[Champions of the Divine Flame] Shala Assai

Shala Assai, Chosen of Knives

Shala Assai is an Exigent of the regional tutelary spirit Iron Mendicant. Her powers center around the use of knives as both tools and weapons, as well as ruthless pragmatism and gritty determination.

History

The foothills of the Calva Mountains, far upstream of where the Russet River feeds into the great Grey River of the East, hosted the Shala clan at the time they welcomed Assai to the world. When Assai came of age, the Shala clan gathered to escort her to the clan’s shrine, a humble remnant of what used to be a proud temple. Though it was once dedicated to Beautiful Endil, bearer of the reed, the god of the Russet River and fertility, the god now graciously shared it with the other gods of the Calva Mountains: Watcher on the Mount, bearer of the torch, god of weather, night time, and foreign relations; and Iron Mendicant, bearer of the knife, god of hunting, bloodletting, and woodcarving. Assai prayed for their blessings, a single sacred moment in her harried youth. Though the rite filled Assai with hope and wonder, she would only see the shrine once more in her life.

It was not long before war bore down on the Calva Mountains like a flash flood. Rebels from the Fahan clan had no sooner appeared on the shores of the Russet River than they had taken every shelter in the Shala’s humble holdings. Rough and vicious as they seemed, they only raised arms against Assai’s family in half-hearted threats. The poor Shala clan was clearly unloved by the Turah who had been depriving both lesser clans, and the Fahan rebels hoped to recruit them, toughened as they were by such a hardscrabble life. Many of the Shala agreed to join the rebels, on the condition that they leave the foothills before their small reserves of food ran out. Assai was among them. She could not know how long the road of war would truly be.

Exaltation

The rebels’ march on the valley was a disaster, though one that only revealed itself as such after many bitter seasons of fighting. Beyond the mountains’ embrace, the Realm’s catastrophic taxation had stripped the land bare of grain, leaving the rebellion with no food to march on, even when they managed to gain ground. Only the equal starvation of their enemies allowed them the mercy of retreat, falling back once again to Shala lands. Pursued by the desperate, vengeful army of the Turah clan, the rebels prepared to make their last stand in the defensible foothills. Assai was one of the only Shala survivors, and she directed the rebels in scavenging for both food and weapons. Without the Turah’s foundries, the rebels had been forced to match their metal with stone spears, some even forced to wield fallen tree branches. One evening, not long after her return, Assai spotted the campfires and banners of the enemy on the shores of the river. By morning, there would be battle, likely the last.

In the dark of night, Assai made her way up the mountain to the temple. The Turah would surely destroy it, as they had done with her clan’s other places of worship. With only a short time to bask in the memories of the most sacred moments of her life, Assai dismantled the shrine of Iron Mendicant to wrench a sacred knife from its place of reverence. One more blade, to sharpen one more spike, to amputate one more mangled limb, to gut one more foe — to save one more life.

The three gods, watching unseen, contemplated this desecration. Beautiful Endil and Watcher on the Mount shouted, offering an escalating series of curses they would wreak upon Assai if only she had offended them instead. Iron Mendicant remained silent as they raged on his behalf. Though he was aggrieved, he was shaken by the revelation that he and his fellows had let their land fall so low to famine and the uncaring hands of foreign powers, that their own favored people saw more value in scraps than the worship of the gods. They had to intervene before the clans’ collapse was absolute, but the incensed gods would not hear his contention. With no one left to turn to, he petitioned the king of gods for the spark of Exigence. Though it might cost all his power, or even his entire being, he would have a champion bring glory to the Calva Mountain peoples. It just so happened that the perfect candidate now bore his sacred symbol.

Assai’s grip tingled around the dull, ancient ceremonial knife. Without understanding how, she knew it surged with divine potency. Grim resolve redoubled within her heart, and working through the night, she and the rebels prepared their last stand. Only after the knife was lost, buried in the neck of an enemy soldier, would Assai understand that the power was hers.

Traits 

Assai is intended for Celestial play (Exigents, p. 46).

Martial Arts

Assai neither benefits from the Mastery keyword nor suffers the limitations of the Terrestrial keyword. However, she can attain Mastery to a limited extent using the Charm Knife-Hand Discipline (p. XX).

