Psychic Abilities

Psychic abilities seem to divide into two types — ones which are more trouble than they're worth (using the Sight can drive you mad; Cassandra’s Tears is more a source of sorrow than solace), and those which break the hell out of the Laws of Magic (Domination being a good example).

You are afflicted by the condition known as Cassandra’s Tears—you have a limited ability to see the future and predict the shape of things to come. But there's a big downside: most people simply ignore or won't believe your warnings.

Musts: You must take Cassandra’s Tears or some similar variant as an aspect (because it's going to get compelled—lots).

Unbelievable Predictions. You are able to make precognitive predictions or receive them from the GM. This places an aspect on the “world” related to the prediction that remains until it comes true or is otherwise resolved. See the guidelines on page 324 for more details about predictions. Whenever trying to warn people about what you foresee, you are at a –2 to any attempts to convince them that what you’re saying is correct.

This ability is most commonly seen among a segment of Black Court vampires. Given a captive victim, a skilled Black Court vampire or other creature with this ability can break down the target’s will through direct psychic assault. It's not subtle, and it's not pretty, and it usually leaves a wreck of a mind in its wake.

Psychic Domination. Given a helpless captive, you may use your Discipline skill as an overt psychic attack, dealing mental stress and consequences until the victim's mind is entirely under your sway. While the victim may defend with his own Discipline, he usually can't counter-attack, and eventually he'll just be whittled down—especially if you get creative with the “preparation” of your victim.

Create Renfield. If you manage to take out a victim using this method, you have the option of turning the character into a “Renfield” (OW86): a horribly broken individual, with nothing left to do except foam at the mouth and fanatically execute on your instructions. It takes a day to create a Renfield in this fashion.

Master Dominator [–2]. If you take this upgrade, increase your psychic attacks to +2 stress on a successful hit and you can create enhanced Renfields with Inhuman Strength (page 183), Inhuman Recovery (page 185), and lifespans of no longer than a month. It takes three days to create an enhanced Renfield.

Possession [–3]. This variant is seen most commonly among demons; with this upgrade, you may fully possess your victim once you've taken him out with your domination attack. Your domination attacks inflict +2 stress on successful hits. This upgrade is possible only when combining this power with another that allows you to become insubstantial.

Gaseous Form (page 175) could allow you to possess a victim by way of inhalation, while Spirit Form (page 170) would allow you to simply “step into” the victim’s body. Once you've taken possession, you may control your victim completely—without any easy telltales of mind control—and gain access to all of their physical abilities and many of their mental ones. Once someone has a reason to be suspicious, you must use your Deceive to defend against discovery.

You are able to incite certain strong emotions in a target—usually emotions of passion or pain. Dark or morally “corrupt” emotions (lust, wrath, despair, and others) are the usual ones available. Emotions created by this ability are real, but not True, so True Love, Courage, Hope, and so forth are off the table.

Options: This ability costs 1 refresh to start and requires you to pick a single emotion you can incite, be it rage, lust, fear, protectiveness, or the like. More potent versions (see below) may be purchased by increasing the refresh cost.

The emotion this ability incites may be changed under special circumstances, as part of character development.

Emotion-Touch. If you can touch someone, you can make him feel something. You’re able to do maneuvers at +2 to your roll (using Provoke for anger or fear and Deceit for every other emotion) that force an emotion on a target (as a temporary aspect), so long as you’re in the same zone as he is and you can physically touch him. The victim defends with his Discipline. You may be able to prevent the victim from taking other actions as well if you do this as a block (page 210) instead of as a maneuver.

Additional Emotion [–1 or more]. For every point of refresh spent on this upgrade, you can choose another emotion to use with your Incite Emotion ability. All other upgrades apply to any emotions you can incite.

At Range [–1]. You may use this ability on targets up to one zone away without touching them.

Lasting Emotion [–1]. If you increase the refresh cost of this ability by 1, you gain the ability to do Emotion-Touch as a mental attack instead of a mere maneuver or block. If such an attack hits, you gain a +2 stress bonus on a successful hit (as though it were Weapon:2), increasing the chances of inflicting a mental consequence (and thus, a more lasting emotional state). The victim defends with his Discipline.

Potent Emotion [–1]. The Lasting Emotion upgrade is a prerequisite to this one. You get another +2 stress bonus on successful attacks as per Lasting Emotion, as though you had Weapon:4.

You have a semi-magical (“psychic”) talent for catching glimpses of the past when you touch objects.

Echoes of the Past. You can perform an assessment action on the history of a given object that you are able to touch and contemplate. This is a standard Investigate roll, but instead of searching a physical location, you are rifling through the situations that the object has been exposed to in the past, looking for glimpses of something significant.

Psychometry assessments are more difficult than normal (Good or higher), so even with a high roll, you may only get one aspect or fact, and you may not receive any additional context to help you make sense of it.

For example, a knife used as a murder weapon might only give you fleeting images from the scene, not enough to make a positive ID on the killer; but you might see something like A Butterfly Necklace that you can tag later as a clue on a future roll.

Wizards and others have learned to open their third eye, perceiving the magical world in great detail. The downside here is that the often phantasmagorical images are burned into their brains—never forgotten, always vivid.

Musts: You must have a high concept that shows either that you are a spellcaster or that you have received training of some kind to open your third eye.

Arcane Senses. Even with your third eye closed you have heightened arcane senses. You may use Lore as if it were an arcane Investigate skill as well as an arcane Notice skill. You also gain +1 to Lore when using it in this fashion.

Wizard’s Touch. As another aspect of your arcane senses, when you touch another being who has some magic potential, the GM may ask you to roll Lore to catch just a hint of a “spark” — indicating their nature as something other than mundanely mortal. Even on a failed roll, you might experience some sort of sense that something is “off,” without being able to pin it down.

Opening the Third Eye. You may use the Sight to fully open your third eye, with all of the risks and rewards that come with it. See page 223 for details on how the Sight works.

Wizards (and a rare few others) have the ability to gaze upon another’s soul directly—but only the first time they make more than a moment of eye contact, and only if the one they gaze upon actually has a mortal soul. When it doesn't happen, that in and of itself is an interesting piece of information!

Soulgaze. You are subject to the uses and effects of Soulgaze as described on page 226. Application of The Sight [+1]. If you have the Sight, above, you may take Soulgaze for free if you so choose. It’s not mandatory.