Death (Scion)

The Gods don’t share mortals’ instinctive dread of death, but they know its power well. Likewise, as a Scion’s mastery of this Purview grows, his fear of death diminishes.

Associated With:  Anubis, Baron Samedi, Hades, Hel, Huitzilopochtli, Izanami, Kebauet, Manannán mac Lir, Miclántecuhtli, The Morrigan, Odin, Osiris, Persephone, Xipe Totec, Yanluo

Death Senses
Dice Pool: None Cost: None The Scion can see ghosts even when those ghosts don’t choose to manifest. To her, ghosts are livid, physical presences, sensible to feeling as to sight (as well as smell and hearing). She still can’t harm the fragile ectoplasmic shell of a ghost who hasn’t manifested, however. The sense of touch this Boon grants is illusory. If the Scion tries to exert enough pressure to cause damage or restrain the ghost, her hand passes through it.

The Scion can also look at a dead body and know what killed it, if that cause isn’t already obvious. The answer she gets is somewhat generic (the reading would tell her a person had been poisoned, for instance, but not by what poison), but it’s conclusive despite the presence of falsified or misleading evidence. Generic causes of death include suffocation, drowning, poison, burns, internal trauma, bleeding, hunger, thirst, exposure, illness, heart attack and old age.

Delay Rot
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Medicine Cost: 1 Legend With a brief touch and the expenditure of one point of Legend, the Scion causes a subject to cease rotting and become completely preserved against decay. The item in question is immune for a number of days equal to the threshold successes scored by the player on the (Intelligence + Medicine) roll. Scions using the Death Purview extensively find this Boon extremely handy in keeping their various cadaverous “friends” fresh and crisp.

Delay Rot can be re-applied to a corpse (or vegetable, food item or other object susceptible to rot) with another activation. Once the power expires, potential putrefaction proceeds as normal; the target does not suddenly “catch up” with the elapsed time.

Euthanasia
Dice Pool: Perception + Empathy (to gauge willingness) Cost: 1 Legend When a living being is at the Incapacitated health level with lethal or aggravated damage due to wounds or a terminal illness, the Scion can end that being’s suffering. The Scion must touch the being for one action (Speed 6) and spend one Legend point. If the Scion wants to know whether the victim is truly willing to die, her player can roll (Perception + Empathy) while the Scion touches the victim. Animals usually answer in the affirmative and titanspawn usually do the opposite, but human beings and Scions are unpredictable.

Regardless, the subject’s willingness is ultimately immaterial unless the subject is another Scion. The power doesn’t work on a Scion unless that Scion is actually willing to die. (Even then, however, Fate or the Scion’s divine parent might intervene to keep the Scion alive a little longer.)

Unquiet Corpse
Dice Pool: Charisma + Command Cost: 1 Willpower + 1 Legend By touching a corpse or its grave with her hand or her Birthright, a Scion can raise that corpse as a mindless zombie (or its pantheon-appropriate equivalent) under her control. Only those limbs that are present and firmly affixed to the zombie’s torso (if only by leather straps and wood staples) function when the zombie rises. The zombie remains animated until either it is destroyed or the Scion who created it dies.

Summon Ghost
Dice Pool: Charisma + Occult Cost: 1 Legend The Scion mystically calls out to a ghost and commands its immediate presence. To do so, the Scion either holds some item the dead person held dear or holds hands with a blood relative of the deceased as she speaks the ghost’s full name aloud. The ghost automatically hears the call, no matter how far away from the Scion it is. It may resist the summons with a (Willpower + Integrity + Legend) roll. If the Scion’s player’s roll gets more successes than the ghost’s, the ghost disappears from wherever it was and reappears before the Scion. When it arrives, it is under no compulsion to materialize for any witnesses or to even acknowledge the Scion’s attention.

A Scion can attempt to summon a particular ghost only once per scene. A ghost cannot be summoned across a ward or an unbroken line of salt.

Mother's Touch
Dice Pool: None Cost: 1 Legend A Scion with Death Senses (Death 1) can see, hear and touch ghosts that won’t or can’t materialize, but the sense of touch that that Boon grants is illusory at best. If the Scion tries to exert enough pressure to cause damage or restrain the ghost, her hand passes through its body. With Mother’s Touch, however—named by Scions of Izanami—the Scion charges her body with flickering strands of black energy that can contain or disrupt a ghost’s intangible body. This energy is visible only to ghosts and those who can see ghosts, and the Scion can extend its aura to surround any item in her hands. A measure of the energy even travels with any projectile the Scion throws or fires from an item in her possession, though it dissipates when the projectile comes to rest.

