Lord of the forge and all manufactured things, Hephaestus is a mountain of a man, bearded and barrel chested. He is capable of creating automatons sophisticated enough to imitate human beings, weapons capable of bringing down Titans and Gods, palaces to surpass the greatest of those of the World’s kings, and tools that can refashion the universe.
All things that depend on mechanical or artificial design are within his purview, and he can effect startling changes in all of them. His two great disadvantages are his crippled legs, which prevent him from moving easily from place to place. He’s also become reliant on his workroom of tools and equipment, which were crafted from his own power and strength as a God. Without them, he is rarely as capable of moving mountains as some would like him to be.
Devotion Attributes: Stamina, Intelligence, Resolve
Devotion Abilities: Academics, Crafts, Melee, Occult, Seneschal
Devotion Basic Blessings: Blissful Ignorance, Hand of Flame, Need No Tools
Blissful Ignorance
The champion hides the subject’s presence, causing onlookers to ignore them.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Special, see below
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and a Standard Action to activate Blissful Ignorance. For the rest of the scene, whenever people look in their direction, they want to avert their eyes, or barely notice them. People cannot remember seeing her when they are no longer looking her way. Beings using supernatural abilities to concentrate on her, must make a test of their Wits + Alertness versus the champion's Intelligence + Subterfuge.
This Blessing can also be activated at the end of the scene to remove specific memories of the champion from target's minds. When this Blessing is used in this way, make an opposed challenge of your Intelligence + Subterfuge against the target's Resolve + Willpower. If successful, the target still remembers what happened, but only remembers you as a vague and shadowy figure, with no identifying characteristics.
Hand of Flame
Champions of Hephaestus learn to summon forth a shimmering, dancing flame over their hand (or hands). This fire projects a bright light and provides you with a terrifying weapon against others.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and use your simple action to conjure forth a mystical fire that encases your hand (or hands). Hand of Flame casts light and allows you to strike with your hand to burn your opponents, causing aggravated damage in any form.
Once cast, the Hand of Flame remains until you expend a simple action to snuff it out. You suffer no damage or inconvenience from the Hand of Flame; indeed, you can even wear gloves or other clothing, which remain unaffected by the fire. However, should you cause something else to catch fire, those secondary flames can hurt you.
Additionally, you are highly trained to be more efficient when fighting with flame in hand-to-hand combat. When using Hand of Flame in combat, you receive a +1 bonus to your Brawl attack test pool.
Need No Tools
A Champion of Hephaestus who knows this Blessing can work directly with their chosen materials, shaping it with hand, breath, and voice. Without the need for tools or a workshop, the chosen can start basic and major crafting projects as soon as they have the proper materials and can complete such works with blazing speed.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and a Standard Action to use Need No Tools. When you use this Blessing, you must declare what you are crafting. You do not require tools or equipment in order to craft what you are building. The Gnosis spent is woven into whatever equipment you might need to accomplish your goal. If you do happen to have tools on hand, you gain a +2 bonus to that craft.
Your character also completes tasks with a casual disregard for time. Reduce the time needed for any crafting test they make by half. The character may spend a Gnosis to halve the time again, working at four times their normal speed for that test. Additional Gnosis may be spent on a 1-for-1 basis up to a maximum of the character's Crafts rating, with each additional Gnosis halving the time needed again.
Devotion Intermediate Blessings: Banish Totem, Flame Bolt, Hidden Reality
Banish Totem
Outcasts are used to having to fight without any support. Your Devotion has granted you an ability to force others to fight without their patron spirits—be they pack totems, fetish spirits, or ancestor spirits. You can mute the mystical link that grants totem blessings, sever attunements to fetishes, and silence ancestor spirits. You can’t block the connection forever, but you can halt it for a time, giving you an edge against your foe.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Intelligence + Subterfuge vs. Resolve + Willpower
System:
Spend 1 point of Gnosis and a standard action gesturing towards your target. If you succeed in an opposed challenge, you learn the identity and number of all of the patron spirits connected to your target, including her pack totem, fetish spirits, and particular ancestor spirits. You may then spend 1 additional point of Gnosis to disrupt your target’s attunement to one of those patron spirits for 15 minutes.
For the duration of this power, the target loses access to the benefits granted by that patron spirit, such as bonuses granted by a totem spirit, help from an ancestor spirit, or the ability to activate a fetish’s qualities, as though the fetish is not attuned to the target. Fetishes that are already activated remain active. Rend the Patron Spirit may be used multiple times against a target to sever the link to different patron spirits.
This Blessing does not sever a character's Devotion to their deity.
Exceptional Success:
Scoring an exceptional success allows you to remove all of the benefits granted to the target from up to three different patron spirits.
Pillar of Flame
With a gesture, you can summon a mighty pillar of intense flames at a location or target of your choosing.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Intelligence + Occult vs. Dexterity + Dodge
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and use your standard action to conjure forth a pillar of flame that is approximately six feet in diameter, and of equal height. You must place this Pillar of Fire within 20 steps of your location. Anyone but you who stands within or passes through this diameter takes 2 points of aggravated damage. You are immune to the damage from your Pillar of Fire, but should you cause something else to catch fire, those secondary flames can hurt you.
