Methods (Action)
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| Heroic Action Role-Play |
Astrology
Astrologers observe celestial events, the stars, and the planets to draw power from them. Because of the strong and obvious effect the heavens have on fate and life on earth, this is very powerful. Astrologers can predict fortuitous moments to do different things, but that is only the beginning of their craft. An accomplished astrologer can actually change the future or cause some event to occur spontaneously by creating a mystic link between certain heavenly bodies.
Limitation
Inherent
As an astrologer you must know your approximate location and the current date to configure your powers. If you can see the night sky, you can instantly learn both date and location well enough to overcome this limitation.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
If you know the astrological signs governing the leader of your current group of enemies (or possibly your nemesis or counterpart among the enemy, if there is one), you can focus. Knowing the birth place and location lets you calculate this, and you can use divination power or research to find it out.
Attention
Your power draws attention. Power is always pretty obvious, but in your case it is more than that; your powers sends shivers down the spines of people miles away and have a gut-wrenching effect on those nearby.
Limitation
Whenever you use your power, it is obvious to everyone in the vicinity that something odd is happening. This does not spoil illusion or invisibility; people can tell something is happening, but not exactly what or where. It is likely to make them more wary, however. Everyone within ten meters times the sum of your and their Mind attribute plus a die roll feels this sense of the unusual. There is no need to make the roll for every bystander; just assume that everyone in the vicinity notices. Characters your origin can sense your power use much farther away; use the sum of your and their skill rating instead. For those related to you, this sense can extend all the way across the world.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
You may not crave attention, but when others are watching you do power and their auras resonate with yours, your power increases. Whenever there are a hundred or more spectators who can see you do power you can focus.
Bane
There is something that stops you from using your powers. Whether this is psychological or an actual power drain is immaterial; in the presence of your bane, your powers fail. Some banes are common, others rare; this is balanced because the limitation and focus condition are so tightly tied. It is secret what your bane is; guard this secret well. Iron Susceptibility is similar to a bane, but well known and much less severe.
Examples:
- Holy symbols.
- Some metal (e.g. silver, gold, cold steel).
- Specific flowers or herbs (wolvesbane, garlic).
- Types of wood (ash, yew).
- Certain books (Bible, Koran, Torah, pulp novels).
- Certain weapons.
- Specific words.
- Any memento of an old love.
- The bones of a former victim.
- Direct sunlight.
- Running water.
- Dogs with angel eyes (dark circles around the iris).
Limitation
When directly exposed to your bane you cannot use your powers. It must be within ten meters and there should be no significant barriers; it it is kept in a container or behind a wall your bane does not trigger.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
In any scene where you encountered your bane and survived, you can focus. You cannot focus when under the effects of the bane, but if the bane is somehow taken out of the action, the stress gives you focus.
Belief
Your power is tied to belief, and your belief is tied to a code of behavior. You must follow your ethos, or your power fails. It does not matter if you follow a god or a philosophy; what matters is that your ethos and tenets are central to all that you do. This is the basis of all divine power; if your god actually grants you these powers, or if your faith is just a psychological crutch you use to work your power is an open issue.
Limitation
Each poweral act must be a manifestation of your belief. You cannot work power unless it fits your picture of the universe. Your power cannot work contrary to your code of ethics, and if you grossly violate the tenets of your religion at any time, you lose your ability to work power until you atone. Most religion have a built-in antithesis; there are opposing gods, devils, the dark side and other negative, opposed forces in most mythologies. If you fall from the path of righteousness, you can usually pick up and continue your studies under a new master, but this will mandate a drastic change in role and personality, and may turn you into an NPC.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
When you are in the presence of others who share your faith who support your actions, you can focus. It generally takes about ten people to achieve this, but if you are acting directly in the interests of your faith even a single person will do.
Concentration
You are the linchpin of all your power; when you cease to concentrate your power dissipates. You cannot create power effects that continue to work when you are not paying attention to them.
Limitations
If you relax, fall asleep, or become unconscious all your power effects lapse. To you, any power effect that is to last past the end of a round is considered a Stance, including any Inherent powers you have.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
Whenever you are not using any powers, including stances, you can focus.
Echoes
Your powers affects the world in a very fundamental way, and this does not stop at the effects you produce consciously. Strange effects occur around you constantly, either as a result of your rampant subconscious use of power, or simply as a form of backlash from reality. Technological powers cause technological side effects, such as brownouts, pollution, and interference.
