Hades is the dour God of death and the Underworld. Joy claims him every six months when Persephone comes to his realm. Although she is a springtime Goddess, Hades found her to be as devious as he, and discovered love rarely granted to Gods of doom and gloom. But Persephone’s mother ripped his fair bride from him and contrived to keep her away from Hades for half of every year.
Devotion Attributes: Charisma, Manipulation, Wits
Devotion Abilities: Academics, Commerce, Leadership, Occult, Subterfuge
Devotion Basic Blessings: Riches Untold, Safely Interred, Witness of Death
Riches Untold
Hades is the god of wealth and coin since all such valuable things come from beneath the earth. So too do his Chosen share in a part of those endless riches.
Cost: None
Test Pool: None
System:
Once purchased, this power is always active. Your Resource Rating is increased by 1/2 of your Commerce rating, rounded up. In addition, you always travel with access to your full resources rating.
Lastly, you know the power of coin and how easily it can sway minds. At the Beginning of each Game Session, you may choose up to your Commerce Rating in additional points of influences to receive. They may be all in one single influence, or split up between several different types.
Safely Interred
Whether the champion is caught up in a landslide, buried in a shallow grave by the roadside or trapped in the rubble of a collapsing building, he need not fear the earth’s embrace.
Cost: None
Test Pool: None
System:
Once purchased, this power is always active. No amount of collapsing rubble can break the champion's bones, and he won’t suffocate no matter how much dirt piles onto him. If he lacks the strength to free himself, however, he does run the risk of either starving to death or dying of thirst if no one digs him out. Yet, it would not be the earth that kills him, but his own lack of fortitude.
The champion gets a +1 bonus to all tests while underground and unable to see the sky.
Witness of Death
The first trick to learn when dealing with ghosts is the ability to sense and interact with these spirits. By learning this ability, the Chosen can discover and communicate with nearby wraiths.
Cost: None
Test Pool: None
System:
Once purchased, this power is always active. You can see, hear, and talk to wraiths, communicating with them whether or not there is a common language. Note that, unlike the Medium merit, you can only see the ghost itself, not the wraithly surroundings of the Underworld.
You also recognize and identify wraith powers, spells, and visible effects of Necromancy, as well as necromantically enchanted items and wraith fetters. You have no ability to see invisible uses of magic, only to recognize magic that clings to those things you can perceive. You cannot identify powers or spells you do not possess, but you do recognize such things as necromantic in origin.
You can also target a true corpse within line of sight and expend your simple action. You instantly know the manner of that creature’s death, as well as when the death occurred and whether the corpse has been moved or otherwise altered. Further, by spending a standard action in concentration, you can sense the presence of corpses within 100 yards and discover their locations.
Devotion Intermediate Blessings: Bond with the Earth, Pass a Coin, Summon Shade
Bond With the Earth
You have an innate understanding of earth, stone, and metal, and can shape and mold even the hardest natural substances as easily as you would a handful of clay.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and expend a standard action. By physically grasping a portion of stone, stone-like materials (such as hewn marble, brick, or other masonry), metal, and metallic alloys, you can twist or shape it as though it were soft and malleable. By using this power, you can even shape a safe haven for yourself within such material, sealing any gaps behind you after you crawl inside. You can create corridors or openings and pass through them, leaving no trace of such travel behind. A character using Bond With the Earth can shape three cubic feet of stone with one standard action, and can move through such material in this manner at one step per round.
Those wishing to notice or locate a champion who is using Bond With the Earth to shelter inside a wall or other material must succeed in a challenge, using their Wits + Investigation versus the champion's Dexterity + Stealth. When a character using Wolf Senses comes within two steps of a person hidden by Bond With the Earth, the character with Wolf Senses automatically realizes that someone is nearby, although she does not know who, or precisely where, to find that someone. A character who has been forewarned by Wolf Senses in this manner receives a +3 bonus to her challenge to notice and locate the champion.
Pass A Coin
By inscribing a mark over the eye on a coin, the Chosen can send out pleasing trifles to spy on others.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and use a simple action to mark the eyes of a coin, infusing it with your power. For the next 30 days, you may spend a simple action to shift your perceptions to that location. You cannot perceive your physical body's surroundings while doing so. You are able to perceive the area centered on the coin, able to observe everything in an area that is 10 steps in every direction. You may have a number of coins enchanted this way equal to your Commerce rating.
Suspicious parties examining the coin with Wolf Senses notice a bizarre aura surrounding the coin, if you are actively surveilling when they examine it. Should the coin's eyes be destroyed, you lost the ability to shift your perceptions to it.
When enchanting a coin, you may whisper a person's name to it then give it to someone else. Within a number of hours equal to 7-Commerce (minimum 1 hour), it will find its way into their possession. It may not stay in their possession for long, as those with no coin to their name tend to spend what they have quick, but you can be assured that it will enter their possession for some period of time.
Summon Shade
By reaching into the Underworld, you can summon a ghost and force it to obey your will. You call upon the closest spirit to your location, and, unless you know the true name of a specific wraith, have no control over what kind of individual will respond. However, the wraith is forcibly made loyal and must do its best to obey your demands — or suffer soul-wracking pain.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and use your standard action to summon a wraith. Wraiths are invisible to individuals who do not have the Medium merit, Witness of Death, or other such powers. Summon Shade can be used to summon a specific wraith, provided you know the name that entity had in life. Alternately, you can summon the closest uncontrolled wraith. Normally, the wraith arrives over the course of the next five minutes, so long as she is capable of reaching your location. Wraiths can pass through walls, but cannot fly, nor cross barriers enchanted against their passage.
