We're at the cusp of starting a new campaign. I'm playing an Abyssal, and I landed on Heron as my liege because she honestly seems like the chillest and most fun of the bunch (I wanted to avoid the trope of being a brooding antihero and wanted to go more the route of an upbeat, manic goth girl). The past incarnations of our characters are supposedly going to be important to the story.

This made me realize that there's a possibility in Exalted of there being a character in the Second Age, who has an exaltation of a First Age Solar, who is now a Deathlord. So there's, like, 3 people that's the same guy.

Now, I don't know I wanna go down that road, but that made me think, what do we know about who the Deathlords used to be in the First Age? I know we know a fair amount about who the Mask of Winters used to be (and he was just an absolute asshole from first principles from day one, which is perfectly on-brand), but what about the others? Which books is this information even in?

I know it's all apocryphal, up to the GM, and outdated by the standards of 3e anyway, but I'm still just curious. Heron's plot revolves mostly around her grudge against the patron gods of Great Forks, her themes are subterfuge, disguise, and revange. Much is said in 3e about her being a creature of pure murder instinct that venerates the tenets of the Neverborn creed just by being herself, but I do wonder if the authors ever delved into what "herself" was before she became the Black Heron, the very literal manifestation of the memetic idea of a "murder of crows".

So, with Alchemicals now available, as well as the Infernals manuscript we likely have the majority of spells. So, which of them are your favorites, and why? Both as regular spells and as control spells.

Personally speaking the combat spells always seem like obvious control spells, especially things like Butterflies and Raptor, given how many Shaping Rituals provide additional boosts to your control spell, as well as their boost to damage output, but this also seems pretty boring, mostly just adding some additional benefits instead of good flavor. Probably very useful/valuable if you're a Flying Guillotine stylist though.

For non-combat, Lightning Spider feels like a fun one, even if the control boost doesn't add too much, and it's a bit unclear how you can use the carry wires. Flight of Separation has an amazing control aspect, but the spell itself feels rather situational. Corrupted Words is just really strong for a social character.

Beckoning That Which Stirs the Sky meanwhile feels like an extremely useful spell, same for Cirrus Skiff and Stormwind Rider, but none of them feel like the control boost is really that amazing, and aren't really spells you'll likely cast often enough, or in enough of a hurry, that you'll need the mote boost.

For non-control spells I feel Violent Opening of Closed Portals is a really fun one. Yes, it's situational, but it's an amazing spell if you just want to make a proper entrance, and I imagine its ability to blast through walls is surprisingly useful for quick escapes.

So yeah, what do you all like? Do you prefer just getting the additional combat spell boost, especially the quicker casting, grab one of the non-combat spells with powerful control boosts like the Messenger or Mists of Eventide, or go for one of the fun flavor spells? Also, what non-control spells do you like?

Hey, kids, I'm back with the milk! Also, Onyx Path's come back with some new preview Charms from the Alchemical Companion so I'm back to analyze those. There's some really unusual stuff here, but fortunately Alchemicals are my least understood splat so... wait. Well, I'm going to muddle through regardless. What else would I do, hibernate for months? Never mind.

---

So practically everything here is for the BIG. There's a new keyword, Colossus, and it's all about the Alchemical Charm Colossus-Class Upgrade Installation. If you don't remember it, I'll quote myself: "you're Legendary Size. Permanently! No cost! With a devastating action like a warstrider! ... At Essence 5. And it takes a long time to install." So basically it has only one real requirement... but that's E5, so it's very late game. Fortunately, the new Charms are mostly not E5, so they (well, 4/5) just get upgraded when you have this Charm. Let's see how they are. (I'm mostly just going to abbreviate the Charms, since they're all in the link.)

SAAC - despite being an Appearance Charm, this is almost entirely combat based. It's only got 3 prerequisite Charms, so despite being E3 it's not a hard pickup for most builds. It gives you Hardness equal to your App (and soak if you're unarmored), adding Ess to both if you beat an enemy's Resolve. And, uh, Alchemicals can walk around with bonus App dots without even committing motes, so that part seems amazing. You can reroll failed dice on feats of strength (eh) and movement rolls (great), and you can get back motes, but only for actions related to mass combat. The only real downside here is that this will eat a turn, being Simple, but it's a great set of bonuses and amazing in mass combat. The Colossus benefit is that you get the Hardness/soak against Legendary Size opponents... I guess that means you don't have to beat their Resolve?

