Post by Phsycodelic on Apr 6, 2017 0:45:40 GMT
Fortune
Mystic Sorcerers
Mystic Sorcerers
Supernatural beings can be cursed but get to resist the effect, if they are aware of it, w1th a Willpower check (difficulty = 4 +the magician's Path rating). Most curses will need only a single success, but very powerful or long-lasting curses can require more in order to be removed completely. Short curses normally won't be discovered unless they are announced ahead of time; a skilled user of Entropy or Prime might detect a curse looming over someone, or someone with Auspex might see it in their aura, however. A character's Arcane rating subtracts from the total successes scored on a one for one ratio (and could well cause the curse to fail utterly).
The Path of Fortune benefits from teamwork in a fashion unlike any other Path; each assistant who is successful in a skill check not only reduces the difficulty for the lead sorcerer by 1, but also adds a single success to the total pool for paying for aspects. In addition, every three assistants increases the effective knowledge of the Path by one, allowing the group to cast more powerful curses or blessings.
Roll: Manipulation + Intimidation/Mathematics.
Cost: One Willpower.
Modifiers: -1 Difficulty if the sorcerer has some item closely linked with the target.
Duration: See below.
Price Of Failure: Messing with destiny and the future is never something to be undertaken lightly. A failure on the dice roll results in nothing happening (of course, if the target is unlucky enough, the caster may not be able to tell if the curse took effect or not!). A botched curse might boomerang back onto the caster, as the hatred-fueled power feeds back into the source of the bile, rather than the target. Alternatively, it may twist itself into a perverse sort of blessing, something that at first appears to be a curse but is, instead, beneficial to the target in a strange sort of way. (This is especially appropriate if the caster's hatred of the target is not pure and savage enough - half-hearted curses are better left alone, especially pwerful ones.)
Botched blessings can be just as bad, if not worse. A botched blessing might twist itself into a curse (especially with very powerful blessings), targeted either on the caster or on the target (once again, blessings where the motives of the caster are not pure are most likely to do this). More commonly, however, the blessing takes effect but in such a way that it might as well be a cruse. This kind of monkey's paw can be particularly devastating. A blessing for long life might twist itself into immortality itself... but immortality without vitality is a prison suitable only for the most evil.
A sorcerer can use the Path of Fortune upon herself if she wishes but runs a terrible risk. Any Botched roll means that the sorcerer will suffer the full effects of the worst kinds of backfire that she might accidentally inflict upon others. Worse, while the sorcerer can try and unweave even a botched curse or blessing upon another, she is totally incapable of lifting or unweaving an effect that she casts upon herself. Since a sorcerer may not know the full impact of her casting for some time, the Storyteller should roll the dice for any use of this Path she works upon herself.
[ 1 - 6 ] Fortune Levels 1 - 6 ( XXX - Page X )
Level | Target |
1 | One specific, named target. |
2 | Two specific targets or one poorly defined one. |
3 | A small group (no more than four) of closely linked individuals (a clique or family). |
4 | A midsize group of people with some kind of relationship (an extended family, a football team, etc.). |
5 | A large group of people (no more than 100): all of the patrons of a particular bar, a small company, etc. |
6 | An entire town or corporation or military unit (like a battalion). |
In general, the target must be some specific individual or group of individuals but does not need to be specifically named (So, for example, the target might be “Jimmy Smith, who stole my essay” or “that son of a bitch who just cut me off,” but not “everyone who hates me”). The more dots in this aspect of the curse, the more people it can affect, and the less specific the targeting needs to be.