Summoned wraiths attempt to obey your requests and follow your orders until dawn or until they enough damage to incapacitate them. Multiple uses of Summon Shade do not allow you to summon an additional wraith while still controlling the first; if you use Summon Shade, any wraith you are controlling with Summon Shade is released in favor of the new summoning. However, if your original wraith is released (by taking damage, fleeing, or if you send her away), you can utilize this power again to summon a second wraith. Further, Summon Shade cannot be used to control wraiths that are currently under the effect of another person's control.
Wraiths summoned by this power cannot perform downtime actions, but they can act with relative independence.
Devotion Advanced Blessings: Aspect of Death
Aspect of Death
In the Underworld dwells Hades, King of the Underworld. There he holds the souls of the dead; any who would return to the living must first escape his realm. You have the power to call upon his aid, joining with one of his spirits to assume a portion of his power. Should you desire, you may command the spirit to lead you to the Underworld to attempt to free a captive soul.
Cost: 2 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Spend 2 point of Gnosis and expend your simple action to call upon a shade servant of Hades. The shade immediately appears and joins with you, imparting a portion of his power. You manifest a dark and horrifying countenance as your fur or hair turns jet black and your eyes glow a dull red. For the next hour, you gain a +4 wild card bonus to your Intimidation, Medicine, and Occult skills, and your regeneration rate doubles.
Additionally, you may command the servant to direct you to the Underworld, Hades’ realm, where you may challenge him to release one of the souls of the departed. Travelling there requires a quest of epic proportions through the Dark Umbra. Once you have arrived, you must bargain with Hades in order to coerce him to release the soul. Should you succeed, he will allow you to return with a single individual of your choice, bringing them back from the dead. Whether you succeed or fail, you cannot attempt to retrieve the same individual again, nor can any other. You can only visit the realm of Hades once per year.
Earth Mastery
By using this power, the champion is no longer constrained to merely travel upon the ground. Once melded with the soil, she can move through the earth, changing her location as easily as walking down a windy street.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and use your simple action to sink into the ground. You must be touching the earth (clay, soil, or any other soft-consistency ground) in order to use Earth Mastery. While joined with the earth, the champion exists in a semisolid form and cannot take actions or use any powers.
While this Blessing is active, you can move underground at normal speeds. You cannot pass through any substance with which you cannot meld, such as rock, water, concrete, or a thick tangle of roots, but you can physically interact with and even attack anything you find underground — including other individuals using Earth Mastery. Characters using Earth Mastery can perceive their surroundings within 10 steps of their location as though they were standing above the ground. If a character is asleep while entombed within the earth, they will awaken as soon as someone begins to disturb the soil of their resting place, although waking up is not automatic and requires all normal tests.
You cannot dig or otherwise physically force an individual using Earth Mastery to leave the shelter of the ground, unless you have some method of determining her current location.
You can also spend a 1 Gnosis and a standard action to attack someone on the surface you are under by causing spikes of rock to launch up out of the ground, seeking to impale them. Make either a Dexterity + Brawl or Dexterity + Melee opposed test against the victim's Dexterity + Dodge. If successful, the target is impaled, taking 3 Aggravated damage.
Precious Hide
Using this technique, you can assume the form of a metal, gaining a special measure of protection.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Expend 1 point of Gnosis and use three standard actions to channel the energy of the earth into you. Once you have done so, choose one of the metals listed below. For the next hour, your skin takes on an appearance similar to the metal chosen, and you gain the Strange Composition equipment quality for the material you chose. Each type of metal also confers a benefit while active, according to the following list:
- Copper: This metal embodies grace and beauty. It is a reflective metal and was used to fashion the earliest mirrors. You receive a +2 wild card bonus when defending against emotion-influencing powers. In addition, as long as you have the Gaze and Focus of a character, all other characters within three steps who are able can see you are considered to have that character’s Gaze and Focus.
- Gold: Gold represents the Sun and purity of spirit. When you inflict damage against shapeshifters vulnerable to gold, your damage is aggravated. If a shapeshifter who is inherently vulnerable to gold targets you with a supernatural power that costs Gnosis, that character must spend 1 additional point of Gnosis to target you, or that power fails. In addition, you don’t have to spend Gnosis when activating your own emotion-influencing powers.
- Iron: Iron embodies aggressive energy. You receive a +2 wild card bonus when defending against Rage-affecting powers. Once per turn, when you receive a Physical attack that scored an exceptional success, you may reduce that attack to a normal success. When you inflict damage against fae vulnerable to cold iron, your damage is aggravated.
- Lead: Lead represents redemption and transformation. You become immune to the Knock Down combat maneuver and the Knockback equipment quality, and you may spend a simple action to increase your weight up to four times your normal weight for one minute. In addition, you receive a +2 wild card bonus when defending against perception-altering powers.
- Quicksilver: Also known as mercury, this metal is fluid and ever changing. You gain the Fast equipment quality, and if you spend both your simple and standard actions on movement, you may take three additional steps. For example, a character who normally takes three steps per action used for movement could move a total of nine steps while using this benefit.
- Silver: Silver represents the Moon and clarity. You gain the Silver equipment quality. When you inflict damage against shapeshifters vulnerable to silver, your damage is aggravated. If a shapeshifter who is inherently vulnerable to silver targets you with a supernatural power that costs gnosis, that character must spend 1 additional point of gnosis to target you, or that power fails. In addition, you don’t have to spend Gnosis when activating your own perception-enhancing powers.
- Tin: This metal carries the energy of sovereignty. You gain a +2 wild card bonus when defending against any powers of compulsion (such as Mastery). You also take 1 fewer point of damage from electrical or lightning sources. Apply the damage-reduction benefit of this power prior to calculating damage reduction from other powers.