Darkness Powers (FiD)

Starfox's Blades in the Dark fan page

Darkness is linked to both physical and mental darkness. Darkness is opposed to light. Darkness is associated with our psychological shadow, base drives, primal instinct, evil, and the subconscious. In physics, darkness is merely the absence of light, and many claim that spiritual evil and darkness is the absence of enlightenment and control. Darkness powers deal with moral and physical darkness, base carnality, indulgence, and deception.

Dark attacks are made up of bolts and weapons of dark energy that drain life and energy from targets to cause horrible wounds similar to burn, causing necrosis. This is less effective against nonliving targets but extra effective against creatures of spirit and energy.

Dark creatures are shades, devils, and creatures of the night. They are usually more interested in corrupting people than in killing them. Learning who to summon may require study or be a a score in itself. Giving the single order you get from summoning a creature of darkness is rarely very useful. These subtle creatures need time to use their full powers of deception and coercion. This means you often have to bargain with them, which they of course use to corrupt you.

Darkness Power Effects Table

Action	Basic No minimum 3 Stress	Advanced Minimum 2 Dice 5 Stress	Master Minimum 4 Dice 7 Stress	Apex Minimum 6 Dice 13 Stress
Attune	Umbral Understanding You can detect creatures and powers of Darkness.	Umbral Undoing Dismiss any summoned creature. End the operation any power.	Umbral Urge Summon a creature of Darkness.	Umbral Universe Create a portal to a plane of darkness.
Command	Dark Decree Command any creature of Darkness. You cannot understand them.	Voice of the Void Communicate with creatures of Darkness over long distances.	Abyssal Authority Command Darkness creatures as if you were their superior.	Twilight Tyranny Permanently bind creatures of Darkness to service.
Consort	Dark Mask Assume an appearance to provoke darkness and envy.	Devil Form Assume the form of a creature of darkness. Devil Mask another.	Devil Possession Devil Form a willing or helpless creature into a creature of Darkness.	Devil's Dance Devil Form a number of willing or non-sentient creatures, give them a dark desire.
Finesse	Ride the Dark Ride Darkness mounts as if they were trained and you had the key.	Shadow Strike Fine and potent close-range attack.	Dance of the Dark Play with shadows to confuse or conceal.	Shadow Storm Storm of blades of darkness suppresses scale.
Hunt	'Dark Scout You can see perfectly in the dark.	Shadow Sniper Darkness attack similar to a fine and potent rifle.	Nightfall Darken an area, create shadows, and move them.	Shadow Shockwave Darkness attack similar to a fine and potent grenade.
Prowl	Dark Cloak Merge with shadow.	Dark Step Teleport from one shadow to another.	Dark Team Bring crew with Dark Cloak and Dark Step.	Void Walk Teleport from one location in darkness to another.
Skirmish	Shadow Shove A Darkness close-range attack, similar in effect to a melee weapon or pistol.	Shadow Strike Shadow Shove, and fine and potent.	Eerie Evasion Create shadowy distractions that prevent scale.	Shadow Surge Darkness strikes out in all directions, attacking all enemies in a wide area.
Study	Dark Name Identify physical or moral Darkness and power abilities.	Dark Lore Exactly analyze Darkness powers and abilities.	Dark Past Read the past events of Darkness.	World of Darkness Dark Lore a wide area, then Dark Pas some targets.
Survey	Eye of the Bat See in the dark.	Gift of the Bat You can give the ability to see in darkness to allies.	Eyes of the Dark Choose a location or creature. See them from nearest darkness.	World of Darkness You perceive from every dark place at once over a wide area.
Sway	Infernal Empathy Understand Darkness creatures and motivations.	Infernal Influence Crew can communicate with Darkness creatures. Tempt normal folk to commit evil deeds.	Temptation Post suggestions in the mind of Darkness creatures and in the minds of folk to corrupt them.	Infernal Indoctrination Permanently change personality and motivations of a creature.
Tinker	Mold Darkness Shape darkness like soft black clay, keeps its form for a few minutes.	Shape Darkness Mold Darkness, and you can form simple solid objects of darkness.	Craft Darkness Create complex tools, such as fine and potent items of solid darkness.	Master Darkness Craft Darkness to mass produce or make something large, like a building.
Wreck	Dark Corrosion Withers and corrodes, a powerful but slow process that leaves twisted remains.	Dark Smash Break most materials if they were wood	Dark Disintegrate Dark Smash targets disappear or are reduced to a fine dust.	Dark Obliteration Dark Disintegrate over a large area. Level a city block or wither a wood.

