Chirbatti, the Ghost Lantern

(Soulsteel Dragon Sigh Wand, Artifact 4)

The true age of this bulky but beautiful lantern is unknown. Its soulsteel arabesques date to no particular era, and the eight long fingerbones that serve as bars belong to inhuman anatomy. No oil reservoir sits inside: when lit, cold embers of ghost-light drift within. These are the souls trapped by Chirbatti, a cascade of the burning dead.

A relic of Stygia’s deathly gondoliers, more than ghosts but other than gods, Chirbatti fell into lesser hands when the iron grip of the Abyss closed around that sacred order. Those defiant psychopomps who remain at the oars want no light to betray their passage through the midnight rivers.

Still, it would please them to see the lantern put to good use, by the living or the dead.

  • Attunement: 5m
  • Type: Heavy (+14 DMG, OVW 5)
  • Acc: Close +1; Short +5; Medium +3; Long +1; Extreme -1
  • Tags: Lethal, Archery (Short), Flame, One-Handed, Slow
  • Hearthstone slot(s): None
  • Era: First Turn of the Calendar

Evocations of Chirbatti

Chirbatti can be fired using the Occult or Archery Abilities. Non-Dissonant wielders awaken Ghost-Ferry Lantern at no cost upon attunement.

Ghost-Ferry Lantern
  • Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 1; Type: Simple
  • Keywords: None
  • Duration: One scene
  • Prerequisites: None

A spark of Essence ignites a sickly green flame in Chirbatti. It casts light out to medium range, revealing incorporeal ghosts as indistinct wisps. While ignited, Chirbatti can be used as a firewand with the listed traits. It requires no ammunition – its “shots” are the countless souls caged within it – but must still be reloaded with a fire-lighting mudra.

Chirbatti can strike spirits that have not materialized. If the wielder cannot perceive the spirit, the shot is made blind (Exalted, p. 168).

Pyre-Flame Fetters
  • Cost: 4m; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Simple
  • Keywords: Decisive-only, Resonant
  • Duration: Instant
  • Prerequisites: Ghost-Ferry Lantern

A gout of ice-cold green fire forms sickly hands and tangling chains, as the wielder makes a grapple gambit with a control roll of (Wits + Occult) against a target within Chirbatti’s range. She cannot drag her victim, except to move them one range band toward herself while she remains stationary; this consumes a movement action.

As with all of Chirbatti’s effects, this grapple can affect immaterial creatures.

Resonant: The wielder converts extra successes on the Initiative roll into bonus dice on the control roll, to a maximum of (Essence) against non-ghosts.

Flicker-Wick Confinement
  • Cost: 2m+, 1wp; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Simple
  • Keywords: Dissonant, Resonant
  • Duration: Instant
  • Prerequisites: Pyre-Flame Fetters

Bone bars open wide as spectral hands drag an unfortunate soul inside Chirbatti. The wielder can use this Evocation when she starts her turn at close range to a victim she has grappled with its prerequisite, reducing them to a ghostly light inside her lamp. This imprisonment restrains the victim, and lasts one round for every two motes the wielder spends, up to (remaining rounds of control ÷ 2).

The wielder herself is no longer occupied by the grapple, and can freely move while carrying Chirbatti. She can still use her action to savage, throw, slam, or release her caged victim - rattling their cage, stoking the flames, and so on.

Dissonant: The victim cannot be contained for more than (wielder’s Essence) rounds.

Resonant: This Evocation has no Willpower cost when used on a ghost.

Soul-Fire Shadows
  • Cost: — (3m); Mins: Essence 2; Type: Permanent
  • Keywords: Resonant
  • Duration: Permanent
  • Prerequisites: Ghost-Ferry Lantern

The lanterns of the Underworld’s river burn cold, burning away resolve just as its water washes away attachments. The wielder doubles 9s when intimidating those within the light of Chirbatti, and can create Intimacies of fear toward ghosts and death as well as herself. She doubles 8s if such an Intimacy already exists.

Resonant: When the wielder hits a character with Chirbatti, she can spend three motes to make a reflexive intimidate action toward that character through burning spectres.

Wisp-Lure Haunting
  • Cost: 3m, 3i+, (+3a); Mins: Essence 3; Type: Reflexive
  • Keywords: Dissonant, Perilous, Stackable, Resonant
  • Duration: One scene
  • Prerequisites: Soul-Fire Shadows

A gout of ghost-fire flees Chirbatti’s bars, flickering for a chance to terrorize. This wisp is immaterial, and remains at close range to the wielder. It has the Initiative spent on this Evocation, and (wielder’s Essence) Evasion. It is extinguished if Crashed, but cannot suffer damage or gain Initiative.

The only action the wisp can take is launching a distract gambit using the wielder’s attack pool for Chirbatti. It dissipates after doing so.

This Evocation can only be used on the wielder’s turn. The wielder can maintain up to (Occult) wisps at a time.

Dissonant: The wielder can only maintain one wisp at a time.

Resonant: The wielder can spend three levels of anima to use this Charm when struck by a withering attack, reducing its Initiative cost by the Initiative she lost (minimum 0).
Corpse-Oil Conflagration
  • Cost: 5m (+1wp); Mins: Essence 4; Type: Supplemental
  • Keywords: Aggravated, Decisive-only, Dissonant
  • Duration: Instant
  • Prerequisites: Flicker-Wick Confinement, Wisp-Lure Haunting

The wielder clutches Chirbatti between both hands, concentrating its emerald flames into a roaring furnace of regrets. A decisive attack against a prisoner of Flicker-Wick Confinement inflicts aggravated damage and rerolls 1s on its damage roll until 1s fail to appear. If the victim is a ghost, 2s are also rerolled.

If the victim dies, the wielder can spend 1 Willpower to detonate their soul, causing the lantern to groan as its wan light strains with fresh and terrifying brightness. The wielder’s anima flares to bonfire, and she gains (victim's Essence) Initiative before venting the lantern’s pressure into a second decisive attack against any target in range.

If the original attack inflicted excess levels of damage, these are converted into bonus raw damage on the second attack. If the target has a positive Tie toward the victim, it is replaced with one of dread.

Dissonant: The wielder cannot spend Willpower to make a second attack.

Marsh-Light Judgement
  • Cost: — ; Mins: Essence 2; Type: Permanent
  • Keywords: None
  • Duration: Permanent
  • Prerequisites: Ghost-Ferry Lantern, Righteous Devil Form

This Evocation can only be awoken with tutelage from Stygia’s flame-eyed gondoliers, enhancing the practice of Righteous Devil Style (Exalted, p. 450) through Chirbatti.

  • Blossom of Inevitable Demise allows ghosts to be attacked at medium range without an aim action.
  • Cloud of Ebon Devils costs no motes within shadowlands or the Underworld.
  • Kiss of the Sun Concentration’s benefits apply to any gambit created by one of Chirbatti’s Evocations.

This Evocation also expands Caress of 1,000 Hells, allowing the wielder to inflict alternative fates on repentant victims.

  • A repentant ghost may instead lose a Defining Intimacy, a passion binding them to the world. This causes most ghosts to pass into Lethe.
  • A mortal that repents may instead serve as a vessel for one of the ghosts (Exalted, p. 503) held within Chirbatti, designed by the Storyteller. They gain a Defining Intimacy which drives them to settle the ghost’s dearest passion, and which can only be removed by resolving it (or through an exorcism). While upholding the intimacy, they have access to the ghost’s mote pool and Charms, and a one-dot Mentor to represent its spectral advice.