When the Scion spends one point of Legend, this black energy surrounds her for one scene. During that scene, she can grapple ghosts as effectively as she can grapple physical foes, and her attacks inflict lethal damage on them. (This damage is “lethal” only inasmuch as a ghost has a soak equal to only half his Stamina against it.) If the Scion attacks a mortal who is possessed by a ghost, roll the raw damage separately against the mortal and the ghost. The mortal and the ghost soak the respective results separately.

Exorcism
Dice Pool: Charisma + Occult Cost: 1 Willpower The Scion can either expel a single ghost from a mortal host it’s possessing, hurl it from the World altogether, or repel a group of ghosts from the immediate area. To rid a host of its possessor, the Scion need only make eye contact with the mortal, touch him on the chest with her open palm and shout “Begone!” If the Scion’s player rolls more successes than the ghost’s did to possess the body, the ghost is expelled and cannot possess anyone else for the rest of the scene. To fling a ghost from the World to the Underworld, the Scion does the same as she would to expel a ghost from a mortal host but touches the ghost’s incorporeal flesh instead.

The ghost’s player resists this effect with a (Strength + Athletics) roll as the ghost’s essence clings to the World with all its might. If the Scion’s player rolls more successes, the ghost is hurled back to the underworld whence it came—or, perhaps deep into the rubble that the blocks the nearest pathway there. It cannot return for a number of days equal to the Scion’s Legend. If the Scion attempts to drive back a horde of ghosts, she claps her hands (which rings like thunder in the ghosts’ ears) and shouts “Begone!” For every three successes her player gets on the activation roll, she hurls one ghost back from her. Each ghost is dematerialized and thrown backward 10 yards per dot of Legend the Scion has. Thereafter, the ghost can come no closer to the Scion than that for a number of hours equal to the Scion’s Legend.

Haunted Mists
Dice Pool: None Cost: 1 Willpower + 1 Legend The Scion takes a deep breath and exhales a billowing white mist that sinks to the ground and flows outward to cover the surrounding area in a knee-deep blanket. Doing so renders her inactive for five ticks per dot of Legend she has. This area has a radius equal to one yard per dot of Legend the Scion has. (That’s roughly 1,800 square feet at the minimum.) The mist lasts for the rest of the scene, and while it remains, ghosts that enter the affected area cannot leave it or be forced out of it. Worse (for them), they become fully material and cannot dematerialize. They can still use whatever ghostly powers they have at their disposal, as well as their Attributes and Abilities. If a Scion uses a power or performs an action that ought to hurl the ghost bodily out of the misty area, the ghost stops at the perimeter of the area as if it had hit a wall.

Open Underworld Portal
Dice Pool: Dexterity + Occult Cost: 5 Legend When a God learns this Boon, he earns a set of keys to the realm of the dead. Thereafter, whenever he uses the Boon, he opens a portal from wherever he is to the Underworld. This portal opens into a safe tract of the Underworld that has been staked out by his pantheon. If the God has a special patch of Underworld staked out for his own, the portal opens within that patch’s bounds.

The God can lead with him a number of willing followers equal to the successes his player achieved on the activation roll. Unless those followers have at least Legend 2, or are otherwise protected against death, traveling into the Underworld strips them of their mortal coil, effectively trapping them in the Underworld as ghosts. The portal remains open for one action—long enough for the God and everyone the activation roll allows to follow him to step through if they do so immediately. Underworld portals created with this Boon are one way only. Once he’s in, the God must find another path out.

Ghost Control
Dice Pool: Charisma + Occult Cost: Varies As a lord of the Underworld, the God has nigh-absolute dominion over the souls of the departed. He need only possess a piece of the ghost’s abandoned corpse—such as a knucklebone, a lock of hair or a preserved eye—and the ghost is all but his slave to boss around. If the God gives the ghost a command while holding the memento, the ghost is compelled to do as the God commands. Each command requires a (Charisma + Occult) roll as well as the expenditure of one Legend point, and the ghost’s player resists with a (Willpower + Integrity + Legend) roll. If the God’s roll wins out, the ghost must comply with the spirit of the command as best she can. If the ghost’s roll wins out, the ghost must still comply with the letter of the command, but she can subvert its spirit if she thinks she can get away with it.

