BSD Gifts

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"So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."

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BSD Gifts

Level 1

  • Bane Protector
  • Rathead (gift)
  • Resist Toxin
  • Sense Wyrm
  • Shroud / Cloud of Night
  • Toxic Claws

Level 2

  • Ears of the Bat
  • Patagia
  • Terrify
  • Wyrm Hide

Level 3

  • Burning Scars
  • Dagger of the Mind
  • Foaming Fury
  • Gift of the Tainted Totem
  • Unseelie Faerie Kin

Level 4

  • Beautiful Lie
  • Call Elemental
  • Crawling Poison
  • Doppelganger
  • Open Wounds

Level 5

  • Avatar of the Wyrm
  • Balefire
  • Mask Taint
  • Totem Form


Rank 1

Bane Protector

Source: WW3109 - Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition p. 105

Description: The Black Spiral can summon Banes to aid her. Before these servitors can act, the Black Spiral must convince them of her intent. Her actions must be in the best interest of the Wyrm. The servitors can fight for her, but will not allow themselves to be bound or destroyed. The spirits will also try to arrange a bargain, agreeing to help the summoner if she performs a service (or sacrifice) for them afterward.

This Gift is taught in the first circle of the Spiral Labyrinth. The dancer may find a way to deceive the Banes that torment her, convincing them to aid her instead. Alternatively, a Black Spiral who performs an especially difficult task for a Bane-totem might receive this knowledge in return.

System: Use of this Gift burns a point of Gnosis and requires a Manipulation + Leadership roll.


Rathead (gift)

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 273

Description: The Dancer can squeeze her body through any opening no smaller than a quarter in diameter. This Gift looks very disturbing to the unsuspecting onlookers. Corrupted rat-spirits teach this Gift.

System: The Dancer’s player rolls Gnosis. If Successful she can squirm through any opening no smaller than a quarter. Doing so typically takes a single turn, depending on the opening’s length. The Gift remains active until the Garou has passed entirely out of the constricted space.


Resist Toxin

Source: WW3109 - Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition p. 105

WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 144, 146

Description: Many Bone Gnawers learn a preternatural resistance to poisons and toxins of all kinds, doubtless due to their diet of refuse and American beer. A trash-spirit teaches this Gift.

System: The player rolls Stamina + Survival. Success nullifies the effects of most conventional poisons, and adds three dice to the Garou’s Stamina for purposes of resisting Wyrm-enhanced poisons. The effects last for the scene.


Sense Wyrm

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 273

Description: The werewolf can sense manifestations of the Wyrm in the nearby area. This Gift involves a mystical sense, not a visual or olfactory image, although werewolves using the Gift sometimes say things like, “This place stinks of the Wyrm” (with a few more colorful adjectives). Garou should remember that the Wyrm’s taint can cling to relatively blameless souls. Werewolves may sense an innocent person who happens to work in a Wyrm-controlled factory or who has eated tainted food. This power requires active concentration. Any spirit of Gaia may teach this Gift.

System: The player rolls Perception + Occult. The difficulty depends on the concentration and strength of the Wyrm’s influence. Sensing a single fomor in the next room would be difficulty 6, while detecting the stench of a Bane that was in the room an hour ago would be difficulty 8. Vampires register as Wyrm-tainted, save those with Humanity Traits of 7 or higher.


Shroud

Source: WW3109 - Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition p. 105

WW3801 - Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 152

Description: The Garou can create a field of inky blackness through which only she can see. A night-spirit teaches this Gift.

System: The player spends on Gnosis point and rolls Gnosis (difficulty varies: 3 for twilight, 6 for indoors, 9 for bright sunlight). Each success blacks out a 10′ by 10′ by 10′ area. The Garou can choose any area within his line of sight. The metis Gift: Eyes of the Cat can see through the conjured darkness.


Toxic Claws

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 273

Description: The Dancer can cause toxic waste to ooze from her claws, coating them with an unhealthy greenish-gray slime. Wounds left by these claws tend to leave unhealthy-looking scars.

System: This Gift requires the expenditure of one Rage point and a turn of full concentration. For the remainder of the scene, the Dancer’s claws inflict an additional die of damage and leave residual Wyrm-taint on anything she slashes.

Rank 2

Ears of the Bat

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 273

Description: This Gift allows the Black Spiral Dancer to use sonar like a bat. He may act in complete darkness without impairment. Black Spiral Dancers with this Gift have large, bat-like ears. Even in Homid form, they have abnormally large ears. Corrupted bat-spirits teach this Gift.

