Wife of Zeus, Hera is the Goddess of motherhood and partnership, famed as perpetually loyal and faithful to her husband despite his infidelities. Dark-haired with gray streaking her temples and possessing a matronly figure, Hera is regal in a way that few Greek Gods are. Make her angry, and she’ll ruin your day—possibly your epoch.
Devotion Attributes: Charisma, Manipulation, Wits
Devotion Abilities: Empathy, Etiquette, Hearth Wisdom, Leadership, Politics, Seneschal
Devotion Basic Blessings: Find The Child Within, Guilt Apparitions, True Bond
Find the Child Within
With this Blessing, the Chosen can play upon an individual's instinctive response to parental authority or affection and convince that person to follow a command or respond favorably to a suggestion that they might otherwise rebuff.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Charisma + Leadership vs. Composure + Willpower
System:
The target of this Blessing cannot already be engaged in battle.
Spend a standard action and 1 Gnosis to make an opposed challenge against your target. If successful, you are able to issue a command to the target that they must act upon for five minutes (such as "Don't leave without me" or "Let me take you somewhere safe"); the suggestion must be one that a young child would find reasonable. This enables the Chosen to convince their victim to do something they might not otherwise be inclined to do, such as coercing a Get Ahroun to back down from a fight they would certainly lose.
Exceptional Success:
The duration extends to 30 minutes instead of the usual five.
Guilt Apparitions
When a Chosen knows that someone is guilty of an injustice but they lack either the evidence to prove it or the leverage to make them admit it, they can rely on this Blessing instead.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Manipulation + Empathy vs. Composure + Willpower
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and a Standard action accusing the guilty party of the injustice (be it in person, in a letter, or some other medium), and make an opposed challenge of your Manipulation + Empathy against the target's Composure + Willpower. If the test succeeds, the accusation causes the victim to periodically hallucinate manifestations of their guilt (like Macbeth or his wife). These hallucinations occur randomly at Storyteller discretion, torturing the guilty party with the knowledge that justice hasn’t been served. They also render them unable to regain Willpower. The effect lasts for a number of days equal to the Chosen's Empathy, until the offender makes fair amends, or until the offender confesses their crime to someone who can force them to make fair amends— whichever occurs first.
Exceptional Success:
While this Blessing remains active, the target receives a -2 penalty on all non-defensive tests.
True Bond
The Chosen of Hera are the embodiment of devotion and faithfulness. This Blessing is the manifestation of that devotion towards another.
Cost: None
Test Pool: None
System:
Once learned, this Blessing is always active. When this Blessing is learned, choose another individual -- NPC or PC. (The player of the PC must consent to being chosen as well.) Your bond with that individual manifests its strength in a variety of ways.
First, the Chosen gains three additional points of Willpower that they may use to spend on actions related to defending or protecting this loved one. This also applies to actions taken preemptively to prevent clear threats to their charge, and to acts of retribution against an offender if their loved ones are hurt. These bonus Willpower points do not count towards the character’s normal Willpower points, and replenish each game session.
Second, this bond is a deeper, truly trusting relationship that cannot be breached. Unless your character does something egregious to cause it, their True Bond will not betray them. Additionally, the Storyteller cannot kill their True Bond as part of a plot without your express permission. Any tests to influence a True Bond against your character suffer a -5 penalty. In addition, once per game session, your character can regain one spent Willpower by having a meaningful interaction with her True Bond.
If the individual chosen in a True Bond is a PC, this Blessing works as normal save that the PC is not fully immune to storyteller influence or ‘harm’ from plot.
Devotion Intermediate Blessings: Dream Wrack, Mother's Fury, Weight of Words
Dream Wrack
The Chosen gains the ability to plague a victim with torturous dreams of a recent crime and its aftermath.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Intelligence + Empathy vs. Resolve + Willpower
System:
The Chosen stares into their target’s eyes for a Standard action, then spends 1 Gnosis and makes an opposed challenge. If successful, the Chosen names the victim, names the crime, and says something to the effect of, “Now see how you like it”—except more dramatically eloquent than that. When the perpetrator next sleeps, they dream of the wrongdoing the Chosen named and suffer through exactly what the victim of that crime suffered through, experiencing everything from the victim’s perspective. The Chosen who uses this Blessing must know the gist of the events of the crime as well as the crime’s aftermath, but they don’t have to know all the details. The victim of the Blessing will fill in any details they know, even if the Chosen doesn’t know them, and their subconscious will color in the blank spots neither of them know with information from their ugliest imaginings.
Each day they wake, the target’s Willpower pool is completely empty, for a full Lunar Cycle. Each night, they dream of the crime again, unable to wake and unable to escape. The Chosen can use this power on anyone they want, regardless of whether they actually have any connection to the crime. The only restriction is that the Chosen must know who the victim is, they must know the basic circumstances of the crime, and they must have some understanding of the crime’s aftermath. Beyond that, they can afflict anyone they choose with the awful dreams. On the upside, the Chosen cannot affect the same character with this Blessing again until the duration of the first effect wears off.
Exceptional Success:
The target also loses half their Gnosis when they wake every morning.
