Endowment (DTD)

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Embeds And Exploits
Before the Fall, demons wielded great spiritual power as the gift of the God-Machine. Everything thatthe God-Machine is able to grant, however, is due to existing lawsand metaphysical subroutines of theworld. If an angel can fly, it is because the God-Machine long ago built some law into reality allowing it.Over the eons, these laws have grown exponentially more complex than any living soul can hope toexpress. Arcane rules and precepts converge at strange nexuses, allowing mystical energies to pool andgather. Various supernatural forces make use of these laws, normally without ever understanding thatthe God-Machine had any part in it (or even exists).When a demonFalls, she gives up her intuitive understanding of the God-Machine’s laws. She can nolonger call upon Numina and must find other ways of expressing supernatural ability (this is part of thereason why demons manipulate Aether instead of Essence). What the demoncando, however, is callupon the preexisting mystical pathways and laws that she remembers from her time as an angel. Byexploiting this knowledge, she is effectively using “back doors” into reality, changing it in subtle ways. Anangel does thisto facilitate its mission. A demon does it to follow her Agenda. These memories arecalledEmbedsandExploits.EmbedsAn Embed is a rule or natural law already hard-coded into the workings of the world that a demon cantap for a specific effect. For a mundane example, consider a child who knows of a loose board in aneighbor’s fence. He can move the board, take a shortcut through the neighbor’s yard, and save himselfthe time of running around the block. Anyonecoulddo that, provided they have the same knowledgethe child does (that is, that the board is loose) and that they can fit through the opening thus created.Embeds work much the same way. Any demon can learn any Embed. The demon simply has toremember that the groundwork is there. As angels, all servants of the God-Machine are aware of thesepathways, but they make use of them differently. Angels do not make conscious effort to use Embeds,they are able to do so simply as part of their missions. Going back tothe example of the loose board inthe fence, consider a dog or a cat that simply noses the board aside to get through. The animal doesn’tthink of the fence as a barrier or the loose board as an anomaly; for all it knows, that loose board wasput there specifically to allow it passage. When a demon falls, she loses this instinctive, subconsciousunderstanding of the world and must relearn these supernatural secrets. When she does, she is able touse Embeds in specific ways.Embeds are not spells. They do not require ritual, sacrifice, or even specific knowledge or skill to use. Ademon might justifiably liken remembering an Embed to a stroke victim re-learning how to walk or ridea bicycle. The neural pathways are already in place and the muscle memory is there, it’s just a matter oftraining the body to reactivate these things.Angels have different capabilities based on their missions. An angel doesn’t normally think to questionwhether it can make use of mystical subroutines that it hasn’t specifically been instructed to use, bothbecause most angels don’t question their missions and because, again, these subroutines aren’tsomething that angels generally think about. That said, an angel thatdoesstart to consider thesesubroutines—thinking about the framework of reality, rather than just using it—might be gettingclose to falling. Once an angel does fall, she finds that certain types of Embeds are easier to rememberthan others, depending on her Incarnation.SystemsEmbeds fall into one of four categories, roughly corresponding to branches of themusica universalis,also called the “music of the spheres.” This Medieval concept referred to the movements of celestialbodies through space. It wasn’t thought to refer to actual, audible music, but rather to the mathematicalor philosophical implications of those movements. The “music,” then, was the imperceptible system thatguided the cosmos. Some demons with a bent for Medieval or Classical philosophy refer to the God-Machine’s mystical subroutines as the“music of the spheres.”Embeds have two basic applications. They function on a literal level and a conceptual one. That is, aMundane Embed might enable a demon to remain unremarked (the literal application), while a differentEmbed might enable the demon to remove focus on a topic of discussion (conceptual).The four categories of Embeds are:• Mundane:These Embeds help a demon stay unnoticed and incognito. Conceptually, they deal with thenotions ofconcealing,obfuscationandforgetting. Psychopompsfind these powers easier to learn.• Instrumental:These Embeds allow the demon to affect material objects and machines. On aconceptual level, they deal withtiming,precisionandutility. Guardians have an affinity for them.• Vocal:Demons use these Embeds to exert influence over people and other thinking beings.Conceptually, they relate tocommunication,revelationandrealization. Messengers make easiest use ofVocal Embeds.• Cacophony:The Embeds of chaos, violence and disharmony. Their concepts aredestruction,renewalandentropy. Obviously, they are the purview of the Destroyers.Design Principles: EmbedsFeel free to make up your own Embeds! The examples below should give a pretty goodindication of the level of power and effect on the world, aswell as how they tie intotheir literal and conceptual markers. When creating them, our guidelines were:• No Cost:Embeds are free. They don’t cost Willpower or Aether.