Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Alternate Mystery Purview (by Sidhe16)

As I said before, my intention was to make an alternate version of Mystery to compliment my alternate version of the Prophecy purview. However, it was low-priority for me, since I have no PCs or major NPCs with Mystery in my Scion campaign. So, I never really got past the brainstorming stage. Thankfully, Sidhe16 over at the forum picked up the ball and ran with it. While I'm not in 100% agreement about one or two of these boons, they at least form a framework against which I can make alternate boons if it ever becomes important. Plus, he really designed it to compliment/mirror my version of Prophecy, which is kinda cool and flattering. Anyhow, here's Sidhe16's version of Mystery, which has some pretty cool ideas (and boons)...

Uncanny Intuition
(Mystery o)
Dice Pool: None
Cost: None
Every session, the GM provides you with a minor small amount of enlightenment. This usually takes the form of the ST pointing out an item of interest that pertains to current or recent events, but not in an obvious way. The GM chooses what he wants to reveal, and it can range from trivial to vital, as he or she sees fit. It must apply to a current or previous scene. If by the ST has not yet provided such insight in the session, the player may request it, but may not demand a specific plot or topic for the insight to apply to.

Unnatural Insight
(Mystery oo)
Dice Pool: None
Cost: None
Your intuition and eye for abnormal detail give you greater information about any given situation. Whenever rolling Perception + Skill to notice something pertaining to that skill, you gain a bonus die equal to your highest level boon in this purview.

For example a Perception + Melee rolls might reveal to a normal Scion that his opponent is using a Shotokan Bo stance, the insight of this Scion grants him the conclusion that he studied under a teacher from the YMCA and never practiced against left-handed opponents. Perception + Investigation might tell other Scion that the battle site was a Scion against a fire giant due to the burning smell, while this Scion gains mysterious insight that the Scion actually lit a Formorian on fire using the fire purview.

This does not include join battle roll, rolls of reaction to the current such surprise, or boon knack activations.

Drawing Conclusions
(Mystery ooo)
Dice Pool: Perception + Awareness
Cost: 1 legend
The Scion is capable of truly unnaturally feats of insight. Upon entering a scene that is already in progress, he may take 3 seconds to attempt to conclude what has been occurring. Upon entering the scene, be it a combat already in progress, or a hopping club, the Scion spends a Legend and makes a Perception + Awareness roll against the highest legend of everyone previously in the scene. Success reveals to the Scion a brief, but detailed and accurate, replay of what has occurred for a number of minutes equal to the threshold successes prior to the Scions arrival.

Where a normal person would walk into a room full of giants standing around a phone and conclude they were waiting for a call from their evil Scion leader, this Scion would somehow conclude accurately that they just ordered a pizza and had argued over pepperoni verse sausage.

Post Cognition
(Mystery oooo)
Dice Pool: Perception + Investigation
Cost: 1 Willpower + ? Legend
The Fates themselves guide your intuitive process, gifting you with true post cognition. Upon entering a site the Scion can spend a willpower to relive something that occurred at the same site within one day per success on the activation roll. Use of this power costs one Legend per year in the past that the scene occurred, with a minimum of 1 legend.

Connect the Dot
(Mystery ooooo)
Dice Pool: Wits + Investigation
Cost: 1 Willpower
Gifted with flashes of insight, you may sense a particular target's connection to a specific targeted event, character, or object. Using this power costs a willpower and requires a number of successes on the activation roll equal to their legend plus a factor of connection of increase difficulty based on the distance of the connection. The target must be on line of site to attempt this.

For example tracing Loki's connection to some mysteriously knowledgeable man you met in a bar would have a difficulty of 12 (12+0) if Loki was the man, 13 if the man was one of Loki's Scions or servants ordered by Loki directly to feed you information, 14 if it is a servant of one of Loki's Scion given orders by his Scion who was given orders by Loki's Scion, 15 if that servant was given orders by the Scion without Loki's intervention but works with the overall plans given to the Scion by Loki. Basically every step of displacement increases the difficulty by 1.

Pull Back the Veil of the Unknown
(Mystery ooooo o)
Dice Pool: None
Cost: 3 legend
Legends of some creatures and their weaknesses are well known by even the average mortal movie watcher. Those that study the occult may even be able to separate truth from fiction. But none are as capable of putting it all together as a Scion with this level of power. With the expenditure of a point of willpower the player may ask for a specific statistic value or weakness of the target being. The storyteller must answer the question truthfully.

Unlocking the Greater Mysteries
(Mystery ooooo oo)
Dice Pool: None
Cost: None
The Scion has now been gifted with some of the greatest mysteries of the worlds. Upon purchasing this level of Mystery, the Scion chooses a single purview. From this point on all uses of that purview enjoy a number of bonus automatic successes to all rolls equal to the characters level of Mystery.

Mysteries of the World
(Mystery ooooo ooo)
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Presence
Cost: 1 legend / level of Mystery sent
The Scion's powers of mystery allow him to activate the power through another, granting them the same insight as he is able to obtain himself. The god spends the legend while watching his chosen target, who must be talking about, either with the god or another person, the topic that is the target of the Mystery power. The power is rolled as normal as if the target had attempted the roll, with all willpower and legend being provided by the god.

