See, that's a dead horse. I used a title that you may have thought suggestive, but in actuality referred to a proverb (Wikipedia calls it something different, but meh). That's a literary device or something. Ahem. Anyway, I wanted to put a proper blog post up today, but had no original ideas. Thus, I'm falling back on a topic noone cares about any more. Well, noone who matters anyway. Hardcore vs Casual gamers! It's like the internet's equivalent of the existence of God(ess)(e)(s)! And it's now [EDIT] after the break!
So... I've kinda mostly stopped blogging, at least over summer. I'll post summaries of the last sessions of Mage and Naruto over the next week or so, but the Exalted game is being compiled into its own logs (which I'll go over at the end of the campaign and put somewhere then) and I'm not playing any other RPGs. Still playing WoW, and might post occassionally about that. [EDIT Wall-o-text rant after the break]
Not sure how well the above screenshot shows it, but I'm in a new guild! I wasn't raiding enough in my old one (which wasn't really their fault, and I'm not going over it here), so now I'm in one with some old friends from IRC. In a week and a bit, after I leave my job, I'll be a proper hardcore MC Raider! In Ulduar, though.
Anyway, Mage. So last week, we were told that we'd brought the attention of some bad guys called Technocrats to the area, and should go fix that. We headed out into the nearby town/suburb, and after Kase (our Virtual Adept) hacked into the local police station's network and planted a wild goose chase for the Technocrats' Agents to follow, we chased them down. While the rest of the cabal argued about whether or not to enter the shop we'd led/followed them to, I headed in anyway. They didn't actually notice me until Jenna (the rock chick Ecstatic) came in to drag me out, at which point they recognised me as the guy who'd exploded their pal in the last session, and scarpered.
After we (the Agents and I) got into their car - Did I mention that I have an absurdly high stealth roll thanks to my magical subtlety? Yeah - I unsuccessfully attempted to put them to sleep, then successfully made them angry at each other. Meanwhile, the rest of the cabal had noticed I was in the car too, and managed to stop it by puncturing the tyres. Anyway, thanks to some magical help from me, the driver reacted to his car stopping by punching his passenger, knocking the man unconscious and almost putting his head through the window.
A brawl ensued with some locals, and I escaped with the unconscious man to a local park where we all met up to interrogate him. I kept watch for people following us from the kid's roundabout in the park while they talked to the man. I didn't hear any of that, in character because I was elsewhere, out of character because I was reading Wolverine: Origins. The only thing I know is that there was a mobile involved, because I was told it was in front of me but had no reason to care, and then after a while it disappeared because one of the guys summoned it.
Anyway, after a while we were all compelled by our Avatars (the things that fuel our magic, kinda like souls) to walk into a cave that had just appeared in the woods, and once inside the cave to drown ourselves in a lake inside. We all fell unconscious, and when we woke up we were back outside, the cave was gone and we were all more powerful. Susumu can now stop bullets and give himself super-speed.
Anyway, this week, we were told to go and take out the chief Technocrat in the area (presumably based on last week's interrogation - shut up, it was a good comic) and so we traced him to a nearby farm where he was threatening a farmer's family for no explained reason. He saw us coming, shot tear gas at us, then got shot by John (the Hermetic gunslinger)'s bullets and Julius (the priest)'s holy light laser pulse thing. I ran out of the gas at super-speed, only to find he'd already been killed while I was gaining super-speed, and jumped through the window anyway to land in front of the rather surprised family. Kase stopped his gun exploding by exploiting the world's RNG, and apparently there'll be a conclusion next week.
This totally counts as Wednesday.
So yeah, Exalted. The campaign I'm running, that is. When last we left our heroes, they were about to decide whether or not to fight a Solar Exalt that had just appeared inside their ship. Well, they raced downstairs, and a stalemate ensued. Guns were aimed, swords were brandished, it was all very unpleasant. The Solar, who turned out to be Roja the cabin boy (think about it), was very confused as he'd just found out that in a previous life he'd created the very ship he was now the lowest-ranked person on. The band were very confused, as despite his rippling muscles and white glow, the person in front of them was clearly just a boy in his early-mid teens. After a while of shouting at each other about how they wouldn't put their weapons down because of how they'd probably get killed, the party whore, Lucrezia (for whom it took about a session to gain the nickname Lucy) slinked up to him, flashed a bit of skin, and abducted him to her cabin.
