Exalted – Will Into Wonder, Wyld Shaping Technique, and The Primal Forge.

It's a start. Maybe you'll do better next time!

OK, Wyld Shaping Technique and Wyld Cauldron Technology are something of a self-contradictory mess. Ergo here we have a much more explicit set of charms to take their place.

Will Into Wonder (Solar)

• Cost: 20m, 1wp; Mins: Occult 5, Essence 4; Type: Simple (Dramatic Action)
• Keywords: Combo-OK, Mirror, Obvious, Shaping
• Duration: Instant
• Prerequisite Charms: Any Occult Excellency, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, and Celestial Circle Sorcery.
• Special: Similar charms also appear under Craft and Lore. To get all the effects available a user will need all three versions. They do have one special advantage however; additional purchases are treated as expansions of whichever charm you learned first, rather than as entirely independent charms; hence you don’t have to rebuild combos or pay for activating multiple versions. The similar charms include:

• The Primal Forge (Solar): Craft 5 Essence 4 with prerequisites of any Craft Excellency, Object Strengthening Touch, and Chaos Resistance Preparation.
• Wyld Shaping Technique (Solar): Lore 5, Essence 4, with prerequisites of any two Lore Excellencies and Chaos Repelling Pattern.

Yes, this increases the essence requirement by +1. This seems appropriate.

The Wyld is a sea of boundless possibility. Creation – and the Soul – is a fixed point, a place of stillness.

From that point of stillness one can peer into chaos, into the infinite flux of wonder – and seize a moment of desire, binding it to the user’s soul.

While the user lives – and perhaps beyond, if the wonder called forth is further stabilized in some other fashion – that wonder will endure, the tides of chaos, caught up in the stillness of creation.

Once, as they ran short of lands to conquer, the Solar Exalted used these charms to drive back the borders of the Wyld and expand Creation. They stood at the boundaries of the world and drew form and substance from the swirling mists and inchoate possibilities of chaos – forcing the mad waypoints of the Wyld to take solid and enduring form as they commanded before stabilizing them beyond their own lives with Jade Obelisks and Reality Engines.

These charms are extended dramatic actions. The dice pool used equals the user’s (Perception + Relevant Ability). Each roll requires five hours of effort, and the user pays the Charm’s cost with each roll. This roll has a base difficulty of 1 in regions of Pure Chaos, 3 in the Deep Wyld, 5 in the Middlemarches, and 7 in the Bordermarches of the Wyld. These charms cannot be used within the borders of creation proper. When the user has accumulated a sufficient number of successes, she must spend them all at once, ending the Charm. Unspent successes are wasted.

Regardless of the variant used, the user may restructure a single waypoint – redefining it as a more-or-less normal landscape about thirty miles across that fits smoothly into it’s surroundings. (That’s normally a near-circle with an area of some 700 square miles). An appropriate world backdrop – relevant elementals, little gods, sky, weather, day, night, etcetera – gets thrown in for free, as does the influence of the appropriate elemental pole (if any).

• This costs 1-5 successes for barren/poor/good/excellent/superb land (or waters). This rating is an overall rating for the lands natural resources, fertility, flora and fauna, and usability. Yes, you CAN make the land highly-fertile but resource-poor or some such, but such “value transfers” are generally of no importance in Exalted. An additional +1 success offers the possibility (but NOT certainty) of the land containing sources of gold, silver, and gems. +3 adds the possibility of veins of jade. +5 adds the possibility of any other magical material the game master feels like adding – but the production is typically very limited (if also usually indefinitely renewable).
• Add +1 to make the land ready to inhabit with basic housing and tools already in place. Add +2 if you want roads, bridges, canals, and aqueducts, +3 to include minor domestic animals (sheep and such), +4 for full-scale towns and cities, and +5 for fortifications. Doubling up on this cost will make the realm so created inhabited – but such inhabitants will bear no particular loyalty to (or even awareness of) the user, and (as the level of this investment increases) are less and less likely to be entirely “human”. They will generally have their own societies, values, traditions, and even magics, and will often resist people walking in to take command – usually with the backing of annoyed Raksha.
• Add +1-5 to add a natural demesne of the same rank to the land. No more than ten points worth of demesnes may be added, only one may be of rank 4 or above, and no more than two may be of rank three or above. If the land is inhabited, these will probably be held and exploited already (and may start out as concealed Raksha Freeholds, although it’s somewhat unlikely). Setting the aspect of a demesne costs +1 success for elemental aspects, +2 for celestial aspects, +3 for demonic aspects, and +5 for true exotics.
• Yes, this allows multiple demesnes instead of only one. Why? Because the area affected is now much larger: limiting landshapers to one demesne in fifty square miles is fair enough. One in seven hundred square miles seems a bit thin.
• Add +1-10 to add various wonders, at 1-2 points each. It usually costs one to add things that are cool but not directly useful – towering mountains of crystal, glorious waterfalls, fields of geysers, smoking volcanoes, rivers that play music as they tumble over rocks, flocks of beautiful singing birds, and swarms playful fuzzy animals are all good examples. It costs two points to add more exotic or potentially useful wonders, such as valleys filled with exotic herbs, meadows of poppies with intoxicating scents, orchards of strange and exotic fruits, rivers of flame and light, and ecologies filled with giant reptiles.

