Moonsilver Tattoos

THE BREAKING OF THE CASTES Of all the Exalted, the Lunars possessed the most experi- ence with and resistance to the Wyld, but not even the most experienced Steward had ever spent more than a few weeks in the Deep Wyld during a single trip. The exile stretched into years and then decades. About 200 years into the Lunar exile, Ogun Bloody-Tusks, an elder and respected Half Moon, awoke one morning to discover that he had become a Waning Moon. For the fi rst time since his Exaltation, his caste began to shift with the lunar cycle. Other Lunars experienced the same phenomenon. By the fourth century of the Shogunate, this shifting curse had spread to every Lunar in Creation. Even worse, the longer a Lunar spent without a caste, the more prone she became to uncontrolled shapeshifting and even madness. Ogun Bloody-Tusks, the fi rst Lunar to lose his caste to the Wyld, later became the fi rst to be called a chimera, and then the fi rst to be put down by his fellows. The Lunars (secretly aided by allies in the Bureau of Nature) learned of Ogun’s reincarnation before the Sidereals and rescued the reborn Lunar before the Wyld Hunt could arrive. However, the Lunars were horrifi ed when the young Exalt, a boy named Uka, could not stabilize his own caste even though he had never been exposed to the Wyld. Panic nearly spread across the whole of the Silver Pact at this development, which promised the Lunars nothing but inevitable madness, as one by one they all fell to chimerism. 28 The Lunars could reduce the chance of becoming chimerae by staying out of the Wyld, but that only brought on the butchers of the Wyld Hunt by the thousands. More than 30 Stewards became chimerae, and many more approached that debased state, before a pack of elder sorcerers hit upon a solution. Ironically, while Wyld infl icted the curse of shifting castes, the Wyld also held the possibility of a cure. Experimenting with moonsilver, the Wyld’s tendency to turn people into living stories and strange Wyld-shaping techniques stolen from the Fair Folk, the sorcerers found a way to construct a magical identity that could withstand Wyld erosion. The process fi rst required the Lunar to recite a list of her past accomplishments and proclaim why they should accord her status within a caste. Then, those deeds would be tattooed onto the Lunar’s body with pure moonsilver, along with various magical sigils. Once the tattoos were complete, a protected Lunar’s caste could resist the Wyld indefi nitely. Furthermore, the Lunar also became completely immune not only to Wyld-shaping effects but to all transformative magical effects which targeted her body. The tattooing process was not perfect. While the sorcerers easily restored the Full Moon and No Moon Caste, the other three original castes were lost to the Wyld and replaced by a new, composite “Changing Moon” Caste. The Lunars aren’t sure why three castes collapsed into one. The most popular theory holds that the full moon and new moon are easily defi ned conditions. Similarly, the Full Moons and No Moons could establish their caste through acts of physical courage and prowess, or demonstrations of knowledge, cunning and wisdom. The other three castes’ phases are all divided—waning, half and waning, leading into the new moon, followed by waxing, half and waxing, leading into the full moon. Meanwhile, the other three castes could not easily display courtly wit, strategic brilliance or daring deceit while out in the Wyld. Consequently, Lunars could more easily fi x the two “stable” castes than the three intermediate castes that lack clearly defi ned boundaries. A few Lunars think the No Moon sorcerers deliberately collapsed the three castes in order to usurp the Waxing Moons’ former role as Luna’s priests, as a gambit to increase their own power. Crossroad Society members mock the theory whenever they hear it. Does anyone imagine, they say, that it’s easy to repair the work of the Incarnae? Luna’s Chosen were lucky to emerge from the crisis with three castes. There might have been only one—or their Exaltations might have dissolved completely.