See, this is the great thing about RPGs. The players will almost never do what you expect them to. If they'd tried to kill the guy, he was weak enough in combat stats they probably could have done, but I also forgot to give him good social defenses, and so now he's the party mascot. Well, that and Lucy's booty call, which I'm determined to avoid as much as possible because yeah, cybering? Not really my thing. But in any case, I accidentally ended up with a GMPC (GM's player character, ie an NPC who's as powerful as or more powerful than the PCs and in their party) rather than a corpse. I'm keeping him around rather than railroading him out of here for a couple of reasons, the main one being he's damn useful for exposition.
After seducing him to their side, Roja revealed to the band that in a previous life he'd been a Twilight caste Solar Exalt, who'd made this ship. He also said that it wasn't at its full power, and that they should go and find a powerful hearthstone in the Western Ocean to power it. Then there was more commotion downstairs, and a sharkman jumped on board. Now, I went to look up the stats for the sharkman (a standard beastman) and accidentally started using the stats for a siaki-man (a minor deity). So after almost killing one of the band in the first session, I positioned the enemy near a window and when Zasz hit him with a large ball of wind essence (think air-zooka, but magicker) he flew out of said window (which I'm sure has a special name on a ship, but what the hey) and didn't come back.
A week of RL time passed, and the next session picked up that night at dinner, with noone really caring that they'd just fought a sharkman, and Roja being very tired out thanks to an afternoon spent with Lucy (off-screen). Later that night, a Peleps (a house from whom Zasz had stolen the ship, head of the dragon-blooded navy) boat was spotted coming toward them. Naval combat rules were learnt as chase was given, and after Lucy blew up the boat's sail the band closed in on the boat to loot and plunder.
Unfortunately, the boat slipped around the back of the Strange Mountain, and a lovely couple appeared ready to get butchered. The man was shot off the back of the ship by Zasz and left unconscious in the ocean, and the woman was killed with a single slice from Revvie's sword. Then their two friends appeared, a large armoured fighter with a greataxe, and an Immaculate Monk (who are Exalted's equivalent of my Mage) with claws. Fong, Alindre and Alindre's bear Grumbles all charged straight at the monk, who redirected Fong's attack the the axe-wielder (who blocked it easily, just as Fire Emblem taught me) and Alindre's and the bear's to Zasz. Alindre did a bit of damage to Zasz, and then I left it on a cliffhanger.
Next session should see a conclusion to this combat (hopefully quickly, as the monk's used enough of his mystical energy that he's surrounded in an aura of lethal water.) and some NPCs who's template I'll get right.
A fact about me you may not know: I'm terrible at time-keeping. I just have a terrible internal clock, at least when it comes to estimating how much time has passed between two events. I cannot estimate journey times except for in relation to other journeys, and even then only by estimating the distances. "Well, it takes me 20 minutes to get to work, but uni's nearer to work, so... under 20 minutes?" (actually somewhere between 5 and 10).
This sometimes means I struggle to find the time for doing things, this blog being a prime example, that aren't on a fixed schedule. It hardly helps that I had a reasonably active last week. In addition to work, I:
-Ran another two sessions of Exalted (the second of which finished just before I typed this)
-Played a session of Mage
-Hunted down more pets in WoW and started getting reputation with some of the factions from the Burning Crusade who sell pets.
-Handed in my notice at work (come on, 23rd May)
-Applied for a new WoW guild run by some friends of friends in IRC
-Saw Star Trek, which was awesome (though I can't help but feel I missed a lot by not bein a Trekkie myself)
-Had my end-of-year interview at uni, which went alright. I think I'm going to have to redo an essay over the next month or so, and possibly polish up another couple bits of coursework, if I want to pass through into the next year.
