Confluence of Savant Thought
Cost: 3m Type: Simple (Dramatic Action)
Duration: Indefinite
Keywords: Stackable
Mins: Bureaucracy 2, Essence 1 Prereqs: (Any) Bureaucracy Excellency
In the First Age it fell to the Dragonblooded to run the various ministries of the Realm. Their Celestial masters were too uninterested in minutia. But even then, the Dragonblooded were in high demand and needed to be moved from area to area often. In the current age, Dragonblooded often find themselves transferred from satrap to province and back again with little warning as part of the Great Houses political games, and so this Charm remains popular.
By taking on hour to interact with a given organization the character can chart its movements as a master riverman charts the waters. The character is considered to know all the rules (both official and unofficial) of the organization he has studied and can answer questions about it like he was a veteran of decades of service. Finally, he gains a Specialty to his Bureaucracy Ability relevant to the organization in question. He may spend additional hours to gain additional specialty dots. As usual multiple specialties can never grant more than a +3 bonus to any one roll.
Benevolent Master’s Blessing
Cost: None Type: Permanent
Duration: Permanent
Keywords: Anima
Mins: Bureaucracy 3, Essence 2 Prereqs: Confluence of Savant Thought
Ultimately all authority radiates from a single source and must return to that source, as the ocean becomes the clouds becomes the rain and back to the ocean. The character who knows this Charm can attune himself to a single authority figure and through them channel that authority.
To use this Charm the character must have the permission of an authority figure who trusts them to act in their best interest. The character then commits 3m to that figure, which manifests as a blue jade jewel which the master keeps near
them at all times. From that point forward anytime the Dragonblooded’s anima flares at any level and is seen by another everyone who sees it knows, instinctively, who it is the Dragonblooded represents and that the Dragonblooded
speaks for that character in his absence. How they react to this knowledge is up to them, but this Charm is widely considered to be impossible to fake. The effects of this Charm cease to function during Calibration, after that period
all the Dragonblooded who have used it must return to reconfirm their authority with their master.
Bestow The Saffron Mantle
Cost: None Type: Permanent
Duration: Permanent
Keywords: Anima
Mins: Bureaucracy 4, Essence 3 Prereqs: Benevolent Master’s Blessing, Instant
Bureaucracy Refinement
Purchasing this Charm has two effects. First, it permanently enhances a character’s Instant Bureaucracy Refinement making the duration of that Charm Indefinite. In this manner, a character can quickly school an underlying in the
details of his business and then leave him with some guarantee that he can handle it at least competently.
This Charm also as a second effect, which is frowned upon by the Immaculate Order. By touching a mortal and spending 5m the character painfully brand the mortal with his own personal icon. From that point forward the mortal has a
Bureaucracy rating equal to the Dragonblooded’s. His Motivation also changes to one which ensures his complete loyalty to the Dragonblooded. Best of all, he understands intuitively what the Dragonblooded would wish him to do in any
circumstance and may act at all times as if he had time to consult his master. This effect lingers for one month, at which point the Dragonblooded may renew the power by spending 5m as a reflexive action. This power ceases to function at
Calibration, regardless of the Dragonblooded’s wishes. Branding an unwilling mortal may require a martial arts attack. No Dragonblooded may use this effect on more than one mortal at a time.
The final effect of this Charm is why it is considered so dangerous. If a Dragonblooded dies under the influence of the second effect of this Charm he may reflexively transfers his consciousness to the mortal. His mind completely overwrites the mortal’s in a painful flare of Essence. The Dragonblooded uses his hosts physical Attributes and Appearance but retains all his other Attributes, Abilities and Virtues but can use none of his Charms or supernatural powers. He
will live out the remaining days of the month, at which point his Essence passes on to its destination leaving the mortal shell behind a lifeless husk. If he has any motes left in his pool at the time of death, he may spend them in
five mote increments to increase the duration of his possession by one month for each total five motes spent. While this Charm can allow the Dragonblooded’s spirit to perform one final task (including avenging his own death)
Dragonblooded families have taken to killing such proxies pre-emptively to prevent a scandal.
Chosen Legal Defence
Cost: None Type: Permanent
Duration: Permanent
Keywords: Anima, Holy
Mins: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 3 Prereqs: Benevolent Master’s Blessing
This Charm permanently enhances the Dragonblooded’s anima. So long as he is acting within the limits of his properly mandated authority his anima will protect him from the attacks and arguments of criminals and rebels.
The character gains a special Parry DV, calculated as equal to his (Charisma + Bureaucracy + Essence)/2. This DV is treated like a Parry DV for all purposes and may be modified by Bureaucracy Excellencies. The character may only benefit from this DV if his anima is flaring at the 7+ motes level of display, and will protect him only if he is acting within the bounds of his duly appointed authority. This Parry DV applies to any physical or social attack, even attacks or Charms that may only normally be resisted by Mental Dodge DV.
This Charm always works against any Creature of Darkness who is not a Yozi, Neverborn, Primordial or Unshaped Fair Folk. It never functions against the Incarna, Celestial Lions or Censors of the Celestial Bureaucracy nor against Solar Exalts, a fact which the Sidereals try their best to conceal.
