Fever Gifts

Blasphemies p. 82
Auspice, Lodges & Tribes
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These Gifts are the mainstay of the Fire-Touched in this lodge. Hosts of disease-, pain- and parasite-spirits teach these Gifts. These Fire-Touched would like to consider these Gifts as their personal property, but these dark spirits have made no bargain in exclusivity and may well teach to them to others, especially Bale Hounds.

Gift List

• Symptom

Diseases most often start with tell-tale signs, such as a runny nose, sweaty brows, sneezing, blurry vision, minor aches and pains and so on. This Gift creates one of these symptoms in the target. Medical examination doesn’t reveal a reason for the symptom or any other associated sign of infection — no elevated white blood cell count, for example.

• Cost: None
• Dice Pool: Manipulation + Larceny Skill + Cunning versus Stamina + Primal Urge
• Action: Contestedwarning.png"Contested" is not in the list of possible values (Extended, Instant, Reflexive) for this property. ; resistance is reflexive.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The Gift fails completely. The werewolf cannot use any Fever Gifts on the target for the rest of the scene.
• Failure: Successes rolled tie, or the subject gets the most. The target displays no symptoms of disease.
• Success: The most successes are rolled for the Gift user. This Gift affects a single target. The target exhibits one or two outward symptoms of some disease — the effects may be discomforting, embarrassing or both, but are never life-threatening. The victim suffers a –1 to all die rolls of one specific category of the user’s choice: Physical, Social or Mental. The symptoms last for a number of hours equal to the successes rolled.
• Exceptional Success: As success, but three to five symptoms can be inflicted at once. Also, the symptoms are so severe that the target suffers a –2 due to the discomfort.

•• Touch of Fever

This Gift wills a potent fever into the hands of the Uratha. Anyone touched while the Gift is active must immediately make rolls to throw off the disease. The People’s regenerative capabilities make them immune to these effects, so the Pure use this Gift most often either as a warning by infecting those humans favored by a Forsaken pack, or as a means of appeasing disease-spirits for their favors.

• Cost: 1 Essence
• Dice Pool: Wisdom + Survival Skill + Resolve versus Stamina + Primal Urge
• Action: Contestedwarning.png"Contested" is not in the list of possible values (Extended, Instant, Reflexive) for this property. ; resistance is reflexive.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The disease-spirits recoil at the werewolf’s fumbling. Social rolls made toward those spirits suffer a –2 penalty, as do Gift-activation rolls or rite-activation rolls made within 24 hours that involve such spirits.
• Failure: Successes rolled tie, or the subject gets the most. The target displays no symptoms of disease.
• Success: The victim contracts the disease. The pathogen is akin to a virulent case of the flu, though the disease does not spread beyond the person touched. After one hour, the infected person begins showing symptoms and suffers a –1 to all rolls until she recovers, or passes away (a rarity). Each day, including the first, the target suffers one level of bashing damage. This damage does not naturally heal as normal bashing damage until the disease is beaten (although it can be healed magically). The target may make an additional Stamina + Resolve roll each day until she accumulates a number of successes equal to the Uratha’s initial roll to throw off the disease. The Uratha’s supernatural physiology makes them immune to this Gift. Other creatures that are immune to diseases, such as vampires, are likewise immune.
• Exceptional Success: The disease causes lethal damage.

••• Fevered Visage

Looking upon an Uratha with the Fevered Visage Gift is pain. The eyes of the Uratha become bloodshot and waves of heat seem to pass in front of his brow. When he fixes his gaze on his victim, the effect is transmitted to the target until he or she either fights off the supernatural fever or endures its consequences.

• Cost: 1 Willpower
• Dice Pool: Presence + Intimidation Skill + Purity – target’s Stamina
• Action: Contestedwarning.png"Contested" is not in the list of possible values (Extended, Instant, Reflexive) for this property. ; resistance is reflexive.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The disease- and painspirits that empower this Gift attack the Uratha foolish enough to dishonor them. The Uratha suffers a –2 pain modifier to all rolls for the scene.
• Failure: The Gift does not function.
• Success: The victim feels a fever sweep over his brow and chill in the core of his body. The number of successes rolled acts as a negative modifier for all Skill and Combat rolls for a number of turns equal to the Primal Urge of the Uratha. The range of this attack is equal to the Gift user’s Primal Urge x2 yards. This can only affect a target that can meet the Uratha’s gaze. Anything that can conceal the Uratha’s face from the intended target may subtract from the Uratha’s roll. (See “Concealment,” World of Darkness, p. 162.) The blind and the unliving are immune to the Gift’s effects.

•••• Fevered Sending

This power only works on sleeping victims. It allows the Uratha to enter into and tamper with the dreams of others. Due to the nature of dreams, the rite is actually very quick, though the dream may seem to have lasted much longer to its victim. The werewolf must be within one yard of the victim to attempt the Gift. During the time the Gift is active, the victim sweats, tosses and turns and lightly moans as if in the grips of a fever. The Uratha invoking the Gift can likewise take no other action.

• Cost: 1 Essence and 1 Willpower
• Dice Pool: Wits + Empathy Skill + Honor versus Resolve + Primal Urge
• Action: Instant and Contested; resistance is reflexive.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The victim instantly wakes up, but the Uratha may remain trapped in a dream world that isn’t. He must make a Composure roll each round or be trapped in a Fuge state. One success is enough to free the Uratha, though he suffers a –1 to all Wits rolls for the remainder of the scene.
• Failure: The Gift does not function.
• Success: If the Uratha rolls more successes than his target, he appears within the victim’s dreamscape, much like a spirit in Twilight. With no effort, the Uratha may observe the dream and then depart— very useful if the target is a Cahalith. By expending more Essence, the Uratha can affect the dream by subtly changing events or rewriting the experience. The Storyteller must plot out the general events and characters of the dream. The Uratha can change one of the aspects (character, action or setting) per point of Essence spent, up to a number equal to his successes rolled. Exerting influence risks tipping the victim off to the Uratha’s manipulation. The Uratha must make a Disguise roll to hide his involvement (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 87). The Uratha’s control over the dreamscape gives him +2 to this roll, though some Uratha don’t care to hide their mastery of another’s dream.
• Exceptional Success: No additional effect.

••••• Toxic Wrath

The most virulent forms of fever- and poison-spirits manifest in the breath of the Uratha who exhales a weblike cloud of putrescence. Any who contact the cloud must attempt to fight off the toxins therein.

• Cost: 1 Essence and 1 Willpower
• Dice Pool: Strength + Intimidation Skill + Glory versus Stamina + Primal Urge
• Action: Contestedwarning.png"Contested" is not in the list of possible values (Extended, Instant, Reflexive) for this property. ; resistance is reflexive.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The disease-spirits recoil at the werewolf’s fumbling. No Gifts from this list may be used for 24 hours.
• Failure: A tie results, or the subject gets the most. The target displays no symptoms of disease.
• Success: The Uratha breathes out a miasmic cloud with a diameter in yards equal to 2x Primal Urge. Those engulfed in the cloud who do not fight off its effects watch in horror as buboes, necrotic cysts and pox marks erupt on their skin. Each success causes a point of lethal damage. The cloud lasts for one turn.
• Exceptional Success: The disease causes aggravated damage.