Dark Mask
Imbue your appearance with darkness and envy, such as luxury clothes, jewelry, and personal beauty.

Nightfall
You can darken an area and create conjure shadows. You can cover a single room indoors or a city block outdoors.

Dark Cloak
Look like a shadow. This allows you to hide in impossible places as long as the environment is dark.

Dark Step
Teleport from one shadow you can see to another, walk through walls as long as both sides are in the dark, and so on.

Expanded Darkness Powers

This is the pattern that most powers follow. You can refer to this when interpreting how powers should work. TLDR, this list is too long to read it all every time, its here to look up in to resolve specific situations. It is good to have skimmed it at least once.

Attune

Harness the power of Attune to perceive and manipulate supernatural energies, allowing you to detect and interact with beings and phenomena from planes of darkness. These places are often simply called Hell.

Perceive: You can detect creatures and power use tied to darkness.

This is usually done to spot a disguised summoned creature. However, it can also help identify a creature's connection to powers, providing valuable insights into their nature. Naturally, effect is reduced as the creature is more heavily obscured. The position usually starts controlled, with the usual consequence that you cannot try again.

Dismiss: You can force a creature based on this power that is native to another plane of existence to return to that plane, or to end the operation of an ability of the power you use.

Dismissing a creature is hard, and might require the creature to be weakened, either by previous attempts to dismiss it, or by other attacks, interactions, or by being set up. The consequences of this depends entirely on what happens around you when you do it. If a powerful creature resists being dispelled, its obviously dangerous. Having helpers and bodyguards reduces the consequences, and sometimes a creature wants to be dismissed and the consequence might be that it loses control of itself, or that other creatures appear to intervene.

Darkness is powerful in that it can dispel any power, not just Darkness powers. Dispelling is usually easier, but not always. It can be used as a defense against others' use of power, or it can be used to break the continuing effects of powers.

Dispelling is often used as a setup action to help another character in a situation when the opposition is using powers. The position is controlled, higher if there are a lot of other dangers around. Limited effect creates an opening that makes the supported action potent. Normal effect improves the position of the supported action. Great effect improves both position and effect of the supported power.

When used directly, the effect is usually limited unless the opponent is relying on powers for their safety. Against an opponent that uses power to fly or even breathe you can have a better effect.

When it is dramatically appropriate that a power is hard to dispel, often because it is the crux of the situation, this will simply not work, but will instead give you a clue to what you need to do to resolve the situation.

Summon: You can call a creature of darkness. This is generally an unwilling servant.

Learning who to summon may require study or be a score in itself. It will obey one command from you and this can be extended. Darkness creatures will often cooperate in plans that corrupt you or other people.

Darkness creatures, also known as devils, come from realms of Darkness known as Hells. In a science-fiction setting with powers this is usually related to faster-than-light travel, so if ships travel through hyperspace, this is also where summons come from. If travel is by gate, the medium the gate stretches through is where summons come from, and so on. The Gate power of Attune is the usual way to get to Hell.

Summoning can bring you allies to fight, but more commonly you summon a spirit to do some specific task related to your power. Summons can use most power effects and maintain power effects you have created. They can also give advice and information related to their power. In general, you can summon generic creatures one tier lower than yourself without having to do a flashback. Such a creature is similar to a cohort, either a skilled follower or a group of goons.

