Athena is the best at everything, perpetually wise except when her ambitions reduce her to foolish actions. As Goddess of wisdom, Athena has the power to mediate disputes, to resolve them by force or to create new techniques that render the argument irrelevant. She has no patience for those who rely on aggression alone to solve their problems. Athena tends to be proud, however, and she can be misled into risky contests by challenging the depth and breadth of her skills. She does not lose gracefully.
Devotion Attributes: Intelligence, Wits, Resolve
Devotion Abilities: Academics, Crafts, Investigation, Linguistics, Politics
Devotion Basic Blessings: Architectural Aura, Sense Potential, Web of Knowledge
Architectural Aura
Great architecture inspires compelling emotions, be they of awe, reverence or fear. This Blessing allows the Chosen to link themselves symbolically to a great structure in order to enhance their personal aura, giving them something of the authority and radiance of the structure itself.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Spend one Gnosis and a standard action to call forth the emotional resonance of a building within your line of sight. You or a willing target of your choice gain a bonus equal to your Law rating on tests that involve the same emotion or premise that the building evokes. Intimidation and Leadership tests are most likely to be affected, but Performance tests could be affected if a building is an theatrical amphitheater, for example. The effect works only as long as the Chosen has direct line of sight to the structure in question, and this Blessing can be called upon throughout the night in which it is cast, as long as the same building comes into view again. Changing buildings requires a new activation. No more than one instance of this Blessing can be active at the same time. The inspirational structure must be directly visible to the naked eye.
Sense Potential
The Champion can determine the amount of Rage, Gnosis, or Willpower within an individual. This ability enables the Champion to judge whether or not their target can resist an attempt to influence their actions or whether they are likely to draw upon their supply of either Gnosis or Rage. This Blessing allows a champion to gauge whether or not other supernaturals are currently weak-willed or drained of some other sources of power.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Wits + Empathy vs Static Diff 6.
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and your Simple action to make an static challenge against a difficulty of six. If successful, you are able to determine the general levels of the targets Tempers and their Nature. This Blessing does not give you precise numbers, but should relay information in relative terms. ("The Fallen Garou has used most of their Rage, but still has a lot of will and spiritual energy remaining.")
In addition, once before the next dawn, the Champion can, as a simple action, think of the target and know exactly where they are and what they are doing.
Exceptional Success: You are able to determine specific values for the target's tempers as opposed to a more relative perspective.
Web of Knowledge
The Champion of Athena has read, heard, or on some other way learned of a great many things throughout their life. By spending time going back through the library of their mind, they can find the answer for current problems.
Cost: None
Test Pool: None
System:
This Blessing, once learned, is always active. If you pause to concentrate, taking no other actions other than defense for five turns, you can delve into the mental library of information you have allowing you to seek specific information or lore that may have become forgotten. You can typically ask a question that is covered by a mental skill (such as Academics or Occult) and receive a short answer. You cannot learn personal information, but you can get glean information as if you had the "Scholar of" merit in the subject you are delving into. You may do this up to three times during a single game session.
In addition, your mind constantly thinks in terms of contingencies and plans within plans. You may reserve a number of unspent Downtimes between game sessions to use this Blessing. (Log these in your normal Downtime thread.) At the beginning of each game session, inform the Staff how many Downtimes your reserved. Anytime you encounter a scenario where you would have benefited from preciously spending a Downtime, you can do so at that moment, retroactively recalling that one of your contingencies took care of what you needed. This Blessing allows your to do anything that would normally take place in a Downtime, but it cannot allow you to do something outside of the normal rules for PAT usage.
Devotion Intermediate Blessings: Deliberate Misinformation, Eye of the Metropolis, Tactician's Gambit
Deliberate Misinformation
The Champion can slip confusing and contrary information into their targets' conversation, making their plans fall apart or otherwise causing them to suffer from a gross breakdown in communications.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Intelligence + Academics vs. Resolve + Willpower
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and a Standard Action to make an opposed challenge against the highest Willpower in the target group. When you activate this Blessing successfully, you may affect a number of targets at once equal to your Academics skill. All actions that result from information communicated verbally receive a -3 penalty; simple orders, such as proceeding to a certain location automatically go awry. This Blessing lasts for the rest of the scene, or one hour whichever comes first.
Exceptional Success: The penalty increases to -5 instead of -3.
Eye of the Metropolis
One of the reasons monuments are so powerful is that they can be seen from almost anywhere, and thus have a mystical correspondence to perception. The Chosen using this Blessing gains sensory powers over the building upon which it is used.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Spend a standard action and 1 Gnosis to target a building within line of sight. For the next hour, the character can see or hear anything that occurs within the building. The Champion sees all and hears all, from a whisper in the basement to a letter being written in the upper most chamber. Other perception related Gifts/Blessings may be targeted at the building through this mystical connection and gain a +2 bonus on any tests, possibly allowing the viewer to penetrate cloaking or deception gifts. The Chosen must be within the same city as the building.