Anyway, yeah, busy, albeit some of that stuff's frivolous, but hey, so am I =P
Coming soon: a summary of the first two proper episodes (full sessions) of the Exalted game, a summary of last week's Mage (probably on Thursday along with a summary of this week's), some WoW stuff, and a GMing rant about GMPCs (which I managed to miss last time round). One a day at least is my plan, but we'll see how it goes. Feel free to harass me if nothing appears on Wednesday proper.
It can be hard picking the right title and picture for a blog post. Today I am going to write about WoW's 3.1 patch and the Argent Tournament, and - cliche that I am - I figured a picture of Camelot from Monty Python and the Holy Grail would be apt. But google image search failed me (also I realised I should cut down on the cliche, I hear it's high in saturated fats) so you get a paladin's horse.
So, patch 3.1. Yes, it was a while back, but bear with me. Firstly, the class changes that affected me:
-Molten Armour now scales with Spirit instead of being a fixed value.
Ok, with that out of the way, why am I playing my mage so much nowadays? Because these past few weeks have been some of the best for "Casual" players in a very long time. The Argent Tournament, a small area in the far north of Icecrown, is a hub of daily quests, mostly revolving around getting on a horse, equipping a lance and hitting other people on horses with lances. There is a basic progression which goes as follows:
-For the first 3 days, you kill 10 undead nearby, go out to find swords, and fight with practice targets. For the right to fight in the tournament.
-For the next 5 days, you kill 10 undead nearby, a bunch of mounted lieutenants and their minions a bit further away, go out to find swords, and fight with easy-mode AI NPCs. For your city!
-For the next forever days, you kill 15 undead nearby, a larger bunch of mounted lieutenants and their bosses a bit further away, go out to kill a dragon that (debatedly) requires a group to kill, and fight with hard-mode AI NPCs. For gold! Also for a special currency used for awesome minipets!
-For the first 19 of those forever days, you repeat the previous 5 days (actually 4 on the last time round due to an amusing bug) for some other city. After that you are a champion of your faction, and this doesn't actually get you any more gold or currency, just a nice title.
Now, this sounds monotonous, and it sort of is, except that, being WoW, it's one of the most enjoyable bits of monotony out there. I have so far become a champion of two cities, am nearing my 3rd, and have got a very nice dagger (worth 1/2 a minpet) that was a weapon upgrade for me.
After the Argent Tournament was around long enough for us to get used to it, Noblegarden (WoW's denomination-free version of Easter) came along, inviting us all to run around finding eggs in our low-level villages, throw bunny ears onto female characters (only if they're over 18 though!) and plant flowers in deserts. Which was fun, and I got another new minipet (a cute bunny that hops after me) and a new version of my polymorph spell: bunny rabbit. This inspired me to go and hunt down the other two versions of polymorph available to me (I already had sheep and penguin): cat and pig. There's also turtle, but I was tired by this point and a raid boss drops it. Admittedly, a level 60 20-man boss, but still.
And just as Noblegarden was drawing to an end, everyone's favourite WoW holiday (mainly because it's nothing to do with any real holiday), Children's Week! That's right, time to pop down to the orphanages, grab a cute little kiddywink, and drag him/her around Azeroth showing her/him the sights. There are two orphans: A human who's very dull and gets laughed at by his heroine, and a draenei who, having been made a couple years later, is much more interesting, and has ominous foreshadowing covering her. After taking the little draenei girl through a few achievements with me (exposing her to the harshness of war, teleporting home leaving her behind, and showing her the grind that her future life would be), I turned both in and got another pair of minipets. And then decided I wanted even more minipets, so set about flying about buying and questing for all the easy ones. I'm 12 away from a free skunk, and starting to worry about how much I like this game >.>
So, Exalted. I promised a friend this post would be about the campaign I recently started running, complete with the above picture/link (NSFW, though I'm sure you can find a clean version if you youtube search "I'm on a boat").