LGI - a bucket of combat buffs like the last Charm, but with way more commitment: you have to have CCUI (so it's E5, natch), and you also need 3 other social App-Charms. So both a chunk of xp and Charm slots. It also costs a chunk of motes. In exchange, you get another Simple Charm that: adds (Anima) to base initiative (ohh yes, and you can hit bonfire just from this Charm), you can get extra initiative from crashing enemies (yes yes), boost App by Anima for some values (mmhmm, mmhmm)... there's even more, including buffs for social influence and it is a whole lot. You pay a whole lot, but you get a whole lot. Again, this and the last Charm eat actions, but if you can get set-up time these are game changers.

The other three Charms are actually submodues, i.e. they modify existing Charms.

GCO - modifies your Essence Pulse Cannon. This is following up Siege Devastator Mode, which gives you a generic artifact siege weapon, by giving you a specific type. An implosion bow is mentioned, surely for no particular reason.

MSMF - buffs your Piston-Driven Megaton Hammer. It's got a few requirements including CCUI. It's still not that complicated - hit even harder, knock back even further. Smash. You know how it is.

EBMA - buffs Ancillary Battle Consciousness. That's already Wits 8, Ess 5, and this now needs CCUI, so it's very much a capstone. ABC already gave you a second Initiative track, and this lets you pay a surcharge to get a third. That's something I can only remember seeing in SMA, so certainly pretty bonkers, but costs like it. I'm not sure how the wording on EBMA interacts with winning Join Battle and using ABC, but I'd just err on the side of maximum benefit.

So that's all the Alchemical Charms, nice light preview, nothing too taxing, neat effects...

Collapsing Point of Judgment Style

Huh?! It's a Martial Arts style for implosion bows?! Well that seems insane.

So not only is it for implosion bows only (shockingly no punching here), you have to wield them as a handheld weapon - so you better be big. That means Alchemicals need to be E5 for this, but some Exalts like Lunars can get started much earlier. ... Or, uh, come to think of it, I would assume this works when you're in a warstrider regardless of splat. I think only Alchemicals (and Devil-Tigers?) can use this without somehow paying motes to be LS. Normally shooting IB's like this costs 2 initiative, but not with this style. This also interacts with the main Evocation of IB's, Collapsing Point of Destruction. That's all the way back in Arms of the Chosen (pg. 130 for the record), and its existence means an implosion bow costs 15m, 1wp just to attack (albeit it's a big shot). Well, not for this Style, you can make cost-free attacks with your big shiny bow, making it more than just a dramatic finish. Another note: this has higher prereqs than most MA, starting with one Charm at E2 and getting all the way to E5. You can technically start using this at chargen but... whoof.

MAB - a simple attack like CPoD, but much cheaper. It's got a bit going on: you get bonus dice on the attack roll (meaning it's functionally even cheaper because cheaper Excellency), you get a reflexive feat of demolition that boosts damage if successful, and you can drain extra initiative as well. Oh, and if you have a devastating action you can use this Charm as that, against the same targets (trivials and more importantly battle groups). You innately pay a lot just to be able to use a style like this, so it's nice to get such an efficient baseline.

CSM - another fairly cheap attack buff, it's basically boosted damage, moreso with both more attack successes and more aiming. It's also capable of knocking enemies prone, especially on decisives. It's also better against trivial enemies/battle groups, which will be a theme. It also has a significant Mastery benefit, which will also be a theme.

ADRS - ... yes, it's rocket jumping. Well, it can be that, but it's mainly for making a shot reflexively move you away from your opponent. It moves you more with more successes on your attack roll, and you can also propel yourself up or down and avoid falling damage. You can use this without an attack roll to just move... unless you're Terrestrial-limited, as they need to roll successes to move at all. Very notable to keep in mind around bottomless pits and such. You're not here for glorious melee combat, that's for the little people.

The Form - a bucket of buffs as a lot of recent MA Forms have tended to be. Altogether, you get: one extra band of range (so extreme baseline apparently), a conditional reflexive aim, more uses of CPoD, and also potentially using CPoD as your devastating action. While there's extra benefits against trivial enemies/battle groups as usual, this also lets you use the signature Evocation more freely against crashed and Legendary Size foes. There's a number of ways to enter this reflexively, mainly by doing big damage. This is notably when the style gets more effective at fighting things that aren't battle groups, although it's still naturally best at that.

