Not My Dream Vacation (Celestial Crab Bucket. First World, Exalted)

[TheLastOne]

As of Chapter Twelve.

Spoiler: Nathan's Build

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Godspawned Wrech​

Anima Treasures
Where you gained a priceless treasure like this is unknowable. It is as much an Endowment or mutation of the soul as it is an object. Perhaps it was a half-real wonder left unclaimed from the end of the first age that you dredged up from a forgotten laboratory, or maybe you bargained with a Demon Prince. Regardless, this is a true wonder.
In a display of essence and power, you drive your Anima to manifest at the Iconic level. And in a moment of strange wonder, it will shift, solidify, and become a strange item crafted in the colors of your Anima Banner and with motifs and designs echoing your Iconic Anima. It's as much a work of art as an artifact.
You may develop charms to further enhance this artifact-charm, to use it, or to grant it new abilities or attributes as if having it was a native ability natural to your charm set.
At any time, you may dismiss the artifact. Resummoning it is easy, but if you wish to refresh it you may do so with another investment of essence like its initial summoning. That said, while it's manifested, it's a real physical object, not some ephemeral construct of essence.
For future jumps, this charm counts as an appropriate item to import future items into it.

Mantle of Rebirth
The Mantle of Rebirth is made from something more illusionary than gossamer, and more sacred than ambrosia. Its weight on your shoulder is as heavy as a promise.
The Mantle of Rebirth allows you to, in a single moment, kill and unmake yourself, and at the same time set in motion your rebirth. A death caused this way doesn't count as 'dying' within the greater context of the Chain, though the time between your death and rebirth will not progress the current link on the chain. Using the mantle usually takes too long and takes too much focus to use in combat, though it isn't that long a process. It's in line with a moderately involved spell.
When you use the mantle, you can specify many aspects of the circumstance of your rebirth; you can pick your parents in other worlds. Only the most powerful beings are immune to this manipulation. You are also able to declare many details of your new form; you generally can't make yourself more impressive, but you can move things around.
If circumstance or external forces interfere with the fulfillment of your rebirth, you can choose what will be prioritized when you use the mantle. At the same time, improbable choices can result in the mantle metaphorically satisfying your design, rather than doing so literally. The mantle and its use is exceedingly hard to detect. It cloaks itself in such a way that nothing less than the direct attention of one of the Maidens will find you, and she would have to already be looking.
All that said, your rebirth will also prioritize the abilities you have over the ones of your new parents; exaltation will usually burn away spirit heritage and other supernatural powers.
You can allow others to use the mantle.
Once every ten years, or once every link in the chain (whichever comes sooner), the Mantle will whisk away your soul to reincarnation at the moment of your death even if it isn't manifested. After your chain is done, the mantle may save you any number of time.​

Do what you want 'cause an outcaste is free (Free for Everyone)
You have the talent to be an outcaste's outcaste, the idea so many of them pretend to. Whether you live up to that potential is up to you, but you certainly have the basic set of abilities needed to thrive.
First, you are a bit better than the average person on all of your basic attributes. It's nothing dramatic; if the average man was a 'two', then you're at least a 'three' on all fundamental abilities.
But more than that; you express a nature strengthened by the five elements.
From Air, you're a bit quicker on your feet, as if you had a Stone of Quick Thought.
From Earth, you are physically flawless, like the bearer of a Gem of Perfection.
From Fire, you deal well with both cold and heat, shake off many minor diseases, and resist dehydration as if you bore the Stone of Circulation.
From Water, you are immune to disease and poison, and will not bleed, as if you bore a Bloodstone.
From Wood, you excel at matters of survival and endurance through valor, as if you bore the Stone Of The Emerald Rooster.
You are not one to be pinned down by others' expectations or designs upon your identity. Man? Woman? You are what you decide to be, just as if you bore a Stone of Gender Transformation.
Lastly, outcaste society is a Dragonsblooded society, concerned not just with what you are, but what springs from you. You can guarantee your children inherit any inheritable trait you wish. Even if such inheritance should weaken, you can promise it will not.
To be clear, this Charm won't weed out traits. It's a way of helping you pass things on, not a way to engineer your children. That said, you don't have to use it on any trait you don't wish to be passed down. Things will proceed naturally from that point. This Charm is an inheritable trait.