Limitation
Echoes manifest spontaneously and outside your control. They are noticeable, and can give people in the know information they would not otherwise have. Echoes are generally funny, in a sadistic kind of way; they never obstruct the story, but can create setbacks and hindrances for you and (rarely) your friends. They are a great plot device for the GM to use when you are taking too much camera time or are using your power for tasks that really demand role-playing. You can suggest echoes, or your game master can invent them. If you invent funny and annoying echoes, the game master will probably go easy on you with his own. In either case, it is the game master that has the final word on what happens.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
Whenever an echo manifests in a significant way, you can focus. Another way to put this is to say that when you focus, there is an echo, tough such player-provoked echoes are usually nastier than others, generally equal to an interaction setback.
Contagion
Contagion is the magical theorem of like attracts like. By manipulating a symbol, you can affect the real thing. You use this principle in all your power. Generally, it is sufficient to have rough substitutes; a person is symbolized with a small doll, a rock with his name on it or a rough image.
Limitation
You need your props in order to work power. These props are simple and easily improvised. You must also have some kind of link to your target; seeing or touching them qualifies, as does a name, image or an object belonging to the target.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
Whenever you have a personal object or former body part of the target to use in your power. This is commonly the blood on a sharp weapon, a few strands of hair, nail clippings, or an article of clothing.
Costume
You have a special costume you wear to work your power. This is distinctive, and marks you as odd; people in the know can learn things about your power tradition from it. The exact details vary, but long robes, pointy hats, and embroidered signs and glyphs are standard. Variants include showing off extensive tattoos, complete nudity, or even a nonhuman or monstrous appearance. Whatever your costume, it must carry clues to your origin and powers.
Limitation
You must be in costume to work power freely.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
You can focus at any time when in costume, but it costs you a Fortune point to do so.
Degeneration
Your powers derive from an inner, secret nature shocking to common sensibilities. As you use your powers, your power origin becomes shockingly obvious, making people shun you and dread you. Typical examples are necromancers and demonologists turning into the monstrosities they control, androids losing their skin to expose the machinery below, or cosmic powers bleeding out all around.
Limitation
Degeneration is measured in points; each time you take a wound or roll a snake eyes result when using a power you gain one degeneration point. All interactions except base terror against people with common sensibilities suffer a penalty equal to the number of degeneration points you have. When you have degeneration points equal to your Mind, you are no longer recognizably human (or whatever creature you normally look like); sensible people will run from you. In more tolerant settings, your degeneration becomes more disgusting so that they still break the mold of "normal" sufficiently to have you ostracized.
This is a side effect of your powers; it never prevents you from using your powers, except that powers cannot hide your degeneration and interactive powers suffer the penalties mentioned.
Degeneration points reset to zero each game session. Full degeneration can be overcome/adapted to given time and care; this usually only happens between stories or when you take a time out from adventuring, not at the end of each session.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
You can focus as your current degeneration points are less than your Mind. Doing so gives you a degeneration point.
Gadgets
Your powers are not supernatural or extraordinary at all, they are merely clever ways of using mundane and/or miniaturized technology. You need not specify these gadgets ahead of time
Limitation
Your powers cannot do anything unimaginable to local technology. What you do can be incredible, but it cannot be outright impossible. In most settings, this means no mind-control, telekinesis (unless you can do it with wires or magnetism) etc. This limitation is much more severe in a low-tech environment.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
If you narrate a small cut scene of how you got a particular gadget, you can focus when preparing to use it.
Geas
Laws hold power, breaking laws makes people vulnerable. Dishonest dealing and oathbreaking opens rifts in the soul and gives leverage against opponents. Unlike faith, you need not believe in or be sympathetic to the laws you use; the magical laws are as immutable as the laws of nature, and you are using them, not judging them.
Which causes are just is very malleable. Anyone lying to you or breaking a promise is fair game. It does not matter if the promise was given in jest or under coercion. Customs, even evil customs, must be obeyed. Any oath breaker can be ensorcerelled freely, as can those who have betrayed the customs of fealty or hospitality, even if the rules were unfair. Those who owe gifts or favors are fair game, as well.
Limitation
All geas power must have some just cause; it is impossible to directly affect a character through power if the character refuses to accept it and has done no wrong. Power that does not directly harm a character, such as trickery and illusion, can be employed freely, and is often used to entrap a victim before more insidious power is used to take control of him. But if the target refuses to be mislead, he cannot be directly harmed or affected by power. This is a severe limitation, compensated by a liberal focus condition.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
If you fully fulfill the limitation, you can focus. You cannot focus just because you can use illusion, trickery or other effects affecting the world rather than the target.
Iron Susceptibility
Many magical creatures can be hurt by iron weapons. Iron susceptibility is common among mages. In general, either all mages in a world have this, or none of them do. Part of it's function lies in that it is very common and well known; everyone knows you can stymie a mage by making them hold a naked blade or wear an iron collar.
