Demeter, the middle daughter of Cronus and Rhea, is the goddess of nature, harvests, and agriculture, one of the Twelve Olympians. Her grief over her daughter Persephone – who has to spend one-half of the year with her husband Hades in the Underworld – is the reason why there is winter; her joy when she gets her back coincides with the fertile spring and summer months.
Devotion Attributes: Stamina, Intelligence, Wits
Devotion Abilities: Hearth Wisdom, Herbalism, Medicine, Survival, Theology
Devotion Basic Blessings: Enfoliate, The Leaves' Colors, Sacred Grove
Enfoliate
The miracle of spring is frequent subject in mythology, as early cultures attributed the fecundity around them as the province of the divine. You have the power to channel the energy of the seasons, imbuing the plants around you with vitality and life.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Special, See below
System:
Expend a point of Gnosis and a standard action to cause vines and roots to manifest and ensnare a target. If you succeed in an opposed challenge, your target becomes Grappled. Unlike a standard application of Grapple, you can move and act as normal without ending the effects. If an individual grappled by this power attempts to escape, she must succeed in a static challenge using her Strength or Dexterity + Brawl or Melee skill (if appropriately armed) versus your Mental attribute + Survival skill. You may not retest the result using Willpower.
As an alternative, you may use this power to cause plants and trees to grow rapidly. Any seeds or small plants in an acre of land will grow, flower, and bloom to full maturity by the end of the current turn. Any crops will be ready to harvest. If you target a tree, sapling, acorn or seed with this power, you may target up to ten of them at once and choose to cause it to grow to its full height. You may also use this power to restore 2 health levels to a damaged plant.
Exceptional Success:
Your target receives a -3 wild card penalty to escape your grapple.
The Leaves' Color
As the seasons change, the colors of nature shift to reflect the passage of time.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
You may spend your simple action touching a subject you wish to affect. If they are unwilling, this will require a successful test of your Dexterity + Brawl against their Dexterity + Dodge. If successful, you can change any of the colors of any part of them to any other colors of your choice. These colors remain changed until the end of the scene or one hour, whichever comes first. If used in this fashion, this can provide either a +3 bonus or a -3 penalty on Stealth tests involving camouflage, depending on whether you wish for the target to blend in or stand out in some way. There are several other creative uses of this Blessing that may give variable wild card bonuses to challenges, at Storyteller discretion.
Sacred Grove
Enchanted fruit is a common theme in mythology. The Greek gods once squabbled over a golden apple, and a pomegranate bound Persephone to Hades. You have the power to create a sacred space where magical plants can grow, producing a wide variety of effects.
Cost: Special, See Below
Test Pool: Special, See Below
System:
This power grants you the ability cultivate plants and fungi with exceptional properties. You may grow any sort of flower or produce you choose; citrus fruit, berries, vegetables, nuts, and mushrooms are among the valid options. You are also able to choose their coloration and make slight alterations to taste.
To use this power, you must first create your sacred grove. Doing so requires one downtime and access to a plot of land that will remain relatively undisturbed. In urban situations, the exclusive use of a rooftop garden or a backyard will suffice. These locations are known to draw attention from curious parties and the occasional pesky hero, and are typically kept secret.
Once you have done so, once per game session, you may spend 1 Gnosis while within your grove to activate this power. If you do, you may create 1 unit of produce or flowers at a time of any type.
If you spend one downtime tending your grove between sessions, you may also create and come into game with a number of bonus units equal to your dots of Survival or Herbalism. These items may be of the same type or of a different type. Your grove can bestow one of the following effects:
- Aesthetic: The specimen you create is especially beautiful or otherwise captivating to the senses. It may have a special appearance, taste, and/or or fragrance which you may choose. You may create 6 of these items per unit.
- Bountiful: You are able to cultivate edible foods in a substantial volume. Each unit created creates a week’s worth of food for a family of four. Additionally, these foods are resistant to decay, and will keep naturally for 1 additional week.
- Gnosis: This item is especially beautiful and captivating, and has a touch of magic in it. You may consume this item as if it were Gnosis. You may create 1 item per unit.
- Hallucinogenic: Ingesting this item can cause potent hallucinations. Each unit created has 3 doses.
- Knock Out: Ingesting this item can cause a temporary loss of consciousness. Each unit created has 3 doses.
- Restorative: Ingesting this item cures 1 point of damage, starting with the most severe. Each unit created has 1 dose.
- Toxin: This item is poisonous to the anatomy, and harmful when ingested. Each unit created has 3 doses.
You will always recognize your own creations and what effects they convey. Others may attempt to discern the properties of your creations by succeeding in a static challenge using their Wits + Survival/Herbalism versus your Intelligence + Survival/Herbalism.
Devotion Intermediate Blessings: Become The Green Man, Cloak of Leaves, Withering
Become the Green Man
The Muses sing of the story of Antaeus, the half-giant wrestler who could not be defeated so long as he remained in contact with his mother, the earth. A legend among the Ancient Greeks, he built a temple to his father from the skulls of his defeated foes before his eventual loss to Hercules. Like the legendary wrestler, you have the ability to assume a powerful form that draws its strength from the ground below.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Special, See below
System:
Expend 1 point of Gnosis and a simple action to channel the power of nature. Your form takes on a more vegetative countenance, as your skin produces a covering of bark and your limbs elongate as you grow in stature. Your unarmed and melee attacks gain the Reach quality, which, as an exception to the rules governing qualities, is cumulative with any other applications of the Reach quality. Your sturdier form also grants you the power to substitute your Survival skill for your Dodge skill in any test pool. The power Enfoliate can also restore your health levels as if you were a plant, though you cannot be made to grow any further.
