Darkness (Scion)

Characters who inherit this Purview are as at home in the dark as in the light (if not more so), either protecting humanity from unseen terrors or harrying hapless mortals from the shadows.

Associated With: [LIST]

Night Eyes
Dice Pool: None Cost: None Darkness no longer inflicts visibility penalties on the character. He can see in pitch-blackness almost as well as he can see in bright sunlight, losing only the ability to perceive colors. (Objects he sees in darkness are black-on-black yet perfectly distinguishable in a way that’s conveniently impossible to describe to someone who doesn’t have this Boon.) The Scion cannot see through physical impediments, however.

Shadow Mask
Dice Pool: Dexterity + Larceny Cost: 1 Legend The Scion pulls a shadow down from the brim of his hat or up from beneath his collar and wraps it around his head, rendering him completely unrecognizable to human eyes or electronic surveillance equipment (even equipment designed specifically to see in darkness). His voice becomes an unidentifiable whisper. The Scion can see through this mask, and other Scions using Night Eyes can recognize him through it. The shadow mask lasts for a maximum of 24 hours. The Scion can will it to disperse before that period elapses, but otherwise, it remains in place the whole time even if the Scion is unconscious. It doesn’t disperse even if someone shines a bright light in the Scion’s face.

Afraid of the Dark
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Empathy Cost: 1 Legend The Scion causes a momentary darkness to pass before the eyes of a target. For a single instant, the subject sees everything cast in shadow, with frightening overtones and hideous, nightmarish contortions. This brief second of doubt shakes the target, causing her to lose a single point of Willpower. Afraid of the Dark has no effect on a character with a higher Legend rating than the user. Against someone with an equal or lower Legend score, the defender’s player rolls (Willpower + Integrity + Legend) to shake off the effect.

Shadow Refuge
Dice Pool: Dexterity + Stealth Cost: 1 Legend The Scion can hide within any shadow into which his body fits. He need only position himself within the three-dimensional area of the shadow as his player succeeds on the activation roll and spends the point of Legend. If he does so, mundane attempts to find him—even those aided by electronic equipment—fail automatically. Supernatural attempts aided by Epic Perception or an Arete in Awareness (or both) proceed as normal, contesting the searcher’s (Perception + Awareness) against the Scion’s activation roll. The Scion can hide within the shadow as long as it remains large enough. He can move with it as it moves, but doing so might require a new (Dexterity + Stealth) roll depending on the circumstances.

Shadow Step
Dice Pool: None Cost: 1 Legend The Scion can step into one shadow and emerge instantly from any shadow within his line of sight. Doing so costs one Legend but doesn’t interrupt his action. He can draw a bow and walk backward into one shadow then instantly emerge from another shadow somewhere else and fire his arrow just as easily as if he had made a normal Move action before firing. The only catch is that the shadows through which the Scion moves must be large enough to accommodate his entire body.

Absorb Light
Dice Pool: None Cost: 2 Legend The Scion’s body turns pitch-black, and he becomes a sinkhole for light. Radiated light becomes absorbed when it strikes the Scion’s body, leaving him as a vaguely humanoid-shaped black blot (though still quite solid). In darkness or shadow, the demigod blends in almost perfectly — he’s just a little too dark, which makes him stand out a bit from the “mundane” darkness around him. Nevertheless, the Scion gains a bonus equal to the character’s Legend score on all Stealth tests while the power is active.

Furthermore, because the demigod absorbs all light without harm, the Scion becomes immune to any damage or blinding effect from the Sun Purview when it’s created by anyone with a lower Legend score than his own. The Scion also absorbs radiation from the infrared spectrum all the way up to cosmic rays with no effect on him, meaning that the Scion could literally survive in the nuclear fallout after the explosion of an atomic weapon (although the force during such an explosion could still be fatal). Absorb Light lasts for one scene.

