Four Directions

Court Contract

Winter Masques 134

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These Contracts were founded long ago by those of the directional Courts, and generally help a changeling find his way in this world — or cause others to lose theirs. It’s not just about the so-called cardinal directions; it’s about the space in which a changeling exists, and his innate understanding of how all the world and universe moves around him.

Contract Levels

• Mindfinder

The changeling is able to track down another individual without any tracking skills or other information. It doesn’t provide the character with the target’s location, only the direction of that location. Mystically, the target’s chi or internal energy suddenly appears on the character’s internal radar — it may manifest as a faint humming sound that increases as one gets closer, or even a flash of light or a “floater” in one’s vision that changes as the distance between character and target decreases.

• Cost: 1 Glamour
• Dice Pool: Survival Skill + Wyrd – target’s Wits
• Action: Reflexive
• Catch: The changeling has a lock of hair from the target.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The character’s internal compass goes wild, causing dizziness and headaches. The character suffers a –1 penalty to all rolls until she secures eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.
• Failure: The character is unable to get a bead on the target.
• Success: For the next hour, the character knows in what direction the target is. If the target moves, the character’s sense of direction toward the target adjusts accordingly. Note that the target may be moving in the opposite direction, and Speed may end up a factor in if one is able to outpace the other. The character can reactivate this clause once the hour is up in an endeavor to continue tracking that same target. Doing so, however, becomes more and more difficult as the hours go on — with each subsequent hour after the first, the character suffers a cumulative –1 penalty to the roll to activate Mindfinder.

Note that the character must have at least met the target in question, even in passing. She cannot use this clause to locate targets she has never before encountered.

• Exceptional Success: The power works for two hours instead of one on this activation.

•• Finding the Flow

The character finds that his movement is aided by a preternatural flow that he did not before possess — perhaps he feels in step with the southerly warm wind or the harsh gales sweeping from the north. Perhaps he simply feels in tune with every element in his proximity.

• Cost: 1 Glamour
• Dice Pool: Wits + Wyrd
• Action: Instant
• Catch: The character successfully meditated for one full uninterrupted hour within the last 24 hours.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The character’s movements are cursed for the remainder of the scene. All Physical dice pools suffer a –2 penalty during this time.
• Failure: The character is unable to find his directional flow.
• Success: The character can ignore a number of environmental dice penalties equal to successes gained (maximum of five penalty dice ignored). This works only on environmental penalties that would hamper Physical dice rolls (for instance, during a fight on an icy street, driving through a flooded parking lot, jumping across a chasm in gale-force winds or while picking a lock in total darkness). The character’s body seems to move almost of its own accord, aided by the balancing forces of the four directions. The effect lasts for a scene.
• Exceptional Success: The character also gains +1 to his Defense during this time — he finds himself almost supernaturally attuned to incoming attacks.

••• Inequity of the Center

In much of Asia, the “center” is as much a direction as north, south, east or west. One’s center is, to a point, one’s current location but it’s also more than that — it’s the axis of that person’s very being upon which all of space and time swings. This clause disrupts one’s sense of self, staggering the flow of chi in the brain and body — or, in less mystical terms, upsets the magnetic balance of a target’s internal compass with a directional curse.

• Cost: 1 Glamour
• Dice Pool: Manipulation + Wyrd versus opponent’s Survival Skill + Wyrd
• Action: Instant
• Catch: The changeling succeeds in touching a magnet to the target’s bare skin (requires a successful touch attack).

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The character loses his own center. Assume that the negative effects that would plague the intended target now plague the character, instead (see below under “success”).
• Failure: The curse fails to take hold (the opponent gets the same or more successes).
• Success: The character rolls more successes. The target feels slightly confused and dizzy, particularly in regard to his location. In system terms, the target’s Speed is halved (round down) for the remainder of the scene. This also applies to any vehicle in which the character drives or is a passenger. In story terms, this manifests in a number of ways. If walking, running or driving, the character makes persistent wrong turns without meaning to — in meaning to run through the doors of the restaurant, he accidentally instead walks into the alley just behind the restaurant without realizing he’s done so. In

driving, he perhaps pulls into a dead-end or cul-de-sac, or maybe finds himself hemmed in by construction while the character’s own vehicle is able to handily escape. (In this way, the curse may manifest as obstacles as well as wrong turns.) While the target’s actual Speed is technically unaffected (a man walking 10 miles per hour still walks 10 miles per hour), the Speed score sees a drop because of constant wrong turns, obstacles and interruptions.