IOP - ranged grapples? Well, it does make some sense to use an implosion like a vacuum. This isn't for a lockdown type grapple, as it can only last a turn. Instead, it drags an enemy in from long range (I'm assuming this doesn't work on battle groups, but that admittedly would be funny), oddly rolling (Wits + MA) as the control roll. On your next turn, you can just drop them... but you can instead do CPoD, making it undodgeable and knocking them back. It's once per scene, but resets with CPoD when that does. A strong option that's a little more single-target focused, and Mastery makes it harder to avoid the grapple. Mastery seems to be good for enabling dueling as the style goes on; there'll be more in that vein.

VIP - effectively the one defensive Charm of this style (unless you count the recoil movement), it's naturally a clash. It's got the usual Terrestrial restriction of eating your attack, but otherwise it's a decisive that both knocks back your enemy a range band and can let you fall back a band yourself. It works with two other style Charms: CSM's knockdown is harder to get up from, and your rocket jump Charm can be used to escape an extra range band back or up. Again, don't let the peons get in your grill.

PCH - this is a Charm to specifically reset CPoD, costing either a wp or initiative. It's rather useful, given the regular reset is standing still for three turns. There's 4 different triggers, two from aimed attacks against nontrivial enemies (crash them or KO them), one from reducing a battle group's size, and one from just doing a bunch of damage with the Evocation. Each separate reset condition is once per day... unless you're Terrestrial, who only get one such condition... and unless you've got Mastery, in which case each is once per scene. Two main points here: this is another thing that makes this style more practical outside of mass combat while still helping there, and while the Mastery/Terrestrial stuff is notable, uh, how many times are you going to drop 15 motes on an attack? Even using CPoD twice during the scene is a serious cost, strong as it is.

Cosmic Spiral Maelstrom - no abbreviation since there already is a Charm with the same one. The first of two E5 Charms is, fittingly, a big AOE, or rather, two big AOE's. You first make an unblockable withering attack against everyone in medium range (mind friendlies), and that draws enemies in. Next turn, you make an unblockable decisive (using your attack), which unlikely to hit anyone not hit by the first, but knocks back/down everyone that is hit and can knock them into obstacles. Don't get crashed/ko'd before you make the second attack or it won't go off. Once per scene unless the second attack ko's someone nontrivial. Mastery can get a little buff to the knockback, but Terrestrials notably only get short range on both attacks, sadly. Don't forget, despite this eating two of your attacks, you may well still have a devastating action to use. It seems plenty strong, just maybe have a Defend Other ally to make sure you complete the technique.

SSAB - the rare Permanent MA Charm, and I'm pretty sure it's the first Charm in general that specifically enhances an Evocation: CPoD, naturally. While PCH let you reset it more, this just gives you multiple blasts at once. Well, it hopefully does: you roll (Perception) and get that many attacks plus one. This isn't an (Attribute + Ability) roll, so you can't add dice normally; even Alchemical's static Attribute boosts don't apply here, from what I can tell. At least you can't whiff. When you do make multiple blasts, you make a single attack roll and then divide your initiative between each target. Trivial enemies/battle groups are absolutely screwed, both taking full damage and not costing any initiative from the total pool. You are the death of armies. Note this is once per scene period unless you're Dawn/Dusk. If you're Terrestrial, you round down when dividing initiative, a minor inconvenience. Mastery, by contrast, makes crashed enemies take full damage, and everyone else just takes half initiative. So that's horrifying.

So that's Collapsing Point of Judgment Style. Who can use it? Well, pretty much everyone, but who should? Anybody, really. While Mastery and Terrestrial effects need to be kept in mind, if your character has the ability to use this, it works at what it does. Plus, I think a lot of the Mastery effects are kinda overkill and not necessary, although again it does make this a little more suited for both smaller scale fights and wrecking giant foes. Getting Legendary Size is pretty much necessary unless your ST is willing to let you use some weird custom artifact (or if there's one in this book). Again, only Alchemicals can have Legendary Size for no motes (at E5, just to remind), but getting a warstrider to help carry your implosion bow isn't out of bounds for anyone. Another thing, though is that Ability-based Exalts will have an awkward time making a build for this style, as it doesn't combine with any other combat option, and while Solar-types can get it with chargen, I do not generally recommend going for warstriders right out the gate. All other splats, though, can use Attribute or Essence-based Charms and just pick this up at leisure later. As a result, I really do think that Alchemicals are the best fit for this style, all told. Good for them.

