearded One in your shadow. Your soul merges with steel as you disembowel the beast before you. Attack and subtract 1d6 from your target’s rolls until you strike again.
Overcharge: instead steal 1d8 from their rolls and add to yours, weaving their golden threads of fate into your meta-cuirass.
Deny the Manifold // Shatter the Five-Fold Reality Layer
P: 3 R/T: Self, D: Instant
Undo the making of the five-fold reality. Rebuke causality and leap into the kaleidoscope feet first. You appear somewhere else within sight wearing the cloak of the infinite maze, granting you resistance to all damage until your next turn. This uses your movement in lieu of your action, and you cannot cast any other spells this turn.
Overcharge: in addition, you can can choose to appear some when-else in time. If you leap into the future, re-appear within 1d4 rounds at a place of your choosing. If you fall back into the past, undo your most recent harm and zig-zag back into a space-time you inhabited recently.
Arterial Liberation // Open the Crimson Gate
P: 3, R: Close, T: A creature, D: Instant
Smirk and draw your stance narrow. Silence, breath, then flash of steel. Attack and open their paper shell, crimson gates flowing. On a strike, they bleed. Place 1d8 on the table. At the start of their next turn, roll and inflict it. Then replace it with 1d6. Repeat the following turn and replace it with 1d4. 1d4 dissipates to red mist.
Overcharge: the bleed die explodes. When it does, increase the die size instead of decreasing.
Precognitive Retaliation // Blade Before Blade
P: 2, R: Close, T: An attacking creature, D: Instant
Your mind dances in the sideways-realm, seeing a multitude of strikes before they happen. Twisting your mystic pommel upward to the heavens, skip through the else-time like a dolphin breaching rainbow waters, driving your sword into the fool who dares to strike at you. Immediately before they strike, make an Attack roll with a grasped blade. If you hit, deal damage as normal and gain resistance to the oncoming damage, should your foe still stand.
Eightfold Meditation // Transcend the Reality-Rings
P: 1, R/T: Self, D: Varies
You, a saint in all your radiant glory, know the very foundation of your meta-narrative begins in breathing. Through an increasingly complex series of mantras, breath techniques, and mudras, your mind begins to unravel and expand to fill the void inherent in all things. As you come to understand the nature of no-self, your mind is cleared of any mental effects that would frighten you or cloud your judgment and virtues. Anxiety subsides and you can breathe easy. This can be done within mere moments as you have long practiced the doctrine. The cost of this power and it’s Overcharges cannot be reduced.
Overcharge: continue on from the mere moments of self-subsiding, and begin to extend the mind outward into the greater field of energy that the daemons dance in. Realize the no-self of all things, form given and not. Sense living things beyond small walls and barriers, seeing their ego-flow thrashing. This lasts for a few minutes with Focus.
Overcharge Again: smiling, awareness continues to radiate. Witnessing the beautiful kaleidoscope of flowing energy, you surmise that even causality has within itself an emptiness. In that moment, you see it with your higher-eye. You move about slowly, but all harmful effects against you are made with [-][-] and you have resistance to any harm while you Focus for up to a few hours. To others, you seem full of bliss but move at the pace of a sloth.
Eightfold Cost: let the final barrier separating you from the grander cosmos fall away: consciousness. Letting go of that tether, your energy merges with all-totality. Others witness a blinding radiance and then the once-you is gone. Your daemon can then choose to bring changed-you back into the realm of forms and volitions at any point in the session. When that happens, remove a burden and roll a d100. On a roll of 100, permanently increase one of the stats of new-you. Fickle daemon.
Organic Memory Device 
Leave a comment