SPIRIT VESSEL [–1] (PSYCHIC ABILITIES)
Description: Through training, natural inclination, or ritualistic treatment of your body, you've come to be an optimal vessel for a supernatural entity to inhabit, capable of inviting them in (or firmly showing them the door) as the mood takes you.
Musts: You must have some Aspect referencing your ability to act as a host, which is replaced by a more specific one whenever you actually serve as a vessel, detailing your current “passenger”. Generally, characters with this power have some other ability to interact with spirits, whether through the Ghost Speaker power or Thaumaturgy, but this is not a requirement.
Skills Affected: Any skills appropriate to whatever you are hosting.
Effects:
Medium. While in physical contact with an insubstantial creature, or one who could become insubstantial, you may attempt to become a vessel for their consciousness as a free action. The creature feels a slight tug on its form, and (if it is willing) will be drawn into your body, where you can telepathically communicate (this includes sharing memories, etc, and largely ignores normal time constraints on conversations). They may also speak through you, with your permission, and are protected from thresholds and running water as though they were possessing you (see Our World, page 35). You may only act as a vessel to a single creature at once in this manner. The creature may leave whenever it pleases, and you may forcibly eject it by taking one point of mental stress (though it gains the sticky aspect Been Inside Your Head for the remainder of the scene, which will aid it in any further mental assault). A creature that is aware you possess this power (through assessment of your related aspect or previous experience) may make contact itself (ignoring any usual limits of perception), though you must still willingly invite them into your form for this power to take effect.
Distant Medium [-1]. You may attempt to become a vessel for creatures up to one zone away, drawing them in without the need to touch them.
Willing Steed [-1]. You benefit from the effects of the Demonic Co-Pilot power (page 175), but instead of it applying only when you are shapeshifted, it applies only when you are acting as a vessel for an insubstantial creature, granting you +1 to all rolls that are in line with the nature or agenda of your spiritual passenger in exchange for the usual mental stresses. You may ignore the effects of this power by convincing your passenger to back off and let you work, or by suffering one point of mental stress to suppress it for that exchange. Note that consequences incurred from suppressing a passenger will not be in line with the passenger’s agenda, as is the norm with Demonic Co-Pilot; forcing a vessel into a mental wrestling match is more likely to result in brain damage than a pliable host.
Horse Power [-Varies]. The Willing Steed upgrade is a prerequisite for this one. You benefit from the effects of the Mimic Abilities power (page 176), but rather than acquiring your powers by defeating and diminishing (or outright killing) an opponent, you get them “on loan”, from your passenger. In essence, for as long as you have a passenger that is willing to offer aid, you may assign your mimic points to powers or stunts it possesses. At the end of any scene in which these abilities were used, you must roll Discipline against the total refresh cost of the used abilities, as if you were being attacked, with the results described in Demonic Co-Pilot. Your passenger cannot avoid this; even if they are not attempting to twist your mind, mental contamination will still occur. Since your powers rely on the continued co-operation and presence of a suitable passenger, the refresh that you must allocate to this power is reduced by two; in other words, you can acquire two “free” points of abilities from your passenger, in addition to any purchased with mimic points. You must still assign at least one point of refresh to this upgrade.
Reverse Possession [-3]. You no longer need a creature’s permission to become (or continue being) a vessel for it. If a valid target refuses your offer of possession, you may roll Discipline as a psychic attack against them, inflicting stress and consequences until they concede and become your passenger, or are broken and forced into you as a result of being taken out. If a passenger attempts to leave your body without your permission (or you simply decide to torment them) you may roll Discipline against their Conviction, with a success preventing them from taking any action and inflicting a single point of mental stress; this is effectively a mental grapple.
Spirit Eater [-1]. The Horse Power and Reverse Possession upgrades are prerequisites for this one. If you use the mental grapple provided by Reverse Possession to take out a passenger, you may utterly destroy them, and thereby indefinitely retain any of the powers they could have granted you through Horse Power, just as described in Mimic Powers. Alternatively, you may permanently acquire those powers at the normal refresh cost, as part of a sheet-rewrite, as consuming the spirit works deep changes on your body and soul.
Legion [-1, -2 or -3]. You may have more than passenger at once; the one-point version of this power allows a maximum of three passengers, while the two-point version allows up to seven passengers, and the three-point version allows an unlimited number of distinct passengers. This does not increase the bonuses provided by Willing Steed or Horse Power, but does increase their breadth.
Specific Vessel [+1]. You can only serve as a vessel for one specific kind of creature (i.e. demons, spirits, ghosts, loa, angels, Outsiders, etc), a restriction which should flavour the mandatory aspect listed in “Musts” accordingly. Note that this upgrade cannot provide more refresh than the overall cost of the Spirit Vessel power.
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MULTIPLE BODIES [–7]
Description: Two heads are better than one, and many hands make light work; you can split off a single copy of yourself, which shares your memories and abilities. Depending on the upgrades taken, this power could represent the fission of an ooze demon, the splitting up of a swarm of lesser creatures, or even the magical duplicative hair of Sun Wukong.
Skills Affected: Physical skills.
Effects:
Cloning Blues. You may produce a single, exact copy of yourself as a supplemental action. This copy is indistinguishable physically, though mystical observation shows it to be a construct of ectoplasm. The copy has the same skills, stunts and powers as you, and has your memories at the time of creation; the only mechanical difference (besides the normal vulnerabilities of ectoplasmic constructs) is that their High Concept is “Copy of a [Original High Concept]”. You have no special ability to communicate with your copy (outside of invoking their High Concept to guess what they’ll do next), and do not learn what they learn unless you recall them (requiring a free action while in physical contact), at which point they dissolve into ectoplasm and you gain all their memories since they were created. You and your copy have separate stress tracks; however, your supply of consequences remains the same, and must be split between the two of you. You do not cash out (see page 206) for consequences suffered by your copy. If your copy is killed (rather than being recalled) you may not generate a new one until the next scene (if you are killed, your copy immediately dissolves into ectoplasm). Note that despite having the same powers as you, your copy does not acquire their own item slots from spellcraft powers, and cannot create its own copies through this power.
