Bureaucracy Charms

Immanent Solar Glory (Bureaucracy)

Cost: —; Mins: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 3; Type: Permanent Keywords: Mirror (Essence Engorgement Technique), Native Duration: Permanent Prerequisite Charms: None

This Charm is identical to its counterpart in Lore (see Exalted, p. 218), save for its different Ability placement (in all points where the two Charms differ save for Ability placement, this version of Immanent Solar Glory is considered to take precedent). The two are, in fact, the same Charm, and so a purchase of Immanent Solar Glory in War counts against the total maximum number of purchases for the Charm in any Ability. Immanent Solar Glory is also available in Performance, Larceny, and War.

Heavenly Mandate Marking

Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Bureaucracy 4, Essence 3; Type: Simple Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious, Shaping, Touch Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: Bureaucracy Excellency - Bureaucracy Mastery

The world knows those whom the Lawgivers claim as their own. The Solar touches a character who has just expressed a pledge of loyalty to him. In a flash of light, a golden brand depicting the Solar’s anima icon painlessly appears at the point of contact and then disappears.

Most First Age Solars chose to mark their underlings’ brows. This mark is permanent, reappearing whenever the target performs an action at the direct behest of his Solar lord and declares that his labors are performed on behalf of a Prince of Creation. The Solar may withdraw the brand as a miscellaneous action at any time, inflicting one automatic level of lethal damage.

A second purchase of this Charm, at Bureaucracy 5+, Essence 4+, allows the Solar to activate this Charm to cause a servant’s brand to flare to visibility if the servant is within the same realm of existence as the Lawgiver. As long as the Solar takes no other action, he may observe and hear what transpires around his servant, with the brand as his fixed point of perspective.

A third purchase, at Essence 5+, permits the Solar to use any of his Bureaucracy Charms through or on behalf of a remotely observed servant. These Charms base their effects and limitations on the Lawgiver’s traits rather than the servant’s.

Halo of Ministerial Dominion

Cost: 20m, 1wp, Mins: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 4 Type: Simple (Dramatic action) Keywords: Combo-Basic, Social Duration: Indefinite Prerequisite Charms: Speed the Wheels

The Lawgiver subtly assumes the reins of power by creating temporary positions and laws to exploit, his player rolling (Intelligence + Bureaucracy + Essence) in dramatic action designed to seize control. If successful, the character will have five dots of Backing in a particular bureaucracy, though her official status remains unchanged.

This Charm's Dramatic Action activation time generally requires one day of effort per dot of Magnitude of the bureaucracy the character attempts to gain support within, though stunts may reduce this period. Halo of Ministerial Dominion's activation roll must overcome the Dodge MDV of the leader of the targeted organization for the Charm to take effect. The leader of the bureaucratic organization may choose to block a successful activation by spending 5 Loyalty. Doing so immunizes the organization against this Charm for one season.

Market Buster Strike

Cost: 20m, 1wp; Mins: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 5 Type: Simple (Dramatic Action) Keywords: Combo-Basic Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: Frugal Merchant Method

The Lawgiver may reward good citizens with wealth or ruin the unrighteous, her player rolling (Intelligence + Bureaucracy) in a dramatic action to decide the value (from Resources 0 to 5) of a commodity or currency in the economy within which the Solar works. This roll must overcome a difficult of ([Bureaucracy + Influence]/2) with the Bureaucracy and Influence values derived from the highest total rating possessed by any character who opposes the Solar's market manipulations.

Charter-Stripping Condemnation

Cost: 0m; Mins: Bureaucracy 6, Essence 6; Type: Reflexive Keywords: Combo-OK, Native, Reactor, Shaping Duration: Instant Prerequisite Charms: Foul Air of Argument Technique

That which the Solars have brought into the world, they may take away with a word. The shinma shiver as the Solar utters a condemnation into the cosmos, consigning to destruction a bureaucratic organization he has created. The Lawgiver’s player rolls (Willpower + Bureaucracy) against a difficulty of the (Wits + Bureaucracy + Essence / 2) of the head of the targeted organization. Should this roll succeed, the targeted organization will collapse into utter ruin over the course of the next season: its employees resign, papers catch fire, office buildings are flooded or collapse into sinkholes. The Solar immediately gains a number of motes equal to twice the Magnitude of individuals employed by the targeted organization.

