Life Powers (FiD)

Starfox's Blades in the Dark fan page

Life power is about life energy. You heal and improve living things.

This is life and life-force at the primal level; the essential principle that fuels all creatures, empowered and mundane. It is at the opposite scale of the evolution from Mind, which deals in intelligence, yet Mind could not exist without Life. It is the antithesis of death, but without death Life would become static.

Life attacks either increase your own physical strength and agility to deliver supernaturally powerful attacks or causes wounds to spontaneously appear on living things and undead but does nothing to things that never lived.

Life is a wide but diffuse energy, there are no life creatures.

Life Power Effects

Action	Basic	Advanced	Master	Apex
Dice	—	Minimum 2d	Minimum 4d	Minimum 6d
Stress	Avoid fumble (2+).	Succeed (4+).	Full success (6).	Critical (2 sixes).
Attune	Vital Vision Detect living things.	Vital Vanish Negate any power on a living thing.	Vital Vigor Use life energy to cure Harm.	Vital Vortex Area heal and power negation.
Command	Dark Emote Control negative emotions.	Sleepy Emote Put living creatures to sleep.	Sense Emote Read emotions over a wide area.	Hold Emote Create a permanent emotion.
Consort	Living Mask Make cosmetic changes to your own body.	Living Lens Shapeshift into a humanoid, animal, or plant.	Living Link Living Lens on a willing or helpless creature.	Living Legacy Living Link many minor creatures.
Finesse	Beast of Burden Ride any living creature.	Beastly Blade Fine and potent close-range attack.	Beastly Buggy Create a living vehicle.	Beastly Blitz Untiring travel.
Hunt	Sanguine Scout Track living creatures.	Sanguine Strike Cause wounds at a distance.	Sanguine Sovereignty Control flora and fauna.	Sanguine Surge Surge of blood.
Prowl	Agile Adaptation Hide among living creatures.	Agile Athletics Empower your own movement.	Agile Assembly Crew Agile Adaptation Athletics.	Agile Approach Teleport to a place you have slept.
Skirmish	Life Leverage Resist Life Harm.	Life Lance Fine and Potent melee attack.	Life Lockstep Negate scale in combat.	Life Lash Attack all enemies in melee.
Study	Wise Watcher Identify living creatures and any aliments.	Wise Word Learn powers and abilities of Life.	Wise Weave Learn past of living and formerly living things.	Wise Whorl Area Wise Word then thrice Wise Weave.
Survey	Vitality Vision You can sense life and life powers at a distance and understand their general nature.	Sensory Symbiosis Choose a living creature with eyes you have detected; you can perceive what that creature perceives.	Savage Scrying Choose a living creature you know of; you can perceive what that creature perceives.	Legion Lens You perceive from all living creatures at once over a wide area.
Sway	Empathic Echo Read emotions and motivations of living creatures.	Empathic Charm Project warmth and affection to living creatures.	Empathic Endearment Project any emotion to living creatures.	Empathic Enlist Permanently change the emotions of living creatures.
Tinker	Bio-Binder Emulate bio-tools.	Bio-Blender Emulate bio-workshop	Bio-Builder Emulate bio-lab.	Bio-Braid Emulate a bio-factory
Wreck	Digest Deteriorate Smash the living, undead, and derivatives.	Digest Dissolve Digest Deteriorate as if things were wood.	Digest Disintegrate Digest Dissolve but silent and to dust.	Digest Devastation Digest Dissolve over a large area.

Expanded Life Powers

Attune

Vital Vision Detect living things.

You can see Spirits of all kinds and detect all kinds of living creatures and living objects such as plants. You can narrow the search as desired.

This is so broad that it is of less use than other similar powers, but you can use it to detect creatures with Life powers.

• Limited outcome: what you can clearly see.
• Standar outcome: hidden things.
• Great outcome: behind a wall.

The position usually starts controlled, with the usual consequence that you cannot try again.

Vital Vanish Negate any power on a living thing.

You can negate powers affecting any living thing, but you cannot dismiss creatures.

You can force any spirit to materialize. Forcing a spirit to materialize is easy, but limited in range; if the creature can get away from you it can disappear again. Limited effect only works on spirits within reach. Standard effect can reach out up to a hundred meters. Great effect reaches out kilometers.

