Illusion Powers (FiD)

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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 You can detect illusory creatures and powers. This can spoil illusions, but you must actively work to see through them.	Sever Spectre You can force a specter that is native to another plane of existence to return to that plane, or to end the operation of an ability of the illusion power.	Summon Spectre You can call a specter from another plane. This is generally an unwilling servant, but very willing to maintain its illusory role. It will obey one command from you and this can be extended.	Dream Domain You can create a portal to the realm of dreams. You can use this to enter someone's dream.
Command	Menacing Mirage You can create scary or awe-inducing images or sounds perceptible to everyone.	Majestic Mirage You can create full-sense illusions scary or awe-inducing to others.	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 You project illusions over vast areas. This includes creating hosts of illusory creatures. Often used to control a battlefield.
Consort	Makeover Mirage You can add any illusory clothes or accessories to your outfit. This can mask your identity or create fabulous outfits.	Monster Mirage You assume the appearance of any other creature. This does not confer any abilities.	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.	Mob Mirage You can change the appearance of large number creatures, giving each an individual appearance if desired.
Finesse	Vehicle Veil You can change the appearance of a mount or personal vehicle you are riding.	Mirage Melee You can create an illusion of a fine and potent close-range attack, similar to a fine potent dueling sword or pistol.	Phantom Path You can alter the appearance of a road, misleading travelers.	Ethereal Edges Your power manifests a storm of illusory blades, suppressing the effect of multiple opponents and acting as a fine potent weapon.
Hunt	Shadow Seeker You can track a creature as long as you have a good mental image or likeness to focus on.	Shadow Shot You create an illusory attack, similar in effect to a fine and potent rifle, painful but not lethal.	Scene Shift You can change the appearance of your surroundings without adding new features. This can cover a single room indoors or a city block outdoors.	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.
Prowl	Shadow Cloak You can hide in shadows, areas of local darkness.	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.	Inclusive Invisibility You can make others invisible and bring others along when you use Invisibility.	Illusive Incursion You and allies can teleport from one location to another that looks much the same. This is regional travel, you stay within the same city or region, but it is generally sufficient to enter or escape just about any situation or location.
Skirmish	Illusory Impact You can use the power as an illusion of a close-range attack, similar in effect to a melee weapon or pistol.	Illusory Elite Same as Skirmish Attack, except the weapon is fine and potent.	Illusory Obstacle Your power changes the appearance of a battlefield that prevents the enemy from benefiting from numbers and otherwise works as a fine potent weapon.	Illusionary Onslaught Your power strikes out in all directions, attacking all enemies in a wide area.
Study	Identify Illusion You can identify illusions you can see as illusions and what type of creature created the illusion, such as a human or monster.	Illusion Insight You learn the powers and abilities of an image, illusion, or specter and the identity of the creator.	Illusory Echoes You can 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.
Survey	Detect You can see through illusions and see invisible things when you focus on observing a specific area.	Sensor Choose an object of a particular appearance; you can perceive as if you were at that spot. You cannot use your Survey action for anything else when doing so.	Scry Choose a location or creature and an imagined object. You gain a sensor at the nearest object that looks much like you imagined, which is often close enough to perceive the target.	Omnipresence You perceive from all objects looking like an object you imagine at once over a wide area. As long as you concentrate you retain this perception and can report what you see to others.
Sway	Persuasive Phantom You can create convincing visual images up to the size of a human.	Phantasmal Procession You can create full-sense illusions to convince others, up to the size of a small house of progression of people.	Mirage Mansion You can create a large illusion, such as a small forest or the exterior of a large mansion.	Mirage Arcana You project illusions over vast areas. You can disguise existing features and add new ones, but not make things invisible.
Tinker	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 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.
Wreck	Faux Fracture You can create an illusion of an event that damages an object, such as a breech explosion on a gun or a weapon that breaks when parried.	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.	Shadowy Shatter Similar to Phantom Fracture, but the illusions is real for a short time, allowing creatures to walk trough faults you create.	Obliterate Similar to Phantom Fracture, but larger. You can create the illusion of a blasted landscape or cityscape.

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 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.

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 room indoors or a city block outdoors.

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.

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

Sneak, move, and perhaps even fly or teleport with the stealth and agility granted by Prowl. Most powers use Prowl in ways that vary from the norm, so this is a more rough sketch than the power abilities of many other actions.

Reconnaissance: You can hide in environments linked to your power. This allows you to hide in impossible places as long as the environment manifests your power. You gain advantage when sneaking on creatures linked to your power.

This provides you cover to hide in places you ordinarily could not. Where you can use this is explained in each specific power. 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 Travel, below.

Maneuver: You can move on and through environments composed of your environment. This allows you to climb on air, swim unhindered, walk through walls of the appropriate material and so on, depending on your exact power.

Again, each power will explain how it can use this mobility. Your friends and allies cannot use this unless you employ Travel, which is described later

Travel: You can bring allies along when you use Reconnaissance and Maneuver.

Now you and your allies can Prowl in places where your power is at home. They still use their own Prowl action.

Transport: You and allies can teleport from one location where your power is present to another. This is regional travel, you stay within the same city or region, but it is generally sufficient to enter or escape just about any situation or location.

How and where you use this is explained in each power. 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.

Skirmish

Engage in close combat and create chaos with the power to Skirmish.

Skirmish Attack: You can use the power as a close-range attack, similar in effect to a melee weapon or pistol.

What this actually does depends on the power used. Fire burns, wind slices, ice pieces or freezes, and so on. Certain targets may be more or less vulnerable to certain attacks, but this is the exception. Besides variety, this only substitutes for equipment, mundane weapons are just as effective. 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.

