Chimerstry
"Eternity is as ephemeral as breath, as fleeting as dream. Seize what you can while you can, and never let go." -- Vassily Taltos
Chimerical illusions are shaped from the stuff of dreams, a quasi-substantial essence that members of the Ravnos clan call maya. Items made with this power are not real, but they are also not entirely insubstantial, as they are formed of the physical substance of dream. A chimerical gun has the appropriate weight and heft. A chimerical flag will sway in the wind and will cast a shadow. However, if a chimerical item is disbelieved, it loses all physical qualities but only to the individual who successfully disbelieves.
A Chimerstry construct cannot physically deflect anything more substantial than a bright light or a slight breeze. Items or creatures made with this power cannot cause harm. Chimerical armor doesn't stop bullets, and a chimerical sword can't cut anything.
One of the most important things to remember about Chimerstry is this: illusions can add to the world, but they can never subtract from it. A character could create a chimerical wall and hide behind it, but could not use this power to create a hole in the ground, as Chimerstry cannot subtract the dirt that is present. A character cannot use Chimerstry to make items or people invisible, nor to duplicate the powers of Obfuscate. However, you can use Chimerstry to create a chimerical bucket to put over an item and thus hide it. This power cannot alter a character's overall appearance, as Mask of a Thousand Faces does, but it can change the color of a trenchcoat from red to blue. Chimerstry is made of semi-tangible maya, mixed with the mind's willingness to believe what it can perceive. An illusory wall can block your progress, but it is not substantial enough to support more than a few ounces of weight. An individual is blocked by a chimerical wall in large part because her mind will not allow her to pass that barrier. However, if a falling person grabs hold of an illusory rope, it will fail to support her weight.
Disbelieving Chimerstry: Recognizing that something is chimerical is not the same as disbelieving the illusion. Disbelieving a construct requires an active attempt to destroy the chimerical creation, indicated by a contest of wills with the illusion's creator. It is possible to realize that an illusion is false, but fail to disbelieve it. The subject's subconscious mind simply cannot agree that this construct isn't real. In this manner, if a character sees a chimerical sword pass harmlessly through an object, she may realize the sword is an illusion. However, the sword will still exist, and will still look and feel real unless she chooses to actively disbelieve and then defeats its creator in a contest of wills.
If a character suspects that something is formed of Chimerstry, she can make an active attempt to disbelieve that illusion. To do so, she must expend her simple action and enter a contest of wills with the illusion's creator. Make an opposed challenge using your Social attribute + Willpower versus the Chimerstry user's Social attribute + Subterfuge. If the attempt to disbelieve succeeds, the illusion becomes a semitransparent shadow of itself. Characters cannot interact with items they have successfully disbelieved. For example, after disbelieving a chimerical wall, a character can see through it clearly and can move through the wall without impediment. After disbelieving an illusory sword, the character is unable to pick it up; it will pass through her hand if she tries. If a character successfully disbelieves an illusion, other individuals will not notice any change in that illusion. Even if the character sees someone walk through an illusory wall, she must make a separate test and successfully disbelieve it in order to walk through the wall herself. If she fails to disbelieve, she must treat that wall as if it is real, and must bash it down or go around it in order to pass. If a character who has successfully disbelieved a chimerical illusion then does something to demonstrate that it is not real, such as walking through a chimerical wall, it provides an excellent opportunity for other observers to realize that the illusion is not real and call for their own challenges. If an individual fails an attempt to disbelieve an illusion, she cannot attempt to disbelieve that illusion again for five minutes. If an illusion's creator disbelieves her own illusion, it immediately ceases to exist. The user must treat her illusions in all ways as though they are real or the maya fades.
Chimerstry and Auspex: A vampire using Auspex can attempt to use her sharpened senses to pierce an illusion created by Chimerstry. The Auspex user must use her simple action to make a test using her Mental attribute + Investigation versus the Chimerstry user's Social attribute + Willpower. The Chimerstry user may opt to use her Social attribute + Subterfuge as a defensive test pool, rather than her Social attribute + Willpower. If the Auspex user is successful, she disbelieves the illusion.
Chimerstry and Sunlight: If exposed to natural sunlight, Chimerstry is instantly dispelled. Technologically produced sunlight or ultra-violet light does not dispel Chimerstry.
Chimerstry and Recordings: Chimerstry has enough material substance to be recorded by electronics, but such recordings do not last. At first, such recordings are perfect, but the quality of the captured illusion quickly deteriorates. After 10 minutes, a recording of Chimerstry loses its substance, acquiring defects and deterioration. Chimerical noises sound tinny and fake; snapshots or visual recordings look like poorly-crafted CGI.
Chimerstry Test Pool: The Chimerstry creator uses her Social attribute + Subterfuge versus the target's Social attribute + Willpower.
• Ignis Fatuus
Maya is a delicate substance, drawn like a gossamer thread from the substance of mortal dreams. You can weave a simple illusion from this delicate material, making it real enough to fool a single sense.
