VirtueFlaws/Conviction
Contents
Conviction
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Righteous Domination
- By Arken
People can lack the vision, lack the will, lack the harmony needed for creation to be as it should be. If they cannot do what is needed on their own, they should be helped and led; if they will not be helped, they should be forced. They do not see truths that are self-evident; they do not know what is for the best. When Limit Breaking, the character grows tired of encouraging people to act in certain ways; he loses all sense of compromise. Instead, he will use all means short of violence that he has to force people to do what he wishes, rob them of their wills, apply the full force of his personality, etc. Furthermore, he will accept no role in any system other than one of power, and will seek more power while Limit Breaking (note that he remains sane and sensible in his seeking of power). This lasts a number of days equal to his Conviction Score.
Limit Break Condition: The character's advice is ignored in a matter that he sees as important.
Paranoid Witch-Hunt
- By CrownedSun
The character grows suspicious and grim, viewing every shadow as a potential threat and every opponent as a irredeemable villain. When the character’s Limit Breaks, he begins to see enemies everywhere and gradually becomes more and more divorced from the reality of the situation as he begins to feel as if he is surrounded by personal specters attacking both his own person and all the people and institutions he cares for. Nor is the character a harmless paranoid, but instead adopts the demeanor of an Inquisitor. Enemies are to be rooted out and dealt with, so that they can no longer plague the few good people that remain. No amount of evidence or argument can convince him of the innocence of anyone he decides is the enemy, and too many attempts to spare the ‘guilty’ will only draw the characters ire toward the objector. This Curse always fades after a number of days equal to the characters Conviction virtue, but he will not automatically recognize the innocence of anyone who suffered at his hand unless he is presented with evidence.
Limit Break Condition: The character meets unexpected or unanticipated difficulties in an important endeavor.
Fanatic Focus
- By Ikselam
The character feels that not enough progress is being made towards a goal she feels is important, and she becomes obsessed with pursuing it. She will neglect all other duties and responsibilities, not to mention trivia like sleeping and eating, in order to make up for lost time, and will become angry or even violent if others try to keep her from her pursuit. The goal which the character pursues need not be world-altering, but it should be something which will be difficult to achieve, and which has personal importance to her. "Liberate my sister's ghost from the clutches of the Silver Prince," "Unmask the Vermilion Highwayman's true identity," or "Prove that I am the most masterful Go player in all of the Blessed Isle" would all be reasonable examples of such a goal. This limit break lasts for a number of days equal to the character's Conviction.
Limit Break Condition: People or events conspire to keep the character from pursuing an important goal.
Unquenchable Thirst for Vengeance
- By Ikselam
The character burns with the desire to enact vengeance upon someone or something which has wronged him. He will use all available resources, and any means necessary, to hunt down the offending party (or parties) and punish them. If his friends do not immediately commit themselves to helping him, he will strike off on his own, or even accuse them of being in league with his nemesis. The character will wish to deal with the wrongdoer in the most direct way possible, and is far more likely to just barge into her house and issue a challenge to single combat than to formulate a cunning long-term scheme of revenge. This limit break lasts a number of days equal to Conviction, or until the villain gets her comeuppance (whichever comes first).
Limit Break Condition: A person or group wrongs the character or repeatedly thwarts his plans.
Inescapable Guilt
- By Ikselam
The character's mind buckles under the weight of her own terrible deeds. When her limit breaks, she will be tormented by hideous visions and ghastly apparitions, trapped inside a mental hell of her own creation. She may see and feel blood dripping from her hands, witness friends' faces tranform into the lifeless masks of slain innocents, or be haunted by the ghostly forms of those she has murdered. This limit break lasts for a number of days equal to the character's Conviction. During this time, she is at a -2 penalty to all actions, and will to all outward appearances be completely insane.
Limit Break Condition: The character performs some atrocity, necessary or not. (Killing soldiers in battle doesn't normally count; assassination, or cutting down fleeing or helpless enemies, does.)
Conviction Killed the Cat
- By Sariel
Based on the canonical Valor Flaw of Foolhardy Contempt, this drives a character to ignore anything that might possibly distract her from her goal by the simplest means: she ignores it. For a number of days equal to her Conviction, she will do nothing except work to achieve her current goal; she may work to achieve things that will be helpful toward that goal, but only if she's sure they'll help. At the Storyteller's discretion, if a goal becomes impossible to achieve, the character may be able to change to another; if the character achieves her goal, she must promptly move on to the next.