If directed at a victim, the fire shoots up underneath the subject. You must best your target in an opposed challenge using your Intelligence + Occult versus the target’s Dexterity + Dodge. If you succeed, your target takes 2 points of aggravated damage, otherwise she dodges out of the way before the pillar is fully formed.
Pillar of Fire causes damage to characters in its area of effect at the end of their turn on the everyman round. If a target remains within the Pillar of Fire for more than one turn, they continue to take its damage at the end of their everyman initiative until they leave its area of effect. Damage from Pillar of Fire doesn’t stack with itself or with other area-effect powers. If you have more than one such power affecting the same area, only the highest damage effect applies.
The column of fire remains for five minutes, until you decide to extinguish it by expending a simple action, fall unconscious, or die.
Exceptional Success:
Your Pillar of Flame does an additional point of aggravated damage to its primary target when it first appears, for a total of 3 aggravated damage.
Hidden Reality
The champion is the master of the unseen, shaping the hidden elements of her surroundings.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and a Standard Action. The character imagines the world not as it is, but how it might be, and chooses one of the differences to become reality. They may alter a feature of their surroundings, as long as it could have always been this way. For example, they can create a hidden latch on a box, or a door on a wall, as long as no one else has seen that it wasn’t there yet during this scene. The change must be minor in scope and part of an existing object, which must be lifeless — they can’t grow a new branch on a tree — though it may be of any size. Changes vanish at the end of the scene, or when no one pays attention to them, whichever comes first.
The character may pay an additional point of Gnosis to create whole new objects that could reasonably be found in the area, like a set of keys on a nearby table.
Devotion Advanced Blessings: Pariah, Ride The Flame, Tatterdemalion's Workshop
Pariah
Used to being alone, the chosen curses the target to feel as they are: isolated and self-reliant.
Cost: 2 Gnosis
Test Pool: Intelligence + Subterfuge vs. Resolve + Willpower
System:
Spend 2 points of Gnosis and use your standard action to howl in fury at your target. If you succeed in an opposed challenge against them, your target is condemned by the weight of your curse. They cannot benefit from the Allies, Ancestors, Contacts, Fame, Kinfolk, or Spirit Pact backgrounds. Even the inanimate refuse to support or protect the target. They cannot benefit from the Hardened, Ballistic, Full Body, or Rugged equipment qualities for the duration of this Blessing.
This Blessing lasts for one hour by default. However, for those you wish to truly ostracize, you may choose to enact a longer lasting curse. To enact this longer punishment, you must lay your hands on the target for three consecutive standard actions as you curse them. If you succeed in an opposed challenge against them, your Pariah persists for 30 days. In this case, the target also loses 1 of their downtimes, due to having to spend more of their time doing the tasks they normally assigned to others.
Exceptional Success:
In addition, the target becomes especially undesired in social situations, suffering a -3 penalty on all non-defensive Social tests.
Ride the Flame
By invoking the power of the Forge's Flame, the Champion does not merely command the fire, they are the fire, transforming their physical body into flame and directing it by the power of their will.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and a Standard action. The Champion has two options when employing this Blessing: They can either join their essence with an existing blaze or become a pillar of fire by converting their available Gnosis. In either case, the champion's body literally transforms into flame, consuming any non-attuned clothing and possessions they are carrying.
Once transformed, the champion is a formless mass that shifts size and shape according to their will. While in this form, you cannot activate non-flame based powers and are also immune to Physical attacks from sources other than magic and other non-Physical attacks. The fire of the champion's body is unaffected by water or wind, as it is fueled by Gnosis instead of a mere chemical reaction.
While in this state, you use your character's Mental attributes in place of their Physical attributes. They may effectively travel anywhere air can go -- under doors, through crevices. If they lash out at an opponent in combat, they deal one additional level of damage and it is aggravated. If someone attacks you in close combat or at the end of any turn someone is touching your character they take 2 points of aggravated damage. This includes anyone she has grappled; the Grapple does not cause damage itself, however.
The champion may spend Gnosis to expand the size of their flame, potentially dealing damage to multiple opponents. At the beginning of every turn, you may spend 1 Gnosis to expands the area of your character's blaze by one step in all directions.
Ride The Flame is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers.
Tatterdemalion's Workshop
The champion can create an object with the unlikeliest of materials, using forgotten scraps and chicanery to build dreams.
Cost: Variable.
1 for a tool sized object, 2 for an armor sized object, 3 for a ballista sized object, 4 for anything the size of a house or larger.
Test Pool: Intelligence + Crafts vs. Static Difficulty (3 + Resource Rating).
System:
The champion spends the required Gnosis and makes a challenge against a static difficulty equal to three plus the resource rating of whatever item they are creating. If successful, they can craft any object up to any size without the need for proper components. They don't require parts that would plausibly fit or work together to make the item, as the Gnosis pulls and stretches objects into shape. The crafting process should look vaguely possible to the layman like creating a ballista out of a single log and a rope. The device functions as well as its normal version would. Crafting the object takes as long as creating a normal object of that type would take, but can be sped up through uses of other Blessings.