Fine Skirmish Attack: Same as Skirmish Attack, except the weapon is fine and potent.

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

This creates some kind of hindrance, perhaps spectral allies, perhaps a maze or concealing mist. The effect is to deny your enemies the advantage of numbers. You also gain the benefit of the Fine Skirmish Attack, giving you a fine, potent weapon.

Flurry: Your power strikes out in all directions, attacking all enemies in a wide area.

This turns you into a one-man army. Not only do you negate the advantage your enemy may get from numbers, you also spread your effect to hurt all your enemies in the current skirmish, within 10 meters or so.

Study

Study and analyze objects and creatures imbued with your power to gain insight and knowledge.

Analyze: You can identify objects and creatures that manifest your power and see the use of the abilities of your power.

Research: You know the powers and abilities of something you analyze.

Hindsight: You can read the past events of something you analyze. This includes previous owners and how the object has been moved around as well as significant scenes.

Omniscience: You research everything in a wide area. This is easy to do where you are, more difficult at range. You can then use hindsight on some of these targets.

Survey

Survey and perceive manifestations of your power to gain valuable information and insight.

Detect: You can sense manifestations of your power at a distance and understand their general nature. This works even when you can't see the target, but both range and information suffer.

Sensor: Choose an object manifesting your power that you have detected; you can perceive as if you were at that spot. You cannot use your Survey action for anything else when doing so.

Scry: Choose a location or creature. You gain a sensor at the nearest suitable object, which is often close enough to perceive the target.

Omnipresence: You perceive from all objects manifesting your power at once over a wide area. As long as you concentrate you retain this perception and can report what you see to others.

Sway

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 ion 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.

Communicate: You can understand creatures linked to your power even if normally couldn't, and gauge their mood and motivations.

This does not allow you to be understood by those whose intentions you read. Used together with the basic Command power, this allows full communication.

Translate: You and allies can communicate with creatures based on your power.

This allows you to use the Sway power to its full effect. You are still wheedling unless you also use Command the advanced Command effect.

In addition, many powers will have the power to inspire a mood or emotion specific to that power.

Mesmerize: You can post suggestions in the mind of a creature manifesting your power, which will be triggered under conditions you specify. Common suggestions are to steal something, attack someone, or ignore some event. This is a subtle power, but easier to spot once triggered.

Essentially this is an attempt to Sway with two advantages. The target will not remember that you swayed them, and if you succeed, you can give them instructions that will activate later, in a situation you specify. A typical use of this would be to sway a servant to leave a window open in a hallway or a guard to forget to load their weapon. Besides the normal challenges of persuasion, suggestions fade depending on your effect. Limited effect lasts in the immediate situation. Normal effect lasts for the duration of the score, and great effect can last past the end of the score, as makes sense in the story.

Inculcate: You change the personality and motivations of creatures that manifest your power. This power is permanent, but blatant. The target remembers their past but regards it as unimportant compared to their new motivations.

This changes the target on a deep level, changing their loyalties and priorities. There are limit to this, particularly for creatures linked to a power - you cannot make a fire creature love the sea or an angel of light do deeds of darkness. Exceptional creatures and exceptional circumstances can break this change. This depends more on role-playing than die rolls.

Tinker

Manipulate, shape, and create objects imbued with your power to suit your needs. 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 can start using Fabricate.

Handle: You can handle materials that manifest your power as if you had the appropriate tools and protective devices.

This mainly substitutes for tools, up to a small workshop. You are also protected from any dangerous effects of working with the elements of your power.

Shape: You can shape materials that manifest your power as if they were of clay, and they will retain their new shape for some time even if they would normally not, such as water, sand, or smoke.

You can now do more than normal craft could do. You can work elements of your power that normally cannot be shaped, and it will remain in the shape you set it in. This has the effect of pipes and containers suited to the materials at hand, without any material containers or conduits. This may allow you to set up traps or devices that would normally require extensive equipment.

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.

Create: You can create objects manifesting your power out of nothing or transform an object from one material to another as long as you know the power required for both the starting and final form. This can create complex tools, such as fine and potent items appropriate to the power(s) used.

This is two distinct effects. The first allows you to create matter related to your power out of nothing. This is raw matter (or energy, depending on the power used) and needs to be shaped and refined to be of much use.

The second can only be used if you know multiple powers. You transmute material connected to one of your powers into material connected to another power. The result will maintain its form as if affected by the Shape ability. 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 fire, and it would still be a functional sword. A door could be changed from wood to air, you then pass through and the door reverts to wood.

Fabricate: This is similar to Create, 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 Create 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 Fabricate to gain great effect, even under what normally be poor conditions, but this has the usual stress cost.

Wreck

Destroy, dismantle, and obliterate objects made of stuff related to your power.

Jimmy: You can jimmy objects manifesting your power much like a sledgehammer. Noisy and leaves a twisted object in place.

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.

Smash: Similar to jimmy. When smashing objects from your power, such as metallic objects for the metal power, you to affect hard objects as if they were wood. Works as a fine potent sledgehammer 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.

Disintegrate: Similar to smash, but destroyed targets silently disappear or are reduced to a fine dust.

The real difference here is that wrecking things is now silent when you have the right power. You also leave less traces, as what you wreck disappears. This can also be used to get rid of evidence, as long as that evidence matches your power.

Obliterate: Similar to smash, but over a large area. This can level a city block, empty a canal system of water, raze a city wall, and similar massive destruction.

Rather straightforward, this just scales things up.