Illusion Powers (FiD)

Starfox's Blades in the Dark fan page

Illusion is the art of perception and deception. It is concerned with image, not substance. Illusion powers are most often used to deceive, but they can be used to educate and to discern new things. It can create some sounds, scents, tactile phenomena, and other sensory phenomena, but is focused on vision. Illusionists whose primary sense is not sight would instead focus on illusions to their primary sense, this is not covered by the rules.

Illusions create images of creatures and objects that are objectively real in the sense that there it registers on physical senses, including those of living creatures and sensory devices. Such images are still unreal in that they are mere projections, not the actual physical thing projected. An illusion cannot affect objects (other than sensors) unless the power explicitly says it can. An illusion of weight would cause scales to react, but could not cause a bridge to collapse. A lift with a weight limit sensor could shut off, but if the sensor is overridden, the lift would work normally despite the illusory overload.

Illusion attacks cause pain and apparent wounds, but cannot actually kill. Obviously they cannot affect insensate things that lack perception and imagination. This includes objects but also creatures under a certain threshold of perception and imagination, like bacteria and plants.

Illusion creatures are called specters. They are very good actors and believe themselves to really be what they portray, allowing their illusions to respond to events without the user's intervention. There are specters that believe themselves to be all sorts of things, people, animal, items, even terrain features, but finding the right one may require a flashback or even a log-term project for unusual ones. Spectres that are aware they are illusion spirits are less specialized, not as good at what they do, but they can do many things.

The plane of dreams is very ephemeral and subjective. It can change in moments and is shaped by dreams. Creatures with powerful imaginations create their own dream-realms which persist even when they are not asleep. Such realms can be studied for information and manipulated to change the mind of their creator, but this is difficult and dangerous.

Illusion 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	Dream Detection Detect illusory creatures and powers.	Sever Spectre Dismiss a specter or end an illusion power.	Summon Spectre Call a specter from another plane.	Dream Domain Gate to the realm of dreams or someone's dream.
Command	Menacing Mirage Scary or awe-inducing images or sounds.	Majestic Mirage Full-sense illusions scary or awe-inducing to others.	Stolen Scare Send an illusion of yourself to communicate.	Mirage Arcana Create vast illusions.
Consort	Makeover Mirage Add any illusory clothes and accessories to your outfit.	Monster Mirage Assume the appearance of any other creature.	Metamorphosis Mirage Give a willing or helpless creature any appearance.	Mob Mirage Change the appearance of large number creatures.
Finesse	Vehicle Veil Change the appearance of a mount or personal vehicle.	Mirage Melee Create an illusion of a fine and potent close-range attack.	Phantom Path You can alter the appearance of a road, misleading travelers.	Ethereal Edges Create a storm of illusory blades.
Hunt	Shadow Seeker Track a creature you have a good mental image of.	Shadow Shot An illusory fine and potent ranged attack.	Scene Shift Change the appearance of your surroundings.	Shadow Surge Illusory attack similar to a fine and potent grenade.
Prowl	Invisibility Become almost invisible.	Image Exchange Teleport and leave an image behind.	Shared Self Use Invisibility and Image Exchange on others.	Illusive Excursion: Crew can teleport to a similar-looking place.
Skirmish	Illusory Impact Dodge psychic damage.	Illusory Elite Fine and potent illusory melee attack.	Illusory Obstacle Change the appearance of an area.	Illusionary Onslaught Fine and potent illusory attack against all.
Study	Identify Illusion Identify illusions you can see.	Illusion Insight Learn the powers and abilities of an illusion.	Illusory Echoes See the past of an Illusion.	Panopticon You see everything in a wide area.
Survey	Detect You can see illusions and invisible things.	Sensor Create an illusion, reality updates it.	Scry Let reality make an illusion.	Omnipresence Create a huge illusion, reality updates it.
Sway	Persuasive Phantom Convincing visual image up to the size of a human.	Phantasmal Procession Full-sense illusion of a stage and actors.	Mirage Mansion An illusion around a creature replaces all sensations.	Private Phantasm Illusion the size of a city.
Tinker	Illusory Enhancement Change the appearance of an object up to man size.	Phantasmal Fabrication Make items invisible or create illusory items out of nothing.	Shadow Structure Create semi-real things that only work for your crew.	Mass Mirage This is similar to Phantasmal Fabrication, but you mass produce objects, even a set of different objects. You can also make something huge, such as a vehicle or building or small landscape.
Wreck	Faux Fracture Illusion of damage to an object.	Phantom Fracture Illusion of damage to a place.	Shadowy Shatter Phantom Fracture, but semi-real.	Apocalyptic Artistry City-sized Phantom Fracture.