Life is good at dispelling since you can negate or counter any power targeting a living creature. Dispelling can be used as a defense against others' use of powers, or it can be used to break continuing effects. Dispelling is often used as a setup action to help another character in a situation when the opposition is using powers. This usually improves the position of the supported action and can work in addition to other setup actions. When used directly, the effect is usually limited unless the opponent is relying on powers for their safety. Against an opponent that uses Animal wings to fly or turned into a fish to breathe underwater you have a better base effect. When dramatically appropriate that a power is hard to dispel, often because it is the crux of the situation, this will not negate the power but instead give you a clue to what you need to do to resolve the situation.

Forcing a spirit to materialize is easy, but limited in range; if the creature can get away from you it can de-materialize again, only to materialize again if it gets close enough. Limited effect only works on spirits within reach. Standard effect covers an area based on your tier (p 220). Great effect reaches out to a range covered by tier (p 220).

Dismissing a creature is hard and usually requires great effect. A creature that has been wounded or otherwise weakened only needs standard effect. A creature that wants to be dismissed requires only limited effect.

This can also remove effects that are not strictly Powers or Harm but reduces the targets vitality, like drunkenness, hangovers, bruises, colds, or lingering poisons and drugs. You can cure withdrawal symptoms which over time helps the victim fight addiction.

Vital Vigor Use life energy to cure Harm.

Use life energy to heal harm. This works the same as downtime healing, reducing the severity of all Harm. The outcome needed depends on the most severe level of harm.

• Limited outcome heals level 1 harm.
• Standard outcome heals level 2 harm.
• Great outcome heals level 3 harm.

Success has the same result as a successful recovery downtime action; reduce each harm by one level or two levels on a critical success. Specific types of harm that do not involve conventional hurt may not be recoverable this way, but this is rare.

The position depends on the situation, used in a score this is usually risky, done in your lair the position is controlled. Consequences might prevent further Life healing, transfer the harm to you, or be interference from your surroundings.

Vital Vortex Area heal and power negation.

Free living creatures over an Area (p. 221) from power effects and possibly heal some harm.

• Limited outcome: Vital Vanish on everyone in the area.
• Standard outcome: Vital Vanish and cure level 1 harm on everyone in the area.
• Great outcome: Vital Vanish and cure level 2 harm with a selective result, you can choose who to heal and who not to heal.

Command

Command Life deals with negative emotions. The intensity of the emotion is set by the outcome and the target's self control and tendency to such emotions. It is hard to excite a calm creature and might be impossible to make a true pacifist start a fight.

Position mainly depends on the scene; are you in a dangerous spot, in a hurry, or dealing with a dangerous target? Consequences range from changing your own emotions, provoking the target, causing Heat, or creating permanent enmity.

Dark Emote Control negative emotions.

You control negative emotions in living creatures you see.

This is commonly used as a setup action to help some other social interaction to strengthen or calm negative emotions like fear, hate, inferiority, uncertainty, hate, disgust, and the like. If such an emotion is already present you can exploit it and cause the target to react strongly.

Sleepy Emote Put living creatures to sleep.

Tiredness and unreadiness are emotions you can play on. Targets may just doze a few seconds while still standing, enough to rush past a guard, or you may make them gradually relax, move into a sedate position, and sleep. This is similar to an attack in position and effect; it is pretty easy when used on unsuspecting target(s), much harder during a fight.

Sense Emote Read emotions over a wide area.

You can sense the mood of crowds, judging the morale of an army or the mood of a town. This allows you to predict routs, rebellions, and other upheavals and to judge how harsh you can be in your rulings without provoking people. Usually used as a setup for other command actions.

Hold Emote Create a permanent emotion.

This is similar to Dark Emote, but you can inflict the full range of emotions in others, and the result is permanent. Usually used to create love or loyalty, you might make any emotion dominant in the target, which can become a trauma if done carelessly.

• Limited outcome inflicts only negative emotions, or positive emotions of short duration.
• Standard outcome can inflict any emotion, and you control whom it is directed at. This can make the target afraid of dogs or in love with a specific person.
• Great outcome allows subtle manipulation that can change the target's attitudes in selected situations.

More subtle effects that allows the subject to remain effective and not traumatized requires a long-term project.

Consort

Often Consort rolls are not actually made when you use the power to change your appearance or form, it is rolled when in the social situation and effect and position is decided at this critical point.

Living Mask Make cosmetic changes to your own body.

