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Montaigne |
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Montaigne |
Unofficial Errata Advantage: Membership (Social Club)
The cost of membership in any social club is 3 HP, and any abilities granted by membership should take that cost into consideration.
Curriculum: Criminal, Knife
Knacks: Double Attack (Knife/Knife), Double Parry (Knife/Knife), Exploit Weakness (Boucher), Riposte (Knife)
Apprentice: Unchanged
Journeyman: Unchanged
Master: Unchanged
Notes: While the traditional weapon of Boucher is a pair of blade-heavy main gauches, it may be used with ordinary main gauches, or with paired stilettos without penalty.
Swordsman School: Rois et Reines
Curriculum: Firearms, Polearm
Knacks: Beat (Polearm), Exploit Weakness (Rois et Reines), Lunge (Polearm), Pommel Strike (Firearm)
Apprentice: Unchanged
Journeyman: Unchanged
Master: Masters of the Rois et Reines style are crack shots under any conditions. The bonus to their musket and pistol range is increased to +50. In addition, they receive a Free Rank in the Reload (Firearms) Knack and the Trick Shot (Firearms) Knack. This may increase their Rank in each Knack to 6. If it doesn’t, they may increase the Knacks to 6 later by spending 25 XP each.
Swordsman School: Tout Près
Curriculum: Fencing, Improvised Weapon
Knacks: Corps-á-Corps, Double Parry (Fencing/Improvised Weapon), Exploit Weakness (Tout Près), Tagging (Fencing)
Apprentice: Unchanged
Journeyman: Unchanged
Master: Unchanged
Note: Isn’t it funny how few changes are required to correct the older material? The Improvised Weapon Skill is described in the Salvaged Skills e-book available here.
Swordsman School: Valroux
Curriculum: Fencing, Knife
Knacks: Double Parry (Fencing/Knife), Exploit Weakness (Valroux), Flourish (Fencing), Tagging (Fencing)
New Swordsman Knack: Flourish. When attacking an enemy, you can declare a Flourish. You roll Panache + Flourish, and must take a number of Raises equal to your enemy’s Panache in order for your Flourish to be successful. If you are successful, the Raises add Unkept Dice to your damage roll as usual, and the opponent cannot avoid the attack using any Active Defense.
Apprentice: Unchanged
Journeyman: Unchanged
Master: Unchanged
Knacks: Farsight, Memory, Mesmerize, Shatter, Watcher
Apprentice (Clairvoyant): As an Apprentice, you may use your fledgling powers (in the form of the Farsight Knack) to look into one mirror and see what is being reflected in another. Your clairvoyant abilities are limited to the present, and work most effectively when viewing images reflected in a mirror to which you are attuned. If you attempt to see what is reflected in a mirror you are not familiar with (but which someone else can describe to you), your TN for success is Raised by 10. There is no range limit on this ability, but if an attempt fails, it cannot be tried again for the rest of the Scene without breaking the mirror.
Adept (Seer): As your powers increase, so does the strength of your clairvoyant ability. You may now, within limits, look into any mirror and view events that have been reflected in that mirror in the past, or will be reflected in the future. You may not see anything that happened before you were born, and you may not peer into the future by more than a year. Each week (or fraction thereof) that attempt to peer into the future increases the TN of your attempt by one. Every two years (or fraction thereof) that you attempt to look into the past increases your TN by one.
Master (Oracle): When you become a Master, your abilities are at their zenith. Your ability to look into the past is no longer limited to your own lifetime; you may peer without limits into reflections of the past and the future. The TN penalties you incurred as an Adept no longer apply. Instead, your TN is increased by one for every five years (or fraction thereof) you attempt to look into the past, or every one year (or fraction thereof) you attempt to look into the future.
Farsight: By concentrating on any large mirror, you may see what is being reflected in another mirror somewhere else, or what has been (or will be) reflected in that particular mirror at another time. In order to perform this feat, you must roll Resolve + Farsight against a TN of 20, with any modifications for familiarity or peering into the past or future as described above, or under the Memory Knack. This Knack takes several minutes to use, and if anything is going on that might distract the Sorcerer (such as combat), the TN is increased by 10. No one but the Sorcerer sees what is reflected in the mirror, though his trancelike state will be obvious to everyone, and he remains completely vulnerable to attack (with a TN to be hit of 5, though any successful attack immediately breaks the trance). Images from the past are distorted, as if seen through a light haze, while images of the future are blurry, and specific details may be difficult to pick out.