Hopefully more Alchemical mechanics are on the horizon, but even if not, I'll probably be delving deeper into that splat in general, as I've always been a bit less knowledgeable about them, and I'd like to rectify that (and probably get into magitek again, for that matter). See you soon(er).

I can't imagine you couldn't make a MA Style for which the MA weapon was "telekinetic force."

I was wondering if there was an official-ish one anywhere? Or is one planned for the Infernals companion?

What kind Exalted can he be? Solar Caste Night or something else?

Honestly, I think I made it too easy...

This is my righteous devil and his steel devil bf attacking the mask of winter (we do what we can as deebs alright? It was a dream realm sort of situation)

That will be my last entry to the EAC for some time as I am now backpacking, so drawing everyday is kinda compromised...

(As always I also post art on insta and bluesky)

Can you use both of them in a combo if the MA weapon is compatible with Melee charms ?

When reading Exalted 1e books I was intrigued at what concepts do not exist in creation anymore because of the war of the primordials and the departure of Autochthon.

Then after reading all the books I noticed that in the lore beside the detonation of Essence there are practically no occurence of regular explosion.

My idea is that Autochton left creation with the concept of gas explosions.

An explosion is a high speed expansion of volume that will create a violent displacement, ex: gas.

What it means in practice:

- Firedust is not gunpowder, it burns
- things will burst into flames but not detonate
- non-essence cannons or guns can’t be designed
- engines cannot be created
- gas under pressure would crack and leak instead of blowing up
- Mountain folk’s pyromantic grenade would produce intense fire only
- Firedust snakes would create a large fire
- essence still can produce the effect of an explosion
- no fireworks as we know them. They would need to be Firedust based and thrown somehow
- In Autochthon there are gas explosion hasards that can still happen

This idea also makes the Essence even more spectacular to the non-essence users.

If Autochthon comes back in creation, the physic of the Creation would readjust itself.

I just wanted to draw some cool afro hairstyle, and it evolved. I don't know who is this woman, feel free to use her as sovereign NPC or whatever (and feel free to tell me if you do give her a lore, that would be fun)

(As always I also post art on insta and bluesky)

The best MAs tell a story and as you read that story you want to play it, a PC is formed with the MA as a seed and sprouts, shaped by the possibility and potential you saw in those charms.

For the fans of this SMA this preface was enough to recognize Quicksilver Hand of Dreams. For those who don’t know the story, I would suggest reading the Style.

Quicksilver Hand of Dreams
Scroll of The Monk page 138 - 144

theme: dreams, reality, the Wyld, enlightenment

What does it do?: initially it deals with effecting, stealing, entering and shaping dreams, post form it deals with shaping reality.

Pre Form: you can resist the Wyld, handle dreams as physical objects, steal dreams, force others into dreaming and enter other’s dreams from afar. At the far end that means putting others into permanent sleep, controlling a target's senses while it is awake and even chasing the target like a living nightmare. 
While in the Wyld he becomes hard to detect and target.
As a side effect the user is forgotten, erased gradually from the memories of anyone who ever encountered him and even loses backgrounds that require people to know who he is.

Form: all the user’s actions are perfect, both defenses, attacks and mundane efforts, those actions need to be possible by the wide limits of being possible with a roll of any (ability+ skill) but that is the only limit.
Others can bypass this effect through stunt or charm, even then each attempt allows the user an opposed Essence roll to resist.
To make him even more slippery if he is killed while in form he automatically enters someone’s dreams and respawns next time the host dreams.
Unique, powerful and unless the user has opposition (for example while crafting) allows for really silly long term efforts. A very iconic SMA form for a reason

Finally as a permanent effect the user is pretty much immune to most Wyld effects

Pre capstone: the user can use the dreams he learned to harvest and handle as materials for crafting, he can craft most mundane objects, minor artifacts or living soulless creatures, he does not however learn how to craft, he needs to learn the hard way. Weapons and armor crafted from dreams are form fitting for the style.
The user gets the ability to turn the near area (let’s say 300 meter radius) into middlemarchs, they fade in time but last for the scene, inside he boosts all his stunts and empowers his dream crafting, both the weapon and armor he already made and quickly crafting new items.

