Saint the Elder Vampire

Become possessed by the deadly presence within you, gaining huge magical power and healing yourself while causing magical harm.

Max Essence Cost: High
Max Duration: High
Cooldown: Mid
Paired Action: Portray aTurning Point showing your character overwhelmed by fear, hatred, or a similar negative emotion. Must act unpredictably malicious and destructive while this ability lasts.

• Up to dramatically boosts all damaging Manifestations the user produces and similarly reduces limitations on how often Manifesting can be done.
  ≫ These boosts scale on the poignancy of the Paired Action; Essence Cost and Duration ALSO scale up in this way.
  ≫ Healing receive disproportionate to the amount of harm caused by a given magic and is NOT limited to just Manifestation.
• This is an incredibly potent Altered State – the user should be all but unrecognizable in their behavior, though they may still work towards the same loose goals.

Essence Cost

High

Duration

Mid

Cooldown

Mid

Paired Action: Portray a Turning Point of being overwhelmed by negative emotions (fear, hatred, or similar), proceeding then to act indiscriminately malicious and destructive to everyone around (ally or enemy) as a potent Altered State.

• Impact scales on how compellingly you portray the Paired Action and Altered State, beyond High at max.
  • Specific behavior in this state should be informed by the nature of the entity within them, as grounded in their Backstory.
• Boosted Manifestations must be directly thematically linked to the user’s entity, as grounded in their Backstory, and can be used more often than normal without incurring a Limiter from the Conduit.

Spare a single person from the evil within you and protect them with a shadowy magical barrier while they remain close.

Essence Cost: Mid
Max Duration High
Cooldown: Mid
Paired Action: Portray a Turning Point demonstrating genuine gratitude, appreciation, or similar wholesome, positive feelings for chosen person.

• Renders target completely immune to ALL harm and negative effects sourced from you, including all your Gear, Abilities, Manifestations, etc. While they are directly interacting with you in a genuinely uplifting manner, your Defiance is substantially enhanced.
• Magical barrier will only appear when target is threatened; provides substantial protection against physical and magical threats alike.
  ≫ This, plus Fill the Void’s other effects, fades over a Low Duration if the target moves too far away to regularly interact with the user.
• Cooldown begins on use, but only one target can be affected at a time.

Essence Cost

Mid

Max Duration

High

Cooldown

Mid

Paired Action: Portray a Turning Point of genuine gratitude, appreciation, or similar for your target.

• The target becomes completely immune to all harm and negative effects sourced from the user (Abilities, physical actions, or anything else).
  • Preexisting harm and negative effects are not affected.
• While the target is interacting with the user in an uplifting manner, the user’s Defiance is Boosted.
• Cooldown begins on use rather than on expiry, though reusing the Ability will end the current instance.
  • Outside of an Altered State, if the user ever feels rejected or betrayed by the target, this Ability will end prematurely.

Learn a personal secret about another person from an uncanny, disembodied voice; sharing this secret with others, however, will bring out the worst in them.

Essence Cost: Mid
Cooldown: Mid
Paired Action: Specify the target and topic you are interested in to your Conduit, then pause ominously as the voice enters your mind.

• This secret may ONLY be shared privately; doing so will “corrupt” the recipient, subtly exaggerating their worst personal flaws over time.
• The more brooding/introspective the target, the deeper the secrets that can be learned; if targeting another Player-Character, be sure to ask permission first.
• Any other Player whose character you are closely interacting with (or the Conduit, in the case of an NPC) may, with your permission, activate this ability on THEIR OWN character (though they cannot use it to learn secrets about you). This uses THEIR Essence pool and puts Insidious Whispers on a Low Cooldown.
  ≫ This will additionally “corrupt” the new user (as above) alongside any who they share the learned as normal (including you).

Essence Cost

Mid

Cooldown

Mid

Paired Action: Pause ominously as you hear your entity's eerie voice whispering into your mind.

• The secret is learned from your character's entity, voiced by the Conduit, as grounded in your character’s Backstory.
• Flaw exaggeration for the user and those they share the secret with scales Low–Mid on the secret's importance.
• Any other player whose character the user is closely interacting with (or the Conduit, in the case of an NPC) may, with your permission, activate this Ability themselves (spending their Essence). They and anyone they share the secret with have their personal flaws exaggerated as normal.

Set of consecrated candles (max 3 per mission), magically lit at will. Each steadily works to dispel/suppress lingering non-ally magics nearby while lit – the longer it is kept in a single area, the more thoroughly it cleanses it. Mid Duration.

Quantity

3x

Duration

Mid

• While lit, gradually weakens and eats away at hostile magics within a Low Range.

Ornamental blade, impractical for combat. Fittingly incorporate into a drawn-out Paired Action (ritualistically draw blood, slice up herbs, etc.) to somewhat improve that Ability’s power.

• When fittingly incorporated into the Paired Action of a sacrifice (for Energywork, Manifestation, or similar), Boosts the potency of the resulting magic.

Modest, religious dress offering decent magical protection; makes others inclined to perceive the user as pure, blessed, or even sacred.

• Religious or spiritual individuals will tend to trust the owner, with Impact scaling up to High on how much the owner thematically reflects that individual’s faith (through their Appearance, actions, and similar).
• Predisposes individual bystanders to come to the owner’s aid or defense if the owner appears to be beleaguered or imperiled, scaling Low–Mid on how sympathetic and/or appealing the owner is to that individual.

Ethereal weapon, costing Essence rather than Stamina to wield. User may choose the size and shape when drawn, with larger iterations being proportionately more taxing. Bypasses physical defenses, instead girded against by courage and strength of character.

Essence Cost

Low

• May only materialize during a successful Turning Point involving the owner, sharing the Duration of its associated effect (Low if none listed).
  • Essence Cost is paid upon materialization.
• Incorporeally bypasses armor. Successful strikes deplete a target’s Essence, rather than physically harming them, in proportion to the damage the strike would normally have inflicted.
  • Courage, virtue, and strength of character protect against such blows rather than physical toughness.

A single radiant gem (max 1 per mission); imbibe over a Low-Mid Duration (readily interrupted) to receive Mid power healing and restore one full Essence Threshold. Intensely coveted by any who see it, especially during imbibing.

Quantity

1x

• Any being may calmly hold out this crystal uninterrupted for a Low Duration to imbibe it, healing them and restoring a full Essence Threshold. The crystal is expended in the process.
  • The crystal will glow brilliantly as it is being imbibed. Anyone who sees this (besides the source character) is instantly inclined towards deeply coveting the crystal.

Very heavy coat with shoulder-to-ankle coverage. Provides good environmental and magical protection. Standing relatively still will gradually cause the user to blend into shadowy surroundings.

• Provides a Mid Ward against both weather and ambient magics.
• Lurking in shadowy surroundings will gradually render the owner harder to detect over a Low Duration, scaling Low–Mid on how slowly they are moving.