Level Four
Defense of the Hearth
Few things in nature are as ferocious as a mother protecting her young, giving pause to even the most seasoned of wolves. This Gift allows you to summon the tenacious countenance of vengeful parent, forcing anyone to challenge you first before approaching nearer. A bear or wolf spirit teaches this Gift.
Cost: 1 Rage
Test Pool: Charisma + Intimidation versus target's Composure + Willpower
System:
Expend your standard action to snarl, declaring the space around you as your own. Defense of the Hearth protects you and all individuals you choose, including creatures and people, so long as they are within two steps of you. While this power is active, no one with hostile intent can come within five steps of you or those you choose to guard without first defeating you in an opposed challenge using her Social attribute + Willpower versus your Social attribute + Intimidation skill.
If anyone with hostile intent is within five steps of you when you activate this power, she must initiate an opposed challenge with you at the beginning of her next action. If she succeeds, she acts normally. If she fails, she must slowly back away to a distance of five steps or more, using at least one of her simple actions each round for the movement to achieve this distance. If the available space does not accommodate a distance of five steps, the affected character must attempt to egress through reasonable means. In either case, she must wait 10 minutes before attempting to overcome this power again.
Defense of the Hearth does not prevent individuals using ranged weapons or powers from attacking you or those you protect. If an individual protected by your Defense of the Hearth attacks or targets someone with a hostile power (whether targeting an individual inside or outside of your aura), she immediately loses the protection of Defense of the Hearth. Such a character cannot be protected by this Gift for the next hour.
Once you activate Defense of the Hearth and you have chosen the individuals you are protecting with this power, you cannot add other individuals to that protection unless you reactivate Defense of the Hearth. There is no limit to the number of individuals you can protect with this power, so long as they remain within five steps of your physical form.
Every turn after the first, you must spend 1 point of Rage during your action during the Universal round to keep Defense of the Hearth active. If you stop spending Rage, or take any action other than speech or simple movement, this power immediately ends.
Affinity:
Ostraka have had to learn to be adaptable and take whatever family they can get. You can add additional characters to your protection without having to reactivate Defense of the Hearth by spending a simple action and designating any valid targets that are now within two steps of you.
Gnaw
You have the ability to bite through wood, stone, and even iron given enough time and motivation. Gnaw extends and increases the size of your maw to monstrous proportions, offering extreme leverage and toughness—and potentially inflicting frightening levels of damage on any enemies you bite. A Shark spirit teaches this Gift.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Test Pool: N/A
System:
Expend a simple action to activate Gnaw. This Gift can only be activated while you are in Lupus or Hispo form. While this Gift is active, your jaw becomes grotesque in proportion, and your fangs turn into horrendous, ragged tools of destruction. Under the effects of Gnaw, you can chew through anything, with sufficient time. You can chomp through Iron chains using a standard action and gnaw your way though a reinforced wall in a few minutes. In addition, your bite attacks gain the Brutal and Fast melee weapon qualities and do an additional point of damage on a successful attack.
A bite attack would now deal 2 damage on a normal attack, and 3 on an exceptional success.
Affinity:
Your Gnaw is particularly efficient. You can bite through an iron chain using a simple action, or gnaw through a reinforced wall in one minute. Instead of gaining the Fast melee weapon quality, your bite attacks gain the Deadly melee weapon quality, in addition to the Brutal quality.
The Madness Season
Few are as unpredictable or as feared as the mad. You can hide the essence of your presence with spirits of madness, masking you from supernatural powers that rely upon familiarity. This ability comes at a price—those who wrap themselves with madness must embrace madness themselves. Any spirit of Luna can teach this Gift.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: N/A
System:
Spend your standard action to invoke spirits of madness, inviting them to possess your body. For the next hour, spirits of madness cloak your essence, making you immune to any supernatural power that relies upon Familiarity with the Target to activate, such as Scent of the Prey or Summon.