Numen
The numen are the strange not spirits of Domnica. Once they were Dragonsblood, and in some ways they still are. Yet they are also other. They have become what they carved out of themselves. In many ways, they are like spirits, or perhaps elementals. In other ways, they are still the Exalted they once were. Perhaps it is best to just say 'They are the Numen.'
A Numen is carved from an Exalted - normally only a dragonsblood, though if you are other you have somehow overcome that fact with your Exaltation intact - and shaped into what they asked to become. As you are paying for this transformation with the Prestige of the Rivers and Lakes, you may carve away as little or as much as you want, and uniquely, you can look upon yourself through both eyes, till you have honed in on becoming what you wanted to, rather than merely what you thought you wanted to become.
This transformation can reinforce and improve you on several fronts, though not on all fronts. You might become stronger and more beautiful and swifter… but you couldn't also become wiser and more observant at the same time.
Second, you become something like a spiritual entity. You can dematerialize like an elemental. If slain, but your killer failed to use such magics that will permanently slay a spirit, you will recondense after a lunar month. By default during this link in your chain, you will reform in the heart of the Woods, but you may move your place of rebirth if you wish. If you have taken The Shape of Mist companion, you can entrust your place of rebirth to them.
Normally, a numen loses their element, anima abilities, and anima. As you are paying for this, you do not, but you gain complete control over your anima; it only manifests at your will, and only to the extent you wish it to.
The Numen are shapechangers. You can shapechange into any form within your 'theme' for a paltry cost of essence. While a Numen doesn't have a singular true form, they do have a set of themes their ascension displays itself through. Build your Numen form through one free purchase of Unnatural Glory at the 'obviously inhuman' level. Numen usually displays a multiplicity of limbs, so taking the Multiple Limbs mutation only costs 2 points; you can also freely add as many extra heads as you want, as that mutation has no real effect. A Numen can shapechange away their 'true' form piece by piece, but will lose access to its abilities while in such a reduced form, and must spend essence to regain a true expression of their ascension before regaining use of the mutation.
In addition, each Numen has advantages and disadvantages inherent to their state. Usually, you would permanently enjoy and suffer both, but you will only enjoy the advantages. Others can take on a shadow of this by invoking you through magic, and there may be other ways to sorcerously borrow your strength. By default, you cannot deny such imitation and invocation, though abilities you possess from other worlds might change this.
You also develop a unique set of abilities that focus your virtues through how you have redefined yourself, to share or inflict your perfection on the world. The stronger your essence, the more of these abilities you'll gain. Normally these are one-off abilities, but because you have paid for this you can treat them as the base of a chain and build charms on top of them.
You hear prayers directed at you, and if they're properly done can determine their source. You can bless those whose prayer you heard. Your blessing comes into play for activities and phenomena appropriate to your themes as a numen; it weights events somewhat in favor of the outcome you seek, nudging events. You are always under your blessing.
What you carved away from you becomes a small panoply, artifacts that are both part of you and something you can hand away. Design 1-2 interesting trinkets; they'll be more thematic than powerful. You can recall them to yourself at any time, or regenerate them if they're somehow damaged or destroyed.
Unlike a 'normal' Numen, you are an independent existence. That said, the Mists will still welcome you and take you as kin.

Numen Stat Bonuses
Dex+••, Sta+••, Str+•
Numen Unnatural Glory
Whether it's a gift pulled from an ancient tome, the blessing of a powerful spirit, a carefully shaped mutation gained through Power-Questing, a sorcerous working, a generational eugenics program, or something stranger… You have abilities most unnatural.
Alternatively, you can take fifteen points worth of Hearthstone Powers, thirty points of mutations, or some other equivalent unique and powerful ability. However, your form is permanently and obviously changed; people will know you aren't human without extreme effort merely by glancing at you. You will have to decide at the beginning of a jump whether you want to manifest these abilities on a given alt-form.

10 Hearthstone Points, 10 Mutation Points​

[Fire Version] Gem Of Perfect Mobility (Manse •••••)
[Solar Version] GEM OF PERFECT MOBILITY (MANSE •••••)
Inexhaustible (2-pt Affliction)
Multiple Legs (2-pt Abomination)
Gazelle's Pace (2-pt Affliction)

Numen Boon and Bane
Boon: A sorcerer who summons Nathan Nozi's aspect receives one automatic success on Occult and Performance rolls. Furthermore, those outside of fate have a harder time perceiving them. They lose one success on all perception rolls to see or notice them. For instances of 'automatic' success, then now need to achieve one success.

Agreements with Nathan fall under heaven's eye, a state a Sorcerer may also enjoy. They may witness any deal or contract, and in doing so make them binding. Anyone who breaks such an agreement will suffer one great stroke of ill fortune. Like Calibration itself, the sorcerer is outside the scope of his agreements, and is not bound. This will not prevent them from being bound to the agreement by other measures. Also, any such agreement will be recorded in heaven, though finding it is no easy feat these days.

Bane: A Sorcerer who summons Nathan Nozi's aspect find themselves constrained by a role they do not fully understand. They become fated (as like a Decending Destiny, carving away every other possibility) to do some small task of repair for heaven. They rarely know what those tasks are, just that it foreclosed other possibilities. This will last until Calibration at the latest. During Calibration, Nathan's aspect may be freely called upon without consequence.

Numen Artifact
The Promised Net

A hair chain. A center ring sits over the forehead like a third eye, with seven chains extending from it. The two 'outermost' have a single charm on them, meant to be braided into the hair. Then the two more 'innermore' ones have three. Then five, while the final centermost chain has seven. Each charm is a small 'talisman' with oaths written in Old-Realm upon it in green.