Limit Break Condition: The character encounters serious stumbling blocks in pursuit of a goal, or is made to doubt its ability to be completed.
Blind Stubbornness
- By Sariel
For a number of days equal to her Conviction, the character loses all sense of danger: to herself, her allies, her resources . . . She will take any opportunity she sees to achieve a goal she wants, without thought for the other consequences. (Storytellers should take care not to permit this Flaw without a reasonably understanding player group, as this can potentially lead to significant loss for the Circle as a group through no fault of their own.)
Limit Break Condition: The character is given clear opportunity to achieve a goal or make significant progress toward it, regardless of the associated price.
Death-Dealing Resentment
- By Shataina
The character resents any implication that she is less than she wants to be; when her Limit Breaks, she lashes out in a fury against those who have implied such a thing. The character immediately tries to kill the person who made her Limit Break. She is enraged to the point of madness; she will not be reasoned with, and will attack any who get in her way. (If the Limit Break was set off by something besides the Limit Break Condition, e.g. the overriding of a Virtue, then the character will seek out the last person who made her Limit Break go up.) This effect lasts until she has killed her target or a number of days equal to her Conviction have passed, whichever comes first.
Limit Break Condition: the character thinks she's being patronized or someone tells her she's incapable of doing something she wants to be able to do.
Heart of Flint
- By Shataina
As per the canonical Virtue Flaw; however, the duration is now the character's Conviction in weeks. The character is so emotionless and incapable of feeling that she may not channel through her Virtues at all for the duration of the Limit Break. On the bright side, she need not roll Compassion, Temperance or Valour for the purpose of overriding them; she may go against those Virtues without penalty if she wants. However, she is incapable of taking actions against her Conviction. When the normal rules would require her to roll Conviction and then, if she succeeds and wishes to act against it, override it with a Willpower point, she instead automatically succeeds on the Conviction roll and is incapable of spending Willpower to override it. She also does not gain Limit while Breaking, but if her Limit Break Condition comes into play at all while she is Breaking, then she must roll for it (only once) when she's done. (Thanks to Morpheus for some suggestions.)
Frustrate Wrath
- By Varazes
The character lashes out violently at any source of his greatest immediate frustration—anything that even mildly obstructs something he desires to do. He will perpetuate senseless violence on that person or thing until it is destroyed, at which point he will move on to the next thing, and so on until the effect ends. He will not attack himself, but he will attack without regard to personal safety. With partial control, he can use this violence constructively, or at least refrain from damaging things that are no less frustrating once damaged until he runs out of better targets. However, he can still do nothing save attack until restrained, exhausted, or otherwise incapacitated.
Duration: One Scene. Limit Break Condition: when frustrated in dramatic fashion while in pursuit of a goal.
Zealot's Fire
- By Han'ya
The character becomes consumed by the fires of their own dedication, sacrificing everything on the pyre of their ambition. They will not tolerate interference of any kind, and will attack any who they perceive as enemies, regardless of personal consequences or the morality of their own actions. Anyone who questions them must be slain. Anybody who opposes them must be slain. Anybody who hinders them must be slain. Anybody they just don't like must be slain. No extents are to extreme to go to in pursuit of their goal. No lows too low, no treachery too vile, no deception too evil, no carnage too bloody. The character is convinced that nothing matters except their own principles and goals, which are right, just, and infallible. Anybody who does not stand with them is against them, and anybody who does not admit their total righteousness is no worse than their opponents.
Functionally, in case that was a little unclear, the character must attempt to kill any who oppose, question, displease, hinder knowingly or unknowingly, or simply refuse to aid them in pursuit of the goal they have deemed most significant (usually their Motivation). They also no longer need to take Compassion checks, and are assumed to automatically fail all such checks taken. With partial control, the targets of the character's wrath need not be slain, simply rendered incapable of opposing him, or if the odds are stacked against the character, rendered into allies, even if it must be done at sword point. They also hold on to some of their core morals if they fail a Willpower check upon waking on a new day.
Duration: (Conviction) days
Limit Break Condition: The character is witness to something that displeases them, or has their will consistently thwarted, or their authority or competence questioned repeatedly.
