Ride Charms

Horse Skids Tricks

Cost: 3m; Mins: Ride 3, Essence 3; Type: Reflexive Keywords: Combo-OK, Mount (Mundane) Duration: Instant Prerequisites: Master Horseman's Techniques

If a mount is only as good as its rider, a Lawgiver's mount defies all convention. By activating this Charm and paying three motes, for the next action the character's mount's capacity for movement-based stunts is increased a hundredfold. It may skid along the ground without losing speed, maintaining velocity without moving its legs, allowing it to drift, draft, and grind. It may spin, turn, twist, whirl, and even skate backwards at full speed. While taking these skid actions, the Solar's mount may not be directly targeted by any attack.

One Man Cavalry

Cost: 5m; Mins: Ride 3, Essence 3; Type: Reflexive (Step 1) Keywords: Combo-OK, Emotion, War Duration: Instant Prerequisites: Hero Rides Away

When a hero rides away, he may be headed toward battle. Formation lines break and the wicked scatter at the Solar's terrifying battle charge. A Solar may use this Charm when emerging from a position of cover, such as smashing in through a window or leaping down from an overland pass; the Charm may also always enhance a mounted Join Battle roll. The Solar’s player makes a (Charisma + Ride) roll, opposed by his opponents’ MDVs. Each opponent whose MDV fails to protect her is awestruck by the Lawgiver’s emergence onto the battlefield, and suffers a -3 internal penalty to all attacks directed at the Solar or her mount, and a -1 internal penalty to all attacks against the Solar’s allies. This unnatural mental influence costs (6 – target’s Valor) points of Willpower to resist, producing immunity to any further uses by the same Solar for the rest of the scene.

Used in mass combat, this Charm may enhance a charge by the Lawgiver, causing it to count as a rout condition. Only the Solar need be mounted for this Charm to be activated, but if she is leading a cavalry charge by a mounted complementary unit, then the rout check is made at +1 difficulty. One Man Cavalry may not be activated more than once per action in this fashion.

Thunderhoof Method

Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Ride 5, Essence 4; Type: Reflexive Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Holy Duration: Instant Prerequisites: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach

Sometimes riding down a foe is just not good enough. Points are best when made soundly. The Solar may pay five motes and one Willpower to concentrate all the incredible speed of his mount into a single instance of acceleration. For the space of a heartbeat, the Solar ‘draws back the reins,’ holding his mount in place as a surge of withheld speed gathers in its legs like a storm, briefly drawing the world around horse and rider into the vacuum so created. When the Lawgiver lets go, all that force is unleashed in one tremendous shockwave that tears loose from the point of launch, ripping away at the ground with a sonic boom that inflicts automatic knockdown on all individuals within (Solar's Essence x 5) yards, while the mount is propelled forward (Essence x 10) yards in an instant. Creatures of darkness may not rise from prone until their DV has refreshed twice. This Charm may not be used more than once per action. For a point of reference, this Charm simply causes a sonic boom in the air, while in loose dirt or mud it may cause the added abuse of showering foes with muck; used over water, such as at dockside, it creates a small tsunami to achieve this effect.

Immortal Rider's Advantages

Cost: —; Mins: Ride 3, Essence 3; Type: Permanent Keywords: Mirror (Fell Rider’s Advantages), Mount (Mundane), Native Duration: Permanent Prerequisites: Master Horseman's Techniques

The Solars reinvent that which defines their legends. A character who purchases this Charm gains the following benefits: Ride Charms no longer count as Charm activations, and Ride Charms may be activated to enhance a mount the Solar is not presently riding, so long as he can perceive that animal or it is within one mile. In addition to these advantages, the Solar gains an auxiliary peripheral mote pool containing (Essence + Ride + 5) motes. The Solar may only use this pool to pay for Charms of the Ride ability. When this pool runs out, the character may then use her personal and peripheral mote pools to pay for Ride Charm activations. This mote pool refills by normal means, including stunts. A repurchase of Immortal Rider's Advantages at Essence 4+ doubles this mote pool. Another purchase at Essence 5+ doubles it once more.

This Charm only applies under the following conditions: • The mount must be a living being (i.e. not a Windblade or other accouterment which incidentally use the Ride ability). • The mount must belong to the Solar (see Exalted, p. 238) or be the character's Familiar. Exalts, gods, and other powerful NPCs never qualify. • Phantom Steed is expressly permitted to benefit from Immortal Rider's Advantages.

Hero Rides Away

Cost: —; Mins: Ride 3, Essence 3; Type: Permanent Keywords: Emotion Duration: Permanent Prerequisite Charms: Master Horseman’s Techniques

In ancient times, Solars chasing sundown represented something both tragic and awe-inspiring; their efforts redoubled at the fading of the day as a nod to their patron, his symbolic death leaving them to fill the void. This Charm captures a Lawgiver's breathtaking iconicity and his otherworldly there-and-gone nature, turning it into a renewed intent to bring the story to its conclusion.