Iron impairs your power. Why is a mystery to sorcerers, which cannot really analyze it very well. Alchemists claim it is because it is impure and the opposite of gold. Science offers a clue: nuclei of iron have some of the highest binding energies per nucleon. In other words, you cannot gain energy by transmuting iron into into anything else. Iron is the end of the road; no further transmutation is possible unless you put in a vast amount of energy. Another odd property of iron is that it is highly magnetic. Encasing something in a cage of iron insulates from all electromagnetic fields. The strength, versatility, and magnetic properties of iron makes it very important to technology, which is opposed to magic; perhaps this is another reason.
Limitation
Whatever the reason, power is impaired by iron and iron products, such as steel. A magician cannot use power while in direct contact with iron or encased in iron, such as steel armor or inside a car. Mages wishing to use iron tools or weapons must ensure that they don't get into direct contact with them; gloves, elaborate hilts and handles, and coverings such as gilding or tin coating are commonly used to overcome this. In fact, mages can wear steel armor as long as it has been properly gilded; the noble metal negates the influence of the base iron.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
When not wearing any iron and using power on someone or something that has no metallic iron on them, you can focus. This generally only happens when you are fighting animals or monsters.
Mana
You have a reserve of inner power, called mana for supernatural powers and by some technical term such as capacitors for technology. You can use this reserve to fuel your power, but when you have done so you become weak and need to restore your mana afterward.
Limitation
This limitation only triggers in conjunction with using the focus conditions. When you have used your mana to focus you grow tired at the end of the fight. Once the fight is over, you cannot use powers until you have replenished your mana; a short ritual taking about 15 minutes. Exactly what you do to recover mana depends on your power tradition; eating, meditation, prayer, reading, recharging capacitors or connecting to a power outlet are all examples. If there is a condition placed on your mana recovery that is out of your control, such as sunlight, use of a power outlet, or high wind, your recovery varies - it becomes 5 minutes with access to this recovery aid, 1 hour without the aid.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
You can focus at any time, but this triggers your limitation at the end of the fight. If you use it a second time in a fight, your limitation triggers right away.
Manifestation
All your power must manifest through a specific mechanism. This can be anything, but must be fairly specific. This prevents you from creating certain effects; you just cannot work power outside of what the limits on your manifestation allows. It forces you to be creative in the extreme to use certain powers, and your GM may not let you get away with some things, no matter how creative you are.
Manifestation can also serve as a clue to who worked the power - someone who knows your power always manifests as fire won't have a hard time identifying your work.
Examples:
- A fire sorceress who must manifest all her spells through fire; healing is the burning away of damage flesh, divination is done by staring into fire or at flying sparks. It is impossible for her to create effects relating to water.
- A druid who must manifest all his power as aspects of nature. Blasts are flying thorns, illusions are mirages formed by heat and mist. All his power is hindered if there is no natural phenomena nearby to cause his effect.
- A technomage who must manifest her power as the work of devices and technology; scrying is satellite downloads or surveillance cameras, blasts are limited to reasonable weapon effects.
- A cleric who can only re-create miracles from the scriptures; if it is not mentioned in the holy book, he cannot do it.
Limitation
You are not limited when you can work power, but instead in which magical effects you can produce, as described above. Pick a manifestation and stick with it.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
When immersed in the element of your limitation you can focus. This is relatively easy to adjudicate for an elementalist, considerably harder for a miracle-worker; you will have to work out the details with your GM when you take this method.
Naming
Everything has a true name, a manifestation of its true essence. Knowing this true name gives you power over the thing that it represents. Sorcery is possible for someone who know the true names of many things. If you know the true name of your enemy, you have him in your power.
Learning a true name is a difficult, often mystic experience. Visions and spirit quests play an important role, and an accomplished sorcerer can sometimes guess a true name through sheer intuition. Only intelligent creatures have individual true names; animals and objects share names with others of their type.
Naming power is linked to magical secrets; naming magicians often have their own name as their secret.
Limitation
You cannot target someone directly unless you know his true name. This problem is lessened by the fact that there are many "generic" true names for phenomena such as elements and objects, so a great range of magical effects can be accomplished without knowing the targets true name. But mind control, transmutation and other effects which directly and dramatically changes a person require that you know the target's true name.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
Whenever you know someone's true name, you can focus, but that focus is only good for affecting this person.
