Hi! I felt like writing an Exalted martial art today. ^_^



Hidden Horse Style

Hidden Horse Style is a combat style built around the idea that a horse your opponent does not expect is a horse that they cannot defend against. It emphasizes flexibility, surprise, and mounted combat techniques. This style originated with the spies of the southern tribes, frustrated at how easily their distinctive horses would give their identities away, but flourishes among the pirates of the west, whose sudden, unexpected being on a horse-ness is substantially more surprising.



Hidden Horse Weapons: Hidden Horse style uses whips (and direlashes), chains (and dire chains), one-handed spears (and longfangs), and an unarmed style learned from studying horse boxers in the wild known as “the horse fist.” One deviant tradition replaces the latter with the “tiger trampling” style—a fierce rearing/slashing unarmed art learned from observations of horses that had, themselves, practiced the tiger style.



Armor: Hidden Horse style is compatible with light armor and with shields.



Complementary Abilities: Hidden Horse stylists use Ride to avoid enemy attacks and tame and control their hidden horses. Survival is useful for Hidden Horse Stylists who wish to branch out into the more general field of martial hidden mount techniques and need to tame exceptional wild animals to ride, while Bureaucracy is helpful for those who are less ambitious and just want to go to the market and buy horses. Resistance is important for acquiring a tough, horse-like attitude towards life, and most Hidden Horse stylists have at least one dot of Linguistics so that they can actually read the secret manuals of their sect.



Sometimes Horses Approach

Cost: 6m; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1

Type: Simple

Keywords: Terrestrial, Mastery, Mute

Duration: Instant

Prerequisite Charms: None



Through intense contemplation of the Seven Thousand Horses Sutra, the martial artist understands that all things are in horses, and horses, in all things. Sometimes Horses Approach reveals that a horse last seen in the possession of the martial artist was in fact hidden on her person or nearby. The horse is fed, watered, fresh, in good health if they were before, and (although sufficiently complicated circumstances may necessitate a Ride roll) the martial artist may choose to reflexively mount it as it arrives.



Terrestrial: Dragon-Blooded are limited to horses appropriate to their element’s color: Fire Aspects may only reveal red horses, Earth Aspects white horses, Water Aspects black horses, Air Aspects blue horses, and Wood Aspects green horses. Note that blue dun, blue roan, depressed, frozen, and blue-blooded horses qualify as blue, while any horse that has just begun its training qualifies as green. Extremely jealous, very sick, and wood-elemental-blooded horses also qualify as green. Ambiguous cases are resolved with a difficulty 3 (Perception + Ride) roll; failure indicates a horse of another color.



Mastery: The martial artist is not limited to horses last seen in her possession, but may produce any horse that she could plausibly have obtained since it last showed up in play or, if it’s never shown up in play, that she could plausibly have picked up in any region where she recently spent off-camera time.



Galloping Horse Fist

Cost: 5m; Mins: Martial Arts 2, Essence 1

Type: Reflexive

Keywords: Dual, Mastery

Duration: One scene

Prerequisite Charms: None



The martial artist’s fists charge forth like galloping horses. Galloping Horse Fist grants the martial artist’s unarmed attacks Reaching and allows her unarmed decisive attacks to deal Lethal damage should she so choose.



Mastery: The martial artist’s Hidden Horse attacks may attack at Short Range while this Charm is in effect.



High Horse Meditation

Cost: 3m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 3, Essence 1

Type: Simple

Keywords: Mastery

Duration: Indefinite

Prerequisite Charms: Galloping Horse Fist



The essence of being mounted is being hard to reach from the ground. Understand this essence and no one may approach you. Except a horse. High Horse Meditation grants +1 Evasion while mounted; further, while using this Charm, the martial artist treats any normal mount she is riding as an enormous mount for the purposes of defense. Enemies using short-range attacks without the Reaching tag must use a (Dexterity + Athletics) action at difficulty 3 to climb onto the martial artist’s mount before they can attack the martial artist. The martial artist in turn must use a Reaching or ranged attack should she wish to attack.



Mastery: While this Charm is in effect, the martial artist has the option to get so high on her high horse as to be effectively at Medium Range from those embattled with her mount on the ground. While this is principally a matter of posture and attitude, it requires a move or disengage action normally.