So, I hang out in an IRC channel with a group of friends who were enthusiastic about WAR a while before it came out and decided to make a guild for it. Needless to say, when it did finally come out, most of us left it for WoW about a month later, but by that point the channel wasn't really about that any more anyway. But I digress, a couple weeks back someone started asking, as he often does, if anyone wanted to run an Exalted campaign over IRC. Now, as Scion had recently finished, I said yes.
After a bit of brainstorming, we recruited some other people in the channel into the game and decided on the setting: a Dragonblooded campaign set on the high seas, a group of adventurers sailing about beating up bad guys, that sort of thing. Since then, it was decided that the boat they were on would be an artefact made of Jade, so that it wasn't flammable. And in fact, despite it being a possibility, none of the PCs were aspected with Water, indeed most of them chose Fire. The ship's captain is aspected with Earth "so I can use the crew as armour" (yes Exalted works that way), and there's an Air-aspect there as well. The other 3 are Fire.
The PCs in more detail:
-Cynis Lucrezia: Fire-Aspected daughter of a house renowned for its hedonism, this sorceress and demon-summoner has decided to go out and experience the world before coming back to the Isle and proving her family's credibility.
-Mnemon Zasz: Despite being an Earth-Aspected son of a house renowned for its powerful sorcerers and nobles, Zasz is a brutish fighter obsessed with big guns and the ocean. After being outcast by his family, he found a ship and has taken to the seas to claim the Isle's navy as his own.
-Alindre, Found Egg: Daughter of servants, noone expected Alindre to Exalt, but her family were the servants of a noble house, and so she was more prepared for the life of a Fire-Aspected Exalt than most "Lost Eggs" are. Now she's decided to head out into the Western Ocean to find her brother, a soldier in the army.
-Tepet Revvie Edalalaika: Favourite daughter of a proud military house, Revvie lost an arm and a hand in an assassination attempt about a year ago. She was taken in and cared for by peasants until she was well, and during this time her family's armies were decimated. Now calling herself "Tarnished Orchid," she goes out to take on the world with her swordsmanship, and track down the source of her would-be assassins.
-Sesus Fong: Originally a Lost Egg, Fong Exalted into the Fire Aspect early and was adopted into a house of cut-throat politicians. However, his humble beginnings meant that the world of politics never suited Fong, and now he's stowed away on a ship heading west to escape it all, even for a while.
The ship on which they sail is the Strange Mountain, a small battleship which can fold itself down to the size of a suitcase, and which needs no crew to sail it but a skilled captain. Zasz has armed it with a pair of Essence cannons and a pair of seige ballistae, and they were about to set sail when golden light and the sound of screams spilled out from downstairs. Apparently a Solar Exalt, or "Anathema" has appeared. As Dynasts of the Realm, the band should slay this person, but they tend to be rather powerful and 2 of the 5 of them lean toward the social aspect of the game... it's going to be an interesting 2nd session.
Mage last night was pretty cool. We'd just broken into a warehouse in the middlish of Glasgow, and found it to be full of educational textbooks, that most evil of products! Ok, so we later discovered they were full of subliminal messages that supressed magic in the minds of the young and so really were evil(ish), but still. Books. Anyway, the security guardwent for a piss as we were discussing how to deal with him, so we locked him in there through some nifty magic by one of the Hermetics.
Inside the security guard's office, we found nothing except for a tracking device (which none of us identified as such, and were about to leave when the Technocracy burst in! Snipers shot one of us unconscious immediately, and everyone dived for cover. Then Susumu realised they were all cowards with guns instead of real weapons, so ran out into the shelves to fight them properly. He surprised one of them and hit him so hard, his head disappeared into his torso and his legs crumpled. Which was cool. Also, it scared away the rest of them, so we were free to burn down the warehouse and escape to get our downed comrade healed up. There were some latin mutterings about god from the group's priest-mage, some ominous mutterings about karma from one of our superiors, and then we discovered just how evil those books were, and also that the fire we'd started in that one warehouse had spread to burn down the whole warehouse district. Oops.
Wooh, been a while. I blame that Easter thing, didn't have enough games on, so my week's only had structure at the weekends, when work keeps me busy/asleep.