System: By spending 1 Blood and using your standard action, you create an insubstantial sensory illusion. Illusions created with Ignis Fatuus can only affect one of the following senses: sight, hearing, smell, or taste. With this power, you might cause a loud bang as a distraction, give a letter the sweet scent of perfume, or read by the light of a chimerical candle. These illusions are incapable of movement or change once they have been created. Illusions created with Ignis Fatuus last for up to one turn per level of the Subterfuge skill you possess.
A character using Ignis Fatuus in combat can distract and confuse her opponents with false sensory input. To do this, you must pay the costs of this power and then make an opposed challenge using the Chimerstry test pool. If successful, your target is momentarily distracted and loses her simple action the next time her initiative comes up. This use of Ignis Fatuus relies on surprise and, therefore, cannot be used on a specific individual more than once per combat.
Exceptional Success: If you achieve an exceptional success with Ignis Fatuus, your target loses both her next standard and simple actions.
Focus [Charisma]: Those affected by your use of Ignis Fatuus cannot utilize combat maneuvers for the rest of the turn, including all rounds in that turn.
•• Mirage
Your control over the threads of maya has increased to the point that your illusions can fool all senses at once. Although you must anchor these more substantive illusions in reality, they have a far greater depth and stability.
System: Expend your standard action to alter the appearance of an inanimate object. Mirage cannot be used on creatures or individuals.
Remember that Chimerstry can be used to add to an item, or to cover what is there, but it cannot be used to subtract something from the item or environment. You cannot use this power to decrease an object's size, but you may increase its size by up to 10 percent. You can alter the way the object looks, smells, sounds, tastes, or feels, or all of the above. You can make a ragged chair look and feel like an opulent throne, cause a glass of water to smell and taste like fine wine, or change a rolling gurney into a mahogany table covered with candles. This illusion will last for up to an hour. Users of Mirage must completely cover the object they are altering; any part of the foundation that is not covered will be visible through the illusion. For example, you may make a gurney look like a mahogany table, but you cannot make a file cabinet look like a table; the solid body of the file cabinet would show between the table's legs. You could, however, make the file cabinet look like a table with a tablecloth hanging to the ground, thus covering the entirety of the file cabinet.
Mirage cannot be used to modify the appearance of living or undead individuals, as that is the purview of Obfuscate. It can be used to make simple alterations to clothing, such as coloration, material, or general quality.
Focus [Manipulation]: Anyone attempting to disbelieve your use of Mirage suffers a -3 penalty to her test to disbelieve.
••• Apparition
No longer confined by the boundaries of reality, your illusions are independent fabrications of dream. They move as you direct them, either on a repeating loop or following your continual, step-by-step instructions. You can give your illusions a semblance of life, causing illusory people to move or speak, illusory water to drip and ripple, and illusory music to change from song to song.
System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to create an independent illusion that appears real to every sense. This illusion can move either in a predetermined loop, or, with continued concentration by the creator, can change as you wish. A fireworks display can shift and change color, an illusory policeman can appear to walk his beat around a block, and so forth. Illusory objects seem to fulfill their standard functions; an illusory gun can cock its hammer or shoot an illusory bullet (which causes no harm), and an illusory engine can be taken apart and put back together. Further, your Apparitions will automatically react when they interact with external forces or obstacles. A chimerical flag will blow in the wind, and a chimerical person will walk around a solid object placed in its path.
When you create an Apparition, you determine a simple pattern of actions for that illusion to enact, as per the beat cop's casual walk around the block. Thereafter, you may expend a simple action to alter your illusion's activity for one round, perhaps causing the beat cop to stop and have a brief conversation with someone (expending a simple action for every round you make the cop remain still and speak or listen). If you expend a standard action instead of a simple action, you may add, remove, or otherwise make a permanent change in the Apparition's pre-established patterns, such as causing the beat cop to stop and whistle a brief tune every time he reaches a certain corner in his circular route.
Such alterations to the Apparition's pattern are accomplished silently, through an act of concentration by the illusion's creator. Note that your character does not receive any special ability to see or hear through her own Apparition. If the beat cop's creator cannot hear the questions being asked by the individual speaking with her illusory policeman, she cannot direct the policeman to answer correctly.
Apparition cannot be used to make an illusion with a total mass larger than 10 cubic feet, although the mass can be shaped in any manner you choose. Illusions of creatures or individuals can move, as appropriate for their creature type. For example, an illusory cop can pace back and forth down a street.
Apparition lasts for one hour, unless the power is ended by its creator, or the creator dies.
Focus [Manipulation]: You can spend a simple action to set up a triggered response for your Apparition. You might create an illusory child, reading a book in the corner of your haven, and give it instructions to look up and say "hello" when anyone walks into the room or when a specific person enters the room. Each Apparition can only maintain one such trigger at a time, but the prearranged actions will occur every time the trigger is tripped. Using the above example, the illusory child will say "hello" to everyone who walks into the room until you alter the pattern.