Hidden Horse Form

Cost: 8m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2

Type: Simple

Keywords: Form

Duration: One scene

Prerequisite Charms: Sometimes Horses Approach, High Horse Meditation



The martial artist swirls her sleeves, steps, and Essence in deliberate and hypnotic movements that increasingly obscure the matter of whether she is riding a horse at all. The Hidden Horse stylist is on foot—or is she? The shapes of horses seem to surge behind the swirls of cloth. The Hidden Horse stylist is mounted—or is she? Her foot touches down upon the earth and her hip rotates and where exactly would that “horse” she's riding be? The “truth” behind the style is that the pedestrian master has learned to make her weapon and clothes shadows into horses, while the mounted master typically “rides” by holding the horse one-handed, where she can carry or be carried as she wishes and can use the torque of her hips and her own brief footsteps to rapidly move her horse into locations that deceive the enemy eyes, rising up into a proper mounted position only when desirable.



While in Hidden Horse Form, the martial artist’s mounted state is ambiguous. It requires a difficulty 4 (Perception + Awareness) roll to determine if she is mounted—other characters can examine the martial artist’s horse, but cannot determine for certain if the horse is actually there without succeeding at the roll until the martial artist has spent at least a tick not riding it. The martial artist gains +1 Defense, inflicts a -1 Defense penalty against her attacks, and may always choose to receive the attacking/defending benefits of being mounted against anyone who has not successfully perceived since the last time the martial artist dismounted that she has done so. While in Hidden Horse Form, Sometimes Horses Approach becomes Reflexive.



Special Activation Rules: Whenever a decisive attack misses her mount, a mounted Hidden Horse stylist may reflexively activate Hidden Horse Form. Wait, was she mounted at all? Whenever all enemies on the scene lose sight of both the martial artist and a suitable mount, including suitable mounts ridden by others, an unmounted Hidden Horse stylist may reflexively activate Hidden Horse Form. Where there’s one mount, there could be two!



Hidden Horse Hands

Cost: 4m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2

Type: Supplemental

Keywords: Withering-only, Terrestrial, Mastery

Duration: Instant

Prerequisite Charms: Hidden Horse Form



The martial artist fades backwards, shooting horses out of her sleeves in a withering attack on her unsuspecting enemy. This attack adds the martial artist’s Ride to its raw damage, adds +2 to its Overwhelming, and may hit enemies at Close or Short Range. A successful hit knocks opponents small enough for a horse to knock down prone, including essentially all human-sized opponents, and knocks enemies smaller than human size a range band away from the martial artist as well. An opponent Crashed by Hidden Horse Hands loses one Appearance for the remainder of the scene as a large hoofprint appears in the middle of their forehead.



Terrestrial: The attack must inflict at least 4 initiative damage to knock the opponent prone. The Dragon-Blooded may not reduce the Appearance of enemies whose initial Appearance was lower than her own.



Mastery: The attack receives Essence bonus dice to hit and the Overwhelming bonus increases to +3. If the martial artist spends an additional 1wp when making this attack, she may hurl a larger mount or hurl a hidden horse with greater force: a successful hit knocks prone any targeted creature without truly extraordinary size or sturdiness and steals a point of initiative from one with such a trait.



Hidden Horse Stance

Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 2

Type: Reflexive

Keywords: Psyche, Terrestrial, Mastery

Duration: One turn

Prerequisite Charms: Hidden Horse Form



A firm horse stance is the basis of all martial arts. The martial artist adds +2 to her mount’s Defense; if it is struck, she may use her Resistance Charms to defend it. If the attack misses or if all of its effects and damage are negated, the mount disappears for the rest of the turn—psyche! There’s no mount! The martial artist was just displaying a truly admirable horse stance instead! Characters with Resolve lower than the martial artist’s Ride are unable to discern any tangible evidence to the contrary until the effect ends.



Terrestrial: A Dragon-Blooded who uses hidden horse stance cannot recover a mount that disappeared by ending this Charm or by waiting out its duration: she must either move to a nearby location where it could have been concealed or invoke Sometimes Horses Approach to recover it.



Mastery: When using this Charm to defend her mount, the martial artist also steals one point of initiative from an enemy that fails to do damage.



Hopping Horse Stratagem

Cost: 3m, 2i; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3

Type: Reflexive

Keywords: Mastery

Duration: Instant

Prerequisite Charms: Hidden Horse Stance



The hoof-scattering sutra and the tendon-lightening mudra unleash acrobatic talents the martial artist’s mount didn’t even know it had. When the martial artist's mount or the mounted martial artist is hit by an attack, the mount may borrow the energy of that attack to spring backwards, forwards, up, or down (if applicable) a single range band, incidentally reducing the final damage taken by one level.



Mastery: A mounted Solar martial artist may also invoke this Charm after successfully parrying an attack with a Hidden Horse style parry.