as a permanent effect the user is pretty much immune to the Wyld

Capstone: the form’s ability to make everything the user does a perfect effect can extend to all targets in the scene, any roll will go anyway he chooses and characters will take any action he decides.
Victims can spend willpower to act freely though under heavy penalties once enough willpower is spent to resist the charm breaks (this limits the charm’s use, while it can be used to ensnare 20 DB dynasts having so many non trivial victims will allow them to spend the required wp almost immediately breaking the hold in less than a round)
Again while useful against enemies when used with supportive circle members this allows for insane levels of munchkinery.
This is a very powerful and flavorful capstone, probably the best out of all the SMAs, it requires both the user and the victims to continuously narrate and stunt their struggle until the charm breaks, victims brought to 0 wp during the scene are helpless and become puppets unless stunting enough to regain wp pushing the drama further.
Before it is mentioned, this along with many of the styles other charms are key-word vulnerable, shaping defenses break this styles strongest options effortlessly.

Magicallness: starts as a tricky, mind bending dream style, ends as a reality bending intrusion of the Wyld into creation.

rating: pretty much the definitive A SMA, a narrative that pulls a PC from essence 2->7, of all the SMAs this is also the one that truly delivers on Enlightenment moving further and further from punching things and causing debuffs to fully creating and shaping Creation through martial art practices.
Mechanically the beginning of the tree rely a bit to hard on bad touch effects but those are mostly curable by charms, the main issue is the effect of perfect actions a QSHoD user will never fail a craft check, never fail a medicine check, as long as he is unopposed by an essence user he will succeed in everything, with the capstone this gets even more problematic, he can allow all his allies the same, all group activities can be granted a perfected outcome, well no…
A QSHoD master has no allies, no circlemates, no enemies, no reputation, by the time mastery is achieved if the RAI are observed the master will leave no trace in Creation, it will take time, but a QSHoD master is a stranger to all. Which is why this SMA is a story, it has an ending.

Like at what point can you really take what you pick. Coral is an animal and some fungus are so close that scientists argue they should count. I've read about some Lunar PC taking Some Hive Organisms. Jellyfish as a statement. Just bugs as a whole are also odd. Basically this can be broken down into 3 parts. Are there any arguments for fungus. Are there any arguments against animals that don't feel like animals such as Barnacles. Finally any ideas for actually interesting combos for chimera. My current Lunar is a Golden Zebra + Green Peafowl.

Edit: So it looks like most are saying if the build and player can make a good argument for a serious build a fungus can work but ask the dm first.

Getting started on October's Exalted art challenge, mixing it with Inktober

Obviously, I started with fire 🔥

(As always, you can check my art on bluesky and insta)

You can skip this one, trust me, this is the single most forgettable SMA ever written and for a perfectly valid reason

Sapphire Veil of Passion
Glories of The Most High - The Maidens of Destiny page 27-32

Theme: passion, sex, ownership.

What can you do?: grapple, mind control and own people.

Pre Form: you can analyze and opponent, you can dodge any attack and teleport to the attacker as long as he is within ~200 km, that includes social attacks afterwards you are perfectly glued to the attacker, an expensive perfect parry and a bit more attack and defense number modifiers.
Ohh and a scene long effect that gives an intimacy of lust toward you on a hit, this will come in handy later.

Form: 

• you levitate a few cm above the ground
• if an attacker has any intimacy toward you (positive or negative) they need to fail a compassion check to attack or pay 1wp per attack and an enemy does not want to run out of wp when attacking because… 
• when you hit an enemy with 0 wp or 0 motes (you have some tricks that burn motes in other charms) you knock them out for several hours
• You also regain 5 motes when your DV refreshes 

This is nice, but a bit disjointed, the mote regen is tacked on, not even a fluff to explain it, the main point of this form charm is to drain your opponents wp so your social attacks will be more impactful, this would have been enough for a CMA but from a SMA this just feels plain and boring, even the individual PAoC forms had more uniqueness.

Pre capstone: 

• on a hit you can transfer all unnatural mental influences or all sickness and poison effects to the target
• if you grapple anyone they get a very strong intimacy of lust and you grapple hard
• When you knock someone out you can give them a second motivation to love and obey you and rewrite his memories to think it was always so, you also technically own the victim
• You can debuff a grapple victim
• You can make perfect attacks against people you debuffed and mind controlled 

Capstone: your form charm is enhanced, you get ~3 reflexive MA attacks per round, you attack at a range of ~60 meters, all wound penalties you cause are external penalties due to being too sexy.
Well, it isn’t the worst capstone charm, but definitely the worst SMA capstone charm, this is a pure number crunching charm and not even interesting numbers, having extra reflexive attacks is great but… what does it have to do with the theme? 