The Chosen may use Eye of the Metropolis to target a a number of buildings at the same time equal to their Academics rating, but cannot focus on more than one building at a time. While the Chosen focuses, they are deaf and blind to events in their physical presence. Physical contact of any kind with a projecting Champion brings their senses back to their body immediately. The Chosen need not specify where they broadcast their senses within a building. They're aware of everything that goes on inside and can filter it all down to one spectacle and one word spoken. Events outside the building cannot be perceived through a window.
Tactician's Gambit
The Chosen of Athena is able to turn the tide of battle, using their soldiers to their best effect by having them work in perfect synergy, moving them like pieces on a game board.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Intelligence + Academics vs. Resolve + Willpower (if opposed)
System:
The Chosen spends 1 Gnosis and their standard action, selecting two targets within 20 steps of each other to swap locations. If either of those targets are unwilling, the Chosen must make an opposed test of their Intelligence and Academics against the unwilling target's Willpower. If both targets are unwilling, the Chosen only needs to test against the higher Willpower among them.
If they are successful or the targets relent, those individuals each disappear in a flash of light, reappearing in the location of the other selected individual. Any targets who relented to this power being used upon them receive a +2 bonus on all actions during their next turn. This bonus decreases by 1 each turn until it reaches zero. If they opposed this power, they take a -2 penalty to all actions instead, decreasing by 1 each turn until the penalty becomes zero.
Exceptional Success: The bonus/penalty increases to +4/-4 instead of +2/-2, still fading as normal.
Devotion Advanced Blessings: General's Eye, Heart of the City, Madthought
General's Eye
The Champion of Athena is able to observe the stratagems of their foes and find the flaw in their plan, however well hidden.
Cost: 2 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Expend two Gnosis and use a simple action to activate General's Eye, which lasts for 10 minutes. At the beginning of each turn, you may choose up to two different targets (one of which may be you). One of them gains a +2 bonus that they may use on a single test of your choice this turn, while the other gains a -2 penalty to a single test of your choice this turn.
Also, as long as this power is active, you may expend a standard action to study an opponent on the battlefield. When you do this, make an opposed test of your Wits plus Investigation versus the target's Resolve plus Willpower. If you succeed, you are able to learn all of the effects (mundane and supernatural) that a target has active upon them. You may then choose a number of those effects equal to your half your Investigation ability (rounded up). You, and only you, may ignore those effects as if they were not active. All other characters must still contend with them. This immunity lasts as long as General's Eye remains active. Should you spend a standard action to study another target, you lose your immunity to the effects of any of your prior targets.
Heart of the City
A well-planned city not only makes it easy for citizens to move through its streets, it actually guides and influences that movement. This Blessing allows the Chosen to usher a group of people to a certain location at a certain time, using the complexities of transportation, mapping, and herd mentality.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Special, see below
System:
Spend one Gnosis and three standard actions communing with the essence of the city itself. This allows the Chosen to gather up to 1000 people in an area the size of a park over the course of an hour. The Blessing does not allow for control of specific individuals, nor does it compel subjects to travel to the site against their will. A multitude of people who were already in transit simply end up there despite their intentions to get elsewhere. By making an opposed challenge of their Wits + Law against a static difficulty of 8, the Chosen can call a specific group of people, such as homeless, seniors, or soldiers. A successful static challenge also allows them to dictate an emotion that they wish to instill within those assembled, such as rage or grief.
The Champion can have only one application of this Blessing in effect at a time. The user must be within the city and need not be at the designated location for people to arrive there. Only mortals are influenced by this power; werewolves, vampires, and other supernatural beings are not. Once the Blessing has been activated, the caster cannot dispel it; people continue to gather within an hour and may then disperse under their own power.
In addition, upon entering a city, the Chosen is able to open themselves to the emotions and feelings of the citizens within. Upon entering a city, the Champion may ask the Storyteller a number of questions about the city and its inhabitants equal to their Law rating. These questions may be about the general populace of the city, or smaller selections of it, but never about one particular individual, unless that individual is in a position of political power within the city.
Madthought
This Blessing of Athena literally makes the Chosen's enemies too clever for their own good. The Chosen can make their enemies' thought processes speed up so radically that they think too rapidly to put any one plan into motion.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Wits + Politics vs Resolve + Willpower
System:
Spend 1 Gnosis and your Standard action to make an opposed challenge with a target. On a successful challenge, the victim stands "lost in thought" and is unable to move, speak, flee, or take any other actions. Your target remains paralyzed so long as you continue to expend a simple action each turn to maintain this Blessing. This paralysis continues until you leave the target's presence, until they are the target of an attack, or until they take damage. If the paralysis breaks for any reason, they suffer a -2 penalty to any tests the following turn. A target may only be affected by this Blessing once per game session.
Exceptional Success:
The -2 penalty applies until the end of the scene, instead of for one turn.