To summon a particular creature, similar to an expert, you need its unique identity, often called true name in the mystical power traditions. For a technomancer this would be something like an id number, a blueprint, or genetic data. Learning about the right creature to summon is a task in its own right, often requiring a flashback or downtime activity to use Command, Consort, Study, or Sway to gain information. Doin this kind of preparation also counts as a set-up action for your summoning, even if you are doing it in a flashback.

It might be worth the extra effort to summon a creature of higher tier, but this is also much more demanding, using the usual rules for tiers.

Spirits generally come in three types, elementals, spirits, and creatures with powers.

Darkness elementals are shades, blobs of solidified darkness. They embrace enemies and cloak allies. Most elementals have animal intelligence, and often take the shape of a dog or simply a dark blob.

Darkness spirits are similar to elementals in that they are made out of darkness, but the powers that create spirits are less material. This makes spirits ephemeral, less physically oriented, and usually more intelligent than elementals. They can use sophisticated power effects and usually have an agenda of their own.

Creatures with powers resemble normal creatures, most having a biological body, metabolism, and functioning as ordinary living creatures but also some exceptional abilities related to their power. A succubus is an attractive human female, but sports horns and a tail and may have hooves, wings, and an unusual skin color. As Darkness is the essence of deceit, Darkness creatures can often mask themselves to appear as if they have no powers. Not all creatures with powers are summonable or dismissible, many are native to this world and have no special vulnerability to Attune power effects.

Depending on your degree of effect the creature is willing to do different things. Limited effect allows you to ask questions of an intelligent creature or demand a short period of physical labor from a simple creature. The creature will not fight for you. If forced into a fight due to circumstances, it will resent it afterwards.

Standard effect allows you to ask for any service appropriate to the type of creature. A devil will do evil, terrorize, tempt, and seduce. This includes dangerous tasks such as combat if the devil has such abilities, which most of them do.

Great effect allows actions outside the creature's comfort zone, but not things it directly opposes. A devil will do most things except those associated with Light. Lengthy service also requires great effect, like summoning the creature to guard a treasure for as long as it can.

The position is usually risky. The creature is being forced to serve and might lash out. Typical consequences are: The creature strikes out at you once. A tightwire struggle to keep the creature under control The creature breaks things around you, demands concessions from you. Overly literal interpretations of your commands. The creature deliberately does its tasks poorly.

Offering a creature gifts or services appropriate to its nature can make the position controlled, with consequences like half-heated efforts, demanding not to be summoned again until some time or event has passed, or just general sulkiness.

Desperate position usually comes from trading position for effect, but it might come from a difference in ethos. If you are a priest of light and summon a demon, or if the summon is three or more tiers above you the position will be desperate. Consequences include the spirit demanding you sell your soul, become its agent in the world, that you come to its home plane to serve it there for a time, that you defeat the creature in a duel or similar dramatic story events.

Gate: You can create a portal that allows travel to and from Hell.

This is situational, but highly useful under exceptional circumstances. There are things that are possible to in Hell that are not allowed in the regular world, most Darkness effects are reduced one step in difficulty, from advanced to basic, master to advanced, and apex to master. This opens the possibility of new super-apex powers that have to be negotiated with the game master. Such effects rarely reach outside of Hell, but if they affect creatures in Hell, the effect may remain when you return to the mundane world.

Gating can allow access to creatures too powerful to summon, so you instead ask for an audience. This includes archdevils and lords of Hell. The creature may then use the gate to come to you, call you into its presence, or just communicate with you.

Using a gate is usually played out as a score, which means there is an engagement roll. Depending on how quickly the matter is resolved, the game master may require a separate game to return home again. However if you do this in a scene that is dangerous, such as asking for help against an enemy too powerful for you to defeat, the position is usually much worse. Once you have established a connection to a certain place or audience with a certain creature, you can usually do so again from a controlled position and without doing it as a score.

Prowl

Darkness offers concealment and makes your position uncertain to the point that it allows teleportation.

Dark Cloak: You can make yourself appear as a shadow. This allows you to hide in impossible places as long as the environment is dark.

