Shadeborn Thoughts
All Shadeborn have two anima powers: a hun power that is enabled through the use of water from the corresponding river on the target (or in Phlegethon's case, the weapon/hands) and which affects dead targets more effectively than living ones, and a po power that affects the Shadeborn's own body or innate capabilities in some way.
Eridanos - Remembering
Signature Character: Holbar
- Eridanos are the wandering minstrels and sifu-scholars of the Shadeborn; they journey to far-off places to learn their mysteries, and put the deeds of the departed into song or story that they might more easily let go and move into rebirth.
- Linguistics: Oral tradition.
- Lore: Remembering. Obviously.
- Martial Arts: Remembering, via the mentor-student tradition.
- Performance: More oral tradition.
- Ride: Empathy ~ communing with the spirit of the steed.
- Hun Power: 5 motes for a target to remember something perfectly. For ghosts, this allows them to add their rating from a relevant passion to their rolls for a scene.
- Po Power: 1 mote for eidetic memory for the remainder of the scene, 5 motes to receive 1/2 Essence successes to a creative or scholarly endeavor as a result.
Lethe - Transcending
Signature Character: Injara
- Lethe are the societal glue of the Shadeborn, focusing on those things that bring structure and form to the interactions of beings living and dead.
- Bureaucracy: Everything flows into Lethe; that means that the Caste is about social structures.
- Craft: The fundamental act of society.
- Medicine: Some Suffering elements, but I kind of think it's more about Transcending.
- Resistance: Transcending is about rising above what's happening to you?
- Sail: Sailing involves transporting yourself in a manner that's beyond your natural capabilities, plus lethe is the one of the five rivers that's unlike the others because it flows in a circle in the middle instead of out from the borderlands in
- Hun Power: 1 mote to grant a touch of lethe to a willing target, 5 to an unwilling target. This sends willing ghosts with no entanglements to Lethe immediately and forces a roll for others, but only provides a calming effect to the living.
- Po Power:
Acheron - Suffering
Signature Character: Marku
- Acheron are the rangers and lone infantry of the Shadeborn, capable of surviving in any unknown environment and being prepared for any threat. (OOC note: think Rambo.)
- Athletics: Athletics is a vital survival skill for those who are constantly assaulted by suffering.
- Awareness: When you're dead, awareness leads to suffering.
- Brawl: The most brutal and directly violent of the combat arts.
- Endurance: Gotta be Suffering.
- Survival: Ditto Suffering.
- Hun Power: 5 motes to dredge someone's ultimate suffering up from the depths of their soul. For a ghost, this causes them to take a penalty equal to one of their fetters which disappears at a rate of -1 per turn; for a mortal, a -1 penalty for one turn.
- Po Power: For 5 motes, reverse wound penalties for the remainder of the scene.
Cocytus - Obscuring
Signature Character: Saraya
- Cocytus are those who learn of secrets, but more importantly, those who keep them hidden; the masters of the white lie and the falsehood that preserves a greater truth; the secret police who use first a velvet glove, then a mailed fist to keep order.
- Archery: Generally done from great range.
- Investigation: Obscuring! Because lying is awesome.
- Presence: I'm sticking this in Obscuring and making them all liars.
- Socialize: More lies. Obscuring.
- Stealth: Sounds like Obscuring!
- Hun Power: 5 motes to drag down an opponent in forgetfulness, losing the memory of one fact for the rest of the scene. In ghosts, this removes an arcanoi tree of the user's choice for a scene; on mortals, it has only a narrative effect.
- Po Power: 5 motes to turn completely invisible as long as they stand in the same place; moving ends the effect.
Phlegethon - Unmaking
Signature Character: Shikaya
- Phlegethon are the occultic shock troops of the Shadeborn, those who respond to mystic threats and disturbances in Netheos, who issue extreme sanction to threats and gird themselves for battle in necromantic enchantments when the Shadeborn go to war.
- Dodge: This wound up being unmaking, like you're, uh, unmaking an attack or...something.
- Larceny: This could be Unmaking, so you can unmake other people's things.
- Melee: Somebody's got to get two combat abilities if Lethe gets none. I think it's Unmaking, and they get Melee/Thrown (which is useful) rather than Melee/Brawl (which ain't).
- Occult: Unmaking, since they have necromantic abilities.
- Thrown: See Melee.
- Hun Power: 10 motes to rend the akashic medium for a scene; hit dematerialized targets and add +1 to all damage.
- Po Power: 5 motes to destroy any mundane object that can fit in their hands.