Memory: When a Mirage Sorcerer wishes to attune himself to a specific mirror, he rolls Resolve + Memory against a TN of 20. Success on this roll ensures that the Sorcerer never suffers a TN penalty for unfamiliarity when attempting to view the reflection in that mirror from another location, or when looking into that mirror to view the past or the future. Furthermore, each Raise taken on a successful roll provides one Free Raise on all attempts to view the past or future through the mirror, or to look through that mirror remotely. There is no limit to the number of mirrors a Sorcerer may attune himself to, however, when an attuned mirror breaks, the Sorcerer suffers Flesh Wounds equal to his Mastery Level in Kept dice. At any time, the Gamemaster may spend a Drama Die to have something happen to one of the Sorcerer’s attuned mirrors, causing it to break (rendering it useless to the Sorcerer) and inflicting damage normally.
Mesmerize: To use this power, the Mirage Sorcerer must be in close proximity to his chosen victim (either in physical contact to use the power without speaking, or within whispering distance to activate the power with his voice) while the target looks into a mirror. If these conditions are met, the Sorcerer may, by spending an Action, make a contested roll of his Wits + Mesmerize against the opponent’s Wits. If the opponent wins the contest, the Sorcery has no effect. If the Sorcerer wins, the victim is utterly transfixed by whatever he sees (or thinks he sees) within the mirror. Only an attack which inflicts a Dramatic Wound will disrupt the enchantment; shaking, slapping, or even covering the victim’s eyes or dragging him out of the room will have no effect. If the victim is left alone, he can attempt to beat the Sorcerer’s roll and break the enchantment with a new Wits check every twenty-four hours. Unless one of these checks succeeds, he will remain entranced until he starves to death, or until the Sorcerer wills the enchantment to end.
Shatter: Generally considered a last-ditch defense, as it removes the source of the Mirage Sorcerer’s power, shattering allows the Sorcerer to damage an opponent by attacking his reflection in a mirror. The power may be invoked in two ways: the first, and more common, requires the Mirage Sorcerer to spend an Action striking any mirror in which he can see his victim’s reflection. If the mirror breaks, the victim immediately takes a number of Flesh Wounds equal to the Sorcerer’s Rank in Shatter times his Mastery Level (thus, a Master of Mirage inflicts 5 x 3 = 15 Flesh Wounds with this attack). The second use of this power requires the Sorcerer to look into a mirror (even from a distance) that contains the reflection of his chosen victim. He must spend an Action to attempt a contested roll of his Resolve + Shatter against the opponent’s Resolve. If the Sorcerer loses this roll, the Sorcery has no effect; if he is successful, the mirror explodes violently into sharp fragments. Anyone standing within ten feet suffers one die of damage from the glass or metal shards, and the Sorcerer inflicts a number of Flesh Wounds equal to his contested roll on the victim. If the Sorcerer uses an attuned mirror in this attack, he may apply any Raises to which he is entitled on this roll, but he still suffers damage when the mirror breaks.
Watcher: Having determined that there is some sort of bizarre, mystical world “through the looking glass,” it should come as no surprise that some Mirage Sorcerers have made contact with those that dwell there. Once per day, by cutting his own palm (inflicting one die of Flesh Wounds) and pressing the wound against a mirror, he may summon one of these ghostly figures to that mirror for a number of minutes equal to his Mastery Level. By drawing the Sorcerer’s blood through the glass, the spirit agrees to travel to any one mirror specified by the Sorcerer (even if he has never seen it himself) and, the next time it is summoned (and fed), truthfully answer a number of “yes or no” questions equal to the Sorcerer’s Rank in this Knack about what it witnessed there (if anything). Some Mirage Sorcerers summon a different entity every time they invoke this power; others seem to call the same spirit over and over again and, over time, the two develop a peculiar sort of friendship (and may come to other sorts of arrangements). Similarly, some Sorcerers see nothing but shapeless apparitions, while others report that the figures seem almost human, except for the bloody stumps where they should have hands.
Note: Obviously, the clairvoyant aspects of this improved version of Mirage are taken directly from the female version of Scrying (per the Sophia’s Daughters book), which does not exist in the Poisoned Shadows campaign. Rather than having a “stepped” progression in appearance, a Mirage Sorcerer of any power level casts no reflection whatsoever, bringing it more into line with other Sorceries in the game. As the Noblesse Oblige e-book describes, Mirage allows the Syrneth races on the other side of the Barrier to peer through into the mortal realm. Mirage and Porté share some sort of supernatural connection, which will be expanded upon (at this website, anyway) in future publications. Adoption of these rules in lieu of the preliminary version provides greater game balance, and provides mechanical explanations for some of the game’s little mysteries (e.g., Cardinal Erika Durkheim is clearly a Mirage Sorcerer, with a Rank of 3 in Watcher, rather than a Porté Sorcerer).
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