Saved Stuff

Dream Detection
You can detect illusory creatures and powers. This can spoil illusions, but you must actively work to see through them.

Stolen Scare
You can create illusions apparent to anyone but drawn from a target's mind, making them extremely scary or awesome to this target and not requiring concentration on your part.

Mirage Arcana
Create vast illusions over vast areas. This includes creating hosts of illusory creatures. Often used to control a battlefield.

Makeover Mirage
Add any illusory clothes and accessories to your outfit. This can mask your identity or create fabulous outfits.

Mob Mirage
Change the appearance of large number creatures, giving each an individual appearance if desired.

Scene Shift
Change the appearance of your surroundings. You can cover a single house indoors or a city block outdoors.

Invisibility
Become almost invisible, but the air wavers just a bit and you glow very faintly in the dark. Sounds, strong light, and perfect darkness are your enemies.

Image Exchange
Create an illusion of yourself at a spot you can see within the range of a long-range weapon. This has to be your actual appearance, and cannot be invisible or masked. You then exchange position with this image.

Illusory Echoes
See the past of an place, image, illusionist, or specter. This is like playing a film backwards.

Panopticon
You see everything in a wide area. Darkness, walls and barriers do not limit vision, but enclosed spaces do.

Sensor
Choose an appearance; you can perceive as if you were at that spot. You cannot use your Survey action for anything else when doing so.

Illusory Enhancement
Change the appearance of an object up to man size. This can seem to give abilities your item do not actually have or hide abilities it does have.

Phantasmal Fabrication
You can make more extensive appearance changes on objects, making them invisible or creating illusory items out of nothing.

Shadow Structure
You can create semi-real items that work for you and allies, but not for anyone else, such as an illusory bridge only your team can cross.

Mass Mirage
This is similar to Phantasmal Fabrication, but you mass produce objects, even a set of different objects. You can also make something huge, such as a vehicle or building or small landscape.

Expanded Illusion Powers

Attune

Dream Detection Detect illusory creatures and powers.

Sever Spectre Dismiss a specter or end an illusion power.

Summon Spectre Call a specter from another plane.

Dream Domain Gate to the realm of dreams or someone's dream.

Command

Menacing Mirage Scary or awe-inducing images or sounds.

Majestic Mirage Full-sense illusions scary or awe-inducing to others.

Stolen Scare Send an illusion of yourself to communicate.

Mirage Arcana Create vast illusions.

Consort

Makeover Mirage Add any illusory clothes and accessories to your outfit.

Monster Mirage Assume the appearance of any other creature.

Metamorphosis Mirage Give a willing or helpless creature any appearance.

Mob Mirage Change the appearance of a large number of creatures.

Finesse

Vehicle Veil Change the appearance of a mount or personal vehicle.

Mirage Melee Create an illusion of a fine and potent close-range attack.

Phantom Path You can alter the appearance of a road, misleading travelers.

Ethereal Edges Create a storm of illusory blades.

Hunt

Shadow Seeker Track a creature you have a good mental image of.

Shadow Shot An illusory fine and potent ranged attack.

Scene Shift Change the appearance of your surroundings.

Shadow Surge Illusory attack similar to a fine and potent grenade.

Prowl

Invisibility Become almost invisible.

Image Exchange Teleport and leave an image behind.

Shared Self Use Invisibility and Image Exchange on others.

Illusive Excursion Crew can teleport to a similar-looking place.

Skirmish

Illusory Impact Dodge psychic damage.

Illusory Elite Fine and potent illusory melee attack.

Illusory Obstacle Change the appearance of an area.

Illusionary Onslaught Fine and potent illusory attack against all.

Study

Identify Illusion Identify illusions you can see.

Illusion Insight Learn the powers and abilities of an illusion.

Illusory Echoes See the past of an illusion.

Panopticon You see everything in a wide area.

Survey

Detect You can see illusions and invisible things.

Sensor Create an illusion; reality updates it.

Scry Let reality make an illusion.

Omnipresence Create a huge illusion; reality updates it.

Sway

Persuasive Phantom Convincing visual image up to the size of a human.

Phantasmal Procession Full-sense illusion of a stage and actors.

Mirage Mansion An illusion around a creature replaces all sensations.

Private Phantasm Illusion the size of a city.

Tinker

Illusory Enhancement Change the appearance of an object up to man size.

