Animation

Seeming Contract

Winter Masques 52
Wizened
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Most Wizened prefer dealing with their tools and creations simply as ordinary objects that they can use to shape the world to their desire. However, some Wizened see inanimate objects as having just as much spirit and personality as living beings and prefer to talk with them and request their assistance, rather than simply ordering them around. All of the Contracts of Animation require the character to touch the object she is communicating with.

Contract Levels

● Knowing Touch

The character talks to an object or device and learns of any damage it has suffered and the location and nature of all of its weak points. The object also tells her about any hidden spaces or secret compartments within it. To use this clause, the character must handle, examine and talk or whisper to the object or device for at least half a minute.

• Cost: 1 Glamour
• Dice Pool: Crafts Skill + Wyrd

Suggested Modifiers

–1 The character is distracted and not concentrating entirely on the object. Burglars who keep an ear out for guards or the owners of a house they are breaking into suffer this penalty

+1 The character examines the object for at least five minutes

• Action: Instant
• Catch: The owner of the device asked the changeling to examine it. This catch does not function if the changeling owns the object in question.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The changeling misunderstands the device and for the next scene gains a penalty of -2 to any roll to repair or modify this device.
• Failure:The clause provides the character with no information about the object or device.
• Success: The character understands the details of the object's construction. She gains a bonus equal to her Wyrd to repair or modify a damaged object or device. In addition, she knows what piece to remove to most effectively disable a device, or exactly where to hit an object to do the most damage. She can halve the object's Durability (round down) for any attack she makes on it during the next scene.
• Exceptional Success: The character also automatically learns of any hidden compartments or spaces within the object she is examining.

●● Elegant Protection

By touching a device and listening to its spirit, the changeling gains an instinctive knowledge of how to use it. This clause allows characters who have no idea how to use a particular device to use it without penalty and also provides characters trained in its use with additional expertise. To use this clause, the character must touch and fiddle with the device for two full turns before using it. This clause can be used on weapons, vehicles, scientific instruments, individual computer programs or any other device or tool. Changelings can even use this to gain bonuses at picking locks or disarming security systems.

• Cost: 1 Glamour
• Dice Pool: Wits + Wyrd

Suggested Modifiers

–1 The character refrains from even whispering to the device

+1 The character speaks to the device in a normal conversational volume

• Action: Instant
• Catch: The character has at least 10 minutes to talk with the device to learn the secrets of its use.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The character misinterprets the device's suggestions and suffers a -2 penalty when using the device for the next scene
• Failure: The clause does not affect the character's use of the device.
• Success:The character gains a temporary specialty with the device she is touching. This supernatural benefit manifests as a bonus to dice rolls made to use the specific object equal to the number of successes. Thus, if the player rolled three successes to have his Wizened learn to ride a particular motorcycle, the Wizened would gain three dice to any Drive rolls made to drive that specific vehicle. This bonus lasts for three turns per point of the character's Wyrd. It also counts as temporary dots in a Skill for the purpose of eliminating untrained penalties.
• Exceptional Success: The bonus lasts for the scene.

●●● Inanimate Communion

The character directly senses and experiences events that happened to the object or device he is handling. The changeling experiences these events from the point of view of the object he is touching. While doing this, he hears and feels how the object was used and who used it.

• Cost: 1 Glamour
• Dice Pool: Empathy Skill + Wyrd

Suggested Modifiers

–1 The character does not touch the objects with both hands

+1 The character polishes, cleans or performs minor maintenance on the various objects (+1).

• Action: Instant
• Catch: The object has not been used or handled for at least a year

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure:The character gains no impressions from the object.
• Failure: The clause has no effect on the character’s Defense.
• Success: The character can touch or handle an item and learn about the last few times it was extensively used, moved or handled. This clause works equally well on a bottle opener that was used a few hours before and an ancient Roman necklace last worn 2,100 years ago. The character learns who used the object, gaining a clear impression of the user's appearance and manner. The character also learns where and how the object was used. One of the major limitations on this clause is that the character can only see and hear people and objects that actually touched the object. The character will know who or what a melee weapon was used upon, but not who a gun was fired at, unless the gun actually touched the target. The character requires only a minute or two to learn the past of any single object.
• Exceptional Success:The character can clearly see and hear a greater number of the events surrounding the object or device as it was used or handled. Her vision includes people who were not in physical contact with the object, up to a radius of five yards from the object.

