Omen

Common Contract

Rites of Spring 108-111
Beast Darkling Elemental Fairest Ogre Wizened
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Changelings are often people slightly out of time, and time sometimes restricts them less than it does ordinary mortals. The Contracts of Omen can allow changelings to see into the past and the future to a limited degree.

Contract Levels

Vision of Strife(•)

The changeling looks at someone and gains a vision of the most traumatic and emotionally charged event that the target has experienced.

• Cost: 1 Glamour
• Dice Pool: Wyrd + Empathy Skill
• Action: Instant
• Catch: The target is currently speaking about her past.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The character has a vision of an event that never happened to the target.
• Failure: The clause fails, and the character has no vision.
• Success: The character has a brief vision of the most traumatic and intense negative or harmful event that happened to the target. In all cases, this event is something that filled the target with fear and is likely to be one of the most memorable events in his life. When looking at most changelings, the character usually sees their abduction by the True Fae, and for mortals, typical events include perpetrating or being the victim of violent crime or experiencing some event such as a severe car accident or natural disaster. This vision lasts for only a few seconds, but provides the changeling with a general understanding of the nature of the event the target experienced, as well as a few vivid sensory images of this event. The changeling must look at the target to use this clause.
• Exceptional Success: The changeling also gains a general understanding of all of the other major traumatic events that occurred to the target.

Glimpse of Fortune’s Favor(••)

The changeling examines the outcome of an action she is about to perform. She glimpses her own future and determines the outcome of the action she is about to perform. She can then use this knowledge to improve her chances of success.

• Cost: 1 Glamour, 2 Glamour if cast reflexively
• Dice Pool: Wits + Wyrd
• Action: Instant / Reflexive
• Catch: The changeling is playing a game of skill.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The character’s glimpse of the future is incorrect, and she suffers a penalty of –2 to the action this clause is being used to assist.
• Failure: The clause fails, and the character learns nothing about the future.
• Success: Succeeding at this clause allows the player to roll twice for a single instant action that the changeling performs in the following turn, taking the better of the two results. If the changeling spends two points of Glamour, she can use this clause reflexively, applying it to any instant action taken during the same turn that this clause is performed.
• Exceptional Success: The character’s knowledge of the future is exceptionally clear and she can apply the 8 again quality to both rolls.

Reading the Portents(•••)

The changeling looks at a target and sees the most significant upcoming event in his near future.

• Cost: 2 Glamour
• Dice Pool: Wits + Wyrd
• Action: Instant
• Catch: The target is a child under the age of 18.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The changeling gains a false impression of the target’s future.
• Failure: The changeling learns nothing of the target’s future.
• Success: The changeling gains a general impression of the most significant or emotionally charged event that the target is going to experience within the next few months. Such events include committing

or being the victim of a serious crime, getting into a car accident, making or receiving a serious marriage proposal, winning a large sum of money, contracting a serious illness or being fired from a long-term career. By glancing at the target and using this clause, the changeling learns the nature of this event, roughly when it occurs and the general nature of the events surrounding it. If the target’s life is very likely to be relatively uneventful for the next six months, this clause also reveals that fact. The changeling can use this clause on himself by looking in a mirror when using the clause. Just as all possible futures, the knowledge gained through the use of this clause is not immutable. The knowledge merely reflects what is most likely to occur if the changeling does nothing to change this future. Some events may be easy for the changeling to prevent, while others may be exceptionally difficult to alter. More than once, a changeling has found to his horror that the very attempt to forestall a fate set in motion the events that brought that fate to pass. Using this clause after making a series of changes may reveal if a previously viewed event is no longer likely to occur, or if the changeling’s actions have instead precipitated some other looming problem.

• Exceptional Success: The character gains more details about the upcoming problem. If the character has no upcoming dramatic events coming up, an exceptional success reveals any events that the target hopes for or fears, and how these possible events might be made to occur if changes were made in the target’s future.

Vision of Disaster(••••)

The changeling has a brief vision of the immediate future. This vision allows the changeling to be able to replay one turn of play with the knowledge of what happened the first time this turn occurred.

• Cost: 4 Glamour + 1 Willpower
• Dice Pool: Wits + Wyrd
• Action: Reflexive
• Catch: A trusted friend or ally suddenly betrays the changeling.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The Contract fails, and the changeling suffers a –2 penalty to all Wits rolls for the remainder of the scene due to disorientation.
• Failure: The Contract fails, and events play out as they would without any interference or previous knowledge.
• Success: The changeling has a clear and vivid vision of the next turn. In play, this means that the player can use this clause at the end of any turn, before anyone else acts. Using this clause resets play back to the end of the previous turn, but with the difference that the changeling now knows what will happen in the next turn if she does nothing.

None of the events of the turn when the clause was used have any effect on any character and no one except the character who used this clause remembers any of the events of that turn. In effect, the turn when this clause was used is treated as a vision of an impending but not inevitable future. This clause is most useful in situations in which the changeling walks into an ambush, unknowingly sets off a trap or alarm or otherwise makes some critical mistake that could be avoided by adequate foreknowledge. A changeling can use this clause only once during a single scene. Repeated use during the same turn is impossible.

• Exceptional Success: In addition to generally knowing what will occur in the next turn, the changeling noticed a host of small details that allow her to act more effectively during this turn. During the turn being replayed, the changeling gains the rote quality to any action she performs.

Tying the Knots of Fate(•••••)

The changeling performs a ritual to forge another person’s fate, causing the target to be very likely to have a single experience within the next month.

• Cost: 3 Glamour + 2 Willpower
• Dice Pool: Presence + Wyrd
• Action: Extended The target number is the target’s Clarity or Morality (or the equivalent Trait for other supernatural beings). The character can make one roll every 10 minutes.
• Catch: The character is using this clause to bless a mortal child less than 18 years old with some form of good fortune.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The character dooms himself so that the next important roll he makes will be a chance roll.
• Failure: The target is unaffected.
• Success: The changeling alters fate so that the target is far more likely to have a single experience named by the changeling. For the next month, all rolls by all characters that would result in this fate coming true for the target gain a bonus equal to the number of successes rolled on this clause. Regardless of whether this experience occurs or not, the effects of the clause end after 30 days have passed. The effects of this clause also immediately end if the target has the stated experience.

The experience named by the changeling cannot be either wildly improbable or demand significant changes in the world. Going to the moon, becoming ruler of the world, making out with aliens from another planet or living through a nuclear war are all far too improbable or too large-scale events and so cannot be produced. Instead, the fate must be something relatively mundane and not too closely specified — meeting a particular celebrity, losing an unspecified amount of money while gambling, getting into a car crash and being arrested are all possible fates that this clause can encourage. The changeling can determine what the experience is, but never its outcome. A car crash might be relatively minor and might not even happen while the target is in her own car; the target might be arrested and then released a few minutes later, because the police made a mistake. Similarly, a character may be fated to be shot, but the shot might simply pierce the target’s hat or coat, leaving her entirely unharmed. Often, the results of this clause are relatively minor, but they can be lethal or otherwise quite powerful, especially if the changeling, or anyone else, attempts to cause this fate to happen. In the case of relatively minor or reasonably likely events, the target is almost certainly going to experience the event even if the changeling and his comrades do nothing to help this occur. However, less likely or more extreme events, such as the target being shot, usually require the changeling and her comrades to help this fate occur. A character may invoke a number of impending fates at any given time equal to his Wyrd. Thus, if a changeling with Wyrd 3 has used this clause three times on various friends and enemies, he must wait for one of the fates to occur or for the duration to expire on one of the decreed fates before he may use this clause again.

• Exceptional Success: No additional effect occurs.