Dragon's Ire (Art)

Once upon a time, so the stories go, a brave sidhe knight slew a dragon and ate its smoking heart. Or perhaps a king of the fae outwitted the dragon, and the great wyrm pledged its power to Arcadia. Or perhaps a great beauty seduced the dragon with honeyed words and dreams of passion. The stories vary, as is the way of the Dreaming, but the point is always the same — long ago a great hero secured a mighty power of war and ferocity and placed it at the disposal of the fae, should they possess the valor and fortitude to bend it to their will.

Dragon’s Ire is a mighty Art of battle and conflict, and has been rare among the fae throughout the long centuries of the Interregnum. Its use experienced a great revival with the return of the Arcadian sidhe, whose noble knights never flagged in their attempts to master this challenging and potent sorcery. Many sidhe consider Dragon’s Ire a proprietary Art which can only be properly mastered by a noble warrior of unstinting dedication, but in truth it also sees some practice among the commoner kiths — most frequently redcaps and trolls. To the (often fatal) surprise of many, this Art is also popular among nockers, who delight in infusing its strength into weapons of their own design.

## Unleashing Dragon's Ire

Dragon’s Ire Unleashings are fairly straightforward — usually “protect us” or “destroy them” — and always express themselves as vibrant displays of unbound Glamour, often taking the form of walls of flame, burning auras that bestow titanic strength, rains of golden fire from the sky, or even the brief manifestation of an actual chimerical dragon.

## Dragon's Ire Bunks

Dragon’s Ire bunks incorporate violent action, daring and drama, noble gestures, and draconic imagery. Examples include: Shout a formal challenge, wave a weapon with a dramatic flourish, fire a gun into the air, light a circle of flames and step into or out of it, leap from a high place, throw a fistful of money at the cantrip’s subject, quote Shakespeare, throw down a gauntlet or glove, drip your blood upon a weapon, smash a piece of furniture, cast aside your weapon, set a building ablaze, wreck a car, take a knee for a moment while you prepare yourself for battle, or slowly don armor in full view of your foes while maintaining eye contact.

## Dragon's Ire Cantrips

### Burning Thew

A troll roars as he holds up the collapsing building, muscles glowing from within. Fire dances across the edge of a redcap’s deadly axe as it bites through armor like mere paper. A sidhe focuses ancient power into a single arrow for a single moment, and with it, slays a monster.

This cantrip infuses its target with the burning might of legend, granting them tremendous strength and destructive power. To those with Changeling eyes, the subject seems faintly limned in a golden aura, which rises and flickers like flames.

**System:** The Realm used determines who or what is empowered. If the subject is a living creature, then this cantrip raises her Strength rating. If the subject is an object, then all attacks made with that object gain extra damage dice. Successes on this cantrip’s activation roll must be split between efficacy and duration. Each success allocated to efficacy adds one dot of Strength or one die of damage. Each success allocated to duration extends the effects of Burning Thew by one round; if no successes are allocated to duration, this cantrip lasts for only a single round.

**Type:** Chimerical

### Confounding Coils

A sidhe dances across the battlefield, felling her foes while remaining untouched even by the blood she lets. The subject of this cantrip is granted the grace of a coiling serpent. Her motions become sinuous, almost hypnotic, and she may easily avoid harm. Even an inanimate object blessed by this cantrip seems to subtly writhe and shift, throwing off attempts to strike it.

**System:** The Realm determines who or what gains a defensive blessing. All attacks directed against the subject increase their difficulty by 2, to a maximum of 9. This cantrip lasts for one round per success rolled. It is ineffective against attacks made with cold iron.

**Type:** Chimerical

### Dragonscales

A knife scrapes off a troll’s hide, which is suddenly hard as stone. A nocker grins as he aims his car head-on at that of the loan shark, tempering its frame to be nearly indestructible while hoping the improvements he made to the airbag system work.

The changeling infuses her subject with the mystical toughness of dragon hide. To those capable of seeing past the Mists, the subject seems to shimmer with a heat haze, and its skin or surface gleams in direct light.

**System:** The Realm used dictates who or what is enchanted. All damage rolls against a subject protected by this cantrip raise their difficulty by 2 (to a maximum of difficulty 9). This cantrip lasts for one round per success. It is ineffective against attacks made with cold iron.

**Type:** Chimerical

### Holly-Strike

A sidhe stirs his blade through fallen leaves, lifting them into the air, and a cracking surge of emerald lightning propels them, suddenly iron-hard, into his opponent.

Named after the legendary warrior’s plant, this is a cantrip of pure destruction which suits its outward manifestation to the nature of the changeling who wields it. It always takes the form of a blast of eldritch power, but this could be anything from a cold wave of withering darkness, to an emerald flash that cracks a target to pieces, to a roaring wave of dragon-flame.

**System:** The Realm used determines the target of the cantrip — who or what is destroyed. The activation roll for this cantrip doubles an attack roll. This cantrip has a maximum striking range of (changeling’s Willpower x 10) yards/meters, and inflicts dice of lethal damage equal to the changeling’s (Willpower + Glamour + additional successes on the activation roll).

**Type:** Wyrd

### Tripping the Ire

On the one hand, Billy was 10 and facing down a bully two grades above him and half again his size. On the other hand, Billy was Sir William of Murfreesboro, sidhe and sworn knight to the Countess Denzel. He looked down to his hands and found them glowing with the power of ages.

The changeling calls down the martial wisdom of countless warriors of Arcadian legend to dwell within his subject, enabling a terrifying battle dance against which no enemy can hope to prevail.

**System:** The Realm used determines who is blessed by this cantrip. If used on an object, then the cantrip’s benefits are passed to whomever wields that object in battle. Tripping the Ire produces a pool of additional dice equal to the successes on its activation roll. Each round, this pool may be divided any way the subject desires among any of their combat dice pools — attack, damage, soak, even other combat cantrip rolls. This pool refreshes itself at the beginning of each round, but loses one die from its total until the cantrip burns itself out. A single subject cannot Trip the Ire more than once per scene.

**Type:** Chimerical