We Are Many [-1]. This upgrade increases the number of copies that you can have active at the same time by one. You may take this upgrade multiple times, increasing the number of potential copies by one for each purchase. Note that, should one of your copies be killed, it does not completely remove your ability to create new ones until the next scene; it simply reduces the maximum number you can create this scene by one.
Von Neumann’s Magic [-2]. The We Are Many upgrade is a prerequisite for this one. Your copies can create copies of their own using this power. They use the creating copy’s memories, rather than your own, but are otherwise created just as described in Cloning Blues. They are still your copies, and therefore cannot exceed the number of copies you may have active at once.
Distant Recall [-1]. This upgrade allows you to recall your copy from a distance as a free action, instantly dissolving it into the ectoplasm from which it was formed. If you have a Hive Mind (below), this upgrade becomes free.
Hive Mind [-2]. You and your copy share minds. You know everything they know, and vice-versa, allowing real-time sharing of information and memories without the need for recall. This has numerous applications, and adds two shifts to any maneuver made by you or your copy to co-ordinate an action with the other (see page 208). However, with this upgrade, you and your copy share the same mental stress track; this means that you are treated as the same target for the purposes of psychic attacks, allowing them to damage both of you at once. In addition, you and your copy both suffer from the taggable aspect produced by taking a mental consequence, regardless of which of you actually “spent” the consequence in question. Other appropriate temporary aspects might also "spill over" in this way.
Ontological Inertia [-0]. This upgrade cannot be taken by characters with positive refresh. Upon taking this upgrade, your copies become just as “real” as you are (arguably, not very), making the question of who the original is rather moot. As a result, rather than imploding into ectoplasm upon your death, your copies will remain intact (and may produce another copy to replace you, if they have that ability). This will sometimes result in one of your copies acquiring true independence, at which point it becomes a separate character with the ability to create its own roster of copies; a number of creatures native to the Nevernever reproduce in this manner.
Split Skills [+4]. Rather than being able to produce exact duplicates of yourself, you must split your power amongst the bodies you produce, resulting in a set of weaker copies. Whenever you produce a copy, all of its skills default to Mediocre (+0). You must provide it with skills by reducing your own and adding an equivalent number of skill points to its sheet (see page 65). For example, by reducing a Superb (+5) skills to Good (+3), you would acquire two skill points to raise one of your copy’s skills to Fair (+2). Skill points taken from one skill need not be spent on that same skill; it is acceptable to reduce your Might in order to increase your copy’s Lore. Your copy may not have any skill ratings higher than your original score in that skill. Keep a record of your character’s original skill ratings; they return to their previous level once the copy is recalled (if the copy is killed, it is treated as being recalled one scene later).
Split Power [+Varies]. This upgrade provides you with refresh equal to half the total refresh cost of your supernatural powers (excluding Multiple Bodies, but including any refresh spent on We Are Many), rounded down. Whenever you produce a copy, you must total up the cost of your supernatural powers (excluding Multiple Bodies) and divide it by two. This is the new refresh cost of the powers you and your copy may possess. You must first spend this refresh on powers that are core to your High Concept (i.e. (i.e. Living Dead for a Zombie or Lawbreaker for a Warlock), and you cannot produce a copy without such powers. Often, this will result in a simple reduction of power; splitting Supernatural Toughness into two iterations of Inhuman Toughness, or reducing Evocation and Refinement into two iterations of Channelling. You cannot provide your copy with supernatural powers you do not possess any version of. If you have any spare refresh, you may temporarily assign it to appropriate powers for you or your copy.
Keep a record of your character’s original powers; they return to normal once the copy is recall (if the copy is killed, it is treated as being recalled one scene later). If you can produce more than one copy, then you must divide the refresh cost of your supernatural powers evenly again between yourself and each copy, each time you produce one. It would probably be wise to produce a number of "templates" based on the kind of power-sets you could give different numbers of clones, to save time.
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SWARM BODY [–3]
Description: Rather than one entity, your body is made from a multitude of lesser creatures, making you more difficult to harm.
Musts: This power comes with its own specific Catch (see page 185). If you suffer physical consequences, they must take into account the non-singular nature of your body; a demon with a body made from five-hundred-and-two stone crabs is unlikely to suffer a Broken Arm.
Skills Affected: Endurance, other physical skills.
Effects:
Chipping Away. Physical attacks cannot inflict more than one stress on you at a time; no matter how devastating the blow, it can only target a small part of your “body”. The effects of this power are applied after additions and subtractions from weapons and armour; wielding a sword will not appreciably increase one’s ability to fight off a swarm of bees (by the same token, bees do not classically benefit from wearing kevlar).
Specific Catch. Unlike other Toughness powers, Swarm Body comes with its own preset Catch, which offers no discount. The effects of this power are completely bypassed by area attacks; that is, those attacks that encompass a great majority of the target’s body. Diminutive insect swarms would be thus affected by sprayed insecticide, while a human-sized enemy would be vulnerable to flamethrowers or suitable evocations, and even larger swarms might require more extreme measures to seriously damage. Note that a clever maneuver might force a swarm into a confined space or formation, and thereby reduce the size of the attack necessary to harm it.