In addition, at the end of each turn, if you have not moved from the spot where you began the turn, you regain a single health level of damage (bashing, lethal, or aggravated). This benefit requires that you have not moved, either voluntarily or involuntarily; moving and then returning to the same spot does not trigger this benefit. You can also grant aid and healing to those around you. At the end of each turn, if you have not moved, any allied characters who have spent the entirety of the turn within 2 steps of you may also heal a single health level of damage (bashing, lethal, or aggravated).
This power counts as a major transformation, and cannot be combined with other major transformations, except 'One With Nature'.
Cloak of Leaves
The Chosen explodes in a cloud of autumn leaves, avoiding danger and doom.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Whenever the Champion is targeted by an attack, you may spend one Gnosis and transform into a spray of autumn leaves in all the colors of earth and fire. You are a single entity, and resistant to scattering. Use of this Blessing provides the Chosen a +4 wild card bonus to their Dodge test pool until their next action. They may use this Blessing on any attack, except against attacks that could reasonably harm a pile of leaves, such as flames or supernatural winds. Whenever they successfully Dodges an attack this way, they may move up to three steps in any direction. At the beginning of their turn, they reform back into the form they were in before activating this blessing.
Alternatively, they may activate this blessing outside of combat. If they do, they turn into a spray of autumn leaves as above, but they can fly at double their usual speed and can flatten their body in order to slip through small openings. They cannot manipulate objects or physically attack. At the end of that minute, they reform into the form they were in before activating this Blessing.
Wither
With a vicious gesture, the Chosen steals away a target’s vitality, leaving only the seeming of age and decay.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Wits + Survival vs. Stamina + Survival
System:
Spend your standard action and 1 Gnosis gesturing towards a target, then make an opposed challenge. On a success, the target suddenly ages one decade for every point of Survival that you possess. While they are aged this way, they suffer a penalty to all physical actions equal to half your Survival rating (rounded up) and treat their Stamina as two points lower for determining how many health levels they have (Minimum Stamina of 1). No matter how much the target is aged, this Blessing cannot kill them outright with advanced age. This curse lasts for three turns.
Exceptional Success: The penalty the target suffers is equal to your full Survival rating (not half of it) and consider their Stamina three points lower instead of two for determining their health levels (Minimum Stamina of 1).
Devotion Advanced Blessings: Mantle of Frost, One With Nature, Touch of the Seasons
Mantle of Frost
The Champion wraps themselves in frost and snow to strike at their enemies.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
The Chosen spends a standard action and 1 Gnosis as their lips turn blue and frost forms in their hair. Their body radiates cold, sucking all the warmth out of the air and inflicting the area with 20 steps, centered around them, with a sudden flash-freeze and blizzard. Anyone inside the area take an immediate -1 penalty to all tests, which increases by a cumulative -1 each subsequent turn. Once a target suffers a -5 penalty, they start taking one point of lethal damage each turn. The penalty disappears when a person steps outside the aura, but returns at full current strength if they return. The effect moves with the Chosen, and they themselves are immune to it. Anyone who takes more damage from this Blessing than their Stamina becomes immobilized, encased in ice, and unable to move.
One With Nature
The rise of civilization has left much of humanity yearning for a connection with nature. While humans once lived in close proximity to the wilds, modern cities have all but severed that bond. You have the power to attune yourself with the surrounding land, setting down roots both physical and spiritual, which grant you a broader awareness of the surrounding area.
Cost: 2 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Expend 2 points of Gnosis and your standard action to grow powerful roots that extend into the ground beneath you. You may only use this power if you are standing on soil or natural stone, or are in a building made of organic materials. For the next hour, you cannot be knocked down or moved, either voluntarily or forcibly. You are unable to use your Dodge skill as you cannot move around, but can substitute your Survival skill in its place. You immediately gain an enhanced sense of perception that extends to either the structure you’re in, or an outdoor area in a 1-mile radius, not including any structures within that area. Within this area, you are able to see anything as if it were in your normal line of sight, though you are not able to process and pay attention to everything at once. You may use this enhanced perception to make use of any of your gifts/Blessings.
For mechanical purposes, make the Storyteller aware of your use of this power, and you may then wander in the nearby area making the “I’m unseen” gesture (hands crossed over the chest), which represents where you’re focusing your attention from your rooted spot. Characters that are supernaturally hidden must be detected through supernatural means. While your attention is focused elsewhere, your body may be affected normally, but the Storyteller will notify you of what’s happening.
This power counts as a major transformation. However, it may be used in conjunction with 'Become the Green Man' as an exception to the rule governing major transformations.
Touch of the Seasons
The Chosen has the ability to change the very seasons of a target's life.
Cost: 2 Gnosis
Test Pool: Wits + Survival vs. Stamina + Willpower
System:
Spend 2 Gnosis and expend your simple and standard actions to cause a target to age (or become younger) in the blink of an eye. If you target an individual, or an object controlled by another individual, you must also defeat your target in an opposed challenge.
A successful use of Touch of the Seasons allows you to revert or advance an aspect of your target to the next natural phase of its cycle. An old, haggard warrior can be reverted the prime of their fighting years, a young student's knowledge can mature to the wisdom of an old philosopher, for example.
This Blessing deals no significant damage to objects unless you wish to do so; if you choose to deal damage to an object, any normal item will crumble to dust.
Objects decreased in age in this manner cannot return to an earlier or incomplete state. A silver coin may lose its tarnish and seem newly minted, but it will not revert to an unformed block of metal. Likewise, while an elderly man’s body may revert to the age of a young man, their mental faculties, memories, and experiences are not affected.
Systematically, this Blessing will give a variety of penalties, bonuses, or other effects at Storyteller discretion to reflect the changes the target has undergone.
This Blessing may only be used once a Lunar Month.
Exceptional Success:
This activation of this Blessing does not count against your limit of using this Blessing once per Lunar Month.