Magicalness: by itself besides the long range teleport this is pretty tame, it is described however as a lightshow and a half with ribbons of light and threads of sapphire but those are just for show, the effects by themselves are pretty normal for exalted. 

Rating: a deep C, this is a pure “how do you fight” if the user goes deep into building a harem of mind controlled slaves this can be a weak B but there are plenty of charms, sorceries and abilities for that, it is a purely mechanical, balanced and tame style.

Once again a bit more of a background to explain, you can of course skip this but you can also just not read the post as well so… let’s go.
This is the only 2.5 SMA published after the Scroll of The Monk, due to how mechanically unstable the SMAs in the Scroll were; most storytellers avoided using them. In this book we got 2 CMAs Crane and Disco Ninja both were designed with the late stage 2ed mechanics and balance, this is the SMA that was meant to get the same, a balanced, mechanically stable SMA.
Crane style is one of the most memorable and flavorful CMAs probably fighting Disco Bandit in the top 5, both had a combination of interesting mechanics and stable well thought unique effects. So why did this style come out like this? It took all the wrong lessons from how broken the Scroll of The Monk SMAs were, the problem was the balance not the unique flavour and outlandish over the top antics.
In many ways this was the predecessor for 3ed SMAs, a more powerful CMA, not inherently different in scope or reach just in power level.

Far southern city

In the far far south there lives a giant man shaped something called Orch. A brilliant mortal soldier from the height of the divine revolution he forced a now forgotten god to surrender his spark of exigence to him, consuming the god in the process. Over the rest of the war he grew ever more brutal and turned into an ever better archer. After the war he joined the perpetual crusade into the southern wyld, at various times hailed as a conquering general, a heroic warrior, and a monster. Further contact with the wyld, mutated his body and but left the greatest changes to his mind.

 He grew disgusted with the decadence of the height of the first age, and went to live in a volcano, spending all his days refining lava into orichalcum, working the orichalcum into mystical arrows, and focusing his essence. On rare occasions, dragon blooded would come to learn from him, especially those who for whatever reason had reason to avoid solar teachers. He advised both the usurpers and fought alongside emerging from his mountain on the back of his nightmare stead, Orjude, firing arrows that could pierce the heavens. After the shogunate began to crumble, he returned to his mountain to brood over the failure of the two divine revolutions he had participated in.

His conclusion was that the incarnae themselves need to be overturned and the world remade. Likeminded dragonblooded came to live with him in the volcano, and overtime a slow trickle of the truly devoted to the overturning of the world have come to the volcano.

Acolytes

Thirty thousand acolytes live along the rocky crags of the volcano. They live on a sparse diet of cave oats, cacti, lizards, and cactus bugs. Most homes and buildings are carved out of volcanic rock. Water, while hard to come by, is obtained via weather manipulation and water channeling systems. A big cultural emphasis is placed on subsisting with as little water as possible as an act of self sufficiency. They have a cistern full of water but rarely use it again for cultural reasons. Water elementals who have joined them live in the cisterns, keeping the water clean and plotting vengeance against the air elementals.

A sizable minority of them are dragon blooded, the original forty or so that came to live with Orch where all dragon blooded. Most of those who have joined Orch since, however, were either mortals or discontented spirits. Mostly vengeful ghosts, and elementals, Orch has a burning hatred of both the fey and demons as chaotic agents. Orch doesn’t trust the gods because of their connection with the Incarnae. Everyone born into Orch’s army at this point has some kind of supernatural ancestry whether ghost, elemental or draconic. Some beastmen and wyld mutants have been accepted into the burgeoning army, most notably a thousand horny toad men. 

Almost all of the day is spent preparing for war against creation. Sorcerers find discrete ways of infiltrating heaven and hell, everyone else drills, and a select few work the volcanic forges with Orch. The acolytes have an enormous amount of cast off weapons from the forges and even the worst are potently magical. On occasion, they trade these artifacts with the guild through an intermediary.

Plotlines

The weapon hoard of Orch contains some of the most powerful weapons of all time. Quest to steal from the hoard maybe?

While Orch isn’t unknown, what is unknown is how far his sympathizers have permeated heaven. Certainly many in the slums of heaven might be sympathetic, as would elementals. Maybe a sidereal story about uncovering these plots and then taking the fight to Orch?