You can make cosmetic changes to your own body, growing or losing hair, changing coloration, gaining or losing up to 10% of height and weight, changing apparent gender, and similar cosmetic changes.

Living Lens Shapeshift into a humanoid, animal, or plant.

You assume the form of a humanoid, mundane animal, or plant. This is a true physical transmutation. You need not assume the form of an existing creature, as long as the gamemaster agrees your new form matches the power you use.

Living Lens can work as a set-up action for a number of other actions but may penalize other things, as appropriate to your new form. When appropriate, your new form can use Basic and Advanced Life powers apparent to your new shape inherently without risking stress.

• Limited outcome allows you to transform into yourself like you would have been, had you grown up as the creature whose form you assume. Those familiar with you will recognize you.
• Standard outcome can make you a generic creature, very hard to recognize as yourself.
• Great outcome allows you to assume the shape and some of the personality of a specific creature you have studied.

Living Link Living Lens on a willing or helpless creature.

This is Living Lens applied to a willing or helpless creature. The duration depends of the outcome.

• Limited outcome is very temporary.
• Standard outcome lasts for the duration of a score.
• Great outcome lasts a long time and potentially becomes permanent, depending on the the story.

If you also want to make the target unrecognizable, that requires additional outcome, see Living Lens.

This is sometimes used as a kind of poetic justice, transforming the target as a punishment, a curse that is very hard to break.

Living Legacy Living Link many minor creatures.

This is where Consort becomes a combination of the Living Link and Sway: Empathic Endearment abilities. You transform a number of existing creatures and give them a task that they will perform with gusto, turning them into single-minded minions. Targets must be willing, non-sentient like animals, or just very minor figures in the plot, many tiers below you.

This is usually used to create a host of goons that will chase for you. Such goons are more interested in chasing and cornering targets than in actual combat. Or they can be given bit parts as servants or laborers.

Finesse

Beast of Burden Ride any living creature.

You can emote with and ride any living but non-sapient creature capable of carrying you. You can instead enhance your run speed and agility to elite levels, which increases your effect when racing against creatures. You can do this for your crew as an advanced power.

Beastly Blade Fine and potent close-range attack.

You can use the power of Life as a fine and potent close-range attack, similar in effect to a fine potent dueling sword or pistol. Life attacks enhance your physique or cause wounds to spontaneously appear on living and formerly living creatures and things. This does not work against robots, elementals, and other purely mechanical creatures.

Beastly Buggy Create a living vehicle.

You create a vehicle out of living matter, such as plants or green go. This travels by undulating, moving as a wave over the terrain. It easily traverses living terrain, but dead surfaces like rock or sand impedes it and it slowly takes damage from mechanical surfaces like metal or asphalt. It otherwise functions much as any other vehicle from the setting and it can be varied correspondingly; a smaller vehicle is faster and more agile.

Beastly Blitz Untiring travel.

Your crew and their living mounts (including engines running on fossil fuel) can continuously travel at full speed without rest, food, or water.

Hunt

Sanguine Scout Track living creatures.

You can track living creatures, even if the target does not leave any mundane trail or clues.

Sanguine Strike Cause wounds at a distance.

You can use your power to cause wounds at a distance and attack in a way similar in effect to a fine and potent rifle. Life attacks cause wounds to spontaneously appear on living and formerly living creatures and things. This does not work against robots, elementals, and other purely mechanical creatures.

Sanguine Sovereignty Control flora and fauna.

You can control flora and fauna, manipulating the environment. Turns plants and tiny vermin like mice and insects from nuisances to serious distractions, or creates an open path for your side. Things affected can only do what they normally can, but they now so do with a purpose.

Sanguine Surge Surge of blood.

Sanguine Strike turned into a fine and potent grenade. This allows you to fight many creatures, but there is a risk of collateral damage.

Prowl

Agile Adaptation Hide among living creatures.

You can hide in a crowd or herd as if you were a typical creature in that group, even if you look nothing like them, and you will not agitate creatures around you. Crowded streets, pens, and herds of animals are good hiding places for you. You can even hide in groups of enemies, but this is a desperate situation.

Agile Athletics Empower your own movement.

You empower your own body, enhancing agility to elite levels. This does not allow anything that would normally be impossible, but within that limit you increase the outcome of Prowl actions to move.

Agile Assembly Crew Agile Adaptation Athletics.

