Stealth, invisibility and soundlessness are the purviews of Contracts of Smoke. Many myths and legends attribute unwitnessed travel to the fae, and changelings themselves are no strangers to the benefits of moving without the notice of those who might wish to keep them under supervision. What better way to escape a promise than to have simply slipped away unnoticed when the promise needs to be redeemed? After all, if the changeling can’t be there when the individual invokes it, how is the changeling supposed to fulfill it?
Contract Levels
This Contract allows the changeling to change the nature of the marks he leaves when passing through a certain locale. The clause is one of the oldest remembered among even the True Fae, and several fairy legends exhibit Good Folk who left cloven-hoofed tracks or the scent of curdled milk behind hem. Indeed, certain seemings even use this Contract to augment their presences, as with some Fairest who leave a sweet, natural perfume in their wake or loathsome Tunnelgrubs who deliberately ooze a trail of slime to unsettle others.
- Cost: 1 Glamour
- Dice Pool: No roll is necessary. When The Wrong Foot takes effect, evidence of the changeling’s passing change to resemble something other than the visitation of a humanlike entity. This may be tracks similar to a bird’s three-toed foot, a bloody mist, drips of lavender extract — whatever the character chooses. Note that this Contract always creates the same result, so the character should think about how he wants this to manifest before the first time he uses it, and should clear it with the Storyteller before it comes into play. This substance or mark supersedes all other evidence of passage, so footprints will vanish but the slime-spray will take its place in every case, whether or not the ground was soft enough to hold a footprint. The Wrong Foot does not change the appearance of previously made marks, however. Therefore, this limits the practical application of the Contract in numerous situations, so many changelings have come to rely on The Wrong Foot to leave a sort of “calling card,” whether or not they wish to obfuscate pursuit. Once activated, this Contract functions for the duration of the scene.
- Action: Instant
- Catch: The changeling licks his thumb and smudges it on a mirror, thereby leaving another mark of his own passing.
•• Nevertread
When the changeling invokes this clause, all traces of his passing vanish. He leaves no footprints in mud, sand, snow or any other surface that would normally hold a mark. Likewise, his wet feet leave no prints on dry ground. Even grass trampled underfoot or flour scattered on the ground leaves no evidence of the changeling’s movements. Note that if the changeling remains present at the site of his Nevertread attempts, he may still be discovered by other means. This power does not render him invisible, it just obscures the signs left by his movements. Catch: The changeling must have spent at least an hour barefoot within the past day.
Roll Results
- Dramatic Failure: Instead of becoming more difficult to detect, the changeling makes a botch of the procedure, dragging mud or river-reeds or clumps of snow across his trail. Attempts to track the changeling suffering a dramatic failure on the attempt to invoke Nevertread occur at a +2 dice bonus, by whatever method they occur.
- Failure: The changeling is unable to obscure marks of his passage.
- Success: The changeling erases all traces of his passing. This may simply make it impossible to witness where the character has gone, or it may inflict a –2 dice penalty to attempts to track him, at the Storyteller’s discretion, based on the situation’s circumstances.
- Exceptional Success: For all intents and purposes, the character was never there. He’s impossible to track by the method of determining where he may have moved.
••• Shadowpatch
Light seems to avoid the changeling when he invokes this Contract, and darkness congeals around him.
- Cost: 1 Glamour
- Dice Pool: Wits + Wyrd
- Action: Instant
- Catch: The changeling must have spent at least an hour away from natural light (away from windows, open doors, etc.) within the past day.
Roll Results
- Dramatic Failure: Shadows actually recede from the character, making her more visible. The character suffers a –2 dice penalty to all Stealth-based dice pools that are based on sight (rather than any other sensory detection) for the duration of the scene.
- Failure: The Contract fails to function but otherwise creates no detrimental effect.
- Success: The character swaths himself with shadows that dampen light, sound, smell and other perceptual stimuli. For the remainder of the scene, he enjoys a +3 dice bonus to Stealth-based dice pools.
- Exceptional Success: The bonus is increased to +5.
•••• Murkblur
The changeling creates a smoky caul over the eyes of his subject, effectively blinding her. Naturally, the subject is aware of this, as her eyesight rapidly becomes so poor as to distinguish more than very bright sources of light. The changeling’s intended target must be within her line of sight for this Contract to work.
Roll Results
- Dramatic Failure: The Contract fails spectacularly and painfully, causing a burst of light in the changeling’s own vision that stuns her for the following turn.
- Failure: The Contract fails to blind the intended subject.
- Success: The subject’s vision fades to darkness. The blindness lasts for the duration of the scene.
- Exceptional Success: As with a normal success, only the changeling can terminate the temporary blindness at any point of her choosing before the end of the scene.
••••• Light-Shy
This clause grants the changeling the ultimate power of the Smoke purview: it makes him truly invisible. Even mechanical observers such as security cameras won’t detect him.
- Cost: 1 Glamour + 1 Willpower
- Dice Pool: Intelligence + Wyrd
- Action: Instant
- Catch: The changeling must have told a meaningful lie to someone very important to him in the past day, something that could hurt their relationship if the lie was discovered.
Roll Results
- Dramatic Failure: The character remains visible to everyone but himself. Indeed, he is wholly convinced that he is, in fact, invisible, and only interaction with an outside party will let him know the true nature of his lack of success invoking this Contract.
- Failure: The changeling remains visible, unaffected by the intended Contract
- Success: The changeling becomes truly invisible, unable to be seen. It is as if the world genuinely believes he isn’t there — he won’t show up in photographs, on video cameras, on infrared scans, anything. This Contract affects only sight, however. If he coughs, the changeling may be heard, and if he smells of grave-dirt, the scent will continue to put people off in the vicinity. This power lasts for a number of minutes equal to the number of successes rolled, though the changeling may choose to voluntarily end the invisibility earlier that that at his discretion.
- Exceptional Success: As with a normal success, only the invisibility remains active for the duration of the scene.