Possession
You are channeling powers beyond your control: sometimes these powers take you over and forces you to do wild and destructive actions. You must specify the nature of the power you are using, as this will influence how you focus and what happens when you lose control. In general, this amounts to a specific vice; focusing means tickling this vice, being possessed means losing control of it.
This might seem like a free lunch for an evil character, but when possessed you are self-destructive, evil for the sake of evil, and generally go too far for whatever sensibilities your character has. Good characters get remorse and are hurt by the very fact that they have done evil; bad people go further when possessed, often hurting their own prospects.
Limitations
Possession has no limitation of its own; instead it ups the ante on other limitations. When you are breaking whatever other limitations you have, you do not lose your power powers; instead you risk losing control. The GM proposes an action the possessor tries to force you to do. You can agree, and do the action but otherwise remain in control. If you resist, you take a Wound.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
When doing the type of actions you do when possessed, you release a burst of energy, allowing you to focus. This can either be because you lost control, or because you choose to give in. When you are taking the initiative, you get to pick what kind of action to do, and you'll presumably not pick the worst imaginable ones. Still, you must be living out your vice, and the GM is the final judge on whether your action is evil enough.
Power Signature
Your powers give hints about sensitive information. Maybe your fireballs have your personal rune emblazoned on them or your electronic remote-control signals are poorly shielded. This can be very dangerous in combination with methods like Astrology, Secret, or Naming.
Deeper secrets that enemies can learn must be fairly significant, and the GM decides exactly what it is. If you or they use secrets or information in methods, such information is a good pick. Other possible secrets include embarrassing facts that give large bonuses on interactions stunts, blackmail material, codes that give access to your telephone, bank, or internet accounts, personal information about loved ones that can be kidnapped and so on.
Limitation
Anyone who knows about you can recognize your powers by sight. Someone observing your power use can make a Know roll against your Dodge as a Trigger Action to learn things about you. Use the Outcome on any previous rolls as a bonus. As they accumulate Outcome their insight grows; when the Outcome matches your Mind they start to realize your deeper secrets. This is more of a side effect; it does not in itself prevent the use of your powers.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
You can focus anytime, but at the end of the round your enemies realize a deep secret about you.
Power Supply
You are dependent on an external supply of energy to work your powers. This could be an electric grid, the universal web of power, the mystic field of force that connects all life, or the attention and good will of a supernatural entity or god. This method tends to be universal; either everyone of a tradition uses it, or no-one does. The Gifts origin rarely uses this method.
Limitations
When you are out of contact or favor with your power supply, your powers don't work. There might be means fr others to disrupt this flow of power, but mostly its something between you and your supplier. Unlike similar methods, this supply is either turned on or off at a remote location; it is not something you can carry an inventory of and use as needed, though there might be ways of getting around it.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
Whenever you have been out of supply, your focus sharpens and you have an easier time focusing as your powers come back to you and you can focus at will. How long this condition lasts depends on how long you were out of power; the period of free focus should represent about twice as much actual game time as the period you were out of supply, but is ultimately up to the GM to decide.
Power Words
You focus your power in exclamations, battle cries, and sharp yells. It is not enough to mumble an arcane formula; you shout the name of your power, berate your target, and otherwise make a nuisance of yourself expressing your power.
Limitation
You cannot use your powers silently. Your words of power need to be audible over your surroundings; in a noisy place you need to shout loudly indeed. Fortunately, you have trained your voice to overcome even the roar of a tidal wave or jet engine.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
You can focus right after any of your basic actions, but doing so announced what Limit Break you intend to use. If you fail to use this Limit Break before the end of the round, you lose your focus.
Props
You use tools in your power; a variety of gizmos, diagrams, books, wands, sigils, dried insects, eye of newt, incense and so on. Depending on your tradition, your props have a theme: the props of a technomage are distinctly different than those of an alchemist.
Limitation
You cannot use your power without your props. You need to resupply or build new props during downtime; this is not generally a hassle, but can make for nice cut scenes. In an emergency, you can usually whip up the prop for a specific power with a little scrounging and a few minutes of work.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
You can focus at any time by using your props, but it is a 3-shot basic action instead of a trigger action. You must concentrate, taking no trigger actions until your next shot comes up.
Restraint
Physical activity can hinder magical ability; energies that could have been channeled into the mystical are used for base physical body needs. By applying restraint, the distractions of the physical body are eliminated, which frees the mind for power.
Restraint in an extended sense can be considered costume as well.
Limitation
You must be physically restrained in some way to use powers. This involves at least one of the following. Note that it is possible, even encouraged, to use powers to overcome these handicaps, and that the restraint never imposes any penalties on your use of your powers.
- Bound arms, which prevents physical attacks and most ordinary actions.