While The Madness Season is active, you suffer from the
Derangement: Extreme Paranoia. You believe that everyone, friends and enemies alike, really are out to get you. Further, each time you are targeted by a power that requires familiarity you are aware of it and know that someone tried to find you and they are after you, further intensifying the Derangement.
Affinity:
The presence if your madness spirits makes it difficult for those with Wyrm Affinity to sense your affiliation, as it resembles their own madness. As a result, they accept you as one of their own, a minion of the Wyrm, until you prove that you are not.
View the Battlefield
You can see the terrain of a battlefield, along with the placement of allies and enemies therein. You perceive this information in shadowy, dream-like detail: a top-down view of the battlefield, rich with symbolism. This information is invaluable from a tactical standpoint. It also lets you chronicle the details of a battle with great precision. A harrier- or bat-spirit teaches this Gift.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: N/A
System:
Spend a simple action to gain a hazy, top-down view of the battlefield at which you are present, superimposed over your normal vision. The area perceived can vary in size; it covers the whole space involved in the current combat scenario, whether that is a small room where only a couple of enemies are fighting, or an area miles across, populated by opposing armies. You can only activate this Gift when you have already detected enemies nearby; a battle must be eminent or have already begun. This Gift does not work across the Gauntlet, even if the battlefield extends to the other side.
While this Gift is active, you automatically know the numbers and locations of enemy forces, even seeing through intervening barriers such as walls or ceilings. This Gift does not extend your field of vision for the purpose of activating other Gifts. Most enemies appear distorted and shrouded in symbolism; you can only identify those with whom you are familiar. You also know exactly when and where new foes enter the battle or if current ones leave it. If any enemies are obscured by supernatural concealment, you still know their total number, but this Gift does not reveal their locations. If you choose, you may share the tactical information gleaned through your battlefield perspective, either verbally, or through powers such as Mind Web. However, you must actively communicate such knowledge; other parties cannot passively share your vision, even telepathically.
In addition, you can observe any challenge within your normal line of sight between two or more individuals. You are able to recognize the nature of the challenge, including any powers used, as long as you possess the appropriate knowledge or Scholar of... merit. You also understand the nature of the outcome, including damage dealt. When observing a challenge, once per turn, you may choose to offer the participant of your chose the opportunity to gain a
Gift Retest by spending a Willpower point yourself.
View of the Battlefield lasts for 10 minutes per point of Gnosis spent to fuel this Gift.
Affinity:
You can grant the opportunity to spend your Willpower to offer a
Gift Retest twice a turn, instead of the standard once a turn. Additionally, the target may make use of any of your Gifts you possess that would aid the the relevant defensive test, such as Survivor or Laugh of the Hyena. A target cannot benefit from the same Gift twice in this manner, but does use the greater benefit, if applicable.
Wither Limb
With a snarl and an angry gaze, the werewolf forces a target’s arm or leg to twist, desiccate and wither, making it useless. Snake-spirits, spider-spirits and other venomous spirits teach this Gift. Some werewolves even invoke spirits of disease to learn this Gift.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Strength + Brawl verses target's Physical Defense, this attack cannot be soaked
System:
Spend a standard action at make a challenge against a target within melee range. If successful you wither one of your opponents limbs leaving it largely useless, the target gets to choose which limb is withered. Depending on which limb has been withered the target is affected as follows:
If one or both of the character's legs have been withered, she can only move a single step for each action spent on movement by limping or crawling.
If one of the character's arms has been withered she suffers a -3 penalty to Brawl and Melee attacks, and cannot use two handed weapons. If both of the character's arms have been withered she cannot make any physical attacks at all, and can only make Brawl attacks by attempting to bite the target so long as she is in a form that allows for biting without grappling.
Creatures with regenerative abilities will restore the limb to full function after one scene; otherwise, the effects are permanent.
Exceptional Success:
On an exceptional success you get to declare which limb is withered.
Affinity:
An Ostraka must occasionally draw from deeper reserves with a sense of profound urgency. You may choose to activate this Gift with 1 Willpower instead of 1 Gnosis. As such, you may make use of this Gift during Rage rounds.
