Charm:Clever Digestion Technique

Ability: Investigation (Ability)

Aspect: Water

Cost: 1 or 15 motes.

Mins: Essence 2, Investigation 3, Survival 2.

Duration: Instant, though subject to the constraints of digestion

Prerequisites: Tampering Detection Technique.

Source: Adapted and altered from Plate of Clever Digestion by Shataina on the Unofficial Exalted Wiki.

This charm was well known in the First Age, where the Dragonblooded served as food-tasters to the Celestial Exalted and overseers of the Solar Deliberative's granaries. In both roles, being able to track the source of poisons was key, for eliminating assassins and saboteurs.

The user of this Charm concentrates upon a piece of food, invests a mote into it, and eats it. Any edible item may be eaten with impunity; if the item is somehow poisonous or harmful, then the user will know, and she may reflexively choose to spend another 14 motes on top of the original (for a total of 15), which will cause her to regurgitate the stuff with no harm to herself, unless the poison takes effect through contact alone. However, while this can be a useful protection, then she will not gain the real benefit of the Charm. Some investigators have willingly undergone the effects of a poison in order to get the information they wished.

Having eaten the user then makes a digestion roll, commonly Stamina + Investigation. Dependent on how well they digest the item, the user will get a better idea of who created or had an effect on it. For every success the user gets a clear mental picture of one further person who last touched the item that was eaten, starting with the most recent and continuing backwards in time. Note that they get a picture of the person who actively interfered with the item: For example they will not get a mental picture of the servant who brought the food in on a tray unless the servant spiced it further or sliced it themselves. They will get a mental picture of the the person who bit into it, the cook who prepared it, and with enough successes the person who slaughtered the meat or picked the vegetable.

This Charm may be used on items that are technically edible, though not commonly eaten (paper, for example). However, in that case, the difficulty of the digestion roll is raised by how hard the item is to digest, starting with +2. Cheap paper would probably be difficulty 3 to digest, expensive, thick paper might be difficulty 4, etc. This cannot be used to make the user digest something they otherwise could not.