VOD: Pantheon

The wildest and craziest of the pantheon, Dionysus is the god of wine and celebration. Invite him, and a party will usually show up in his wake. Dark-haired and slender while still being soft, Dionysus is capable of persuading even the most straight-laced prude to loosen up and party down.

His Champions are similar. Wherever they go, they tend to establish a party around themselves. If they stay too long in one place, it congregates around them, attracting the missing elements of that celebration. This happens partly because the Chosen is fun to be around, but also because Fate finds it useful to create such events around them. The more potent they are, the larger and more raucous the soirée.

Devotion Attributes: Stamina, Charisma, Wits

Devotion Abilities: Athletics, Empathy, Investigation, Occult, Performance

Devotion Basic Blessings: Carousing, Haze of Lunacy, Thrysus' Wisdom

Carousing
Everyone has that friend they just can’t say no to, the one who gets you out on a weekday and whose company you love that night but hate the next morning. Drawing upon the power of celebration, you have the ability to turn a group of people into a party as you insert yourself into whatever they might be doing.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: None

System:
Expend a point of Gnosis and a standard action as you ask to join a group of two or more individuals. Unless one of them spends 2 points of Willpower to ask you to leave, they must accept you as if you were a friend along for the ride. (As a courtesy, you should let other players know you have this ability.) This effect includes taking pains to include you in transportation and food arrangements, though not necessarily letting you choose what to do. While this power is in effect, effected targets will not attack you without provocation, but they may affect or injure you if it’s part of the group activity (such as if you’re playing rugby or standing in the crowd at a rowdy concert). As part of this power’s effects, the group will do their best to cover you if you should find yourself momentarily short on funds.

If one of them spends 2 points of Willpower to ask you to leave, you are not forced to withdraw; however, the effects of this power end and none of the individuals in that group may be affected by it again by you for 24 hours. Spending these points of Willpower and asking you to leave in this way does not require an action. In addition, anyone who has spent two or more points of Willpower to ask you to leave does not have to spend Willpower to do so again for the next 24 hours, should they find themselves in a different group you wish to join. The effects of this power also end if anyone in the group witnesses you causing harm to anyone in the group or targeting them with hostile powers.

Haze of Lunacy
Nightmarish visions, flitting barely-seen images, surreal echoes, and misunderstood conversations haunt your victim, transforming the world around her into a dreamlike haze. Nothing seems quite right, and strange sensations crawl across the target’s skin. Her subconscious desires may surface, and her inner fears and regrets return to face her through dark, hallucinatory whispers from the past.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Wits + Empathy vs. Resolve + Willpower

System:
Spend 1 Gnosis, expend your standard action, and engage your target in an opposed challenge. If you succeed, your target’s subconscious dredges up disturbing visions, sensations, and sounds that only she perceives. Your target loses 1 Willpower and suffers a -3 penalty to all attack test pools for the next three turns as she tries (and fails) to separate fantasy and reality. After three turns, the subject becomes more capable of distinguishing what is and is not a hallucination. For the remainder of an hour, the penalty is -1. Penalties from Haze of Lunacy do not apply to defense test pools.

Using this power on an individual with a derangement gives her 1 Derangement trait. Multiple uses of Haze of Lunacy do not stack.

Exceptional Success:
Your victim suffers a -3 penalty to her attack test pools for five turns instead, and afterward suffers a -1 penalty to all attack test pools for the rest of the night. In addition, using this power on an individual with a derangement gives her 2 Derangement traits, instead of 1.

Thrysus' Wisdom
The mad can understand the interconnection of bizarre, seemingly random events— an understanding most minds are unequipped to achieve. Champions with this Blessing not only recognize this interconnection, but they can read significant clues from it.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: N/A

System:
To use this Blessing, the Champion clears their head and looks at the World around them without analysis or expectation. Spend a Standard Action and one Gnosis to ask the Storyteller up to three pointed, specific questions about various events that have occurred in game. The Storyteller need not expound upon his answers (they can be quite terse and to the point, in fact), but he must answer them as honestly and directly as he can.

Using this Blessing cannot reveal facts about things that will happen in the future, nor can a character use it to gain insight into events that don’t concern either her or the members of her pack. The player can use this effect to gain knowledge only once per game session.