Things that have happened since that last post:
-A variety of stuff in narutexalted. The 3-session fight ended, we got owned in the face by a couple of awesome super-ninja guys, and our debriefing when we got back home was carried out by an interrogator (one skilled in illusions -which Toshi wants). We then spent a session working on a bit of in-character downtime and relationships with NPCs and stuff. And most recently, we tracked down a Ninja of Sound (creepy ones) who'd abducted some merchants into a forest rather like a snowy version of the Lost Woods. Toshi had some fun torturing him and realised that he should learn to heal faster than he currently does.
-First session of Mage consisted of character intros and the Cabal being sent off to investigate some warehouses in centralish glasgow for signs of Technocrats. My character narrowed down which warehouse to investigate by tripping over an empty bottle of Buckfast, and proceeded to fail to smash through the door's lock with his bo.
-I started an Exalted campaign with some friends I know over the interwebs. We're playing over IRC (which meant I got to play around with owning a registered channel, yay) and the game is a naval-based Dynastic Dragonblood campaign. More details in a later post.
-WoW Patch 3.1 hit, affecting Jastanka only by way of a goldsink, and affecting Jielanka massively. Jori'd barely been logged onto >_<. Jiel's now a level 73 Blood(dps)/Blood(tank) DK who's still endlessly frustrated at how much her companion Nebri attracts the negative attentions of Shoveltusks. Jast is still Mono-spec, Arcane cookie cutterish (it's one of those cheap, slightly flexible ones you get from poundland).
-My 20th birthday happened. I got a bunch of cool stuff, including vouchers I haven't spent yet, a new watch, a new pencil and a G13. The last of those was just in time for patch 3.1 bringing Mac compatability for its LCD display of WoW stats.
-Finally, I discovered the joys of putting soundclips into WoW macros. Now, whenever Jast summons her A-Team, she also yells out (only to me) "There's plenty of me to go around!" in the voice of a Northrend boss.
Gods of the Internet willing, tomorrow I'll play Mage and then blog about it. I might also post something about either WoW 3.1 or my new exalted campaign, depending on how much free daytime I find myself with tomorrow.
Tonight was a very fun finale to the Scion Story/Chronicle/Whatever. Realising that the Band were on his tail and about to catch up, Hitler took the initiative and started the confrontation. In under a second:-Hitler took on his mighty War Form, a huge mass of bubbling black ooze with white lightning-hair (including the moustache) and golden clocks for eyes, then attacked Leon with no damage ensuing.
-2 Scions and 9 skeletons attacked Hitler fruitlessly, then another 2 Scions grazed him a bit.
-2 Scions got ready for their first attacks.
In the next few seconds, which took a couple hours of real-time (It's almost enough to make one understand why anime episodes spend so long covering so little time), there were some more blows exchanged and nerfs applied before Sazirk, electronic genius and demigod of Atlantis, declared he was ready. Olfus, big brutish son of Odin currently in his own War Form, was ready to act in concert, and the other 3 combat characters used a special power to become ready for this final attack.
-Sazirk shot Hitler in the chest with an explosive round from a railgun. He then used his powers of shielding and ice to freeze the blooming explosion before Hitler was ripped apart.
-Everyone else dived for this inflicted "weak spot" of Hitler, ignoring his massive armour value in order to deal (I think) 70 levels of damage, about 30 of which were to Hitler's soul itself. To put this in context, "poor" Adolf had only 21 total health levels.
-One of the attacks was an arrow made of solar energy from Daniel, adopted son of Bastet (formerly of Ra). One was a sword made of elemental Fire from Leon, son of Ares. One was Olfus (his War Form turned various of his body parts into melee weapons). One was just a strong kick from Val, russian daughter of Bastet. The introduction of Solar Energy and Elemental Fire into an explosion that had become an implosion created a Nuclear Fusion reaction. See picture above.
-Hitler was annihilated, and everyone else was blown out of the way by the masive concussive force (or teleported or flew their way out). Also blown away by the nuclear explosion was a section of the wall of Tartarus, prison of the Titans.
