Cost: 5 motes, 1 willpower; Mins: Lore 3, Essence 2; Type: Simple
Keywords: None
Duration: One dramatic action
Prerequisite Charms: None

Neither time nor demolition will hide the truth from the eyes of a Solar Exalted. When they study an object with the use of this Charm they can literally perceive its history constructed from the Essence associated with the object.

The character makes a (Lore + Perception) roll with a number of automatic successes equal to his Essence score. For an object destroyed within the past year the base difficulty is 1, and within the past 10 years the base difficulty is 2. The Exalt can study objects much older and touched by time; for each factor 10 both the difficulty of the roll increases by 2 (i.e., difficulty 4 for 100 years, difficulty 6 for 1,000 years, difficulty 8 for 10,000 years etc.) When successful, this Charm allows the Solar to perceive the object as it was when it used to be whole. If there are multiple times during the object was whole, but different, the Solar sees the most recent one. This is a mental image; others can not perceive what the Solar sees.

The number of remaining successes on the roll determines the amount of detail the Solar can perceive. Deducing generic functions or reading a single short inscription are easy, but with enough successes the Solar might be able to read an entire mural and make out the finest details about the object when it was whole.

For this Charm to work the Solar needs at least 50% of the original object’s remains, though the Solar can limit himself to studying a part of an object as well. For example, he might study the section of an ancient city wall if he has at least 50% of the remains of that section. There is no true limit on the size of the object the Solar may study, but he is limited to his own position in relation to the object as a whole. The character can move around within the scope of the dramatic action he wants to take with his vision, but only to the extent reality allows. When standing at the entrance of an ancient clock tower for example, this Charm might enable him to see the clock’s face as it once was… but only from the vantage point of the entrance as he is standing in it now. To see the clock up close he might build some scaffolding in order to activate the Charm near the clock tower… or he could bring the remains of the clock down to study it separately.

Items of famous heroes often get enveloped in a very personal aura as they are wrapped into their legend. Any identifying information gets enveloped in this sometimes immense aura. Any qualities identifying the user(s) of the object studied require a number of remaining successes equal to the person’s permanent Essence score. While the aura is an unique signature, it is very hard to identify, though with a lot of hard work or a very strong memory the Solar may tie various objects from the same legend together over time.