Alternate functions of this Charm exist, if the Solar has a rating of 6+ in the appropriate Ability:

With Craft 6+ the Solar may irreparably compromise artifacts and manses he has created, causing the magic to leak out of them. A daiklave simply becomes an inert hunk of orichalcum, while a manse will no longer channel Essence—it is simply a building sitting in a demesne. Roll (Willpower + Craft) against a difficulty of the owner’s (Wits + Craft + Essence / 2). Success restores (rating x 2) motes.

With Occult 6+, the Solar may rend asunder spells he has cast, restoring (Spell’s Circle x 3) motes.

With Lore 6+, the Solar may dissolve a landscape he created with a single invocation of Wyld-Shaping Technique back into the chaos from which it arose, restoring five motes.

With Integrity 6+, the Solar may destroy one of his own Intimacies, so long as he has held it for at least one season, restoring five motes.

This Charm may be activated no more than once per scene.

Visage Made Law

Cost: —; Mins: Bureaucracy 7, Essence 7; Type: Permanent Keywords: Native Duration: Permanent Prerequisite Charms: Bureau-Rectifying Method

Upon learning this Charm, the Solar impresses his identity upon the very fabric of the cosmos. The shinma open eyes they do not possess and behold the Exalt’s face. They know him then, and will accept no substitutes. Henceforth, all attempts to impersonate the Lawgiver suffer a -2 external penalty, and any character doing so suffers a three mote surcharge on the cost of all Charms while masquerading as the Solar. The motes spent to satisfy this surcharge are tithed to the Solar, delivered when he next awakens from at least one hour of uninterrupted sleep. The Solar may voluntarily exempt specific individuals from this cost and penalty, if he desires, and may just as easily revoke such exemptions. Additionally, whenever another individuals wears his face (either by magic or mundane disguise) that fact becomes Obvious to the Lawgiver when he next awakens—though the location, identity, and goal of the imposter are not revealed.

Finally, no effect may draw motes out of the Solar’s Essence pool without his consent, and no form of magical mental influence may force him to give such consent.

Legend Lives On

Cost: —; Mins: Bureaucracy 7, Essence 7; Type: Permanent Keywords: Training Duration: Permanent Prerequisite Charms: Bureau-Rectifying Method

The Solar pours her very soul into the works she has brought forth in Creation. Upon learning this Charm, the character selects a bureaucratic organization she presently leads. Should the Solar come to no longer lead that organization (whether due to resignation, coup, or the organization’s dissolution), she may spend one Willpower to target a different organization she leads; or she may spend five Willpower at any time to transfer this Charm’s focus to a different organization.

This Charm takes effect when the Solar meets his final day. Upon death, rather than guarding the Lawgiver’s corpse, his po soul becomes the quiet guardian of the targeted organization, bending its strength toward guiding the new leadership of the organization. In essence, the po does everything in its power to ensure the organization continues to run as though the Solar were still alive, sometimes prompting rumors that a Lawgiver has not truly died at all, but is simply guiding the organization in secret.A po spirit empowered by this Charm possesses the Solar’s Attributes, Abilities, Essence rating, and, in addition to an array of dangerous arcanoi, the following unique powers:

All General Charms the Solar knew in life, though they may only be used to support, lead, or defend the organization the spirit is attached to.

The ability to manifest itself in a form indistinguishable from the living Solar.

The po cannot be permanently destroyed short of Ghost-Eating Technique or equivalent magic, reforming at sunset each evening so long as the idea remains in the heart’s of the organization’s members that the Solar or his vision lives on, and so long as the organization it was set to guide endures.Furthermore, when the Solar’s Exaltation next incarnates, this spirit will seek out the new hero and seek to teach her everything it knows about the organization and how to carry on the last incarnation’s work, effectively and smoothly returning the fallen Solar to his rightful place at the head of the order. In addition to imparting detailed knowledge about the organization in question, this consists of a Training effect allowing the po to impart dots of Bureaucracy at a rate of one per week, up to a limit of the former incarnation’s Bureaucracy rating. This may explicitly break the newly incarnated Solar’s normal age cap—for example, a Solar who had only been Exalted for a year could be trained up to Bureaucracy 7 (the rating of her former incarnation), as a Training effect.

A similar Charm exists for the War Ability called The Unending March (Prerequisites: Heroism-Encouraging Presence), which targets a military organization and permits training in the War Ability.