Phantasmal Fabrication Make items invisible or create illusory items out of nothing.

Shadow Structure Create semi-real things that only work for your crew.

Mass Mirage Similar to Phantasmal Fabrication, but you can mass produce objects, even a set of different objects. You can also make something huge, such as a vehicle, building, or small landscape.

Wreck

Faux Fracture Illusion of damage to an object.

Phantom Fracture Illusion of damage to a place.

Shadowy Shatter Phantom Fracture, but semi-real.

Apocalyptic Artistry City-sized Phantom Fracture.

Expanded Illusion Powers

Expanded descriptions of effects that differ significantly from Typical Powers.

A recuring problem is that you need to conceal that you are using an illusion. This makes illusions more effective when you have some time to prepare, but having your illusion appear behind a corner can be effective enough.

Command

Illusions don't control creatures tied to the power; instead, they create illusions that can influence anyone, although they are not as direct as issuing commands.

Menacing Mirage: You can create scary or awe-inducing images or sounds perceptible to everyone.

The byword here is "show, not tell". This can be a freestanding visual or audio illusion or modifying the appearance of something that already exists You create an image of a threatening creature or situation. The image can be about man size or two cubic meters. You can move the image around and have it interact with creatures, but it lacks solidity and sound.

Majestic Mirage: You can create full-sense illusions scary or awe-inducing to others.

This is a full-sense illusion larger than Menacing Mirage. It can be a group of about ten people or things enough to fill a large room. This illusion can speak, but it is hard to make this convincing unless you can see the image and what it is to interact with.

Stolen Scare: You can create illusions apparent to anyone but drawn from a target's mind, making them extremely scary or awesome to this target and not requiring concentration on your part.

Similar to Majestic Mirage, but you give control over the illusion to a target's subconscious. You can give a general theme of the illusion, and the target will fill in the details. This frees you from having to concentrate on controlling the illusion, and it will always act appropriately to the target's fears.

Mirage Arcana: You project illusions over vast areas. This includes creating hosts of illusory creatures. Often used to control a battlefield.

This is the same as Majestic Mirage, on a much larger scale, up to the entire area you can see. A larger change requires more concentration and thus has worse position and greater effect.

Consort

You change the appearance of creatures, first yourself, then others, and finally a crowd.

Makeover Mirage: You can add any illusory clothes or accessories to your outfit. This can mask your identity or create fabulous outfits.

You do not change your own appearance, you accessorize and change your outfit. The effect is usually limited and the position controlled, but some changes might be more extreme than this.

Monster Mirage: You assume the appearance of any other creature. This does not confer any abilities.

You can change into any appearance, tough extreme size changes are impractical, making yourself tiny will not let you pass through small spaces and people may run into you. Maintaining a huge illusion is taxing and impractical. Other people may notice your lack of solidity through subtle clues, such as too light a thread and the air not moving around you. You don't get any of the abilities of your assumed appearance, you can't breathe water or swim as an illusory fish or fly as an illusory bird. None of your actions attributes or actions change.

Metamorphosis Mirage: You can give a willing or helpless creatures any appearance you want. This can be a curse, it can be broken but it is not easy. You can easily break the effect.

This is Monster Mirage applied to others. The duration depends of the effect, limited effect is very temporary, more of a warning. Standard effect lasts for the duration of a score. Great effect lasts a long time and potentially become permanent, depending on the development of the story. Other abilities can be used to reverse such a transformation.

You cannot use this on a powerful opponent that cannot be defeated by a single successful action. You may have to confront them in several scenes to finally get them to the point where you can transform them.

Mob Mirage You can change the appearance of large number creatures, giving each an individual appearance if desired.

This is Monster Mirage applied to all the creatures you can see. By changing the appearance of many creatures at once, you can confuse people about who is who. This can cause chaos on the street, in a court, or on a battlefield. People may not realize their own appearance has changed, causing further confusion.

Finesse

Illusory attacks and vehicles

Vehicle Veil: You can change the appearance of a mount or personal vehicle you are riding.

You can change the appearance of even a large vehicle, as long as you are steering it. The illusion covers the vehicle and any tracks as long as you concentrate.

Mirage Melee: You can use the power as n illusory a fine and potent close-range attack, similar in effect to a fine potent dueling sword or pistol, or you can give your friends the Ride ability for the duration of a score.

See above for the rules of illusory attacks. In a fight, using this does not take any more time, activating your attack power is equivalent to drawing a weapon, no more, no less.

