Revision as of 08:06, 5 April 2010

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Ryshassa's Custom Charms

Thanks to: Kraken for charm costs and mechanics advice, GoldenCat for letting me use these in his game (and checking them out, too!) and FiatVictrix for inspiring the memory-branch of Ryshy's transfer charms. It's ALL his fault! :D

Lore Charms

Ailment-Absorbing Technique

Cost: 4 motes per poison/disease, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Wound-Accepting Technique

This Charm allows the character to absorb physical poisons or diseases from the body of a target. The character must establish skin-to skin contact with the target for a turn, and the target must be cooperative. For each turn they remain in contact, a single poison or disease is absorbed from the target into the character's body. If the target is affected by more than one, the character may choose which she is absorbing if she has successfully diagnosed the target beforehand (using Medicine skill or the Flawless Diagnosis Technique, for example). Otherwise, the ailments are absorbed in order from most to least serious. During the transfer process, the progression of any poisons or diseases affecting them are halted, ensuring that they are absorbed by the receiving character "as is" -- no better, no worse.

As soon as the transfer come to an end, the character immediately begins to suffer the adverse effects of the ailments she absorbed, while the target is completely cured of the same. This Charm is only recommended for use by characters with high resistance to poison or disease or some method by which they can cure themselves of such ailments. Neither the character nor the target can regain Essence while under the effects of this Charm.

Delving the Unsound Mind
(was: Merciful Embracement of Madness)

Cost: 6 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Empathic Examination Technique, Ailment-Absorbing Technique

With this Charm, the character may transfer any one mental or spiritual affliction from a patient onto herself, including those that are sorcerous in nature. She must have first initiated an empathic link as through the Empathic Examination Technique, and diagnosed the derangement, ravishment or other such ailment of the spirit to be transferred. She then enters a spiritual struggle with the baleful influence dominating the patient's mind, drawing it away from the patient and onto herself. This process can take up to a few hours depending on the nature of the ailment.

During this period, the character must both sever the derangement from her patient without doing him further damage, as well as fight off its effects as the derangement sinks into her mind instead. This is the essence of empathic healing -- to heal not only through clinical knowledge but sympathetic understanding of the ailment as well. Mechanically, this requires an Intelligence + Lore or Intelligence + Medicine roll with difficulty equal to the Essence of whatever being inflicted the mental disturbance on the patient (or the patient's own Essence, if the disturbance is somehow self-inflicted). If the character using this Charm succeeds at the roll, both she and her patient are free of the derangement. If she fails the roll, the patient simply remains deranged. If she botches the roll, the patient remains deranged and the character loses a permanent Willpower point in the attempt to protect her sanity.

Harvest of Memory Meditation

Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Delving the Unsound Mind

"To learn from the past, one must preserve it for the future." This proverb was what inspired Sophia Anthegenia when she perfected the technique of memory transference. Eventually she learned to transfer memories between individuals as well as automatons, who could preserve them for generations to come. This Charm could be considered a predecessor of Sophia's ultimate technique.

The character invoking the Charm must first touch her target, creating an empathic link. If the target wants to resist, a successful Brawl or MA attack is needed to establish the link, through which the character may copy (not erase) memories from the target's mind into hers. A Manipulation + Lore roll determines the quality and quantity of the memories she copies. One success is enough for a general summary of the target's life and identity, or one very specific, detailed memory. Three successes gives large swaths of important memories throughout the person's lifetime, enough to build a distinct personality from. Five or more successes gives the memory recipient access to anything and everything that she may wish to know about the target, from the mundane to the deeply buried.

It is possible during the course of transference that the recipient will encounter memories that are highly intense, even traumatizing. In such cases, the invoker of the Charm must roll Willpower at a difficulty appropriate to the shock involved; failure means the empathic link is instantly severed. A botch on this roll will create a derangement in the recipient's mind linked to the traumatic memory.

The memories transfered to the recipient are a perfect copy, as detailed as if she had lived it herself. She becomes a living record of the target's experiences, though she must use some other means to share them with others (another Charm, Sorcery, or simply telling it through words or writing).

Gift of Reminiscence

Cost: 4 motes
Duration: Instant
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Delving the Unsound Mind

There are times when merely telling a thing is not enough to convey its full meaning. This Charm is meant to address that. It first requires touch contact between the character using the Charm and her intended target, creating an empathic link between them. If the target wants to resist, a successful Brawl or MA attack is needed to establish the link.

Once the transfer begins, both the initiating character and the target are are immobilized until the next turn. Thereafter, the character may share one of the memories in her mind (they may be ones she has acquired from Harvest of Memory Meditation or other memory transfer methods) with the target, compelling him to experience it as a flashback on the spot. Depending on the memory, and the person receiving it, the experience could be anything from innocuous to severely traumatizing. Whatever the reaction, the memory is burned into the target's mind and may be recalled ever afterward.

Full-Body Health Transfer Method

Cost: 10 motes, 1 Willpower
Duration: One turn
Type: Simple
Minimum Lore: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisite Charms: Wound-Accepting Technique

Through the use of this Charm, the character gives her own life energy to heal even the most grievous types of damage from her target. She must remain in skin-to-skin contact with the target for the full duration of the Charm, and the patient must lie completely prone. If conscious, the target must be cooperative before health transfer can begin; excessive movement from either party will disrupt the healing process.

Once the transfer is initiated, the character will take a number of levels of health damage per turn, while the target of the Charm is healed of the same. The number of health levels transferred per turn is equal to the transferring character's Stamina. During the transfer process, bashing damage is absorbed from the target as is, lethal damage is absorbed as bashing damage, and aggravated damage is absorbed as lethal damage. If the character is transferring an aggravated health level or a particularly devastating wound, she must achieve a number of successes on a Stamina + Resistance roll equal to the number of health levels she has already transferred from the target, or the transfer will fail and end prematurely before any further health levels can be taken. Otherwise, the transfer will continue as long as the character and the target are undisturbed and skin-to-skin contact is maintained. Neither the character nor the target can regain Essence while under the effects of this Charm.

The receiving character may only consciously end the healing process after she has already transferred the full amount of health levels for a turn. It is therefore of utmost important that she remain attentive of her own state of health, lest she "overheal" the target and fall below her Incapacitated health level. This immediately ends the health transfer as the character loses consciousness and may very well die, if she does not receive immediate care.

Medicine Charms

Empathic Examination Technique

Cost: 6 motes
Duration: Five minutes
Type: Simple
Minimum Medicine: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisite Charms: Flawless Diagnosis Technique

Through the use of this Charm, the character may diagnose illnesses of the mind and soul much as she would those of the body. By touching and maintaining skin-to-skin contact with the patient, she creates an empathic link through which she can directly observe or even communicate with a distraught or broken mind, allowing her to determine with perfect precision what sort of derangement, ravishment or other source of trauma the patient is affected by. The link also allows her to determine exactly how she may cure the affliction, but is not, in itself, a cure -- she must employ her skill as counselor and physician in order to help the patient recover. This Charm cannot diagnose or help in the treatment of the Great Curse.