Level | Duration |
1 | One shot. The effect waits for an opportune moment, wreaks its vengeance (or benefits) and then dissipates. |
2 | The effect lasts a day, inconveniencing the target whenever possible. |
3 | The effect lasts for a week or more (up to three), helping the target when appropriate. |
4 | The blessing (or curse) lasts for several months. |
5 | The curse affects the target for years, blighting his very existence. |
6 | “ … And unto the seventh generation shall the family of Hedley-Smythe be cursed with madness, and terror shall follow them all their days!” |
Level | Severity |
1 | A brief inconvenience, or a minor weal; dropping something, saying something utterly stupid (or perfectly brilliant), smashing your shin into the table, catching a bus at just the right moment. |
2 | Something that results in a lasting inconvenience or injury or some minor advantage. Sprains, bad cases of the flu (or other annoying, but not life threatening, diseases), breaking something difficult to replace and committing some major faux pas are all possible curses, while blessings might convey some minor advantage in battle, render the target immune to some sickness or misfortune or prevent some difficulty that might hinder her path. |
3 | A serious, but not normally life-threatening injury or illness, or some permanent social setback. This kind of curse should be a major setback for the short-term goals of the target. As a blessing, this level conveys some major advantage. An additional die in combat dice pools, continuing minor luck with dice (or women) or the good fortune to always get the person at the DMV who actually wants to help (and always getting there when there aren't many people in line) are all possible effects. |
4 | A permanent, debilitating injury or illness, or a major turn of events socially or financially. Bankruptcy, spinal injuries, psychosis, bl10dness, an accountant taking off for Barbados with all of your savings and indictment on tax evasion are all possibilities. Blessings of this magnitude include things Like winning the lottery, excellence in battle in some critical fight or overcoming incredible odds against some major social endeavors. |
5 | Normally, a death curse (and usually not a pleasant death; decapitation, wasting diseases, mangling car accidents and worse), although some incredible tum of events might fulfill a curse of this magnitude. Blessings at this level of power involve cheating some inescapable death or misfortune: a last minute reprieve from the governor, landing in the only pond deep enough to cushion your fall after a parachute failure or being saved by the Queen's Gurkha Rifles just as the cultists start to lower you into the boiling lava are all possibilities. |
6 | If there is a fate worse than death or a way to cheat death forever, it would take a curse or blessing of this power to do it. |
The severity of a Fortune effect depends in large part on what the sorcerer wants to do, but the specifics of the effect are never completely under the control of the sorcerer; the caster can suggest, but in the end, every curse or blessing takes its own way.
[ 1 - 6 ] Fortune Rituals ( XXX - Page X )
[ 1 ] Death Curse ( XXX - Page X )
A magician skilled in the Path of Fortune may invoke a Death's Curse. The magician spends all of her permanent Willpower, adds it to her dots and then spends them as she likes in a final curse (or blessing, although this is much less common), just as if they were automatic successes. For the purposes of this spell alone, the magician can buy aspects two dots higher than they would normally have access to; while a lesser magician might only be able to inconvenience a single person, a powerful one could lay waste to an entire family or wither an entire small town! Once this effect is cast, the character then falters and quickly dies, burned out by her rage or taken by her weal.
[ 1 ] Targeted Blessing ( XXX - Page X )
Normally, a sorcerer using the Fortune path has little say over what advantages they get past the general use of a blessing in the right context, but this ritual allows the sorcerer a little bit of control. Using the same duration chart as normal for the path, the sorcerer instead gains a -1 difficulty break on a named task, due to the threads of fate working for them. This costs a willpower.
[ 2 ] Lucky Coin ( XXX - Page X )
With this ritual, the caster can store a Fortune effect on an object, with no aspects needed for the target's definition, and then the next person other than the caster himself who touches it is affected by the spell. Some benevolent sorcerers use this to leave 'lucky pennies' around for people to help brighten their days a bit. Tricksters might instead leave curses on random objects for their own amusement.
[ 3 ] Fortune's Protection ( XXX - Page X )
With this ritual, the sorcerer weaves protective threads of fate around himself or another individual, using the usual aspects for duration and target. Instead of severity, however, the sorcerer applies successes to a pool of 'protection'. Every time the protected individual would take damage within the duration, 1 success is removed from the pool per point, and if it runs out, the spell ends. The way this damage is avoided should always appear as great strokes of luck; the sword point hits the one piece of metal the sorcerer is wearing, for instance.