-Gods panicked, and the Band were sent into the World to rally the forces of the Gods there.
-"End of Book One"
Seriously, I couldn't have thought of anything even remotely that epic. Things just sort of... fell into place to make something awesome. It was the sort of thing that could only come out of a group of almost-like minds coming together and working toward one goal... that goal being Awesome.
And now Scion's over, Vampire's over and Mage hasn't *really* started yet. Naruto's tomorrow, but we were in a quiet lull between two stories when we last left off. It's kinda wierd not having myself built up to anything. Oh wait, it's Easter weekend tomorrow and I work in a kitchen. There goes that chillout >_<.
Yesterday, we created our characters and their home for the new campaign replacing Vampire, Mage (the Ascension). Everyone was a bit tired and the Chantry (mage-home) creation rules were a bit obtuse for a bunch of people that tired at that time of night, but we made our way through and are ready to start ^_^
I'll be playing Susumu, a mage of the Akashic Brotherhood, a group who are basically your classic oriental monks - martial arts, mystic chants, and "chi". He's not the sharpest katana in the box, but hits things very well, usually with a large blunt stick. He'll be joined by a virtual adept (they hack reality) called Kassandra, a rock chick from the cult of ecstasy (they take magic herbs, dude) called Jenna Side, a Celestial Chorister (they get their magic from God) called Julius, and two mages from the Order of Hermes (the nearest thing to the "classic" wizard, with magic languages and formulae and so forth): a gunslinger called John Preston and an almost stereotypical wizard(ess) called Persephone.
We all live in an underground castle hidden under a bunker near Glasgow, powered by a couple of magical "nodes" (sources) and protected by a magically-powered kitten. We all have servants, and are joined by a mysterious "master" mage and another group who are all from different magical traditions than us and will probably secretly turn out to be against us all along.
I played WoW earlier, did some quests in Howling Fjord with my brother on our DK-priest duo. We pilotted scrap-bots around evil robo-dorf mines, and shot falcons with hawks (might have been the other way round, actually). Was fun, if a little short-lived due to The Apprentice being on. My brother managed to get me interested last time round, and now I fear I'm forever going to be shouting at a bunch of ego-filled business-people to stop being idiots every Wednesday it's on.
Also, this week WoW's arena tournament's most recent (I think 3rd) phase ended, and with it the quest of my brother, my past flatmate and I to attain the in-game minipet prize - a baby murloc dressed in armour. We think we managed it, but won't find out for sure until the patch with that pet's model in it arrives in a week or two.
Arenae were cool, though the "grind" of having to do 200 matches in total got a bit tedious toward the end. Early on, however, it was fun playing the game in a way I hadn't before, getting to grips with the new playstyle alongside two of my friends (yes, I consider my brother a friend - not doing so would probably be a bad idea). Pitching my own skills against other players was exhilarating in a way I hadn't felt in a while from the game - the PvE content being universally agreed upon as the easiest endgame yet, the PvP challenge was a great one, especially when we found ourselves dropping low enough in the rankings that we could beat our opponents.
Now, off to level mining some more on my DK. She needs something she can make decent gold from, and for that to happen, she needs to max the skill.
I missed most of the fun of April Fool's day on Wednesday, due to a mixture of my normal slightly-off sleeping pattern and rushing to finish coursework for today - the last day of the second semester, something that hadn't entirely set in until mid-week. Time sure does fly. On which note, I finished writing up my new Purview for Scion, Time. Therefore I'm going to spend the rest of the post typing it up, for future review by my players and myself.
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Time, Paradox & Linearity
Whenever someone is successfully targeted by any Time boon except for 1 and 10, they gain Paradox points equal to the rating of that boon. Paradox points represent a special type of Fatebinding - According to Fate, Time should be Linear, and those whose Timeline no longer fit this are a Paradox.
Every person has a maximum capacity for Paradox, which equals their Legend + Integrity. If anyone would ever be put above their Paradox Capacity, they are immediately Linearised until this is no longer the case (see below). If someone has 1 or less Legend, they instead are ignored by Paradox, as someone so insignificant cannot hope to unravel Time through lack of Linearity.