System: This Gift can be counteracted with some means of generating confusing ultrasonic sounds. Garou who make a Perception + Alertness (or Primal-Urge in Lupus) roll can hear the sonar. With three or more successes, she can determine the Dancer’s exact location.


Patagia

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 273

Description: The Dancer can extrude large flaps of skin under her arms, resembling a flying squirrel’s membranes. When not in use, the flaps usually shrink into the Dancer’s arms and sides, where they are not detectable.

System: The Dancer stretches her arms and leaps from a height. She may glide at 25 mpg, but the player must make Dexterity + Athletics rolls (at the Storyteller’s discretion) to avoid losing altitude.


Terrify

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 273

Description: The Dancer with this Gift is more intimidating and terrifying than normal. A sneer from her is as effective as a full-throated grown from another.

System: Roll Charisma + Intimidation (difficulty is the target’s Willpower). If successful, the difficulties for Social rolls made against that target decrease by one — but only if intimidation could conceivably alter the outcome in the Dancer’s favor. The target’s difficulty to strike the Dancer in combat is one higher as well.


Wyrm Hide

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 273

Description: A Dancer may use this Gift to transform her skin into a lumpy, leather, odious sickly hide that grants her additional protection from harm. Once the Wyrm Hide wears off, it slides oozing and bubbling off the Black Spiral Dancer, leaving a congealing, smelly mess where she stood.

System: The Dancer must spend one pint of Rage to activate Wyrm Hide, and the player must roll Stamina + Survival. Each success grants the Dancer one additional soak die. This Gift lasts until the end of the scene. Until then, other Garou pay pick up her scent at two lower difficulty, due to the stench the power generates.

Rank 3

Burning Scars

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 273

Description: Black Spiral Dancers often carve stylized scars representing their devotion to the Wyrm into their bodies. With this Gift, a Dancer can draw upon that devotion to inflict horrible injuries on her foes. When invoked, this Gift causes the Dancer’s scars to glow with an unwholesome brilliance that almost seems to crawl into the victim’s body through his eyes, nose, mouth and ears, burning him from the inside out and leaving horrible burns that mimic the Dancer’s own scars.

System: The Dancer must grab the target, and the player must spend two Rage and roll Wits + Primal-Urge (difficulty is victim’s Stamina + 2). Each success inflicts one level of unsoakable aggravated damage that appears upon the victim’s body as a mirror of the Dacner’s glowing scars. These marks of the Wyrm may prove a powerful social handicap, and it may take some effort to remove them.


Dagger of the Mind

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, p. 105

Description: The Black Spiral can command a Bane to seed a particularly dark emotion in the mind of his prey. The emotion is chosen when the Gift is learned (e.g., paranoia, despair, remorse, lust; “rage” is not an option, for obvious reasons). The Black Spiral calls upon the proper Urge Wyrm; one of its servitors then evokes the proper emotion from the victim.

Within the Shattered Labyrinth, the Dance of Endurance tests the limits of a dancer’s self-control. If the initiate survives, one of the Urge Wyrms will show him how to inflict similar tortures on his enemies. Curiously enough, Stormcrows have learned this Gift; they guard their knowledge carefully. Theurges often use this rite to weaken their enemies before battle; Philodox use it to give themselves an edge in negotiations.

System: The invocation burns a point of Gnosis and requires a Gnosis roll; the victim can resist this with a contested Willpower roll. Unless the victim can overcome his emotional struggle, he succumbs to the desired emotion for a full hour. For an additional Willpower point, the temporary dementia is accompanied by a brief, revelatory illusion.


Foaming Fury

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 273

Description: The Dancer’s mouth bubbles and foams with a noxious, greenish fluid. His eyes widen and roll in their sockets, showing the whites. The Dancer yips, barks and howls madly (and uncontrollably) as if in the grip of a rabid madness — a contagious one.

System: The player of anyone bitten by a Dancer using this Gift must succeed in a Stamina roll (difficulty 8, 6 if the Garou has Resist Toxin), lest the character fly into a rabid frenzy. (In effect, the character enters the Thrall of the Wyrm).


Gift of the Tainted Totem

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, pg.#105

Description: A twisted version of an Uktena Gift, a Dancer can not only bar a pack totem from aiding its children, she can temporarily replace the totem with her own pack or personal totem. The horror of having a Wyrm spirit binding a Gaian pack, even temporarily, is disorienting, and the taint left behind might be difficult to explain. Nexus Crawlers teach this Gift.