Devotion Intermediate Blessings: Eyes of Chaos, Take the Lead, Touch of Madness

Eyes of Chaos
There is wisdom to be found between the cracks and broken fragments of reality, and there are lessons to be learned by watching the universe as it slowly falls apart. With this power, you can discern complex patterns, discover inconsistencies, and track the strange and ethereal connections of fate.

Cost: None

Test Pool: None

System:
This power is always active. A character using Eyes of Chaos receives a +5 wild card bonus to any mundane uses of the Investigation skill or to any Academic skill tests focused on trying to break a code, determine a missing piece of information, or piece together clues. Additionally, when making these types of challenges, you can perform the test without physically interacting with your environment; a simple glance around the area (one standard action) is sufficient to perform a thorough search.

A character utilizing this power might spend a few moments scanning a room and be drawn immediately to the discovery of a knife concealed in a box under the bed, she might glance at a puzzle and solve it in an instant, or she might count all the ceiling tiles in the room as she walked rapidly past them.

Take the Lead
It’s said you should never give a sword to someone who doesn’t know how to dance. While that proverb has many applications, this Blessing serves as a reminder to those who would forget their footwork. You have the power to compel others with the power of dance, helping others to join in celebration or changing the rhythm of battle.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Charisma + Performance vs. Composure + Willpower

System:
Spend 1 point of Gnosis and expend your standard action as you sing, play an instrument, dance, or clap out a beat. If you succeed in an opposed challenge, you compel your target to dance to the rhythm you create. During her next initiative, she must spend a simple action on movement, taking up to her maximum number of steps in any direction you choose for her. Alternatively, you may cause her to dance in place. This effect takes place before the target’s standard action, and may apply to her next action if it occurs during Rage rounds. If your target has a standard action available, she can use it as she pleases. If your target does not have a simple action available to her on her next action, she must forfeit her standard action to move as you indicate. While she is dancing, she is still able to defend herself, albeit with some difficulty. If she does not possess a Performance skill specialization related to dance, she receives a -2 penalty to her Dodge skill test pools.

If your target actively wishes to dance, she may make use of your Performance skill in place of her own as you direct her. You may dance with her if you like.

You may use this power on your target on successive turns by spending only a simple action (instead of a standard action and a point of Gnosis) and winning another opposed challenge. This target must be the same (or one of the same targets) on which you successfully used this power during the previous turn.

Exceptional Success:
While under the effects of this power, your target cannot use her actions to take steps in a direction that you do not approve, finding her feet unwilling to comply.

Touch of Madness
Your voice can carry the siren call of insanity and the whispered pandemonium of sheer madness. By speaking aloud in a resonant tone, you can summon forth the regrets, fears, pain, horror, and suffering of your target’s entire life, unleashing her impulses and giving her inner demons free rein.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Manipulation + Empathy vs. Composure + Willpower

System:
To use Touch of Madness, you must gain your target’s attention and spend two standard actions describing the derangement you wish to inflict. When you finish this description, spend 1 Gnosis and make an opposed challenge against your target. If you succeed, you inflict the derangement of your choice on your target for the rest of the evening and 1 Derangement trait. If the individual has pre-existing Derangement traits, this trait may cause an immediate psychotic break.

For example, you might approach the Shadow Lord Elder and say, “I saw two Silent Striders hovering around your home last night. What were they doing? Are you sure you can trust the Silent Striders?” If you succeed in the challenge thereafter, you could give your target the Phobia derangement, citing “Silent Strider” as the trigger.

An individual can only be affected by this power once per character. If the same character attempts to inflict a second derangement before the first expires, the older derangement is replaced by the newer one. If a second user of this Blessing successfully targets someone already under the effects of this power, both derangements apply.

Exceptional Success:
The derangement inflicted by Touch of Madness lasts for two games or one month, whichever is longer.