Writ of Terrestrial Prohibition
Cost: None Type: Permanent
Duration: Permanent
Keywords: Anima, Holy, Cooperative
Mins: Bureaucracy 5, Essence 4 Prereqs: Chosen Legal Defence
Taking a scroll of good quality paper (Resources cost **), the character focuses his anima into his fingertips and begins to write a legal document, searing the words into the paper. As he writes down this document the character names a
single Creature of Darkness and then details every crime against Creation, The Realm and Heaven that it is guilty of. For the purposes of this Charm “Being In Creation Without the Express Permission Of A Celestial Exalt” is always
considered a crime, but the Immaculate Order never teaches this. This scroll must be written in Old Realm.
When the character next encounters that creature of darkness (or in the case of First Circle demons, any of that specific breed) he may draw out the scroll and abjure it in the name of Gaia and Heaven to be gone from Creation. He then
spends five motes, vaporising the scroll in his anima and causing the words to revolve around him in his anima. Doing so in combat is a Miscellaneous action. The character makes an immediate Charisma + Bureaucracy roll, resisted by the
target’s Dodge MDV. For every crime the Dragonblooded wrote down of which the target is guilty he adds one automatic success to this roll, but if accused of even a single crime falsely this Charm fails automatically.
If the Dragonblooded is successful in this roll the Creature of Darkness is immediately banished from Creation. Demons and such vanish to Malfeas in a cloud of brimstone and green light, ghosts and such are dragged through a gap in the earth into the Underworld, Fair Folk and other Wyld creatures disappear in a puff of logic, reappearing somewhere in the Deep Wyld. Such beings cannot return to Creation until the next Calibration.
If multiple Dragonblooded evoke this Charm as a cooperative effect, then have one Dragonblooded make the roll, adding two successes for each additional Dragonblooded participant (each must have their own scroll). Up to one
Dragonblooded of each Aspect may participate.
Geese Flying-South Administration
Cost: 5m Type: Simple (Dramatic Action)
Duration: One Task
Keywords: Cooperative
Mins: Bureaucracy 2, Essence 2 Prereqs: (Any) Bureaucracy Excellency
While it isn’t uncommon for the Dragonblooded to have a host of aides-de-camp, servants and other bureaucrats in their employ, still this Charm is useful for emergencies… or on the occasions secrecy is demanded. It was the first
Bureaucracy Charm developed before the Primordial War.
Using this Charm, a Dragonblooded can do the work of an entire organization, provided that organization is no larger than a Magnitude 1 social unit. This Charm involves a combination of Exalted ingenuity and efficiency, and elemental
telekinesis to actually physically perform multiple tasks. Otherwise the character can do the function of an entire Bureaucracy that size.
Multiple Dragonblooded can evoke this Charm together, increasing the size of the organization that can be substituted for by one magnitude point per Dragonblooded.
Thrashing Carp Sabotage
Cost: 5m Type: Simple (Dramatic Action)
Duration: Indefinite
Keywords: Cooperative, Illusion
Mins: Bureaucracy 3, Essence 2 Prereqs: Geese Flying-South Administration
This Charm works in the opposite manner of its prerequisite. The Dragonblooded can prevent any organization from accomplishing a single chosen goal indefinitely. He must be working in the organization at the time, and the
organization can be no larger than a magnitude 1 social unit. This Charm also prevents any suspicion from falling on the Dragonblooded as the guilty party. This later effect is a magical Illusion effect. Any censors wishing to uncover
the source of the corruption must spend one willpower every time they make a roll or evoke a Charm to investigate the matter.
Multiple Dragonblooded can evoke this Charm cooperatively, increasing the size of the organization by one Magnitude dot per Dragonblooded.
Entrenched Bureaucrats Attitude
Cost: 7m Type: Simple (Dramatic Action)
Duration: Indefinite
Keywords: Combo-OK
Mins: Bureaucracy 4, Essence 3 Prereqs: Thrashing Carp Sabotage
Having become conversant in the arts of magical sabotage, the Dragonblooded can now inoculate his underlings against it. This Charm is a dramatic action which involves writing an action statement, order of rules or giving a motivational
speech to a bureaucratic organization. The important part is that this action contains no actual instruction or useful advice, being full of useless bureaucratic double-take and catchphrases. This action creates a magical
lethargy and inertia within the organization.
The Dragonblooded rolls Manipulation + Bureaucracy. He can affect a social organization whose Magnitude is equal or less than the successes rolled. The Bureaucracy becomes magically static, it will remain exactly as corrupt,
inefficient and effective as it was at the time this Charm was imposed. No mundane effort to improve or degrade the quality of its work will be successful. Magical attempts made by beings whose Essence is less than the Dragonblooded’s cause a roll off (as detailed on page 179 of Exalted). This Charm has no effect on magic from beings whose Essence equals or exceeds the Dragonblooded’s.
Insightful Ledger Correction
Cost: None Type: Permanent
Duration: Permanent
Keywords: None
Mins: Bureaucracy 4, Essence 3 Prereqs: Third Bureaucracy Excellency
Examining any bureaucratic process, the Dragonblooded can offer subtle suggestions that might well improve the process. He can also perform this Charm on any bureaucratic document that comes to his attention, making a few quick
corrections that improve it in a number of ways.
This Charm allows the character to evoke his Third Bureaucracy Excellency to assist another character, so long as the effects of the other character’s roll have not already come to pass (this Charm doesn’t allow one to rewrite history).
This Charm does not alter the timing or compatibility rules of the Third Excellency only allows you to pay the motes so another may benefit.
Using this Charm on the work of mortals is common and expected. Using this Charm on the work of other Exalted may come across as insulting.