System: As the Uktena Gift: Banish Totem. If the player succeeds on the Gnosis roll, the pack not only loses all traits associated with their totem, they gain all traits associated with the Dancer’s totem. The effect lasts for a number of turns equal to the number of successes. Upon departing, the tainted totem leaves behind enough Wyrm taint to show up to users of Sense Wyrm for the rest of the scene at difficulty 7. If a member of the pack used any of the totem’s powers, the lingering Wyrm taint remains for a day, and is difficulty 5 to detect.

[Banish Totem System]: The Uktena must concentrate for a full turn, and he must know which totem his victims follow. The player spends one Gnosis point and one Willpower point, and he rolls Gnosis at a difficulty of the pack’s combined Totem scores (maximum of 10). If successful, the pack members lose all Traits associated with their totem, and they cannot use pack tactics or act in concert for the remainder of the scene. If the Uktena is rendered unconscious or killed, the Gift is cancelled.


Unseelie Faerie Kin

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, pg.#105

Description: The Black Spiral can call upon changelings, just as Fianna do, but his fae allies will be members of the Unseelie Court.

This Gift cannot be learned in the Shattered Labyrinth. However, an Unseelie noble or Shadow Court instigator may offer to teach the proper rituals of this Gift in return for a quest or geas. In some instances, the changeling may also learn to summon the Black Spiral’s pack!

System: As with the Gift: Bane Protector, the petitioner must explain his dilemma, usually in rhyme or dance (in some cases, this performance is particularly violent or destructive). He must then burn a point of Gnosis and roll Manipulation + Leadership.

Rank 4

Beautiful Lie

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, p. 105

Description: When the Veil is endangered, Gaia protects the minds of the innocent with the Delirium, granting false memories and delusions. Since Black Spirals commit particularly grisly crimes, they can use this Gift to channel the Delirium, producing further misdirection or even summoning false evidence to cover up their activities.

Spirits serving Kirijama and Hakaken are both proficient in this sort of activity. They typically employ subterfuge to deceive those they wish to suborn. If a werewolf recruits enough servants for their scheme, this Gift may be taught in exchange. A Black Spiral with a particularly ingenious Dance of Cunning may also learn this Gift in the Shattered Labyrinth, especially if he exposes (or perpetuates) a particularly brilliant lie.

System: A Black Spiral observing a particularly unsubtle crime may attempt to cover it up with a “beautiful lie.” He begins to chant a story of what humans nearby are actually seeing. The Dancer spends one point of Gnosis and rolls Wits + Subterfuge; the difficulty is 6 (as long as the story is vaguely plausible). Mass delusions follow, and ephemeral evidence (e.g. animal footprints, a bloody chainsaw, saliva from a rabid dog) remains for an entire hour to obfuscate the truth.


Call Elemental

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, p. 106

Description: As the Uktena Gift; however the Dancer's call is always answered by a Wyrm elemental, such as a furmling or Hogling.

Uktena Gift: The Garou is able to call one of the four classic elementals to his aid (earth, air, fire or water). An elemental teaches this Gift.

System: The player spends one Gnosis point and rolls Gnosis (difficulty of the area’s Gauntlet). She must then roll Manipulation + Occult (difficulty 7) to make the elemental look favorably upon the Garou. The elemental vanishes at the end of the scene.


Crawling Poison

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 274

Description: When the Dancer calls upon this Gift, his fangs turn black with venom, and his breath grows more foul than is normal. The venom kills humans and animals slowly, and, the victim suffers terrible agony as the venom spreads through his body. A Garou’s regeneration will protect her from the pain and eventual death, but only at the cost of her normal rapid healing.

System: After making a successful bite attack that inflicts damage after soak, roll the Dancer’s Gnosis (difficulty is the victim’s Stamina, or Stamina +2 if the victim has Resist Toxin). Each success inhibits the victim’s regeneration for one hour. When used on humans or animals, the poison subtracts one from all Physical Attributes each hour. If Strength or Dexterity reach zero, the victim may not move without assistance. If Stamina reaches zero, the victim dies a painful and messy death. The toxin may be stopped only by supernatural means. Mother’s Touch (difficulty as normal) can negate it on a one-for-one success ratio, but the Garou using it must spend one Gnosis point per success.