• Quick: Embeds are always reflexive or instant actions, never extended.• Dice Pool: Since they rely on careful manipulation of natural and supernatural laws,Embeds always use a Finesse Attribute (Dexterity, Wits and Manipulation) + a Skill (anytype). Unskilled penalties do not apply.• Trying Again: Most of the time, if a player fails an Embed roll, she can try again with acumulative-1 penalty for each successive attempt. This penalty doesn’t apply insituations that are fluid enough to change second by second (such as combat).• Breaking Cover:Embeds do notusuallyrisk Cover; they are not overt supernaturalmanifestations of power. However, some Embeds, especially those that tap into theGod-Machine’s workings on a direct level (such as Voice of the Machine) might force aroll to avoid breaking Cover. Dramatic failures often do too.Resisting EmbedsMost Embeds list a trait to subtract from the players roll, while a few are contested actions (Embedsthat do not target a specific person do not apply resistance traits, obviously). These resistance traits areoptional, however. Whether or not to use them is a Storyteller’s decision, and that decision should bebased on how challenging the action is, what the circumstances are, and who the target is.For example, a ring of demons infiltrates a hospital to find a woman currently incarcerated in thepsychiatric ward. One of them decides to use the Authorized Embed (p. XX) to get past the nurse at thedoor to the ward. The roll for this Embed is Manipulation + Intimidation–Intelligence. The Storytellerneeds to consider whether to bother having the player subtract the nurse’s Intelligence from the roll.In making this decision, the Storyteller considers:• How important is it that this roll succeeds?The characters need to get into this ward, but theypossess multiple other avenues ofapproach if this fails. If it were critical that the characters get inrightnow, the Storyteller should just forego the roll and inform the player that the Embed works.• Who is the target?That is, is the target an important character? Is she likely toshow up later? Doesthe Storyteller have plans for her? Does she have a particular reason to suspect the characters?• What does the scene gain by a greater chance of failure?Failing an Embed can lead to discovery. Itcan also lead to a player choosing adramatic failure, which is generally more excitingandgives theplayer a Beat. On the other hand, if the Embed is just a means to an end, a way to get to a moreinteresting scene, don’t bother with the resistance roll.• How much would a resistance traithurt the character’s chances?Embed rolls are Attributes + Skills.That means a starting character could have as much as 10 dice in a pool or as few as two. Subtracting anaverage person’s resistance Attribute (two dice) won’t cripple a character with a six dice, but if she onlyhas four, she is now forced to spend a Willpower point or suffer a very real chance of failure.If thatchance makes things more interesting, include the resistance trait. If not, skip it.In this case, the Storyteller decides that this nurse is no one in particular and not likely to have anongoing effect on the chronicle. The player’s dice pool is seven without modifiers, meaning even with amodifier it won’t hurt the character’s chances much. The Storyteller is more interested in moving thescene into the psych ward (where an angel is waiting to pounce), so she just has the player roll hisunmodified dice pool.The point to all this is not to be slavishly devoted to a notion of “balance” or “realism.” Instead, considerwhat theaction means in terms of the story. Don’t worry about being “fair” to the Storyteller characters—they aren’t the important ones. The challenges the players’ characters face should be real challenges.If a security guard or a lone cultist is just there asa reminder that the situation is serious, don’t worry somuch about representing his traits. Put another way, if Jason Bourne or James Bond wouldn’t expendmore than one punch or one bullet on the guy, don’t bother with a resistance trait.The reverse ofthis, of course, is that characters with names, important roles to play in the story, definedtraits, or a supernatural pedigree shouldalwayshave resistance traits included. If an enemy demon usesan Embed on a player’s demon, that roll should be penalized or contested.Or, if it’s very important tothe story that a power work on the player’s demon, consider offering a Beat to forego the roll entirely.Consider what resistance means, too. For a power like Eavesdrop (p. XX), “resisting” the power probablymeans that the person or group being targeted notices the demon. But the power itself relies on thedemon reading body language and lip movements to determine meaning, not literally to hear words. Sois a resistance trait really appropriate? Eavesdrop doesn’t include one, but if you as Storyteller feel thatthe targets of the power could reasonably notice the demon andit’s in the interests of the story thatthey do so, make a Perception roll for the targets. If that roll succeeds, the targets see the demon andprobably get a sense that their being spied on. This approach works well across the board and is in-theme withDemon’s themes of techgnostic espionage: You can realize that someone is spying on you,but you’ll never reliably prevent it.

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