Mysterious Horse Art

Cost: 3m; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 2

Type: Supplemental

Keywords: Decisive-only

Duration: Instant

Prerequisite Charms: Hidden Horse Form



The martial artist gives a sharp shout or distracting motion that smashes open the stable doors of the mounted target’s mind and exposes them to the all-awakening horselessness insight. This Charm supplements an unhorse gambit, doubling 10s on the “damage” roll, allowing the martial artist to unhorse her target at Short or Medium range, and forcing the horse to immediately and reflexively enter Stealth with the martial artist’s Essence in extra successes upon the target’s successful unhorsing.



Mastery: This Charm also lowers the difficulty to unhorse the target by one.



Eternal Equinox Transcension

Cost: —; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3

Type: Reflexive

Keywords: None

Duration: Instant

Prerequisite Charms: Mysterious Horse Art



It’s not wise to play with horses in front of a true master of the art. Upon a successful unhorse gambit or a decisive attack that kills an enemy’s mount, the martial artist may use a free hand to reflexively steal and ready their mount. If she unhorsed the target at Medium or greater range, or killed the target’s mount at Short or greater range, she must be able to stunt an explanation for how it reaches her; depending on the stunt, it may not arrive until the beginning of her next action. As long as she wields the enemy’s mount, a mount of typical size is treated as a dire chain. It requires a feat of strength (albeit with Essence bonus successes) to pick up an enormous mount; if the martial artist does so, it is still treated as a dire chain, but is heavy and not medium. If the mount holds severe enmity towards the martial artist or possesses great loyalty to its former rider the martial artist may only keep it in hand for a number of combat turns or out of combat scenes equal to her successes on a (Strength + Martial Arts) roll.



Evocations for “a stolen enemy mount” cost only 4xp, or 2xp if identical to the evocations the martial artist has mastered for another artifact weapon.



Mastery: Upon readying a stolen mount, the martial artist may roll (Charisma + Performance) with her Ride in bonus dice to showily twirl her new weapon around herself, inspiring her allies with hope, her enemies with sorrow or despair, or some other appropriate inspirational effect. The martial artist is not hindered by directing this at multiple targets. If any enemy is successfully inspired to break and run, the martial artist immediately gains one point of temporary Willpower.



Friendship is Magic

Cost: 4m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 3

Type: Reflexive

Keywords: Terrestrial, Mastery

Duration: Instant

Prerequisite Charms: Hidden Horse Hands, Hopping Horse Stratagem, Eternal Equinox Transcension



The real treasure of this martial art is the horses you’ve met along the way. Once per scene, the martial artist may invoke this Charm when she or her mount is struck by an attack to declare that a passing horse leapt into its path, saving her. This cannot protect against attacks dealing more than 30 levels of damage, which casually knock the horse aside if withering or go straight through it if decisive, in either case without even slowing down. Otherwise, the attack is defeated without a contest. This Charm is reset by rescuing a horse or horse-like creature from a danger that the martial artist didn’t bring upon it herself.



When defending against an opponent of lower Initiative than the martial artist’s, this Charm does not cost Willpower.



Terrestrial: The passing horse retroactively reduces successes on the attack by the martial artist’s Essence, but does not automatically negate the attack.



Mastery: A passing horse that leaps between a Lawgiver and danger will not die. (At least, not as an immediate result of doing so.)



Hidden Horse Heart

Cost: 6m, 1wp; Mins: Martial Arts 5, Essence 4

Type: Supplemental

Keywords: Mastery

Duration: Indefinite

Prerequisite Charms: Friendship is Magic



The true horse is the horse within. Once per combat, this Charm supplements an unhorse gambit, lowering its difficulty by 1 and waiving its initiative cost. Like Mysterious Horse Art, it doubles 10s, extends the valid range of the unhorsing attempt—this time to Long Range—and forces the target’s mount to immediately and reflexively enter Stealth with the martial artist’s Essence in extra successes upon the target’s successful unhorsing. However, more importantly, upon successfully unhorsing the target, the martial artist reveals retroactively that “her” last few actions in combat had actually been taken entirely by her mount—the martial artist herself has for some unknown length of time been impersonating the enemy’s mount. She immediately appears in Close Range of the now unhorsed target and may follow up her unhorsing gambit with an immediate decisive Hidden Horse surprise attack.



This Charm may be reset by inflicting at least three levels of damage on a mounted enemy.



Mastery: In order to deceive the target with this Charm, the martial artist must first make their two hearts as one. If the Solar is willing to create a minor positive Tie to the enemy she successfully unhorses with this Charm, she may also make a reflexive (Charisma + Presence) roll with bonus successes equal to their opponent’s Ride to instill a similar Tie in her erstwhile foe.



hat tip: the Charm name "Sometimes Horses Approach" was suggested by Robert Vance