Phantom Path: You can alter the appearance of a road, misleading travelers.

You can make roads and paths seem to disappear or lead into poor terrain. If others can see you riding on a road you concealed will often lead pursuers to doubt the illusion, and locals who know the road are hard to fool.

Ethereal Edges: Your power manifests a storm of illusory blades, suppressing the effect of multiple opponents and acting as a fine potent weapon.

Mirage Melee, with the added ability to distract opponents and preventing them from gaining any advantage from numbers.

Hunt

Track, attack, and unleash devastating barrages with the power of Hunt. Illusion attacks cause pain and apparent wounds, but cannot actually kill. Obviously they cannot affect insensate things that lack perception and imagination. This includes objects but also creatures under a certain threshold of perception and imagination, like bacteria and plants.

Shadow Seeker: You can track a creature as long as you have a good mental image or likeness to focus on.

Consequences here are mainly from the environment and population and various dangers you might get into; obstacles, getting lost, traps, or even an ambush.

Shadow Shot: You create an illusory attack, similar in effect to a fine and potent rifle, painful but not lethal.

Essentially, this ability serves as a versatile replacement for traditional equipment; a fine and potent finesse weapon would be equally effective in combat. Moreover, using this action in a fight doesn't consume any additional time; activating your attack power is akin to drawing a weapon—neither faster nor slower.

Scene Shift You can change the appearance of your surroundings. You can cover a single house indoors or a city block outdoors.

The change can be dramatic, but only changes the appearance of things that exists. The illusion affects all senses, but if pushed against it offers no physical resistance. You can make rocks and trees look like statues or move the apparent position of a wall, but only create a few new things. You can create environmental effects like mist, rain, smoke, and the heat and scent of fire. This is usually used as a setup, but may also change how people act in reaction to the environment—rain, smoke, or snow and the like are likely to make people want to stay indoors or run out as the case may be.

Consequences distracts you and your allies or a few opponents become able to pierce the illusion.

Shadow Surge: You can make an illusory attack similar to a fine and potent grenade. You can fight many creatures in the same area, but there is a risk of collateral damage to allies if not terrain.

An escalation of Shadow Shot, this affects all enemies in a single location. The effect is more powerful but less precise. The illusion even includes some illusory damage to the environment, which can fool onlookers but fades in a quarter of an hour or so.

Prowl

Erase your own image and that of allies. Illusion is good at hiding, but offers little aid to mobility.

Invisibility: You can turn yourself invisible, but the air wavers just a bit and you glow very faintly in the dark. Sounds, strong light, and perfect darkness are your enemies.

This provides you cover to hide in places you ordinarily could not. It otherwise works just like any other attempt to use Prowl to avoid notice. Note that only you can use this ability, your friends and allies cannot unless you use Shared Self, below.

Image Exchange: You create an illusion of yourself at a spot you can see within the range of a long-range weapon. This has to be your actual appearance, and cannot be invisible or masked. You then exchange position with this image.

Your friends and allies cannot use this unless you employ Shared Self, described later

Shared Self: You can use Invisibility and Image Exchange on others. They still use their own Prowl action.

Allies still use their own actions, but unless they are illusionists themselves you must provide the illusions for them to use.

Illusive Excursion: You and allies can teleport to a place that looks much the same as where you are in now. This is regional travel, you stay within the same city or region, but you can escape just about any situation.

You can use other illusions to make the two places match. 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.

Sway

You can convince others by showing them

Communicate, mesmerize, and manipulate creatures imbued with your power to achieve your goals. Sway creatures based on your power with persuasion and cajoling. Position and effect is determined normally, depending on the situation and your relation to listeners.

If you know several powers and use a Sway effect but don't know what type of creature you are facing, it works as long as you have the appropriate power. You need not select a specific type of creature in advance. If you try to Sway a type of creature and don't the appropriate power, effect is at best limited—the game master may judge that the Sway action can be used non-verbally, but often you will have no effect at all. This still has the normal stress cost.

Persuasive Phantom: You can create convincing visual images up to the size of a human.

These images do not look real and are not out to fool people, they made to illustrate points you are trying to make or acts as teaching tools. These images transcend language barriers, but not cultural issues.

Phantasmal Procession: You can create full-sense illusions to convince others, up to the size of a small house of progression of people.

You are creating illusions that fool people directly. These illusions can be half a dozen people or things like a large carriage or small building. You can move the illusion about as long as you move all the components, something left behind will disappear.

