Linguistics Charms
Excellency
Lightning Quill Mastery
Cost: 2m/success; Mins: Linguistics 1, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental (Any roll); Duration: Instant
Keywords: Air, Balanced, Excellency
Prerequisite Charms: None
Your words fly through the air and across the page like leaves on the wid.
Add 1 automatic success per 2m spent.
You may reroll 1 failed die for every 10 you roll, including if you reroll and get a 10.
Essence 1
Cryptic Essence Cipher
Cost: 5m; Mins: Linguistics 2, Essence 1
Type: Simple; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Water, Written-only
Prerequisite Charms: None
Your words slip away, always slightly out of sight from their true meaning – except for those in the know.
Name a recipient of your message. Then roll ([Manipulation or Intelligence] + Linguistics) to encode the message.
The recipient can read the message just fine – the words rearrange themselves on the page to become a clear message. To anyone else, it is nonsense. To decipher the message, they must roll ([Perception or Intelligence ] + Linguistics) and get more successes than you got on the encoding roll.
Instead of a recipient, you may choose to make the message clear to anyone who shares a specified Intimacy with you.
Signature-Stealing Calligraphy
Cost: 4m; Mins: Linguistics 2, Essence 1
Type: Simple; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Water, Written-only
Prerequisite Charms: None
Your calligraphy flows like water in a river, beautiful and mysterious, before it settles into someone else’s hand.
Roll (Manipulation + Linguistics). If you succeed, you manage to perfectly replicate someone else’s hand. To do so, you must have read at least three samples of their handwriting. A reader may roll (Perception + Linguistics) to determine that the writing is fraudulent.
If you want to include written social influence, you may choose to use the fraud roll as your social roll, or roll a different one. Anyone who knows your writing is fraudulent gets +2 Resolve to resist this influence.
Fervor-Inciting Brushstrokes
Cost: 3m, 1wp; Mins: Linguistics 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental (Inspire); Duration: Instant
Keywords: Fire, Written-only
Prerequisite Charms: None
Your words spark fires in the hearts of your readers.
Double 9s. You must inspire a strong emotion – fear, lust, anger, etc.
If you restrict your influence to target a single person, they must enter a decision point and call on a Major or Defining Intimacy in order to resist it.
Tenacious Dragon Scholar
Cost: 3m; Mins: Linguistics 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Balanced, Earth
Prerequisite Charms: None
Earth does not move for simple words.
Gain +1 Resolve against any written influence. You may use Linguistics in place of Integrity to calculate your Resolve.
Wind-Carried Words Technique
Cost: 3m; Mins: Linguistics 1, Essence 1
Type: Simple; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Air
Prerequisite Charms: None
You speak to the wind, and the wind speaks for you.
You may send a message of no more than a few sentences to any target within (Essence) miles. No one but your intended target can overhear it. The difficulty to overhear it with magic is (your Essence + Linguistics).
The range of this Charm increases as your Essence increases.
Rose’s Secret Petal
Cost: 5m; Mins: Linguistics 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Wood
Prerequisite Charms: Cryptic Essence Cipher, Wind-Carried Words Technique
Secrets grow like scattered petals.
You plant a written message into the soil. Influenced by your Wood Essence, it rapidly grows into a small, colorful flower. The arrangement of petals, leaves, and colors acts like a cipher created using Cryptic Essence Cipher. The message it conveys can be up to one page long.
Roll ([Intelligence or Manipulation] + Linguistics) with double 9s to determine the strength of the cipher. In order to crack the cipher, someone must first determine that the flower is a message to begin with. Only magical examination reveals the true nature of the blossom.
The meaning of the flower is immediately recognizable to the intended recipient.
Language-Learning Ritual
Cost: 5m; Mins: Linguistics 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple; Duration: One scene
Keywords: Air
Prerequisite Charms: None
Air is the medium of speech, and all words are clear.
You may understand any language that you have been exposed to for at least (1 - Essence) hours. You do not speak it, only understand it.
