Earth Powers (FiD)

Earth is the base of all, the solid ground we walk on, dig into, and who ultimately nourishes us all.

The earth can be influenced and used by other powers, yet it remains solid. Earth powers can be slow and imprecise, but are very powerful.

Earth attacks are thrown rocks and weapons made of stone, but more powerful effects can cause tremors and earthquakes. Combines well with other powers, for example earth plus fire can cause a volcano and earth plus air can cause a sandstorm.

Earth creatures are mainly earth elementals, but also creatures that burrow into the earth and monsters and animals with earth powers. Burrowing animals are also covered by the Animal power.

Earth 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	Gaia's Gaze Detect Earth creatures and Earth powers.	Gaia's Gauntlet Dismiss an Earth creature. End a power that affects Earth.	Gaia's Guardian Summon an earth creature.	Gaia's Gate Create a portal to and from the plane of earth.
Command	Stone Speech Command earth creatures even if they don't understand you.	Stone Signal Communicate with Earth over long distances.	Stone Sovereign Command Earth creatures as if you were their superior.	Stone Slave Permanently bind Earth creatures to service.
Consort	Mud Mask Imbue clothes and accessories with earth, crystals, and gems.	Mud Manifestation Assume the form of an earth creature.	Mud Morph Shapechange a willing or helpless creature into an Earth creature.	Mud Mastery Transform a number of willing or non-sentient creatures, give a simple instruction.
Finesse	Pebble Path Ride an earth creature mount or a vehicle made of earth.	Stalagmite Strike Fine and potent close-range attack. Give crew Pebble Path.	Pebble Poke Manipulate earth to do small and exact things.	Stalactite Storm A storm of spears, suppressing scale.
Hunt	Impressions In Earth Track over any solid surface.	Pellet Shot Attack similar to a fine and potent rifle.	Dust Dance Rearrange terrain, moving hills and boulders.	Gravel Grenade Attack like a fine and potent grenade.
Prowl	Boulder Blend Hide against bare stone or earth.	Earthglide Move on and through earth.	Earthwalk Crew use of Boulder Blend and Earthglide.	Womb of the Earth Teleport crew from one Earth location to another.
Skirmish	Stone Skirmish Melee attack.	Diamond Daggers Fine and potent Skirmish Attack.	Labyrinth Obstructions defeat scale.	Crystal Cascade Attack all enemies in a area.
Study	Crystal Clarity Identify objects, creatures, and powers of Earth.	Earthly Expertise Learn specific abilities of Earth.	Earthly Echoes Experience past events of an object, creature, or power of Earth.	Gaia's Glory Earthly Expertise in an area then Earthly Echoes on three targets.
Survey	Earthly Intuition Sense manifestations of Earth.	Earth Eyes Choose a piece of earth, perceive as if you were at that spot.	Earthwatch Choose a location or creature. Sense from nearest piece of earth.	One with the Earth Perceive from all Earth at once over a wide area.
Sway	Earth Empathy Understand Earth creatures and learn their objectives.	Terran Talk Crew can communicate with Earth creatures. Make creatures content and confident	Stone Suggestion Post suggestions in the mind of an Earth creature.	Carved in Stone Permanently change the personality and motivations of an Earth creature.
Tinker	Chisel Handle earth and stone as if you had the appropriate tools and protective devices.	Mold Shape earth and stone as if they were of clay.	Earthforge Create objects of Earth out of nothing. Transform an object from one material to another.	Earthspawn Mold on a grand scale. Make something large, such as a vehicle or building.
Wreck	Crack Crack Earth and stone much like a sledgehammer. Noisy.	Stonebreaker Crack hard Earth as if it was wood. A fine potent sledgehammer in combat.	Disintegrate Stonebreaker, and destroyed targets are reduced to a fine dust.	Ruinous Rumble Stonebreaker over a large area. Level a city block, raze a city wall.

Mud Mask
Change your clothes and accessories by imbuing them with earth, including crystals and gems. This can mask your identity or create fabulous outfits.

Pebble Poke
Manipulate of earth to do small and exact manipulations at range. This allows you to open doors, trigger or hinder mechanisms, or perform other minor manipulations, as long as you have a pebble.

Boulder Blend
Hide against bare stone or earth, including stone, brick, and concrete walls. This allows you to hide in impossible places.