When this Charm takes effect, the Solar's player chooses a Virtue and rolls the Lawgiver's Conviction. The Exalt regains one spent channel for the chosen Virtue and Willpower points equal to (number of successes + 1). To gain this benefit, the Solar must leave a Magnitude 3+ social unit that he has helped in the past day, and must do so by making a dramatic exit on his mount, blazing his unforgettable image into their minds as he departs. Examples of a dramatic exit include riding off into the sunset, pausing to cut an iconic figure on the horizon, rearing one's steed so it can churn the air before galloping away, or departing at the height of a raging thunderstorm.

This help must be intrinsically heroic and known to all members of the social unit, the sort of deeds that draw Solar Essences to Exalt mortals. Examples include driving off a ruthless band of brigands, killing a monster, curing a plague, feeding the hungry in a time of famine, improving the local infrastructure, healing the lame, etc. The Storyteller is the final arbiter of what constitutes acceptable help. Barring something unusually awe-inspiring, such help must have taken at least one full scene to provide.

If the Solar ends a story with such a departure, he loses a point of Limit, and all members of the community gain a positive Intimacy toward the Solar with an emotional context defined by the Lawgiver (generally respect, love, gratitude or reverence). Resisting this unnatural Emotion effect costs (Solar's Essence, max 5) Willpower. Similarly, the unit's leader must spend (Solar's Essence, max 5) Loyalty or the Intimacy becomes part of the unit's Policy. For example, if the Solar saves a small town from hobgoblins and chooses an Intimacy of gratitude, all citizens feel thankful to him and incorporate that appreciation into their local culture. As a result, the people as a whole won't betray the Solar when the Wyld Hunt comes looking and only the most determinedly ungrateful individuals can bring themselves to such heinous treachery.

 Dragon-Riding Meditation 

Cost: —; Mins: Ride 5, Essence 3; Type: Permanent Keywords: None Duration: Permanent Prerequisite Charms: Worthy Mount Technique

While mere animals suffice to carry the youngest of Lawgivers into battle, more experienced heroes bend lesser legends to their service. This Charm permanently enhances all of a Solar’s Ride Charms, allowing them to be invoked to enhance a sentient, consenting mount.

Sun-Towing Method

Cost: 2m; Mins: Ride 5, Essence 5; Type: Reflexive Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious Duration: Indefinite Prerequisite Charms: Draft Horse Measure, Single Spirit Method

In the Time of Glory the Solars used this Charm to pull down the sky and drop mountains on the heads of the Primordials. In the Era of Dreams, a Solar once saved a caravan stranded in the desert after a Fair Folk attack by using Sun-Towing Method to haul their entire wagon train to Chiaroscuro with a single horse. Essence imbues the Lawgiver’s mount with incredible strength to pull massive loads, incidentally also rendering any means used to attach the load (such as a rope tied off to a mount’s saddle) unbreakable. The Solar’s mount may pull any object with no loss of speed, regardless of the object’s weight. This does not imbue the object with any unusual durability.

At Ride 6+, Essence 6+ Sun-Towing Method may be used to drag any vehicle, regardless of its size—even those normally large enough to qualify as structures, such as ships.

At Ride 7+, Essence 7+ the Solar may haul structures with a spherical mass up to up to (Essence x 50) yards in diameter. Should he tie off to a larger structure or landscape feature, his horse will tear out an appropriately-sized chunk and drag it away. For example, a Solar with Ride 10, Essence 10 could tear off the peak of a mountain and ride away with it at full gallop. Manses cannot be moved in this fashion.

 Draft Horse Measure 

Cost: 8m; Mins: Ride 5, Essence 4; Type: Reflexive Keywords: Combo-OK Duration: One day Prerequisite Charms: Horse Skids Trick

The mounts of the Solar Exalted are as tenacious as their riders. The Lawgiver may use this Charm to ‘lock on’ to a tar-get no more than (Essence x 3) yards away. Doing so causes an invisible tether of force to bind his mount into an orbit around the target. Carried on the momentum of the target’s movements, the Solar’s mount may effortlessly keep pace with the target, moving freely to any point within (Essence x 3) yards in order to maintain the minimum distance required for this Charm. The Lawgiver’s mount becomes tireless so long as Draft Horse Measure is in effect, and all Ride Charm costs are lowered by 2 motes (to a minimum of zero motes).

This Charm does not confer the ability to fly or to run across water, so other Charms are required in order to ride the Silent Winds of Adorjan across Malfeas or chase Leviathan across the ocean.

At Ride 6+, Essence 6+ the Solar may tether himself to weather patterns, enabling him to draft behind a hurricane or trade wind.