Mirage Mansion: You can create a large illusion, such as a small forest or the exterior of a large mansion.

Phantasmal Procession at a larger scale, the size of a ship, a large building, or a troop of people.

Private Phantasm: You create an illusion around a creature, replacing all normal sensation.

You encase the target in an illusion that controls every sensation the target perceives. The effect forms a sphere around the target. You control what the illusion looks like from the outside, but only uniform or repeating patterns are possible. White, black, shifting rainbow colors, and mirror finish are popular options.

This places the target in a world entirely of your creation. You can create a theme for the illusion that repeats with simple variations, or you can give control to the target's subconscious having it play out the targets desires or fears. You can take detailed control at any time when you touch the target. It is tricky but possible to manipulate the target into actions that makes sense in their perception, but serves you in the real world.

Tinker

Use illusion to alter items of all kinds or create them out of nothing, giving the impression you can create amazing tools and weapons.

Illusory Enhancement: Change the appearance of an object up to man size. This can seem to give abilities your item do not actually have or hide abilities it does have.

You don't change the basic form and size of the object, but you can change details, turning a stick into a weapon, a log into a mount, or clothes into armor—or to do the opposite. This is a full-sense illusion, including sight, sound, smell, and touch. This can create illusory kit to impress, or hide actual kit as just clothing or even rags. Items can create appropriate effects in their vicinity, such as recoil and muzzle flash from weapons, but no such effect at any distance. If used, the glimmered items function normally, the illusion has no effect on damage or effectiveness.

The position depends on how quiet your workplace is and how much time you have to work with. The effect determines how long it will last. Most illusory tinkering 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.

Consequences can change details of the illusion, such as altered colors or the object becoming too pretty, bent, twisted or markings, letters, and numbers making no sense.

Phantasmal Fabrication: You can make more extensive appearance changes on objects, making them invisible or creating illusory items out of nothing.

You are now free to work without any restriction of real objects. People using illusory items can manipulate them as if they were real, but the illusion cannot support any weight. You can make larger objects, up to the size of a large carriage. Objects that produce effects can now reach further, such as missiles from a missile battery reaching out and creating illusory smoke trails.

Shadow Structure: You can create semi-real items that work for you and allies, but not for anyone else, such as an illusory bridge only your team can cross.

As Phantasmal Fabrication, except that things you create can be semi-real, able to do what a poor example of such a thing usually does, but only when you will it to do so. For example you can create an illusory stone bridge that supports you and allies as a rickety wooden bring, but doesn't support others at all. Tools and weapons made this way perform as a basic example of what they imitate, functional but not fancy or exact.

Mass Mirage: This is similar to Phantasmal Fabrication, but you mass produce objects, even a set of different objects. You can also make something huge, such as a vehicle, building, or small landscape.

Pretty self-explanatory, this is Phantasmal Fabrication on a massive scale. This is useful for equipping a large band or building something large out of nothing.

Wreck

Cover things with illusions of destruction. Illusion is one of the weaker wrecking powers since its unreal until Shadowy Shatter, so you can deny things to the enemy but its hard to get much use of the destruction yourself.

Position depends on the situation; if you are unseen and undisturbed and know what you are pretending to bring down you have a controlled position. If lots of enemies are about, you don't know what you will uncover, or you might trigger an accident the position might be desperate.

Effect is a matter of convincing yourself that you can "destroy" what you're targeting. Things you are very familiar with or that are very fragile require only limited effect, solid walls and things you don't understand may require great effect.

Faux Fracture: You can create an illusion of damage to an object, like a break or malfunction. Works as a illusory sledgehammer in combat.

This is illusory destruction on a small scale. The item is still there, but appears obviously broken. Its hard to make multiple such effect credible, if you make an illusion a broken rifle ten times someone is bound try to use their "broken" rifle and find it works.

Phantom Fracture: Faux Fracture but on a larger scale, allowing you to apparently smash a vehicle or small building. Works as a fine potent illusory sledgehammer in combat.

Faux Fracture on multiple targets or on a single large target.

Shadowy Shatter: Similar to Phantom Fracture, but the illusions is real for a short time, allowing creatures to walk trough faults you create.

A common use of this is to blow an illusory hole in a wall that is just real enough to allow passage. You can flatten rubble and remove brambles, but remember that this is Wreck, the end result might be flat, but it will not be orderly.

Apocalyptic Artistry: Similar to Phantom Fracture, but larger. You can create the illusion of a blasted landscape or cityscape.

Rather straightforward, this just scales things up.