Abyssal Virtue Flaws

    Abyssal Exalted have a tendency to possess aberrant personalities. This is because each one of them has a fault in their psyche that allowed Oblivion to enter them. Some leave it relatively dormant, showing only when they perform behaviour that violates the reason they chose to become Abyssals. Others decide to foster this power, which simultaneously becomes a greater and greater part of them. Abyssals who do this are the ones who possess the Avatar Background. Although they may be the chosen weapons of the dead Primordials and their servants, they are beholden to Oblivion, not the Neverborn.
    Abyssals do not gain Resonance in the way that other Exalted gain limit. Resonance does not rise from resisting unnatural mental influence or a dominant virtue. Instead each of them has a Virtue Flaw that is what allowed Oblivion to become lodged in their soul at their time of death. In some Abyssals it was always present. In others it only occurred the moment they died, possibly as the result of treachery.
    Whenever an Abyssal violates the behaviour of the Virtue Flaw, roll one dice for each point of that Virtue and add one to their Resonance for each success. Also, if they possess the Avatar background, they suffer an immediate Resonance eruption equal to it's value.

Abyssal Backgrounds

     For a long time I've wanted to put more of a distance between the Neverborn and Oblivion. In The Abyssals they are intermingled, especially in the Charm descriptions (due to the Neverborns' goal of entering Oblivion.) In V3 the Neverborn and Oblivion are more exclusive and so, considering my development of Dark Messiah Style, I've split their influence into two Backgrounds.
    Whispers is still a connection to the Neverborn manifesting as Jack Walters-esque visions, hallucination-like fever dreams and other phenomena. Unlike the Background in the book, Abyssals so not bear the direct influence of the Neverborn, although the Deathlords do, bearing fragments of their souls.
    Avatar: A Background possessed only by Abyssals and Nephwracks and perhaps a few aberrant persona. I'm going to have to reconstitute some lost material about I wrote during a moment of insight but Avatar is related to the Abyssals' Virtues. It's a measure of Oblivion within the character, hence it's importance to Dark Messiah Style.

Abyssal Backgrounds

    Whispers is the character's level of psychic connection to the Neverborn and how much their voices reverberate through the character's mind. The Labyrinth is filled with the voices of the Neverborn, things like the Labyrinth that are constantly being consumed by Oblivion yet never diminish. Abyssal characters may have Whispers from character creation without ever having been to the Labyrinth. They appear in the character's mind with no known cause like the visions in the mind of Jack Walters.
   Avatar represents the character's connection to the Void. All Nephwracks have it as well as Spectres unless you'd rather have Spectres being ghosts that serve Oblivion whereas Nephwracks have been 'consecrated' by it. The dark hunger that exists within the Void exists in them.