Earthglide
Move on and through earth. This allows you to climb on vertical walls, walk through walls and so on, as long as they are made of earth. Rebar can block your path.

Expanded Earth Powers

Earth is the base of all things.

Earth objects include everything solid, but natural sand, clay, earth and stone are the easiest to affect. Masonry, fired clay, and unreinforced concrete is reasonably easy to affect. Solids derived from other powers, such as organic substances (related to Death), living things (related to Life), rebar (related to metal) and so on requires that you have the other power it is related to to have full effect.

Attune

Connect with the power of Earth and harness its elements for various purposes.

Harness the power of Attune Earth to perceive and manipulate supernatural energies, allowing you to detect and interact with beings and phenomena from other planes of existence.

The consequences usually depends on what happens around you when you do it. 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.

Gaia's Gaze Detect Earth creatures and Earth powers.

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. Limited effect suffices against a creature you can clearly see. You need greater effect against against a creature that is hidden (standard effect) or behind a wall (great effect).

Gaia's Gauntlet Dismiss an Earth creature or end a power affecting Earth.

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.

You can dispel any power of Earth, as well as powers that affect Earth creatures and things. Dispelling is often used as a setup action to help another character in a situation when the opposition is using powers. This improves the position of the supported action. It can be used as a defense against others' use of power, or it can be used to break the continuing effects of powers.

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 walk trough stone you can have a better 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.

Gaia's Guardian Summon an Earth creature.

Summoning can bring you allies to fight or labor for you, giving you scale. They can also give advice and information related to their power. Summons can use simple effects of their power and maintain power effects you have created.

You can summon generic creatures without having to do a flashback. Such a creature is similar to a gang member in ability and are often summoned in groups to add scale. To summon a particular creature, similar to a cohort, you need its unique identity, often called true name in the mystical power traditions. For a technomancer this would be a type id number or block of 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.

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.

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

An Earth elemental is a simple creature made of and totally dominated by Earth. Most elementals have animal intelligence, and often take the shape of animals as well, tough animated chunks of earth or stone and humanoid forms are also common.

Spirits are immaterial, ephemeral, less physically oriented, instead manifesting the emotional and mental manifestations of Earth. Spirits are more intelligent than elementals. They can use sophisticated power effects and usually have an agenda of their own.

Creatures with powers resemble normal creatures, having a biological body, metabolism, and functioning as ordinary living creatures but also have some exceptional abilities related to Earth. An Earth mole is big, can burrow through soft stone, and attacks with earth tremors.

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.

Standard effect allows you to ask for any service appropriate to the creature. Earth creatures will smash, build, polish, and obstruct. This includes dangerous tasks such as combat if the creature has such abilities, which most of them do.

Great effect allows actions outside the creature's comfort zone, but not things it directly opposes. An Earth creature will not fly or swim. Lengthy service also requires great effect, like summoning the creature to guard a treasure for as long as it can.

Typical consequences include:

A bargain of payment in gems and rare earth.
The creature strikes out at you once.
Having to concentrate to keep the creature under control
The creature breaks things around you.
Overly literal interpretations of your commands.
Demanding not to be summoned again until some time or event has passed.
General sulkiness.

Offering a creature gifts or services appropriate to its nature can improve position. This is essentially a devil's bargain, accepting a price in advance. Desperate position usually comes from trading position for effect, but it might come from a difference in ethos. If you are a priest of the sea and summon an Earth elemental, or if the summon is three or more tiers above you the position will be desperate. Desperate consequences include the creature 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 (usually three scores), that you defeat the creature in a duel or similar dramatic story events.

Gaia's Gate Create a portal to and from the plane of Earth.

Most powers are linked to a different world where that power is dominant, such as the Cavers of Earth. There are things that are possible to do on these planes that are not allowed in the regular world, most Earth 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 the plane of Earth, but if they affect creatures on that plane, the effect may remain when you return to the mundane world. A gate lasts for a short while, enough for a quick score. If things take a lot of time it might require a separate use of the power to return home again.

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

The first-time you gate to a certain place the position is at least risky and becomes desperate if there is any kind of disturbance. 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.

Command

Command and intimidate Earth creatures, projecting authority. Position and effect depend on the situation and your relationship with the listeners.

