FrivYeti/Knacks
Knacks: The Tangled Loom
The average person in Creation is a slave to destiny. No matter what they wish, they do not have the ability to avoid their own fates, and a proper reading of their future will always reveal what lies in store. Many people would become uncomfortable when faced with this fact, but it remains true. Occasionally, by dint of effort, someone might alter their fate, but only in small ways.
However, some people are different. By chance or drive, they gain the ability to affect their own fate, push the threads of the Loom in a direction other than what was expected. As they gain more power at doing this, the ways in which their life twists and warps take on their own kind of life. Their thread in the Loom becomes knotted, causing fate to swirl in strange ways about them. When these knots become pronounced enough, they can affect other fates that draw close to the character's, defining their destiny in a new and active manner. These knots are known as 'Knacks'.
Learning Knacks
Characters cannot 'learn' a Knack; unlike the other paths of power, it is not an active process by which a character attempts to gain new capabilities. Instead, characters gain Knacks by acting in certain ways. A character who meets many friends and makes new ones finds that her destiny knots to draw those friends back to her wherever she might be. A character who seeks conflict discovers that eventually conflict will seek her in return. Because of this effect, players may choose any Knack that fits a character's existing behavioural patterns. 'Training' for Knacks requires altering a character's behaviour in a way that supports the new knot.
Active Knacks
Active Knacks are used when the character wants them to be. They either reduce the Kismet cost for a favourable event to happen, or allow the character to choose to regain Kismet when unfavourable events happen, as well as encouraging said events to happen.
Active Knacks - Favourable
Active Knacks - Unfavourable
Passive Knacks
Passive Knacks provide a variety of permanent benefits to certain types of actions or events undertaken by the character. They often have restrictions on how they can operate. If a character would get two bonuses from different Passive Knacks to the same roll, use only the higher bonus. However, Knack bonuses stack normally with Techniques, Thaumaturgy, artifacts, or Bestowings.
However, Passive Knacks also warp a character's destiny, pushing them towards the tasks that they benefit. Passive Knacks apply a small penalty to certain actions opposed to the destiny that the character is developping.
Passive Knacks - Physical
Passive Knacks - Social
Passive Knacks - Mental