You can bring allies along when you use Agile Adaptation and Agile Athletics. Allies still use their own Prowl action.

Agile Approach Teleport to a place you have slept.

You and allies can teleport to any place in the same region where you have slept. This can be an old campsite, bedroom, or even the interior of a vehicle that might have moved on to a new location, as long as it is in the region where you currently are.

Skirmish

Life attacks enhance your physique or cause wounds to spontaneously appear on living and formerly living creatures and things. This does not work against robots, elementals, and other purely mechanical creatures.

Life Leverage Resist Life Harm.

Resist Harm from Life powers, Death powers, poison, disease, and similar things. You increase the effect of Skirmish rolls for endurance in such environments. Roll Skirmish to resist such Harm. 1-3: No reduction. 4-5: Reduce Harm by 1 level. 6: Reduce Harm by 2 levels. As a Master power, you can protect an ally for a score; as an Apex Power, you can protect your crew. This does not stack with regular armor. Targets roll their own Skirmish action.

Life Lance Fine and Potent melee attack.

You can use the power as a Fine and Potent close-range attack, similar in effect to a melee weapon or pistol.

Life Lockstep Negate scale in combat.

Your power creates distractions and obstructions that prevent the enemy from benefiting from numbers and otherwise works as a fine potent weapon.

Life Lash Attack all enemies in melee.

Your power strikes out in all directions, attacking all enemies in a melee.

Study

Study and analyze living and formerly living creatures and objects to gain insight and knowledge. The outcome required depends on range.

• Limited outcome for touch.
• Standard outcome for line-of-sight.
• Great outcome to reach a target you know of or have some link to, but which is out of line-of-sight.

Position depends on the situation. Safely in your base the position is controlled. In the middle of a fight or when pinned down the position is desperate. Sometimes thing you are researching it dangerous in itself, worsening position, consequences may give you knowledge that lacks crucial details.

Wise Watcher Identify living creatures and any ailments.

You can identify living and formerly living creatures and objects and any ailments they suffer from. This gives precise mundane information, giving you their physical strengths and weaknesses in narrative terms. It does not identify powers or specific rules.

Wise Word Learn powers and abilities of Life.

Learn the powers and abilities of something you analyze. Not restricted to mundane information, you also learn of any powers and rules in game terms.

Wise Weave Learn the past of living and formerly living things.

You can read the past events of living and formerly living things. You can use this on living and formerly things that are not creatures, such as wood, bone, and leather, as well as fossils and fossil products like plastic. This includes previous owners and how the object has been moved around as well as significant scenes in their history.

Wise Whorl Area Wise Word then thrice Wise Weave.

You use Wise Word on everything in a wide area. You can then use Wise Weave on three of these targets.

Survey

Perceive and locate manifestations of Life power and living creatures. The outcome you need depends on the target's concealment.

• Limited outcome finds those hiding behind cover and in far places you can only barely see.
• Standard outcome can look behind walls and into hard cover.
• Great outcome can look into far-away places and spots you had no idea existed.

Vitality Vision You can sense life and life powers at a distance and understand their general nature.

This is a basic spotting power, selectively sensing all living things related to your power.

Sensory Symbiosis Choose a living creature you know of; you can perceive what that creature perceives.

Choose a creature familiar to you or one you possess a link to, such as a body part or an item emotionally important to them. You move your point of perception and sense as if you were that creature as long as you maintain concentration. It is safest to choose a minor creature as a target, a powerful creature may sense the effect.

Savage Scrying Choose a creature familiar to you or one you possess a link to, such as a body part or an item emotionally important to them. You see through the eyes of the closest living creature, which is often close enough to perceive the target.

This is like Sensory Symbiosis, but you get to select any creature or location. The power will automatically zero in on the living thing that has the best view of your target.

Legion Lens You perceive from all living creatures at once over a wide area.

This gives you impossibly enhanced senses, as if you were dozens of people spread over the scene. All this creates a landscape of the area in your mind, a composite image that reveals many things at once.

Sway

Communicate, mesmerize, and manipulate living creatures. Position and effect is determined normally, depending on the situation and your relation to listeners.

• Limited outcome works if it follows the target's existing impulses.
• Standard outcome can convince a target with no particular stake in the matter.
• Great outcome will convince a reluctant target, but not a passionate one.