Stone Speech Command Earth creatures, even if they don't understand you.

This is useful for intimidating and commanding foreign or alien Earth creatures. Combined with the Sway: Earth Empathy, this allows two-way communication.

Stone Signal Communicate with Earth over long distances.

You can communicate with Earth creatures over any distance as long as you know the target, and a line-of-sight even if you do not. You can communicate with the most powerful Earth creature in a vehicle or installation as long as you can see the exterior. The communication is simple and direct, suitable for the Command skill.

You can communicate through crystals, including glass. As long as you know of a crystal near your target your image can appear in that crystal and communicate.

Stone Sovereign Command Earth creatures as if you were their superior.

Targets will see you as an alpha or leader type outranking them. This does not remove existing loyalties, which can lead to conflicts. Understanding the social order of your targets helps avoid conflicting with their established loyalties. Ordering an Earth Elemental to allow a wall to fall over harder (needs more effect) than telling them to move away so they cannot see it fall.

Limited effect might result in a creature not doing what it might not have done anyway, like forgetting to report you or give you a ticket. Standard effect makes the creature do what it should, but in a way you decide, like a police officer escorting you to safety or doing you a quick favor. Great effect means targets will ignore their normal routine and go out of their way to please you, like neutral faction warriors fighting for you, or enemies ignoring or fleeing from you.

The position depends on the creatures' actual relationship to you—ordering a creature that sees itself as your superior is a desperate position. A controlled position comes from a creature that agrees you are superior, usually just making retrying harder. A risky position is typical against a creature that sees itself as your equal and not your enemy, possibly leading to heat, misunderstood orders, or small rebellions.

Stone Slave Permanently bind Earth creatures to service.

This won’t work unless you are already in a position of power. The effect is similar to Stone Sovereign but permanent. Strong emotions can break your control, but otherwise, it lasts until dispelled.

Consort

Consort powers changes your form and later that of other creatures. These powers might also be used as a set-up action for a later Consort roll. This will often give a bonus to effect or improved position or even allow an action that a human could not do.

A common consequences is that you are mistaken for someone, or that your assumed form is somehow a hindrance. You may have the beauty of diamond, trigger prejudices, or have unexpected handicaps.

Mud Mask Imbue clothes and accessories with Earth, crystals, and gems.

You do not physically change yourself, you change your accessorize and outfit. As an Advanced effect you can change others' outfits.

Mud Manifestation Assume the form of an Earth creature.

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.

Shapechange 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 powers inherently without risking stress.

With limited effect you can 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 effect can make you a generic creature, very hard to recognize as yourself. Great effect allows you to assume the shape and some of the personality of a specific creature you have studied.

Mud Morph Shapechange a willing or helpless creature into an Earth creature.

This is Mud Manifestation applied to another creature. The duration depends of the effect, limited effect is very temporary. Standard effect lasts for the duration of a score. Great effect lasts a long time and potentially become permanent, depending on the the story. If you also want to make the target unrecognizable, that requires additional effect, see Mud Manifestation.

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

Mud Mastery Transform a number of willing or non-sentient creatures and give them a simple instruction.

This is where Consort becomes a combination of Mud Manifestation and Consort: Gaia's Guardian. 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 fight and chase for you. Such goons are more interested in chasing and cornering targets than in actual combat. Or they can be given bit parts, like the animated household items in Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

Finesse

Exercise finesse with Earth, manipulating and attacking with precision.

Pebble Path Ride an Earth creature mount or a vehicle made of Earth.

This allows you to use Finesse with Earth mounts and vehicles you are not familiar with. An Earth vehicle is any vehicle in contact with the ground. You can bypass simple locks on vehicles, but not more serious security. You can ride beasts even if they are not trained to carry a rider. They must still be physically able to carry you

Stalagmite Strike A fine and potent close-range attack. Give crew Pebble Path.

Besides variety, this only substitutes for equipment, fine and potent finesse weapon is just as effective. In a fight, using this does not take any more time, activating your attack power is equivalent to drawing a weapon.

Pebble Poke Manipulate Earth to perform small and exact tasks.

This allows you to manipulate small amounts of Earth, similar to what you could do by hand, but you can do so at short range, allowing you to push buttons, trigger devices, and perform legerdemain. This can substitute for simple Tinker actions, but nothing complicated. You can open doors, trigger or hinder mechanisms, or dull and polish Earth.