ENHANCEMENT (Linguistics 4, Essence 2) – You may speak and write in the language. You have a noticeable accent and your writing is unsubtle. You take -3 on social influence.
Root Tongue of the Dragon’s Stemmata
Cost: 3m, 1wp; Mins: Linguistics 3, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive; Duration: One scene
Keywords: Wood
Prerequisite Charms: Language-Learning Ritual
Flavor.
Your spoken language can be understood by any other Dragon-Blooded, and you can understand all of their words, regardless of what language you or they are speaking. You can read anything written in any language by another Prince of the Earth while this Charm is active, but they can’t read your writing unless they are normally able to.
While this Charm is active, you reroll 1s on Read Intentions against other Dragon-Blooded and to break ciphers.
Essence 2
Enigma-Reading Eye
Cost: 3m; Mins: Linguistics 3, Essence 2
Type: Simple; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Air
Prerequisite Charms: Cryptic Essence Cipher
The lightning flash of your eyes cuts through codes and ciphers.
Roll ([Perception or Intelligence] + Linguistics) with double 9s to break a code or decipher a hidden message. This includes subtext as well as explicitly hidden messages.
Thousand Tongues Meditation
Cost: – (+5m, 1wp); Mins: Linguistics 3, Essence 2
Type: Permanent; Duration: Permanent
Keywords: Air
Prerequisite Charms: Language-Learning Ritual
Language is a tool and you are an adept user.
When you use Language-Learning Ritual, you may pay 5m, 1wp to waive the requirement of previous exposure. You can speak it instantly even without having been exposed to it.
Shared Breath Understanding
Cost: 5m, 1wp; Mins: Linguistics 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple; Duration: Varies
Keywords: Air
Prerequisite Charms: Thousand Tongues Meditation
The breath is an expression of the self. It is clay in your hands…
Roll ([Manipulation or Wits] + Linguistics) against the Resolve of a target within close range. If you succeed, you steal his voice.
You gain fluency in a single language that your target speaks, as if under the benefits of Language-Learning Ritual, for the next (Essence + extra successes) days. You suffer no penalties for using that language and can mimic the voice of your target perfectly.
Your target’s voice is suppressed for the duration of this Charm. He can only whisper and takes -3 on all spoken social interaction. He can reclaim his voice from you by closing to close range and succeeding on a difficulty 6 roll (a gambit in combat), by stealing it from you using Larceny, or other appropriate means.
Voices on the Wind
Cost: 3m, 1wp; Mins: Linguistics 3, Essence 1
Type: Simple; Duration: One scene
Keywords: Air
Prerequisite Charms: Wind-Carried Words Technique
The wind carries voices far and wide – and right to your ears.
You add (Linguistics / 2, round up) to all eavesdropping rolls. If you Read Intentions while eavesdropping, your target gets -2 Guile if they do not know you are listening in.
Speech Without Words
Cost: 5m; Mins: Linguistics 3, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive; Duration: One scene
Keywords: Air
Prerequisite Charms: Wind-Carried Words Technique
The subtle Essence of Air mediates your communication. You do not need to speak for your meaning to be clear.
Designate all of your Sworn Kin and up to (Essence) other characters as recipients. You can communicate with one another using visual signals like hand signs, body language, and facial expressions. Only short, simple sentences can be conveyed, but they are conveyed perfectly.
Observers do not casually notice the communication. An observer specifically looking for communication may roll (Perception + Awareness) to notice, but not understand, the communication.
Caustic Wit Invective
Cost: 1m, 1wp; Mins: Linguistics 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Water, Written-only
Prerequisite Charms: Fervor-Inducing Brushstrokes
Your scorn burns like acid.
Roll to write a mocking message or a satire that conveys an Instill to erode a specific Principle or positive Tie. This message is so caustic that even a diehard believer takes pause. No one subject to the influence can use the targeted Intimacy to boost their Resolve against the effect.