Heroic Mortal

An Heroic Mortal is anyone who can transcend the normal limits of mortals without explicitly tapping into Essence and magical power, though in the world of Exalted where magic is built into the nature of Creation and Essence flows through everything this can be a somewhat fuzzy concept. Put another way, an Heroic Mortal is a character who could go off and have adventures with some chance of success or at least having songs sung about their failure. Not as powerful as the Enlightened or Exalted but not someone to ignore as irrelevant. God-Blooded of any ancestry are almost always Heroic Mortals if not Enlightened.

Mechanically, they have an Heroic Motivation Aspect and one or more Heroic Charms that allow them to transcend normal mortal limits, granting them permanent Scale 1 in an Ability as well a +2 to any one type of roll (e.g. Create an Advantage) with that ability at the cost of an Essence token. They cannot use their Essence in any other way (absent other traits that permit Essence use), cannot refresh Essence and do not count as Enlightened. Subsequent purchases of a Heroic Charm for the same ability allow them to boost another type of roll but do not further increase Scale, instead they gain access to another Essence token (total maximum of permanent Essence level x4)

In addition to Heroic Charms, Heroic Stunts also exist, they all have a prerequisite of at least one Heroic Charm or Enlightened Essence, and for Heroic Mortals (only) count as Charms for the purposes of determining Essence level (they may also purchase them as either Stunts or Charms). The maximum Essence level for an Heroic Mortal is 2.