Stalactite Storm A storm of spears, suppressing scale.

As Stalagmite Strike above, and you also create distractions. The effect is like having a number of trusty but entirely defensive allies in the fight. This negates any scale advantage an enemy gets for having allies of their own.

Hunt

Track, attack, and unleash devastating barrages with the power of Hunt Earth. At short range, this can be dangerous to you and yours.

Impressions In Earth Track over any solid surface.

This works even if the quarry does not leave any mundane trail or clues. Consequences here are mainly to lose the trail, but depending on the environment and targets, it might lead you to get lost, into traps, or even into an ambush.

Pellet Shot Attack similar to a fine and potent rifle.

Essentially, this serves as a replacement for traditional equipment; a fine and potent ranged weapon would be equally effective in combat. While some targets may exhibit more or less vulnerability to specific types of attacks, this is the exception rather than the rule.

Dust Dance Rearrange terrain, moving hills and boulders.

This is usually used as a setup, but may also change how people act in reaction to the environment—dust clouds and wobbly ground are likely to make people want to stay indoors or run out as the case may be. This does not inflict any direct damage.

Gravel Grenade An attack like a fine and potent grenade.

An escalation of Pellet Shot. Less precise, this affects all creatures at a location, with a risk of collateral damage. Targets in trenches, behind walls, or otherwise shielded are not in direct danger, but tend to keep their heads down, which gives your side the initiative.

Prowl

Sneak and move with stealth and agility.

Boulder Blend Hide against bare stone or Earth.

This allows you to hide in impossible places as long as the environment manifests your power. Any natural earth will do, as will concrete and masonry. Plant life is an impediment, but as long as the ground is not entirely overgrown this works just like you had concealment to use Prowl to avoid notice. Note that only you can use this ability, your friends and allies cannot unless you use Travel, Earthwalk.

Earthglide Move on and through Earth.

This allows you to climb on air, swim unhindered, walk through walls of earth and stone and so on, depending on your exact power. You cannot pass through composite walls, such as those with wooden panels or rebar. Your friends and allies cannot use this unless you employ Earthwalk, below.

Earthwalk Crew use of Boulder Blend and Earthglide.

Now you and your crew can use Earth to Prowl. They still use their own Prowl action

Womb of the Earth Teleport crew from one Earth location to another.

You and allies can teleport from one location enclosed in earth to another. Natural caves are the ebst option, but any uncovered solid earthen walls will do. 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. Womb of the Earth 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.

Skirmish

Stone Skirmish A melee attack.

Diamond Daggers A fine and potent Skirmish attack.

Labyrinth Obstructions defeat scale.

Crystal Cascade Attack all enemies in an area.

Study

Crystal Clarity Identify objects, creatures, and powers of Earth.

Earthly Expertise Learn specific abilities of Earth.

Earthly Echoes Experience past events related to an object, creature, or power of Earth.

Gaia's Glory Earthly Expertise in an area, then Earthly Echoes on three targets.

Survey

Earthly Intuition Sense manifestations of Earth.

Earth Eyes Choose a piece of Earth and perceive as if you were at that spot.

Earthwatch Choose a location or creature and sense from the nearest piece of Earth.

One with the Earth Perceive from all Earth at once over a wide area.

Sway

Earth Empathy Understand Earth creatures and learn their objectives.

Terran Talk Crew can communicate with Earth creatures. Make creatures content and confident.

Stone Suggestion Post suggestions in the mind of an Earth creature.

Carved in Stone Permanently change the personality and motivations of an Earth creature.

Tinker

Chisel Handle Earth and stone as if you had the appropriate tools and protective devices.

Mold Shape Earth and stone as if they were clay.

Earthforge Create objects of Earth out of nothing. Transform an object from one material to another.

Earthspawn Mold on a grand scale. Make something large, such as a vehicle or building.

Wreck

Crack Crack Earth and stone much like a sledgehammer. Noisy.

Stonebreaker Crack hard Earth as if it were wood. A fine potent sledgehammer in combat.

Disintegrate Stonebreaker, and destroyed targets are reduced to a fine dust.

Ruinous Rumble Stonebreaker over a large area. Level a city block or raze a city wall.