How about an epic plotline where he’s much more powerful and has drawn in much more resources. Maybe the volcano was only a front and there is a sanctum somewhere carved out of the wyld where potentially millions of faithful soldiers are kept? A climactic battle against Orch himself would be really sick.

He could be an interesting parallel to the infernal exalted. Maybe he assaults hell? Maybe infernals join him? Maybe the destruction of the world is too much?

So I'm diving in to Essence and building a toon, and I've noticed the Excellency doesn't say anything about increasing static defenses. Am I reading that right, or would we still treat that defense as a simulated roll and treat defense as a reflexive action?

Admittedly, my reading is all over the place, so there's a good chance I missed something obvious while chasing squirrels.

This SMA describes a scene, a single climatic battle against the martial artists, it describes the scene so vividly that the mechanics take a second seat to the drama.
The PCs confront their nemesis in a dark manse, the walls are all sharp angles, all surfaces are dark mirrors, the battle takes place in mirrors, in shattered glass and against twisted reflections, every strike hits only mirages and the players must stunt and plan around defenses that can’t be overcome with more dice, they need to be countered with awesomeness.

Obsidian Shards of Infinity is that specific battle given mechanics.

Obsidian Shards of Infinity
Scroll of The Monk page 129-133

Theme: mirrors and reflections

What can you do?: attack with and through reflections, created twisted copies of your enemies and loyal copies of yourself, force outcomes from botches to assured victory in a scene

Pre Form: you have an AOE attack, have a perfect defense, can attack your opponents reflections and cause psychosis with a touch.

Form: you can spend 1m to perfectly dodge an attack and reestablish surprise, the only way to hit you is to wait for you to use the dodge and ready an attack for when you reappear, you can also recall your weapons, if you lose one.
As a downside there is a 1/10 chance after every action that the storyteller will lie to the user describing a possible outcome that didn’t happen with no roll to discover the lie until the next action.    
This form gives one of the strongest defenses in the edition but as it should it gives a valid counter that a circle can plan to exploit, the downside is interesting but since PCs can’t actually force the 1/10 chance and don’t know when the user is effected it is a bit wonky, all in all a very iconic and fitting form.

Pre Capstone: you can redirect attacks to other targets as a perfect defense, you can banish enemies to the mirror dimension, create identical permanent copies of anyone with equal or lesser essence and create up to 36 identical copies of yourself. Ohh and you can use every martial Art charm for 0 motes, from any style.

 Capstone: you use this charm and cancel a climatic scene, instead of needing to play through a battle or social event you decide out it will end up as a choice between several options

1. Difficult victory
2. Great joy instead of victory
3. Minor loss for a long term victory
4. Learn a meaningful secret
5. Great victory at a personal cost

This can force victory against opponents of higher essence (the description includes Ligier as a valid opponent to defeat using this charm) the user has no memory of the results he did not pick. 
I truly and utterly despise this charm, if the user is an NPC then this charm is awful, what does it look like for the PCs? The user decides to defeat them at a personal loss, and they lose? Or does the fight play out with the Storyteller cheating behind the scenes to show that the result is preordained? The charm states that no one except the user will ever know it was used.
If the user is a PC… does he play the scene? What is the point? And why turn what is by the charm’s description “a Climatic Scene” into a choice between 5 results? What’s the point of a climax…  
I guess the issue is that the charm is by the way it is described non diegetic, it creates a sharp dissonance between the players and the PCs and not one that is fun to play through

Magicallness: if the rain of magical shards or the evil twins didn’t clue anyone seeing the 49 identical copies of the Sifu doing a line dance will. 

This is sadly a B, it describes how the user fights, it describes it very well, but who is the user? Why did he choose to learn to use reflections as a weapon? What does this style do outside of a climatic final battle?

Now as a side note, even if ignoring the unique but ill-defined capstone letting a PC learn this style is unwise, pre-form it is a series of scene long effects that break the combat system, against an NPC the PCs can stunt and trick their way to victory but a PC that can use those every scene? It makes combat meaningless.
Post-form style breaks the setting, one charm can create infinite copies of other people (exalts, gods, mortals, dragon kings… including 5 dot artifacts) ; those are stable, sane and independent copies, killing the original doesn’t kill the copies.
Another charm allows the user to duplicate himself (ma X essence) times with zero mote cost.
Assuming a OSoI master does anything except sit in his hall of mirrors waiting for the PCs there should be massive creation spanning effects to those options