The God can also play fast and loose with the metaphysical “rules” that govern the behavior of ghosts. For instance, if he implants a memento that allows him to control the ghost into a dead body, and spends two Legend points, the ghost is temporarily bound into that body, animating it as a hungry corpse. It has the standard abilities and traits of a hungry corpse, though it doesn’t hunger for brains or take on Dark Virtues if it didn’t already possess them. If the God somehow gets a mortal to swallow the memento, and he spends two Legend, the ghost can freely possess that person until the memento passes naturally out of the mortal’s system. The God can also make the ghost manifest in the World for one scene, without calling on the ghost to spend any traits. The God need only spend three Legend points, and the ghost is as visible and solid as are the mortals around him for the rest of the scene.

While the God has the memento, he can speak into it like a microphone and make himself heard to the ghost. Likewise, the ghost can communicate with him, its voice issuing from the memento. Also, for as long as the God has the memento on his divine person, the ghost cannot raise a hand against him in any way. Finally, if the God ever tires of the ghost, he can devour the memento. Doing so grants him five Legend points and destroys the ghost.

For a memento to work against a ghost, it must be harvested from the ghost’s corpse within 24 hours of death (before or after is fine). Also, the person must have been a regular mortal. The memento lasts for as many years as the person was alive, multiplied by the God’s Legend at the time the memento was harvested. If the ghost is in danger of being destroyed before that time is up, its memento warms up noticeably and glows with an eerie yellowish-white light. If the God does nothing to prevent the ghost’s destruction (and chooses not to gulp down the memento himself), the memento disintegrates into dust as the ghost is obliterated.

Strike Dead/Deny Death
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Medicine Cost: 10 Legend The God speaks the name of a living victim or a recently deceased corpse and says (respectively) either “Die,” or “Wait.” The living victim or new spirit need not be able to hear this invocation. The God then spends 10 Legend points as his player rolls (Manipulation + Medicine). If the target is a living victim with a Legend rating less than 9, his player resists this effect with a (Stamina + Fortitude) roll. If the God’s roll garners more successes, the victim dies immediately, regardless of his current state of health or willingness to pass away on the spot. If the target is the corpse of a person who recently died, that person might very well come back to life when the God commands him to wait. If the person died within a number of minutes equal to the God’s player’s successes on the activation roll, the person’s soul hears the God’s command and makes its way back to the body. (The return trip takes as long as it has been since the person’s death.) If the God or someone with him can heal at least one of the deceased person’s health levels of damage before the spirit returns, the soul is denied death and returns to life. He might still be terribly injured, but at least he’s alive.

A God can perform this Boon (in either aspect) on a person only once per scene. He can perform it on as many different people in the scene as he sees fit, though. He cannot perform it on any character with a Legend rating of 9 or greater.

Death of the Soul
Dice Pool: Strength + Occult Cost: 1 Willpower + 20 Legend The God indicates a single divine target within line of sight, then severs that target from its connection to divinity. If the God’s player succeeds on a (Strength + Occult) roll against the target’s (Willpower + Integrity + Legend), then the subject immediately loses all divine power, in effect becoming a normal mortal. Epic Attributes, Knacks and Boons become unusable. Legend points are temporarily inaccessible. The subject caps out at a rating of 5 dots in any Abilities, and rounds down on all fractions. Death of the Soul lasts for ten ticks. It does not function on a God that is currently in Avatar form, nor does it affect Titans (although it can affect a Titan’s avatar).

Avatar of Death (The Reaper)
Cost: 1 Willpower + 30 Legend For one scene, the character becomes The Reaper. He carries a scythe named Inevitability, and wears long robes made of dead men who cling to him and climb over one another eternally. Where The Reaper’s milky eyes gaze, mortals die in droves. Where The Reaper’s feet fall, forests shrink away. Where its scythe sweeps, any God but another avatar would be torn asunder. The Reaper can kill a Titan that has been wounded, though that victory is a bitter one. Better still, The Reaper can deny death to a gravely wounded Titan so that that Titan can be imprisoned once more.