•••• Permanency
The illusions you create almost take on a life of their own, existing without your concentration and maintaining a continued existence by drawing on the essence of the dream. You may gift your lesser illusions with this capacity, providing them a durability that can outlast even your own existence.
System: Spend 1 Blood and use your simple action to make an already-created Mirage or Apparition permanent. The illusion will last until you choose to dispel it, until it is irrevocably unable to continue, or until it is subjected to sunlight. A permanent illusion is irrevocably unable to continue if it is believably destroyed, such as by throwing a chimerical gun into a pool of molten metal, or if the beat cop's route is completely blocked by a massive tractor-trailer.
Focus [Charisma]: When activating Permanency, you may spend three full turns concentrating to avoid paying this power's Blood cost, or you may spend an additional Blood to activate Permanency without using an action.
••••• Horrid Reality
Belief is a tangible thing, capable of near-miraculous things. You can turn dream into reality, lending genuine verisimilitude to your imaginary creations. Your phantasms gain a tangible reality and are capable of interacting with the real world in concrete ways, even causing harm to your enemies, as you choose.
System: Spend 1 Blood and expend a simple action to augment one of your already existing Apparitions with Horrid Reality. For the next five minutes, that illusion cannot be disbelieved and is imbued with the power to physically interact with people. An illusion given credence with Horrid Reality cannot interact with inanimate objects, but can cause lasting harm to mortals, supernatural creatures, and animals. Apparitions that have been augmented by Horrid Reality may be used to attack, either by secondary means (such as firing a chimerical pistol) or as a primary attacker; the illusory beat cop lunges and strikes with his nightstick. In either case, the character who created the augmented Apparition is the actual attacker, and the attack occurs on that character's initiative in a round.
To attack with an Apparition augmented by Horrid Reality, expend your standard action and make an opposed challenge against a single target, using your Social attribute + Subterfuge versus the target's Physical attribute + Dodge. If successful, your target takes damage from the item or creature created with this power. Horrid Reality cannot be used to inflict victory conditions other than damage. Damage inflicted by the use of Horrid Reality reflects the illusion's apparent mode of attack, and deals either 3 points of normal damage or 2 points of aggravated damage. An illusory police officer shooting a pistol or using a nightstick inflicts a maximum of 3 points of normal damage, while an illusory flamethrower inflicts a maximum of 2 points of aggravated damage. Fortitude (and similar powers) can reduce damage inflicted by Horrid Reality.
Even if the illusion appears to affect several people or objects, such as the illusion of a flamethrower, Horrid Reality can only deal damage to one target at a time. This limitation does not prohibit normal issues caused by such an Apparition. If you engulf three individuals in a Horrid Reality flamethrower's spout, choose one individual to potentially harm. The other two may still frenzy from being engulfed by the Apparition of fire. They cannot, however, take damage from this attack.
Individuals, creatures, or objects created with this power have a maximum number of health levels equal to your dots in Subterfuge, minimum 1. You may create an object with fewer health levels (an illusory piece of paper wouldn't be believable if it had 5 health levels). Chimerical illusions cannot directly prevent you from being harmed. A Chimerical wall cannot stop a bullet.
Once Horrid Reality has been used to augment an Apparition, the augmented illusion can attack a target repeatedly; this is an exception to the rule prohibiting a character from using a Social power on the same target immediately after failing. If you fail a Horrid Reality attack against an opponent, you can try again against that same opponent, or someone else, on the next turn.
When you use an item created by Horrid Reality or create an illusory individual, the attacks are precisely timed with the creator's will; this is why Apparitions augmented with Horrid Reality cannot be used by anyone other than their creator. If you give an augmented illusory weapon to another individual, it loses its potential to cause harm. An augmented Apparition cannot attack during Celerity rounds, even if it is a weapon wielded during Celerity rounds. Harmful effects of Horrid Reality are fleeting, as they are based in the substance of dream. Damage caused by Horrid Reality can knock an individual unconscious or into torpor, but it cannot kill. After five minutes, the effects of Horrid Reality fade; injuries erase and unconscious or torpored individuals awaken.
Exceptional Success: Attacks from your Horrid Reality inflict either 4 points of normal damage or 3 points of aggravated damage, as appropriate for the illusion's mode of attack.
Focus [Charisma]: If you expend both your simple and standard actions for your Horrid Reality to attack, you can apply a combat maneuver, so long as the maneuver would logically apply to the mode of attack. For example, your illusory beat cop may try to Grapple your foe or Pierce her Heart with a wooden stake. This effect does not bypass the normal requirements for using a combat maneuver; your target must be in the Incapacitated wound track before you can attempt to stake her with Horrid Reality. The effects of staking (or grappling) are fleeting and, like damage from Horrid Reality, will fade after five minutes. A character grappled by an augmented Apparition can escape by spending a simple action and making an opposed challenge using her Physical attribute + Brawl or Melee versus your Social attribute + Subterfuge.