At any point, Fate (or a sufficiently powerful Scion) may Linearise a subject of Paradox, thus removing an amount of that person's Paradox but inflicting a suitable punishment. This punishment ranges mechanically from Bashing damage or loss of Legend Points, to having boons repeat or mirror themselves, to being removed from Time (and therefore existance) - this most extreme punishment only being possible if an amount of Paradox is being removed equal to the target's capacity.
It is possible, through the effect of Time 10 or the Avatar of Time, for someone to gain negative Paradox, referred to as Linearity, up to an amount equal to their normal Paradox capacity. Any Linearity over this capacity is ignored.
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Time (animal: white rabbit)
Associated With: Atum-Re, Apollo, Tezcatlipoca
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Time 1: Time Sense
Dice Pool: None, Cost: None
The first step on being able to manipulate Time is being able to perceive it. A Scion with this boon always knows exactly what time it is. They can also detect the use of any Time boon within Per+EPer+Time yards, rolling Per+Time to detect which one, and see the Paradox of anyone who doesn't have this boon. If two Scions with this boon meet each other, each will be able to see some indicator in the other's eyes that they are masters of Time.
Time 2: What If? (I)
Dice Pool: Man+Academics, Cost: 1L per dot moved
Nearly everyone alive sometimes wonders what life would be like if they'd made different decisions. This boon allows them to find out. The user chooses a target, then rolls Man+Academics. They may then move as many dots from the target's abilities to other abilities as they achieved successes on the roll, spending 1L for every dot moved in this way. Taking a dot out of a favoured ability, reducing an ability to 0 from 1 or putting a dot into an ability currently at 0 costs 2 successes and 2L. Reducing a favoured ability to 0 from 1 costs 3 successes and 3L. The effects of this boon last for 1 scene.
Time 3: Time Resistance
Dice Pool: Wit+Academics, Cost: 1WP+5L per extra tick
With increasing awareness of the flow of time, the Scion becomes able to gain or grant a limited ability to ignore - or be ignored by - its passage. This boon costs 1WP to activate. For the next (Wit+Academics) ticks, the target takes one tick for every 5L spent when the boon is activated. If only 5L are spent, the target instead takes only 1 tick for every 2 "normal" ticks that pass.
A Scion who knows Time 3 may use any of their Time boons, including 3, at-1 speed.
Time 4: Time Loop
Dice Pool: Wit+Academics, Cost: 5L per loop (1WP to be retroactive)
As a demigod, it is a simple trick to take a small part of Time and have it repeat. This boon is applied to one arm, head, torso or set of legs. For every 5L spent, the target area repeats the next 4 ticks once more afterward. So if 5L were spent, those 4 ticks would happen twice, if 10L were spent, three times, and so on. This can be used to make a speed 5 punch every 4 ticks, or to shoot a speed 4 gun multiple times without reloading. The target's DV refreshes whenever they take an action, but they cannot use the affected area to parry. If an attack has already happened, DVs being applied against it are increased by +1 for each time it has happened. After the Legend has been spent, the Scion makes a contested roll of (Wit+Academics) against the target's (Wit+Integrity). If the target wins, the Legend is still spent but nothing happens. If the Scion wins, they may spend 1WP to have the boon affect the previous 3 ticks rather than the next 4. If the roll is a draw, the target may spend 1WP to force a re-roll that they take the second result of, or allow the boon to resolve normally.
Time 5: Peer Through Time
Dice Pool: Per+Time, Cost: 1WP (5L to prepare an item)
With this boon, the Scion learns that not only is Time not a straight line, it is possible to take a hold of normally distant parts and have a look further along the thread. At the cost of 1WP, once per session the Scion may look up to (Per+Time) years into the future or past. They may search anywhere within this time period for the answers to a number of simple questions equal to her Legend. At a cost of 5L, one of those questions may inform her of a specific item that she will need in the future, thus enabling her to attain it. This use of the boon gives the user 1 more Paradox above the normal 5 incurred by using the boon.
