Melee |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Melee Excellency | 1m/die | Instant | Reflexive(1atk/2def) | Up to Attrib+Melee Dice bought for any melee roll/rating. |
| Dipping Swallow Defense | 2m | Instant | Reflexive(2) | Ignore all penalties to parry DV. Does not ignore inapplicability. |
| Solar Counterattack | 3m | Instant | Reflexive(9) | Gives standard step 9 counterattack. |
| Ready in Eight Directions Stance (Obvious) | 5m | Until Next Action | Reflexive(9) | Until next action, all parried attacks may be counterattacked. |
| Bulwark Stance | 5m | Until Next Action | Reflexive(2) | Until next action, ignore all penalties on DV. Does not ignore inapplicability. |
| Fivefold Bulwark Stance | 5m, 1wp | One Scene | Simple(Sp 6) | No Onslaught, 1 less DV penalty to all own actions. |
| Heavenly Guardian Defense (Obvious) | 4m | Instant | Reflexive(2) | Perfectly defend. Everything. Unless it triggers her Conviction flaw. |
Integrity |
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| Second Integrity Excellency | 2m/succ | Instant | Reflexive(1Atk/2Def) | Buy up to attrib+Integ/2 successes. |
| Temptation-Resisting Stance | 6m | One Scene | Reflexive(2) | Increade dodge MDV by Temperance or other relevant Virtue. |
| Elusive Dream Defense | 5m | Instant(Story) | Reflexive(2) | Perfectly defends against one mental influence attempt, by creating a magical intimacy to an idea or ideal that protects from the attack. Can enhance an existing intimacy instead. |
Golden Aster is a burly, powerful woman who moves with sun-touched grace. She wears her hair in a short, military haircut, and tends to the simple clothes of the peasantry, eschewing displays of wealth and power - aside from those of her Exalted nature.
Since her exaltation, she is rarely seen outside the orichalcum mass of her Celestial Battle Armor, the massive grand Daiklave she wields for Justice! strapped to its back. Metal pinions lying against the runed, Essence-illuminated surface carry the rudimentary essence of flight, her prefered means of travel between the various places she seeks to strike a blow for the Social Contract.
Dark haired and tan-skinned, she has the typical cast of the Lookshy soldiers who are her kin and whom she would still very much like to get along with, if she could. A few old scars still linger from her days as a soldier, despite her Exalted healing.
She grew up amidst disturbing dreams of demons with hands of light, betrayal, and fragmentary memories of life among the dead.
Her parents occasionally worried she was mad, but a local immaculate monk felt that there was more to the young woman's dilemma than that, and undertook to teach her meditation and to focus her essence in hopes of disciplining her mind enough to figure out where the visions came from, and how to understand them.
With effort, she came to be able to conjure the dreams as memories, and from the memories, her teacher gleaned that she was somehow remembering back to the Usurpation, as if it was just her past life. He assumed she had been trapped in the underworld for a very long time to permit this possibility, explaining those memories as well.
Golden Aster was, therefore, more than primed to accept the Immaculate story - if less loudly anti-Anathema than Realm versions - of Dragon-blooded as righteous masters of Creation.
Like most Lookshy residents, she spent some time in the military. As a young woman on furlough in Nexus, she encountered a Dragon-blooded Outcaste - neither Lookshy nor Realm - abusing her power and terrorizing a young man she claimed had 'cheated' her. It was clear what she had expected to purchase, and distasteful to Golden Aster. And more to the point, Golden Aster had a lifetime of memories of just such abuse of power.
In the resulting confrontation, Golden Aster Exalted. Brightly.
One of the tombs of Nexus called to her shard, and, the first to brave it since the Usurpation, she recovered the arms and armor of a long dead Solar - herself? She is not sure. All she knows is that it fits her mission.
There is a Contract, written into the very laws of nature, between rulers and ruled. Any regime that fails to hold up its side of the bargain is fated to fall, by outside pressure or inside.
But sometimes, the people need a champion. Someone to push the process along.
She's here to enforce the contract. That's an Eclipse's job, right?
Social