Doppelganger

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 274 (& 149)

Description: The Garou may take the exact likeness of any other human, wolf or Garou. A chameleon-spirit teaches this Gift.

System: The player spends one Gnosis point and rolls Charisma + Performance (difficulty 8). Traits aren’t duplicated, but everything else, including voice, posture and scent, is identical. The effects last for one day per success.


Open Wounds

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, p. 106

Description: As the Shadow Lord Gift: The Garou may cause the next wound he inflicts to bleed profusely, weakening the target further. A pain-sprit teaches this Gift.

System: The player spends one Gnosis point and rolls Strength + Medicine (difficulty 7). If the Shadow Lord’s next attack does any damage, the target will bleed continuously, losing one health level per turn for a number of turns equal to the number of successes rolled. This hemorrhaging is considered lethal damage.

Rank 5

Avatar of the Wyrm

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 274

Description: The Dancer assumes an awful and horrific visage, perhaps even a facet of the Wyrm itself (albeit a small one). The Dancer increases in size, it skin becomes scaly and greenish-gray, and his claws increase in length to jagged, vicious knives dripping with venom. His howl becomes a terrifying roar. Only a Maeljin Incarna, one of the Wyrm’s most powerful avatars, can teach this Gift.

System: Spend one Gnosis point and one Rage point. The Dancer must concentrate for a full turn, at the end of which the transformation occurs. The Dancer shifts to Crinos automatically (if he wasn’t already in that form) and adds an additional dot to all Physical Attributes, and one Bruised health level. Additionally, his claws inflict an additional die of damage and are unsoakable. Finally, treat Delirium as three levels worse to onlookers.


Balefire

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 275

Description: The Dancer can hurl balls of sickly green flame at her enemies. Balefire, as the very lifeblood of the Wyrm, is very dangerous to werewolves. It often inflicts hideous and life-threatening mutations, as well as tainting the victim heavily. It’s impossible to dodge Balefire — it moves with a malicious intelligence. It can only be resisted.

System: Roll Dexterity + Athletics, taking the standard ranged-combat modifier into account. The victim resists with Stamina (difficulty 8), and his roll must equal or exceed the Dancer’s successes. If the victim fails to resist, the Balefire’s influence mutates her. Treat each success over resistance as one level of aggravated damage for the purposes of healing/rejecting the mutation. This damage is not soakable (the resistance roll is the soak roll). Afflicted werewolves may grow extra (useless) eyes, lose all of her fur and hair, go blind, deaf or anosmic (no sense of taste or smell) temporarily. Until she rejects the mutations and undergoes a Rite of Cleansing, she registers a strong taint to the Gift: Sense Wyrm.


Mask Taint

Source: WW3801 Werewolf: the Apocalypse Revised p. 275

Description: A Dancer with this Gift can hide his Wyrm-taint from all senses or Gifts that may detect it.

System: Spend two Gnosis points and roll the Dancer’s Appearance + Subterfuge (difficulty 8). The effect lasts for one scene. Shadow Lords may still detect Wyrm-taint — with Sense Wyrm (difficulty 8) — from a Dancer thus veiled.


Totem Form

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, p. 106

Description: This powerful Gift allows a Black Spiral to take on the appearance — and much of the power — of her pack’s Bane totem. For instance, a Dancer sword to the Dark Fungus might sprout slime molds and toadstools in place of fur, radiating a cloud of halluciongenic spores, while a bastard of the Green Dragon might swell into a draconian war form the equal of any Mokolé.

This Gift is only taught by the pack’s totem spirit, and only to the Dancer who shows the most promise. Some packmates have been known to horribly maim one another in the process of proving who is worthy to learn this Gift.

System: The Dancer must spend a point of Willpower and roll Stamina + Primal-Urge (difficulty 7) to make the shift. It takes a full turn to transform, although the form lasts for the duration of the scene. The Storyteller must best adjudicate the appearance and abilities of the totem form; for instance, one of the Hakkan’s bastards might radiate fear so intense that opponents have to make Willpower rolls just to act against him, much less confront him. The result, of course, should always be impressive.


BSD Auspice Gifts

Ragabash

  • Touch of the Eel

Theurge

  • Blood Omen

Philodox

  • Smell Fear
  • A Thousand Voices

Galliard

  • Allies Below

Ahroun

  • Horns of the Impaler


Ragabash Gifts

Touch of the Eel
Rank 3

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, p. 106

Description: The Black Spiral Ragabash releases a current of electricity through conductive materials nearby. If he is touched in any way during the use of this talent, the assailant receives an even greater shock.