Time 6: Time Immunity
Dice Pool: Wit+Academics, Cost: 2WP+10L per target.
After much practice, the Scion learns to ignore Time completely, and to remove people from it. Activating this boon for 2WP + 10L per target allows the Scion to prevent those targets from taking any action for (Wit+Academics) ticks, or to allow those targets to take (Wit+Academics) ticks without anyone else taking any. It is possible to reduce the cost of this boon by half, this grants those targets prevented from taking action complete immunity to anything, and renders those targets given additional ticks unable to have any physical effect on those still inside Time.
A Scion who knows Time 6 may use any of their single-target Time boons on any number of targets at once with no multiple-action penalty, provided they spend the requisite cost as many times as they have targets.
Time 7: Time Overlap
Dice Pool: Wit+Academics, Cost: 15L per loop (1 WP to be retroactive)
By the time they are nearly gods, Scions of Time have learnt sufficient control that they can not only cause loops in Time, but can in fact have those loops occur simultaneously rather than in sequence. Every 15L spent causes any damage taken or dealt by the target in the next 4 ticks to be applied an additional time. So if 15L were spent, the damage would be doubled, if 30 were spent, tripled, and so on. After the Legend has been spent, the Scion makes a contested roll of (Wit+Academics) against the target's (Wit+Integrity). If the target wins, the Legend is still spent but nothing happens. If the Scion wins, they may spend 1WP to have the boon affect the previous 3 ticks rather than the next 4. If the roll is a draw, the target may spend 1WP to force a re-roll that they take the second result of, or allow the boon to resolve normally.
Time 8: What If? (II)
Dice Pool: Man+Academics, Cost: 5L per dot moved
Some people sometimes wonder what life would be like if they'd been born differently. This boon allows them to find out. The user chooses a target, then makes a contested roll of Man+Academics against that target's Legend+Integrity. If they win the roll, they may then move as many dots from the target's attributes to other attributes as they achieved successes over the target's, spending 5L for every dot moved in this way. Taking a dot out of a favoured attribute costs 2 successes and 5L. The effects of this boon last for 1 scene.
Time 9: Time Travel
Dice Pool: Per+Time, Cost: 1WP+10L+5L per passenger
A master of Time needs no prophet or historian to know of different times, he simply strides off to experience them himselves. At the cost of 1WP+10L, the Scion may travel up to (Per+Time) decades into the past or future. They may take up to his Legend in additional passengers, spending 5L for each one. They may only travel through time once per session, though when doing so they may spend for this boon multiple times in order to "bounce" through times, making as many rolls as he spent for and taking the total. If anyone meets themself through the use of this boon, their current Paradox is added to both their own current total and to that of themself that they met. This boon usually takes 5 ticks of concentration to use, however this may be skipped if the user doesn't care when they are going to and leave it to Fate.
Time 10: Channel Paradox
Dice Pool: Man+Willpower, Cost: 1WP
A complete master of the purview of Time must also be a master of Paradox. Possessing this boon allows the Scion to see the Paradox of all people in sight, even those with Time 1. By spending a 5-tick Guard action examining one target, they can also gauge that target's Paradox Capacity. Finally, he can spend 1WP and make a roll of (Man+Willpower) with a difficulty of a target's current Paradox to affect that target's Paradox in one of the following ways. None of these uses of the boon can be used upon the Scion themselves:
-Linearise the target for a number of Paradox equal to that target's permanent Legend.
-Move a number of Paradox equal to the target's permanent WP to another target, for whom that much Paradox cannot be enough to meet their Paradox Capacity.
-Immediately remove 1 Paradox without Linearising.
-Immediately add 1 Paradox.
-Linearise all of the target's current Paradox, with the punishment being the physical manfiestation of as many imps as the target had Paradox. These imps have Legend equal to the target, and will immediately attack either the target or the Scion.
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Phew, there we go. No details for the Avatar of Time, Avatars being basically systemless. Apologies for the walloftext-ness, just needed to get this typed up and online before I lost the ability to read my own handwritten copy ^^;
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