- Bound legs, which prevents movement as a part of normal basic actions. On a full move action, you can take a normal move instead of a full move, crawling or rolling over the ground.
- Blindfolding
- Gagging, which prevents mundane speech. Make sure to enforce this strictly.
- Leashing, or being tied to another person or fixed location by a short leash which prevents movement beyond one or two meters.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
You can focus with three or more of the above conditions satisfied.
Secret
You have some secret that must not become known. A magical secret can be almost anything. A technological secret is a wavelength, passcode or other sensitive data that is easily used. It can be nonsense, such as a particular number or the name of some higher being or your own secret name. It can be some fact about you, such as that you are a woman, your exact age or that you are the descendant of Zeus. It cannot be something people would ordinarily say; people will not accidentally blurt out your secret unless the GM is using this as a plot device.
It is possible to find your secret through research or investigation, but this is always an important story development and should have its own dangers and drama. You might intuitively feel when someone is close to discovering your secret, which often leads to dramatic confrontations at the point of discovery.
Anyone who finds out your secret can use it to blackmail you and to gain dominance over you, as you cannot effectively use your powers against them. If your secret ever becomes common knowledge, you are doomed. But this should never happen if you play your cards right; the GM can invoke this as a plot device, but as long as you play along, no villain would waste the hook he has on you by publishing your secret.
Limitation
Anyone stating this secret in your presence negates your powers for the rest of the scene.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
Whenever your secret is in immediate danger of being discovered, you can focus. This means that an involving secret is much more useful than an obtuse one.
Talisman
You have some unique item you must have to work your power. Talismans are reasonably large and obvious, like a staff, diadem, dowsing pin, special hat, gizmo or whatever. Without it, you are powerless. Unlike props, this is one specific item. Your talisman is a signature item; it will not disappear unless there is some plot-driven reason for it to disappear, and customs officials and other bystanders will generally ignore it. But its function is always apparent to other sorcerers and to everyone once you start using it for obvious effects. Those in the know might try to take it away from you.
This focus can be either destructible or indestructible. If it is indestructible, it cannot be replaced; you MUST get your unique item back. If it is destructible, it is still tough and hard to destroy, but it can be damaged, and you can replace it.
Limitation
You cannot use your power without your focus item.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
When your focus item is directly involved in your power, such as if you strike with your staff or throw your power diadem, you can focus. This involves a bit of risk; you call attention to your talisman and could potentially lose it.
Tantrism
Your power is fueled by sexuality, both your own and that of your targets.
Limitation
You must have regular sex to replenish your power. You must engage is some sexual activity each day (even if it is as modest as masturbation or fantasies), and you must have a full-fleshed sexual encounter with a partner at least once a week.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
Whenever you manage to create sexual tension you can focus. If this is with a friend, it must be a sexual act or a noteworthy development in your relationship. If it is with an opponent, any sexually-themed stunt involving Charm or Presence is sufficient.
Trance
Your powers work best when you are in a trance, and you are very much aware even when asleep.
Limitation
In a round when you use your powers, you become slightly dizzy. This is more flavor than a limitation, but might make you miss things obvious to others. When asleep, you count as being in a trance, as outlined under the focus action below. This allows you to act even when asleep, but if you use powers in this state you will not awaken.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
You can focus any time you are not in a trance. When you do so, you enter trance until the end of the encounter. This makes you oblivious to things not related to your powers and the situation at hand. Distractions like environmental conditions, traps, phone calls, distant explosions, allies, and bystanders are obfuscated for you, meaning you cannot use your skills to notice or analyze such things but have to rely on your default attribute for each skill instead. This most often applies to Spot rolls, but can apply to any skill.
Vow
You have taken an oath, and your power only works while you maintain this oath. Stricter vows are likely to interfere much more with your power, but also to grant many more opportunities to focus.
- Vow against killing
- Vow against violence
- Vow of abstinence (from drugs, eating meat, or similar)
- Vow of celibacy
- Vow of fasting
- Vow of Forthrightness (no sneaking, approach problems head on)
- Vow of poverty (entrust your upkeep to others, handle no valuables)
- Vow of silence
- Vow of truth (no lying or deliberate sisseb,ling; silence is acceptable)
Limitation
You must not have broken your vow recently to practice power. Willfully breaking the vow negates your power for a week. Breaking it because of coercion or necessity (and this might be frequent in case of such things as fasting) means you cannot use your powers for an hour.
Focus Condition
Trigger Action (Focus)
When you would have gained some advantage by breaking your vow, and still persisted, you can focus. Even minor and role-playing advantages count, and you can focus for the whole scene in which this happened.