The god could for example lead a detective at a crime scene to the inspiration to track a minor immortal that is actually behind a murder that the mortal would never normally be able to connect. Or the god could even use this power to help guide his own Scion while watching his child via clairvoyance or some other means of sensing from a distance.

Distorting the Figures
(Mystery ooooo oooo)
Dice Pool: Wits + Stealth
Cost: 1 Willpower and 10 or 20 Legend
You have great understanding about the workings of the world. You've learned much about unlocking the worlds secrets, and in extension you've learned how to hide things as well. For the cost a willpower and 10 legend, this god can hide a place or object from fate. For 20 legend instead an event planned for the future can be hidden as well.

The target hidden from Fate has a bonus to its defenses against any fate using power by the result of the Wits + Stealth roll. Against powers that get no rolls, if defeat powers of lower levels automatically. Powers of equal or higher level only succeed if the user is of HIGHER legend than the hider. If the target uses legend, then its defense erodes any at the rate of 1 bonus defense die lost per legend spent. Do not forget about the requirements for maintaining one's Legend Rating. This protects its target predominately from the powers of Prophesy, Magic, and Mystery. Other powers may apply at the Story Teller's whim. While under the influence of the Wyrd, this power holds no protection.

If the being trying to Fatefully detect the hidden target fails to achieve the necessary number of successes their power simply fails. The person may or may not know they even failed. Failing to see something in the future, the prophet would never know, attempting a spell on someone you are looking at is a little more obvious that you failed, you just don’t know why you failed.

For Example: Loki is planning a coup against Odin and figures it would be best that no one get tipped off by Fate, so he enacts this power on his plans. Odin’s “Minor Visions” would not see the coup coming. If faced with a choice of two paths one of which would lead to Loki’s plan succeeding, and he used “Read the Signs” the power would act as if the number of successes were reduced by Loki’s activation roll.

If Loki wished to hide himself from Fate he could do that as well. Assume he rolled 40 successes for the activation. If in the future someone attempted to use mystery to look back 5 years to see his actions and they only rolled 20 successes, they would see the scene, but fail to see anything indicating Loki was there. If Odin attempted to use the spell Fateful Connection or Ariadne's Thread on Loki the difficulty to use such powers would increase by 40. However if Loki had to defend himself and used 20 legend in that scene to do so, his protection would reduce to 20 instead of 40.

Raising the Monolith
(Mystery ooooo ooooo)
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Academics
Cost: 1 Willpower and 5+ Legend
You have unlocked the greatest mysteries of existence, you post cognition is fine tuned well beyond the simple gathering of information from the past few days. You may now look upon an object, person, or site and see much of its history. You roll Intelligence + Academics against a difficulty equal to the target's Legend + the number of boons from the Chaos purview the target has. Every threshold success is one significant event you witness from the past of the target.
The cost of this power it 1 willpower and 5 legend for the first Legend Rating events for a number of events in the target’s past equal to your Legend Rating, an additional event for is seen for every additional legend spent. The god lives through the events as if he were that target, which makes this power somewhat risky if used on a very powerful or deranged target or on someone who has died violently or suffered great torture. The dangers are not to the god’s body, but rather to his mind. Anything that plays out the events is replayed upon the god. This could mean the rigors of brainwashing using the same number of successes would challenge the god’s mind as well as he relives the event. At the very least this should require an Intelligence + Integrity + Legend test against the Perception + Awareness + Legend + Number of Chaos boons of the target. If the god fails this he should escape the visions in a virtue extremity of the target’s greatest virtue, and will suffer personality twitches, becoming the target in personality, when faced with events similar to those experienced, the only known cure for this powerful of an affliction is Tranquility ( Moon 8 )

The God may declare how significant of events are played out, but gets only of that significance and greater from the target's point of view. He can't omit things he knows about the cut costs.
Note: Every use of an Ultimate Attribute or Avatar Boon by or on the target is a greatly significant event in the fate stream of that person's fate, and ALWAYS comes up in the stream. This understandably makes Gods very difficult to use this power on.
For example a legend 12 god could attempt to use this on Loki and declare that only events of life changing significance could would be seen. If said god rolled 50 successes, he would have 50-23=27 threshold successes. The power would cost 1 willpower and 5 legend for the most 12 most recent life altering events, the god could choose to spend 15 more legend and see the full 27 events. What these events are is up to the storyteller, and some may/should not make sense to the Scion. Continuing this example the god relives the moment Loki learned of the Feathered Cloak, the birth of Hel, the moment he learned of Garm’s fate, the moment he learned of the Midgard Serpent’s Fate, the moment he saw how the world changed since the dark ages (may not seem that significant to others), the moment he fell in love with a mortal woman (not the moment they met, may not even have been anything special, to the spying god it could be Loki looking across a boardroom table at a secretary typing), the last 5 times he became the void and the last 10 times he used Ultimate Manipulation, etc.

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