●●●● Animate Device

The character can cause any device to operate on its own. Cars drive themselves, guns fire while sitting on a table, doors open or close and locks unlock themselves.

• Cost: 2 Glamour
• Dice Pool: Manipulation + Wyrd

Suggested Modifiers

-3 The character uses only gestures to direct the object to do what he wants

-1 The character can see only part of the device, such as being able to see only the grip of a pistol in a holster

+1 to +5 The character gains an additional +1 to this roll for every success he rolls on a Manipulation + Persuasion roll to convince the device to do what he wants. The character must spend at least half a minute convincing the device to act as he wishes and must speak audibly to gain this bonus

• Action: Instant
• Catch: The character owns the device and has regularly used it for at least a month.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The device briefly malfunctions and cannot be used in any fashion for the next three turns.
• Failure: The clause has no effect upon the device.
• Success: The device obeys any single simple command by the character -- the locked door of a safe unlocks itself and swings open, a car starts and drives in the direction the character indicates, a drawer opens or closes or a gun tucked in an opponent's belt fires. However, devices cannot move in any way that is outside the normal range of their operation. A car can drive itself and a gun lying on the ground can fire, but the gun cannot aim itself. The efforts of anyone attempting to use the device normally automatically supersede the effects of this clause; the item cannot wrest control. Also, unless the normal function of the device is sufficiently forceful to harm someone, such as a car hitting someone or a gun firing, this clause cannot cause the device to operate with sufficient force to harm anyone. This clause causes the device to obey a single command by the changeling. The changeling can command any single device within Wyrd x 3 yards that he can see clearly.
• Exceptional Success: The changeling can control the device for an entire scene, causing the device to operate as he desires, within the limits of this clause.

●●●●● Command the Inanimate

The changeling commands an inanimate object and imbues it with temporary animation. This clause enables a table to hop across a restaurant floor, a broom to sweep a floor, a knife to hurl itself across a room or a gun to aim and fire itself. These objects can all move swiftly and, if desired, with lethal force.

• Cost: 2 Glamour + 1 Willpower
• Dice Pool: Presence + Wyrd

Suggested Modifiers

-2 The character asks the object to do something that will harm or destroy it

+1 The character asks the object to perform its normal and expected function

• Action: Instant
• Catch: The object's owner is a stranger to or enemy of the changeling, and mistreats or does not take adequate care of the object.

Roll Results

• Dramatic Failure: The object briefly animates for one turn in a violent and uncontrolled fashion, in which the object attempts to harm the changeling who commanded it. If this is not possible, it attempts to destroy itself.
• Failure: The object remains immobile and unaffected.
• Success: The desired object becomes animate for the entire scene. Objects act as if they were controlled by a living being with Strength and Dexterity equal to the changeling's Wyrd and (if appropriate) a skill equal to the changeling's Presence. For example, if the changeling orders a drawer to open so as to hit someone standing nearby, it would do damage like a brawling attack using Wyrd + Presence instead of Strength + Brawl. In addition to a broom being able to sweep a floor on its own, drawers can open with sufficient force to harm someone nearby, and bottles can roll or hurl themselves across a room. When performing this clause, the changeling must issue a single command to the object. The object continues to perform this action for the entire scene. If the character wishes to change this instruction, including ordering the object to instantly stop, he must take a turn to deliver the new order and make a successful Presence + Wyrd roll. As long as this roll succeeds, the object immediately begins performing the new action. If the roll fails, the object continues performing the previously ordered action, but the changeling may attempt to repeat the new order the next turn. Ordering an object to change what it is doing does not cost any additional Glamour. The changeling can command any object within Wyrd x 5 yards that he can see clearly.
• Exceptional Success: The object remains animated until the sun next rises or sets (whichever comes first), and the changeling can order the object to change actions without needing to roll. As long as the object is within Wyrd x 5 yards away and the changeling can see or hear it clearly, it will instantly obey the changeling.