Sorcery

Assai is capable of initiating into Celestial Circle sorcery and Ivory Circle necromancy. Her Occult Ability determines whether she receives the Favored Ability discount on spells.

Evocations

Assai is neutral with blue jade and adamant, and dissonant with all other materials. When using short daiklaves, dire talons, and other knife artifacts, she is instead resonant.

Charms

The Iron Mendicant has bestowed Assai power over knives, but he was not a god of knife fighting or murder. While she has exceptional skill in combat using knives as weapons, her Charms also focus on the use of knives as tools in such diverse fields as whittling, bushcraft, and surgery. To a lesser extent, Assai’s affinity for knives can be applied to more metaphorical pursuits, such as severing a relationship with a sharp word or endowing herself with the durability of good steel. 

Excellencies

Assai’s Charms are limited to Craft, Medicine, Melee, Survival, and Thrown, but she can learn Excellencies for any Ability. She may pay one mote per die to add dice to an (Attribute + Ability) roll or pay two motes per point to raise static values such as Evasion, Parry, Resolve, and Guile.

Assai’s dice cap is (3 + [most relevant of Craft, Medicine, Melee, Survival, or Thrown]). For example, using social pressure may connect to Melee as it relies on Assai bringing force to bear, while casing an infiltration target may rely on the patience and ingenuity of Survival. When in doubt, the Storyteller should lean toward simply using the highest value. This dice cap is always increased by two when Assai uses a knife as part of the action, or when she is using a Charm with the Cutting keyword.

New Keywords

Cutting: Certain actions resonate with Assai’s Essence even when she isn’t using knives directly. When a Cutting Charm calls for or enhances a roll, Assai’s dice cap increases by two as though she is using a knife.

Knife-only: Assai needs to make use of a knife to use a Knife-only Charm. If the Charm makes or enhances an attack, the attack must be made with a knife.

Universal Medium Understanding

Cost: —; Mins: Craft 2, Essence 1

Type: Permanent

Keywords: None

Duration: Permanent

Prerequisite Charms: None

Assai’s transcendent knife cuts through enduring stone like pliant wood.

When Assai performs any kind of subtractive art (e.g. carving, whittling, gemcutting, etching), she uses her highest Craft rating that encompasses subtractive work. Any project that benefits from precise cutting (e.g. wood joinery, tailoring) can use that Craft at half its rating.

Diagnosis of Extirpation

Cost: 3m; Mins: Medicine 2, Essence 1

Type: Simple

Keywords: None

Duration: Instant

Prerequisite Charms: None

As a surgeon, the Chosen of Knives views things in terms of what is to be cut away. 

Assai rolls (Perception + [Socialize or Medicine]) to read a character’s intentions, requiring only a few seconds with double 9s. She learns which Intimacy the character has that is most unhealthy to him. This could be anything from a Principle reflecting a reckless attitude toward combat to a Tie toward a toxic relationship. If the character has no unhealthy Intimacies, she instead learns which of his Intimacies would be easiest to remove. 

Brandished Blade Escape

Cost: 4m; Mins: Melee 4, Essence 1

Type: Reflexive

Keywords: Counterattack, Decisive-only, Knife-only

Duration: Instant

Prerequisite Charms: None

Like a dagger drawn from its scabbard, Assai frees herself from confinement. 

Assai can roll (Dexterity + Melee) on the control roll of an attacker’s grapple. If she wins, she can treat her roll as a decisive counterattack. If she deals 3+ damage, the grapple immediately ends. 

At-Their-Throat Retort

Cost: 3m, 1wp; Mins: Melee 3, Essence 2

Type: Reflexive

Keywords: None

Duration: Instant

Prerequisite Charms: Cutting Word Deflection

Any battle of words can become a battle of blades in an instant. 

When Assai would spend Willpower to resist influence or enter a Decision Point due to an in-person social action, she can roll (Wits + Melee) against the (Wits + Awareness) of the person who originated the influence. If she succeeds, Assai draws a blade with inhuman speed and has it up against her target’s throat before he can even finish speaking. The influence or Decision Point is resisted as if she had spent Willpower, and her opponent is immediately put in a Hold at Bay action for a number of rounds equal to the difference between their rolls.

If other parties object to this turn of events, Join Battle rolls proceed after the first round of the Hold at Bay action, with Assai using her previous roll as her Join Battle roll.