Outcome in excess of what's needed allows you to affect a number of target appropriate for scale at your tier, as long as they are in a group.

Sway Life powers allow setup actions of increasing power and complexity, but you need other powers or mundane interactions to direct the emotions you create.

Empathic Echo Read emotions and motivations of living creatures.

You can learn a living creatures mood and immediate motivations. This is can be a setup for later Sway and Command actions playing on this information.

Empathic Charm Project warmth and affection to living creatures.

This projects feelings of trust and friendship into living creatures. You cannot give target's specific orders, but they will react positively and are likely to follow your further suggestions. Works well as a set-up for Sway actions playing on these emotions, but may be enough in itself.

Empathic Endearment Project any emotion to living creatures.

This is not mind control, it induces moods and hormonal reactions. Less intelligent creatures have simple emotions, along the lines of fight, flight, f..k. Intelligent creatures have more complex emotions. Targets keep their own thoughts, colored by the emotions you give them. If the emotion is appropriate to the situation, it is likely to be acted upon. If the emotion is irrelevant or conflicting, it might just create a moment of confusion but no more, which might still give you a brief opening. Often this will set up the effect of any Sway action, with a broader range of action than Empathic Charm.

Empathic Enlist Permanently change the emotions of living creatures.

Permanently change the targets emotions and motivations on a fundamental level. Their thoughts are not changed, but without the emotional backing, they are still likely to buckle under the pressure and become who you make them. You set up a pattern of emotional triggers, but later events may change their emotions further.

Tinker

You can handle living and formerly living things that are not creatures, such as wood, bone, and leather, as well as fossils and fossil products like oil and plastics. The outcome determines the effectiveness of your construction, but also how long it will last.

Devices that are more powerful are harder to contain, and thus wont last as long. Most shaping will only be good for a single scene, but if your outcome surpasses that required for the result you want, you can stretch the duration until the end of the score. The position depends on how quiet your workplace is and how much time you have to work with.

Bio-Binder Emulate bio-tools.

This substitutes for a biochemical tool kit. Tinker with organic materials and derivatives as if you had the appropriate tools and protective devices.

Bio-Blender Emulate bio-workshop.

You can handle organic materials and derivatives as if they were of clay. Liquids and gasses will retain the shape and flow you give them for a brief while. This substitutes for a biochemical workshop.

Bio-Builder Emulate bio-lab.

This substitutes for a biochemical lab, you can create complex tools, such as fine and potent items of organic chemistry. You can create organic materials and derivatives out of nothing, or transform one material to another matching another power you know.

Bio-Braid Emulate a bio-factory.

Become your own biochemical factory. You can manufacture many and varied items as if using Bio-Builder or create a large building, vehicle, or other construction.

Wreck

You can wreck living and formerly things that are not creatures, such as wood, bone, and leather, as well as fossils and oil products like plastics.

The outcome required depends on the size and structural strength of your target.

• Limited outcome can create a car-sized hole in weak materials such as cadavers and flimsy wood.
• Standard outcome is a car-sized hole in a sandstone wall.
• Something larger and/or stronger requires great outcome .

A smaller hole is not easier to create.

The position depends on the situation. A quiet workspace is controlled, the general hustle of adventure risky, dealing with a fight, massive crowds, or dangerous construction might be desperate.

Digest Deteriorate Smash the living, undead, and derivatives.

You can noisily smash living creatures, undead, organic materials, and derivatives. This works as a sledgehammer in combat, enhancing your physique causing concussion. Noisy and leaves a twisted object in place.

Digest Dissolve Digest Deteriorate as if things were wood.

Smash organic materials and derivatives as if they were wood. This weakens composite wood structures as well as plastics and other petrochemical products, like Kevlar and fiberglass.

Works as a fine potent sledgehammer in combat.

Digest Disintegrate Digest Dissolve but silent and to dust.

As Digest Dissolve, but destroyed targets silently disappear or are reduced to a fine dust. The result is the same, but the method is subtle. You leave no debris and few clues. The demolition makes almost no sound or vibrations.

Digest Devastation Digest Dissolve over a large area.

Now we're abandoning subtlety and going for massive, violent destruction. Digest Dissolve over a large area. This can burn an oil depot, level a wood, and cause similar massive destruction. Even if you cannot destroy some of the materials in the area, what you do destroy is likely to make the rest collapse under its own weight or at least become structurally unsound.