Only a Ragabash has the patience and deviance to learn this Gift. With the assistance of a servitor of its Bane-totem, the Black Spiral must capture an electricity elemental. In most urban environments, this may take several hours. The dancer then torments, taunts and tortures the spirit until it offers him this Gift. Alternatively, the Ragabash might have to survive a Dance of Endurance involving electricity.

System: The Gift burns one point of Rage. The resultant charge can carry up to 30 yards if transmitted through the proper conductor. At a distance, it does three dice of damage (difficulty 7 to soak); by touch, it does four dice.


Theurge Gifts

Blood Omen
Rank 3

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, p. 106

Description: By examining the entrails of a freshly-killed creature, a Black Spiral Theurge can gain insights into a possible future. As expected, the vision is almost always tragic or violent.

A Theurge can receive this Gift during the Dance of Cunning. Sometimes this visionquest involves the dismemberment of the mystic, who watches the violation of her own body. This grants her insights into her true nature by an examination of her own internal organs.

System: This burns one point of Gnosis and requires an Intelligence + Enigmas roll; the difficulty depends on the type of creature used — 7 for a Garou, wolf or human, or 9 for any other warm-blooded creature. More successes will grant a clearer picture of the possible atrocity to come.


Philodox Gifts

Smell Fear
Rank 1

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, p. 106

Description: A Philodox employing this Gift can tell if anyone nearby is threatened by her, as well as the degree of her victim’s fear.

In any area of the Shattered Labyrinth, and initiate can experience the many subtle flavors and variations of fear. If Spirits serving Hakaken and Sykora also know this Gift intimately… and teach it that way.

System: This requires a Perception + Empathy roll; the difficulty is equal to the target’s Willpower. For every hour this sense is active, the Black Spiral loses one Gnosis, but as a side effect, she can also tell if anyone is using Sense Wyrm on her.


A Thousand Voices
Rank 2

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, p. 106

Description: The Black Spiral Philodox can distort the sound of his own footsteps, creating a series of illusory noises. Instead of one werewolf, enemies will hear an entire pack. Howls, shadowy apparitions, footfalls and even illusory scents are all possible.

During the Dance of Rage, a dancer may learn this Gift as his anger multiplies many times over. Kirijama’s servants also offer mastery of this talent.

System: For each point of Willpower the user currently possesses, one illusory ally can be created. The Storyteller should secretly roll Perception + Alertness for each witness present; the difficulty depends on the immediate surroundings (difficulty 4 in a dense forest; difficulty 9 on a vast plan). The Black Spiral using this Gift should remain hidden; once he is spotted, the Gift fails.


Galliard Gifts

Allies Below
Rank 3

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, p. 106

Description: Howl, you crazy bastard! If you let forth a rousing yawp, the spirits of the Earth will answer you. Wyrm creatures far beneath the Earth’s crust will cause minor tremors in the ground above them.

Although the terrible quakes caused by this Gift seem awful, they merely reflect the sort of test the Galliard must endure in the Shattered Labyrinth to learn it. The worst scenario is one in which the labyrinth collapses in on itself.

System: The extent of the damage inflicted depends on the amount of Gnosis channeled into the Galliard’s “rousing yawp.” One point of Gnosis causes a minor tremor, possibly throwing people to the ground. Three points can collapse underground tunnels, knock down trees, or open sinkholes. Five points can cause structural damage to a building, collapsing walls on anyone within several feet of it. In each case, victims should roll Dexterity + Dodge or Dexterity + Athletics to stay on their feet, escape from collapsing buildings, or dive for cover.


Ahroun Gifts

Horns of the Impaler
Rank 2

Source: WW3109 Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition, p. 107

Description: This talent endows the Black Spiral with a pair of spiraling, chitinous black-and-green horns. Usually, they’re worn as antlers, although some Dancers have learned to protrude them from other parts of their bodies.

This Gift is usually taught by a Dratossi. A Bane inside a physiologically freakish fomor might also bless an ally with this talent.

System: This appendage inflicts the same damage as a Bite attack; it can be used a maximum of twice each round of combat. A horned Black Spiral may instead choose to charge his enemies; this increases the amount of damage to Strength +5 dice, but only one such charging attack can be made that round.