Devotion Advanced Blessings: Bottom of the Cup, Call of the Maenads, Lord of the Dance

The Bottom of the Cup
Wine and other substances tend to bring out a different side of people. Sometimes a timid person can find courage in the bottom of their wine glass, others find apathy, despair, or joy. This blessing similarly brings out a new identity for a time, giving people a look at a different person.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Charisma + Empathy vs Composure + Willpower

System:
Spend 1 point of Gnosis and use three standard actions to use Bottom of the Cup. If the target is unwilling, you must win the opposed challenge. If you succeed, you may affect them with this power. If your target has an Archetype, you may immediately change their Archetype. This change lasts for the remainder of the night. Willing participants affected by this power may spend a point of Willpower to make the change permanent. Characters affected by this power feel as if their motivations and purpose have finally been revealed. This may be a relief for some, or disconcerting for others.

Alternatively, you may use this power to strip your opponent of their identity leaving them directionless, dispassionate, and overwhelmed by an identity crisis. Using Bottom of the Cup in this way causes your target to lose access to their Archetype. A use of Bottom of the Cup in this way lasts for the next hour.

Exceptional Success:
If you have chosen to strip your target of her identity, she loses her Archetype and focuses for the remainder of the night.

Call of the Maenads
By using this power, utter madness – the full shattering of the psyche – is unleashed within your victim’s mind. You draw forth every insecurity, every forgotten slight, every panic or fit of anger, and then cause those emotional wounds to magnify a hundredfold and wreak havoc on your target’s mind.

Cost: 1 Gnosis

Test Pool: Charisma + Empathy vs. Composure + Willpower

System:
The target must have her attention focused on you in order for Call of the Maenads to function. Once you have your target’s attention, spend 1 Gnosis, expend your standard action, and make an opposed challenge against that target. If you succeed, you drive her insane for the next hour.

Call of the Maenads fills your target’s mind with conflicting derangements, making it difficult for her to act with any rational logic. Your target should work with the Storyteller to determine exactly how this insanity affects her, but for mechanical purposes, the user of Call of the Maenads selects one of the following effects to apply to her victim:

• Fear: The victim is terrified of anything that is even remotely threatening and will seek to run away and hide in a safe place until Call of the Maenads fades. The victim will not fight unless cornered and, if forced to fight, will flee at her first opportunity.
• Confusion: The victim suffers a -5 penalty to all attack test pools for the duration of Call of the Maenads as she tries to separate fantasy and reality. This penalty does not apply to defense test pools.
• Fugue: The target withdraws mentally, sitting quietly and talking only to friends she trusts. If forced out of her shell, she will either attack until left alone or flee from the person who provoked her (target’s choice).

At storyteller discretion, uses of this power just to take a player out of game may fade faster.

Exceptional Success:
The effects of Call of the Maenads last for two hours, instead of one.

Lord of the Dance
Both the ecstatic twisting in a crowded throng and the practiced choreographer seek the same thing – to become one with the song that surrounds them, and in so doing, transcend. With this power, you have the ability to synchronize your movements with a dance partner, moving together in transcendent perfection.

Cost: 2 Gnosis

Test Pool: None

System:
Expend 2 points of Gnosis and your standard action to appraise your target as you bow, strike a pose, or take on a posture that indicates the start of a performance. If you succeed in an opposed challenge, you are able to bind your target in the magic of a powerful dance. For each action your target takes, you can copy her with perfect precision, replicating her movements perfectly and effectively duplicating her powers, even if you normally lack the ability to do so.

While this power is active, if you have an action available in the current round, you may act on your target’s initiative, though you always go immediately after her. If you do, you may spend the same cost in Gnosis or Rage and actions to use the same power that she used on her action. You may choose new targets, including her. You must also meet any other requirements for using the power, such as a requirement that you be able to move or speak, etc. If your target has spent a resource aside from Gnosis to enact her power, (such as Glamour, Blood, etc), you may substitute an equal quantity of Gnosis.

Any challenges are made using your own test pool and are subject to your own affinities. This power can only duplicate active powers or activations; for example, the spending of Rage for extra actions or Willpower for retests cannot be actively copied as part of the power. However, a Physical attack made with a Blessing or Gift could be duplicated. Should you have multiple individuals affected with this power, you can only duplicate the actions of a single target each round.

Should you and your target wish to dance together, both you and she you receive a +5 wild card bonus to your Performance skills. In addition, you may use her Performance skill in place of your own.