Mother's Fury
Like a mother wolf defending her cubs, you possess a zealousness to defend life in all its forms. Empowering your passion with spiritual essence, you become an unstoppable protector, allowing you to interrupt threats with supernatural speed, defending your charges with your own flesh.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Expend 1 point of Gnosis to gain a bonus simple action for the remainder of the turn. This simple action can only be used to attempt the Assist Defender mass combat tactic. In addition, you may move up to nine steps to reach the target you wish to defend, instead of the standard three steps. You must be able to reach your target and successfully offer your defense within these nine steps in order to use Mother's Fury; the power does not grant additional steps to be used solely for movement.
Whenever you successfully defend another character while using this Blessing, and the attack fails, you may opt to make an immediate Physical attack against the attacker, provided they are within range. This counterattack does not cost you an action to attempt. This counterattack does not trigger another counterattack.
Weight of Words
The Chosen knows the value of a promise made, and can sense when it is broken. They watch their target, and the red haze of lingering betrayal around them.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Wits + Empathy vs. Resolve + Willpower
System:
The Chosen spends a simple action looking at their target and spends 1 Gnosis to make an opposed challenge against their target. On a success, they sense the most serious promise the target has broken for which they have not yet atoned, whether they broke an actual oath or just didn’t go to work when they told someone they would. Next, the character can also glean all details of the broken oath. For example, they learn not just that the target broke their wedding vows, but that they cheated on their spouse with a brunette because they feel lonely when their spouse works long nights. Finally, the Chosen may also make the details of the target’s broken promise obvious to anyone watching, publicizing their shame. The target takes a -3 penalty on all Social tests (mundane or supernatural) until they publicly atone for their broken promise.
Exceptional Success:
The Chosen senses all broken vows for which their target has not yet atoned and can shame them for any number of them. If the target is being shamed for multiple broken promises, they will suffer the -3 penalty until they make amends for all of the promises, but the penalty does not stack.
Devotion Advanced Blessings: Entwined Hearts, Motherly Intervention, Sympathy Pains
Entwined Hearts
So tightly bound are the Chosen and their partner that they are almost one being.
Cost: None
Test Pool: None
System:
Once learned, this Blessing is always active. When this Blessing is learned, choose another individual -- NPC or PC. (The player of the PC must consent to being chosen as well.) Your bond with that individual manifests its strength in a variety of ways. If True Bond was already selected as a Blessing, this Blessing automatically chooses that individual to bond to.
For the Chosen and the bonded individual, they no longer have health tracks of their own. Instead they share a joint health track of each of their individual health tracks plus a number of additional health levels equal to the Champion's Empathy Rating. When this joint wound track fills up, both parties suffer their appropriate wound penalties and if it runs out of health levels, they both die. Rage heals will send both members of the bond into a frenzy, and each will gain an appropriate battle scar. These are often mirrored on each of them.
In addition, each member of the bonded pair may spend Rage, Gnosis, or Willpower for the other. They may not go over their usual spending caps. When they regain Rage, Gnosis, or Willpower, they may choose whether they regain it themselves or they may give it to their partner.
This blessing functions regardless of distance or separation of realms.
Motherly Intervention
This Blessing allows the Chosen to sacrifice of themselves to save another. This Blessing is often used to preventing the subject of the Blessing from encountering a situation that will result in their certain death. While this Blessing does not guarantee that they will not be harmed, it does allow the Chosen to attempt to divert disaster or improve an individual's lot.
Cost: 3 Gnosis and 2 Levels of Aggravated Damage
Test Pool: None
System:
The player spends a standard action and three points of Gnosis. They then take two levels of aggravated damage that cannot be negated or healed in any way for 24 hours.
The player should explain to the storyteller which element of the future from which they wish to save the subject of this Blessing. (For example, "I want my packmate to survive the coming battle against the fomori horde.") If possible, the Storyteller will arrange events so that the change takes place exactly as stated. This Blessing only affects events that will transpire within the 24 hours immediately following activation of this Blessing; furthermore, characters cannot ensure the death or destruction of their foes with this power. Only pleas for preservation meet with Hera's approval.
Sympathy Pains
When the Chosen is in the middle of a confrontation that they want to see ended with as little bloodshed as possible, they call out and do whatever they must to get everyone’s attention.
Cost: 2 Gnosis
Test Pool: Charisma + Empathy vs. the highest Composure + Willpower of those targeted.
System:
Spend 2 Gnosis and a standard action shouting a warning, then making an opposed challenge with the highest Willpower of those being affected.
If the test succeeds, the Chosen ties together the physical health of a number of individuals up to their Empathy rating plus one. While this power is active, if one person in the group suffers any wound penalties or damage, everyone included in the effect suffers the same wound penalties and damage.
This effect lasts for the rest of the scene or until the Chosen spends a simple action to end it. This mirrored damage cuts through soak and armor and any defensive abilities a connected party might have.
Targets affected by this Blessing have a chance to pull themselves out of the connection when they would die. Doing so requires a successful Stamina + Survival test contested by the Chosen's Charisma + Empathy at the moment they would die. If that test is successful, the victim does not die. They simply collapse unconscious with only one health box left empty and are no longer under the effects of this Blessing.
Exceptional Success:
Targets other than you who attempt the opposed challenge to escape death suffer a -2 penalty on their Stamina + Survival test.