Once land is shaped by these charms, it becomes more difficult to alter – although it is somewhat less difficult to repair if somehow damaged. A new shaping attempt must exceed the net number of successes already invested in the area (minus the costs of any destroyed features), and the user may only expend the difference. Thus, if an area was created with 24 successes, and a feature that was worth three successes was destroyed, the first twenty-one net successes on a new attempt are lost. Anything left over after subtracting that total may be invested in repairs or improvements.

Now, as for the variant-specific techniques…

• Will Into Wonder (only) may also add +1-10 successes when creating land to add various supernatural tweaks that will affect everyone in the land created (or, if the user has Wyld Shaping Technique, to permanently enhance the creatures created as a group). In general, the equivalent of mutations cost 1 success per two points worth of mutations, adding the equivalent of thaumaturgic effects cost 1-4 successes (for Basic / Initiate / Adept / Master effects), higher-order sorceries cost 5/7/10 successes for Terrestrial / Celestial / Solar circle effects (and require that the user be capable of enacting such effects normally), and adding the equivalent of manse powers costs one success per point and cannot exceed the level of the highest level demesne added. If a manse power has a variable cost, always use the lowest. If a manse power has a variable effect based on the manse level, use the level of the highest level manse or demesne included in the waypoint.

• The Primal Forge (only) may also be used to draw on the Wyld to reduce the number of Exotic Materials required to create artifacts. Unfortunately, due to the chaotic taint that such materials always carry, this may not reduce the number of materials required by more than 50% without a near-certainty of your artifact exploding, having random effects, or simply failing to work – thus by none for an artifact *, by one for an artifact ** or ***, and by two for an artifact **** or *****. Fortunately, the user gets to pick which materials to replace. The user may also spend extra successes when creating land containing a demesne to reduce the expense by creating a stockpile of materials (reduce the expenses by one dot per success) or to reduce the time required to build the manse by 10% per success so spent to a maximum reduction of 50%. Finally, he or she may also spend successes “buying” mundane items or (non-jade) currencies, spending up to (relevant craft) successes as resources on any single purchase. Sadly, such items are always “purchased” one at a time.

Yes, if you have The Primal Forge, a High Craft/Fire skill, and are out in the Wyld, you can go right ahead and whip up a few “Perfect” swords or some such – presuming your skill is high enough to handle the costs. If your Solar Exalt can’t find some money and a better place to go shopping than the Wyld he or she is probably in enough trouble already. Do note, however, that “Wealth” is not the same as “Resources”. “Resources” represents the ability to come up with money and goods and things – “Resourcefulness”. You can make use The Primal Forge to create money, but you can’t create “resources” – and there are some items that you can get with “resources” but not with “cash”.

• Wyld Shaping Technique (only) may also be used to draw on the Wyld to create living beings with some control over the process: Unfortunately, there is always a touch of chaos in such creations; while the broad outlines of their minds can be described by the user, the details are not under his or her control. Secondarily, living things are quite complex – so their template is always drawn from the user, which makes creating exotic creatures quite difficult. The user may spend up to ten successes on any single creature. It costs one success to create a basic human or reasonably-sized animal, two to make heroic humans or extremely large animals. Add +1-3 for departing from the general mammalian vertebrate template (to make – say – birds or reptiles adds +1, insects (a swarm may reasonably count as one creature) dragon kings or jellyfish add +2, and spirits, raksha, and elemental creatures add +3. Note that if the user happens to be able to take such a form this surcharge does not apply), active essence use (required for Spirits, Raksha, Dragon Kings, and similar creatures, optional for Heroic Types, although required for God-Bloods) adds +1, and adding the equivalent of Inheritance 1-3 costs the same number of successes. Describing the new creature adds +1, adding mundane equipment costs another +1 or +2 if you want top-quality gear. Giving your new creature a proper soul, and a connection to the Loom so that it can reincarnate, adds +2. Creatures are always created as new characters would be. If you want them to be master tiger-warriors, and have maxed out stats, and be loyal to you, you’ll have to arrange that with other charms.

Thus whipping up “A friendly blacksmith who can reshoe my horse” requires A Basic Human (1) + (1) for the “friendly” description + (1) for having the fellow be equipped with his tools and forge – a total of 3, or 5 if you want him or her to have a proper soul.

Whipping up “a heroic mercenary open to hiring with top-quality gear” costs (2) for a heroic mortal, lets say (3) for giving him Inheritance ***, (2) for top-quality equipment, and (1) for the description, for a total of (8). This it will take 24 successes (or thirty with souls) to come up with a trio of such mercenaries – and even then you’ll have to persuade them to work for you.

Once creatures are created they may not be further reshaped with these charms.

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