Unsheathed Dagger Ambuscade

Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Survival 5, Essence 3

Type: Reflexive

Keywords: None

Duration: Instant

Prerequisite Charms: Knives-at-the-Ready Attitude ×2

The battlefield itself is merely a clever disguise for Assai’s vanguard.

Assai can treat her Join Battle roll as a roll to introduce a fact about how a battle group under her command arrived on the scene in secret, without requiring a Lore background. For example, she can reveal that she previously gave orders for an elite company of the Glister Hawk Vanguard to surround the meeting place and mount a counterattack in the event she is betrayed by her employers. 

If Assai enters concealment using Knives-at-the-Ready Attitude, she can enact an ambush stratagem without spending Willpower.

Reset: Once per story.

Blade-Forest Prison

Cost: 4m, 4i, 1wp; Mins: Thrown 5, Essence 4

Type: Simple

Keywords: Knife-only

Duration: One scene

Prerequisite Charms: Twice-Pinned Provocation, Iron Stance Killing Blow

The world around Assai becomes as sharp as her blades.

Assai hurls a knife high into the air to magically multiply, permeating an area out to short range with an environmental hazard as a rain of razor-sharp steel falls. Assai herself is immune, but other characters are subject to its damage/interval of 4L/round with a difficulty of 5. Anyone damaged by the hazard is pinned in place by the falling blades; without Charms or magic to escape they cannot take movement actions until they successfully avoid taking damage for a turn or this Charm’s effect ends. 

This Charm ends when Assai is crashed or resets to base after a decisive attack.

Infinite Knife Storm

Cost: 5m, 5i, 1wp (+3a on next); Mins: Thrown 5, Essence 5

Type: Simple

Keywords: Decisive-only, Knife-only

Duration: One scene

Prerequisite Charms: Blade-Forest Prison, Shower of Deadly Blades

With Assai’s final attack, an endless wave of knives falls upon the battlefield.

Assai must be at bonfire anima and have Initiative 15+ to use this Charm, and Blade-Forest Prison must be active. As Assai uses this Charm, her iconic anima extends into the sky, calling down an innumerable swarm of knives. She must remain still while she focuses. On her next turn, if she’s still at iconic anima and not crashed, she expends her full anima and makes a single decisive attack against everyone within the area of Blade-Forest Prison using her full Initiative. Those pinned by Blade-Forest Prison take up to (Essence) extra successes on the attack roll as dice of damage. 

Reset: Once per scene.

Shala Assai, Exigent Mercenary Captain

This version of Assai has been leading the Glister Hawk Vanguard for around a year and is gaining fame as a capable and reliable mercenary captain in the Scavenger Lands. She is a suitable five-dot Ally or three-dot Mentor, or an antagonist for a relatively inexperienced circle. This is only one possible form the Chosen of Knives could take and is not a definitive canonical version of Assai.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 7; Join Battle: 10 dice 

Personal: 15; Peripheral: 34

Health Levels: −0×3/−1×2/−2×4/−4×1/Incap.

Actions: Carving: 9 dice (+9 for 9m); Command: 10 dice (+8 for 8m); Feats of Strength: 8 dice (+8 for 8m, may attempt Strength 3 feats); Read Intentions: 9 dice (+7 for 7m); Resist Poison/Disease: 9 dice (+8 for 8m); Senses: 11 dice (+8 for 8m); Social Influence: 8 dice (+6 for 6m); Strategy: 8 dice (+8 for 8m); Surgery, 9 dice (+10 for 10m)

Appearance 3, Resolve 4 (+3 for 6m), Guile 3 (+3 for 6m)

Combat

Attack (Unarmed): 9 dice (+7 for 7m, Damage 11B/1)

Attack (Induriya’s Fangs, Blue Jade Dire Talons): 12 dice at close range (+10 for 10m, Damage 14L/3)

Attack (Knives): 11 dice at close range (+10 for 10m, Damage 11L/1)

Attack (Grapple): 7 dice (+7 for 7m, 7 dice to control)

Combat Movement: 10 dice (+8 for 8m)

Evasion: 6 (+4 for 8m); Parry: 5 (+5 for 10m) 

Soak/Hardness: 6 (Chain shirt) 

Intimacies

Defining Principle: We fight for silver, not honor

Major Principle: I will uphold the legacy of the Iron Mendicant

Major Tie: The Glister Hawk Vanguard (Familial Pride)

Major Tie: The Realm (Resentment)

Minor Principle: I regret the costs of war

Escort

Assai is usually accompanied by veterans of the Glister Hawk Vanguard (use Grizzled Mercenary traits, Exalted, p. 497, but with elite Drill), and potentially lieutenants like Yakir of Marita (use Young Dynast traits, Exalted, p. 541).