• Exceptional Success: The confusion further affects the target’s balance, and he assumes a –1 Defense for the remainder of the scene.

•••• The Hundred Steps

With this clause, a changeling protects his domicile — up to a thousand square feet — from intruders. The clause requires him to walk 100 steps away from his domicile in each of the four directions before the clause can take full effect.

• Cost: 2 Glamour and 1 Willpower
• Dice Pool: Resolve + Wyrd
• Action: Extended (one roll is equivalent to one minute, successes required increase with the size of the space protected; a 100-square-foot room requires five successes, a 500-square-foot room requires 10 successes and a 1,000-square-foot room requires 15 successes)
• Catch: The character has two working compasses somewhere on his body at the time of the clause’s activation.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The supposedly protected room rejects the character. For as long as he remains within that space, he suffers flulike symptoms (chills, fever, coughing, nausea) that cause him a –3 dice penalty. The flu-like effects fade immediately when he leaves the space. The space remains cursed in this way for 12 hours.
• Failure: The character fails to call the four directions to protect his chosen space.
• Success: The space is blessed by the four directions that conspire to protect it from intrusion. If the space is a room or building with exits and entry points, anybody besides the character must make a successful Lockpicking roll (five successes necessary) just to open a door, window, or other point-of-entry (such as a gate, grate, manhole cover, etc.). Even if the point of entry isn’t or cannot be locked, it becomes locked during this time (even so far as manifesting a keyhole during this time frame). If the space protected has no walls, then the general area gains the following blessings, but can be penetrated without fail (as there are no points of entry able to feature the mystical locks). Once inside, anybody besides the character suffers several ill effects. His Defense and Initiative scores are halved (round up). Also, changelings and the True Fae cannot access their Contracts in this space (though they can affect the space from outside of it with no problem). The Storyteller might also declare that other supernatural creatures cannot access their magic in the protected space (vampires are cut off from Disciplines, werewolves from Gifts, Prometheans from Transmutations, mages from their spells, etc.). In story and setting terms, all but the character feels “off” while in the space. They find objects are always in their way, the might inadvertently trip on loose floorboards or simply feel queasy as they smell something strange, feel unnaturally warm, or suffer from a chill wind at their backs. This blessing lasts until the next sunrise or sundown, whichever comes first. However, the character may continue the benefits without rolling by expending an additional two Glamour (the catch does not apply, here). If the character does so, the benefits extend for another 24 hours. He can continue these effects indefinitely.
• Exceptional Success: Not only is the space itself blessed, but the character using the clause finds himself blessed, as well.

••••• Harmony of Portals

A changeling using this clause can step through one door and walk out another one miles away — in no more time than it takes to blink an eye.

• Cost: 2 Glamour
• Dice Pool: Stamina + Wyrd
• Action: Reflexive
• Catch: The character possesses the key to both doors.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The character steps through the door and appears in a particularly dangerous part of the Hedge.
• Failure: The character walks through the doorway and comes out the other side.
• Success: The character walks, climbs or crawls through one portal and exits out another portal of his choice within a number of miles equal to his Wyrd score. This has a few restrictions. First, it requires that each portal be closeable in some fashion — a door on hinges, a manhole cover sliding over the hole, a trap door to be shut, etc. Second, the changeling cannot come out a random door. He must have in the past seen the portal out of which he cares to exit. Choosing a random door dumps him into the Hedge — which may be fine, but it may also put him in great danger, as this portal into the Hedge is only one-way.
• Exceptional Success: The character can choose an exit portal within a range equal to twice his Wyrd score in miles.