The 'one' charm chains have oaths appropriate to a god who would defend people against the dangers of Calibration. The 'three' charm chains have oaths for a god representing the dangers of Calibration. Then the five charm chains are protective, and finally the seven charm chain's oaths are all paradoxical and contradictory.

By channeling Valor, the wearer of The Promised Net may tear a promise from it and cast it upon another. When they do so, they tie them to the promises of a role they labor under - or are presenting themselves as operating under. They take their temperance as a penalty to any action not in line with their 'role' until the next new moon, or until they spend three to overcome the effect.

If performed during Calibration, this lasts through two New Moons, only fading on the third.

Numen Channels
Compassion: Highlight the Violet List (Repair Issue)
Functions like Samathi Anja's Rot.
Calibration makes the endpoint of many invasions of Creation. The time when such errors can be isolated and excised. Any weapon Nathan wields after invoking Blacklist takes on a violet sheen. Every noise it would make is 'undone', the air stilling as it cuts the sound from the air and a painful momentary deafness follows every blow.

Valor: Itemize into the Red List (Read-Only)
This functions like Virtuous Guardian of the Flame.
To perform repairs upon the mechanism of reality, one must know the shape of reality. Nathan marks something as 'should exist as it is.' Efforts to change it struggle against the proper state of things. Those marked by Nathan are orbited by half a dozen burning crimson prayer strips. As one of them finishes burning, a new one appears. The crimson flames the prayer ships will lash out in all the shapes of war, to rip apart any attack made against the protected.

Temperance: Escalate to the Blue List (Flag Issue)
Functions like Iurka's Carve Away.
Just as Calibration lets the Pattern Spiders mark errors to be removed, so planning out repair, so too are the flaws Nathan marks out condemned unwoven like snares in cloth. At his touch, light blue threads become visible, as if they were always there but only now revealed. They tighten about the flaw, which then 'falls away' as if it was never part of the object to begin with.

Conviction: Deliver the Green List (Set Deliverables)
Functions like Whirlwind of Fate. Costs Two Temperance Channels
Many long term goals and plans are set during Calibration, while others happen right after on the black canvas it leaves behind. From the Wind Masters planning out the next year's weather, to adjusting individual fates to make sure they're still in line with the overall design. Nathan may set short term goals for himself, or anyone he touches who does not resist. For a moment, yellow script shines in their eyes.
Numen Appearance
Nathan appears something like a flickering flame. Not in being flamelike, but in the dancing inconsistency of position. He's something like a mirage, not in being immaterial, but in his position and movement being uncertain from moment to moment. His movements are blurred, like the smears an artist uses to represent speed, even when he doesn't move particularly fast.
He stands upon six legs. Two from the past, two from the present, two from the future. But the past is hindsight as much as reality, and so Nathan moves and shifts to where he wishes he had been. Future Nathan is always in motion, always changing where he's moving to, never quite matching where present Nathan will end up. And present Nathan is dragged between the two. He never quite touches them. Even when the three Nathans overlap, they somehow don't touch… but past Nathan is drawn to become present Nathan, and present Nathan is drawn to become future Nathan. Despite their unreality, past and future Nathan's movements and motions seems to pull and push at Nathan, speeding him onward.
If Nathan wishes to hide his hindsight and aspirations, and banish his future and past self, he lockes away Multiple Legs and Gazelle's Pace. Without his six legs, he can't move with the speed of past and future combined.
If he wishes to still himself, to be able to stop moving, stop being drawn between past and future, he locks away Inexhaustible. His endless energy comes from being caught between those external agents.
If he wishes to move naturally rather than flickering between places and moments, he locks away Gem Of Perfect Mobility. By letting his past begin a movement, he could cut the time to complete it in half, by letting his future complete a movement, he could do something else at the same time. Cut off from these, he moves like a normal man.​

Sorcery
Out among the suspicious folk of the threshold, sorcery is a mysterious power, poorly understood and often feared. Yet the witches, sorcerers, and the heirs to the Shogunate often wield magic that defies the understanding taught in the heptagram.
One purchase of this initiates you into either Terrestrial Circle Sorcery or Shadowland Circle Necromancy. But more than that; magic that you wield is subtly more powerful, flexible, reliable, effective at accomplishing your goals, and given to being wielded in strange occult ways. You also become less likely to suffer for your use of magic, with the strange dooms that sometimes stalk sorcerers passing you by.
While in the world and story of Exalted Sorcery is a potent thing, it flags when condensed into rules. On taking this, you are guaranteed to be more in line with the stories of sorcery, rather than its implementations. You also, explicitly, gain access to Workings, as started showing up in the 3rd edition of Exalted, and can develop the same kind of minor magics and strange abilities that they can.
Every additional purchase of this initiates you into another circle, but it also makes your magic more subtle, powerful, flexible, reliable, effective, strange, and safe. This doesn't only apply to sorcery, but to any flexible system of occult power you possess.