Anima

Friend to Blades (3m; Reflexive; Uniform, Instant): After being hit with a bladed weapon, Assai can impose a −2 penalty on the damage roll or the Initiative roll of a gambit. Against environmental and other non-attack damage with blades the penalty is −3 and the damage reduction lasts for the scene for each source.

Boot Knife Certainty (Permanent): Assai can always draw a mundane knife and can spend one mote to do so reflexively.

Bloodletting Stance (10m, 1wp; Reflexive; Decisive-only, Instant): Once per day, after making a decisive attack with a knife that resets her Initiative, Assai rolls Join Battle, adding a non-Charm success.

Offensive Charms

Ever-Bleeding Laceration (3m; Reflexive; Decisive-only, Knife-only): After dealing decisive damage with her knives or dire talons, Assai can increase her target’s wound penalty by one for the rest of the scene. Any character capable of bleeding out (Exalted, p. 174) begins to do so, even if she has not met the usual damage requirements.

Shadow-Knife Strike (4m; Reflexive; Knife-only): When Assai misses with an decisive attack using her knives or dire talons, she can immediately make a withering attack using a knife. It can’t deal more damage than the Initiative she lost for missing the decisive attack.

Defensive Charms

Blade-Balancing Evasion (2m; Reflexive; Uniform): Assai ignores 3 points of Evasion penalty. If she hit her enemy with a Thrown attack since her last turn, she ignores all Evasion penalties. This doesn’t negate surprise attacks. If Assai dealt decisive damage or crashed an enemy with a ranged attack during the scene she can dodge an attack equal to her successes.

Body of Tempered Steel (2m, 1wp; Reflexive; One Scene): Assai gains four soak. This reduces by one each time she is hit with a withering attack. When Assai wins a clash she can reset the soak bonus to full.

Clashing Edge Defense (4m, 1i; Reflexive; Clash, Withering-only): Assai makes a withering clash against an attack. If her opponent wins, he does not gain the usual damage bonus of the clash. If Assai wins, she deals no damage, but does steal one Initiative. Losing the clash still inflicts the normal −2 penalty.

Social Charms

Twist the Bitter Knife (4m; Supplemental): Assai attempts a bargain with five bonus dice and increases her dice cap by two. If she succeeds and her target is disadvantaged in the exchange or she bribed or gifted him with something she made, he also gains an Intimacy toward her at Minor level, typically of grudging respect, fear, gratitude, or similar.

Taxonomy of Frailty (6m; Simple): Assai reads intentions, learning the character’s most significant weakness, and gains a bonus specialty in exploiting it.

Miscellaneous Charms

Sever Pain (5m, 1wp, 1lhl; Simple; Indefinite): Assai ignores all penalties from sickness, poison, fatigue, or wounds. She gains +2 soak, +2 non-Charm dice to all Stamina rolls and a non-Charm success to all Athletics rolls. However, she suffers a −2 success penalty on all touch-based Awareness rolls, and at the end of each scene of strenuous activity this Charm remains active, she converts a level of damage to aggravated or takes a level of aggravated damage if she has no non-aggravated damage. This damage cannot be healed until Assai ends the Charm.

War Charms

Pioneer’s Flawless Command (4m; Reflexive): Assai rerolls 2 dice on a command roll. If she stunts incorporating equipment or battlefield preparations she made into her command, she rerolls 3 dice and all 1s until they fail to appear.

Vanguard-Refining Whetstone Style (10m, 1wp; Simple): Assai spends a month training a battle group of up to Size 3. She increases their Drill by one step and charges them with a mission with a comparable scope to an Intimacy. While serving this mission, the Battle Group gains +1 Might, +2 Resolve and a bonus success to rout checks.