This works just like any other attempt to use Prowl to avoid notice, except that shadows and darkness provides more concealment than it ordinarily would. Note that only you can use this ability, your friends and allies cannot unless you use Dark Team, below.

Dark Step: You can move through darkness. This allows you to teleport from one shadow you can see to another, walk through walls as long as both sides are in the dark, and so on.

Again, each power will explain how it can use this mobility. Your friends and allies cannot unless you use Dark Team, below.

Dark Team: You can bring allies along when you use Dark Cloak and Dark Step.

Now you and your allies can Prowl in dark places. They still use their own Prowl action.

Void Walk: You and allies can teleport from one location in darkness to another. This is regional travel, you stay within the same city or region, but it is generally sufficient to escape just about any situation or location.

This takes you to places you are familiar with. Both effect and position is worse unless you know where you are going, which means it is great for escapes but less so for intrusion into an enemy's territory that you are likely to be much less familiar with.

Tinker

Manipulate, shape, and create objects of darkness. When used with long-term projects, powers can often substitute for missing resources such as tools or raw materials, but that is all it does until you Master Darkness.

Mold Darkness: You can mold darkness like soft black clay, and it maintains it form for a few minutes.

You can play with shadows and dim light both are ephemeral and only last as long as you keep at it. You can solidify small amounts of darkness to shape objects like you can shape clay. These objects melt in strong light.

Shape Darkness: As Mold Darkness, and the darkness can form simple useable objects that will retain its new shape and function for hours or even days.

You can do more complex objects than Mold Darkness can, to the level of detail of basic mechanisms. This may allow you to create devices and traps from the stuff of darkness.

The position depends on how quiet your workplace is and how much time you have to work with. The effect 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 effect surpasses that required for the effect you want, you can stretch the effect until the end of the score.

Craft Darkness: You can create darkness out of nothing, or transform an object from darkness into another material as long as you know the power required for both the starting and final form. You can create complex tools, such as fine and potent items of solid darkness.

This is two distinct effects. The first allows you to create darkness out of nothing, even in direct light. The second can only be used if you know multiple powers. You transmute darkness into material connected to another power and vice-verso. The result will maintain its form as if affected by Shape Darkness. The advantage of this is that you can transform a complex object and it will retain its form and function as far as its new material allows. This can transform something like a sword from metal to darkness, and it would still be a functional sword. A door could be changed from wood to darkness, you then pass through and the door reverts to wood.

Master Darkness: This is similar to Craft Darkness, above, but you mass produce objects, even a set of different objects. You can also make something large, such as a vehicle or building.

Pretty self-explanatory, this is Craft Darkness on a larger scale. This is useful for equipping a large band or building something large out of nothing. When doing long-term projects that involve building or crafting, you can use Master Darkness to gain great effect, even under what normally be poor conditions, but this has the usual stress cost.

Wreck

It is easy to destroy darkness, but this only creates murk unless actual light is used. Darkness withers and corrodes other materials, this is a powerful but slow process.

Dark Corrosion: Darkness withers and corrodes, this is a powerful but slow process that leaves twisted remains in place. Can attack like a dark torch in combat.

Just as crude as it sounds. You destroy things related to your power, and strike with the force of a sledgehammer in combat. As usual, Wreck may be at an advantage or disadvantage compared to Finesse and Skirmish, depending on the situation.

Dark Smash: Similar to Dark Corrosion but faster. Works as a fine potent torch in combat.

This reduces the strength of strong materials, allowing you to break even the strongest barrier, as long as it of the proper material and not too thick. You can also use this as a sledgehammer to smash other things, and ads a fine, potent sledgehammer in combat.

Dark Disintegrate: You can break most materials if they were wood and you had a mallet. Destroyed targets disappear or are reduced to a fine dust.

Darkness is powerful when it comes to disintegration, and is able to disintegrate most other materials.

Obliterate Dark: Similar to Dark Smash, but over a large area. This can level a city block, darken a large city, raze a city wall, and similar massive destruction.

Rather straightforward, this just scales things up.