Laughing Monster Style Techniques
Essence 1
Furiously Stalling Destiny
Cost: 2m; Mins: Laughing Monster Style 2, Essence 1
Type: Reflexive; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Dual, Stackable
Prerequisite Charms: None
With a swirling deflection, you turn your attacker’s force back against them.
Activate this technique in response to an incoming attack.
You gain +1 Evasion and put a malice token on the attacker.
Malice Tokens: If you attack someone on whom you have placed malice tokens, remove all malice tokens from the target and gain +1 effective damage per token. If you are making a gambit instead of a damage-dealing attack, instead gain +1 automatic success to establish the gambit.
You may stack up to (Essence) malice tokens on a single target by using this Charm. If you put malice tokens onto a target or make an attack against a target, remove all malice tokens on all other characters.
Deeper-Into-Trouble Technique
Cost: 3m; Mins: Laughing Monster Style 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental (Damage); Duration: Instant
Keywords: Decisive-only
Prerequisite Charms: Furiously Stalling Destiny
Your fighting style annoys and provokes your foes as you rain blows on their old wounds and reveal their inadequacies for all to see.
Double 10s on the damage roll. If your target has a negative Tie toward you, add (Intimacy) bonus dice as well.
If you deal at least one health level of damage, your opponent becomes enraged. While enraged, he gets -3 to attack anyone other than you until he lands an attack on you. If he crashes you on or before his next turn, he gets +1wp.
Laughing Monster Form
Cost: 10m; Mins: Laughing Monster Style 4, Essence 1
Type: Simple; Duration: One scene
Keywords: Counterattack, Decisive-only, Form
Prerequisite Charms: Deeper-Into-Trouble Technique
You adopt a constantly shifting stance. You twist and orient yourself around attacks before they happen. Your limbs revolve with such speed it is as if you hand a dozen illusory arms.
Add (Occult) bonus dice on all counterattacks, Disarm gambits, and Distract gambits.
Whenever you successfully dodge an attack and force the opponent to lose Initiative (through a Charm, missing a decisive attack, etc.), you may spend 2i and make a decisive counterattack. This counterattack has a base damage of (Initiative he lost), ignores Hardness, and doesn’t include your Initiative or reset you to base. Instead of using thier lost Initiative to hurt them, you can choose to use your own Initiative to disarm or distract them, and add their lost Initiative as a bonus to establish the gambit.
Special Activation Rules: You may reflexively enter Laughing Monster Form whenever you fulfill one of the following conditions:
- You provoke a non-trivial opponent into Joining Battle with an influence roll;
- You cause an enemy’s Initiative to drop below your own by dodging an attack.
Essence 2
Inauspicious Moment for Attack
Cost: 2m, 1wp; Mins: Laughing Monster Style 4, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Clash, Decisive-only
Prerequisite Charms: Laughing Monster Form
You move suddenly, with a sound like the clapping of 98 hidden hands, and your opponent finds himself thrown into chaos by your sudden appearance in the most inauspicious location.
Clash an incoming attack with a Distract gambit; this consumes your attack for the round and cannot be used if you have already attacked. Roll your decisive attack pool against the incoming attack; if you win, roll to establish the distraction with one extra die for each threshold success you won by.
If you successfully establish the Distract gambit, it counts as if you had dodged successfully. The beneficiary of the Distract gambit may make an immediate decisive attack against your attacker.
Subtle Hammer
Cost: 5m; Mins: Laughing Monster Style 5, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Decisive-only, Restriction (1/scene)
Prerequisite Charms: Inauspicious Moment for Attack
A feint and a hidden fist collide, bringing your opponent to his knees.
You may activate this technique after you successfully enact a Disarm or Distract gambit. Make a decisive attack against the target with damage equal to the threshold successes on your roll to establish the gambit. This does not include your Initiative or reset you to base Initiative. If this attack incapacitates your target, you regain the 5m you spent.
RESET – Successfully clash a non-trivial enemy’s attack with Inauspicious Moment for Attack.
Thieves Fall Out
Cost: 6m, 2i; Mins: Laughing Monster Style 4, Essence 2
Type: Simple; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Decisive-only
Prerequisite Charms: Laughing Monster Form
Your attacks are random, without rhythm. They come at weird angles and your foes can’t help but feel that you’re mocking them. Their rhythm is ruined, and they find themselves tripping over each other as they try to hit you.
Roll a single decisive attack against two enemies within close range of each other. Your raw damage against each of the two targets is (Initiative/2, round up). If you hit both of them, in addition to dealing damage, you sever their connection for a moment. For the rest of the scene, whenever they are in close range of each other they take -1 Defense. If one starts his turn within close range of the other, you leach 1i from him.
Instead of targeting two individuals, you may target a battle group. If you do so, double your effective damage for calculating the decisive bonus damage against the battle group (Core, p. 208). The battle group suffer -1 Defense for the rest of the scene and lose 1 Magnitude at the start of their turn.
Friendship-Dissolving Venom
Cost: 3m, 3i, 1wp; Mins: Laughing Monster Style 4, Essence 2
Type: Reflexive; Duration: Instant
Keywords: Dual, Perilous
Prerequisite Charms: Thieves Fall Out
Your strange style pulls at the heartstrings and turns sister against sister.
You may use this technique after you successfully dodge an incoming attack. If both targets are under the penalties of Thieves Fall Out, you do not need to pay 1wp for this technique.
Redirect the attack to instead target any Crashed or trivial enemy within range of the attacker. The attacker must reroll their exact same attack against the new target, retaining all bonuses, penalties, and magic that enhanced the original attack.
If the attack is a withering attack, you leech the Initiative instead of the attacker. If the target has any malice tokens, the redirected attack benefits from them (and does not remove them from the new target).
In addition to dealing damage, if the redirected attack roll exceeds the target’s Resolve, the target forms a minor Tie (Outrage) against the attacker, or strengthens an existing Negative Tie by one step. Any positive Ties that he has towards that attacker are treated as if they do not exist for the rest of the scene. You may roll (Manipulation + [Presence or Socialize]) to persuade the target to act against the attacker’s interests.
Unitary Being Forge
Cost: 6m, 1wp; Mins: Laughing Monster Style 5, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental (Damage roll); Duration: Instant
Keywords: Decisive-only
Prerequisite Charms: Laughing Monster Form
You strike a target and their mind is splayed open for a moment, allowing an imp to escape and manifest onto the battlefield.
You may use this Charm against an enemy with a negative Tie of which you are aware. Reroll (Intimacy) failed dice on the damage roll.
If you deal at least (target’s base Resolve) levels of damage, the Intimacy is torn from their mind and becomes an imp. The imp is semi-solid. It is ugly. Its appearance clearly displays the nature and intensity of the affected Intimacy; anyone who looks at it learns these two facts. Creating the imp is a mental shaping effect.
The imp hovers around the victim. It moves automatically with the victim and it is impossible to separate the imp to further than Close range from the victim. The victim loses all positive effects (but keeps all negative effects) of the Intimacy for the rest of the scene. The victim’s Guile is halved for the rest of the scene.
Once per round, you may have the imp add (lower of Intimacy or your Essence) bonus dice of decisive damage to any attack made against the victim. The imp can be destroyed with a rank (Intimacy) gambit, but has (your Guile) Defense and is dematerialized. If the imp is destroyed with magic that permanently destroys spirits, the Intimacy is automatically and irresistibly weakened one step.