Shadow Craft
Dice Pool: Dexterity + Art Cost: 1 Willpower or (1 Legend + 1 Willpower) This Boon allows for two effects. First, the Scion can change the shape of a projected shadow in any way he sees fit as long as A.) he’s touching it and B.) he maintains the shadow’s original surface area in the finished shape. He can move the shadow around in defiance of ambient light sources, break it into bits and bend and stretch it any way he wants. Doing so costs only one Willpower point, and the shape in which he leaves the shadow remains thus for a number of hours equal to his Legend. The complexity of the finished image determines the number of successes necessary.

The second effect costs one Willpower and one Legend. The character reaches into the nearest shadow, thinks of an item he needs but does not have and pulls out just such an item made of solid shadow. Items retrieved thus must be relatively simple and not mechanical. The most complex item a Scion could produce would be a plain longbow with a stout shadow string (using the traits of a hankyu). The most common items Scions create with this Boon are weapons, but wrenches, ropes, chairs, doorstops, flutes, shields, fans and all manner of simple objects are possible. The objects are just as sturdy and useful as their material counterparts, and they can withstand even the brightest direct light. The Scion may create as many objects as his player’s successes on the activation roll allow, as follows: Anyone who can use a mundane version of the item can use the shadow version just as well, though finding a loose one in the dark might be a problem for someone without Night Eyes (Darkness •). The Scion can activate this Boon only once per scene, and if he’s creating more than one item at a time, he has to keep pulling them out of the shadow and either stacking them up or passing them out. If he stops for more than a minute, the effect ends, regardless of how many successes’ worth of items he can still produce.

Shadow Shroud
Dice Pool: Strength Cost: 1 Willpower + 3 Legend The character sweeps his arms about him in a savage gesture that literally tears the light out of the air. As a result, a maximum semispherical area with a radius in yards equal to (roll successes x 5) becomes pitch black. Only characters with Night Eyes can see anything within the area of effect. This darkness lasts as long as the Scion stays in the area of effect and wills it to remain. Direct sunlight dissolves the shroud of darkness, but only slowly. Each hour of direct sunlight reduces the radius of the effect by 10 yards.

Shadow Bodies
Dice Pool: Charisma + Presence Cost: 1 Willpower + 5 Legend The Scion wraps a nearby shadow around his body as his player makes the roll and spends the points. The shadow conforms to the Scion’s body, rendering him a tangible, though unrecognizable, three-dimensional silhouette. Then, for every five successes the player got on the activation roll, a semi-tangible shadow duplicate steps out of the Scion’s tenebrous form. Each duplicate has the Scion’s same mundane Physical Attributes and the same ratings in Abilities that represent physical acumen. These semi-solid duplicates can wield physical weapons or ones created with Shadow Craft (Darkness •••••). They are immune to bashing damage, but lethal and aggravated damage affects them as normal.

All of the shadow duplicates must remain within the Scion’s line of sight. The Scion doesn’t literally have to be able to see a duplicate, one can stand behind him, for instance, but if a duplicate leaves the Scion’s line of sight, it ceases to exist. Each duplicate the Scion controls must perform roughly the same action—all of them acting based on the Scion’s player’s Join Battle roll. Duplicates arrange themselves minimally so as not to get in each other’s way, but they must either perform the same action as their counterparts or perform no action. (They can perform the same action against different targets, though.) The Scion can perform a different action from what all of his shadow duplicates are doing, or he can make one group of duplicates perform a different action from what he and the rest are doing. He must split his action as per a standard multiple action, though, with the concomitant dice pool penalties. When the shadow bodies are performing the same action in combat against the same target, they are automatically assumed to be performing a coordinated assault.

Only someone using Night Eyes can tell which form is the Scion and which is a duplicate. Also, if a shadow body is hiding inside a shadow cast by ambient lighting, it is indistinguishable from the background. Finally, if a Scion has Shadow Step (Darkness ••••), any one of the shadow bodies present is a suitable shadow portal through which to step. Direct sunlight inflicts one unsoakable level of lethal damage on a shadow duplicate per 10 seconds of exposure. The Scion is not affected by this damage. Despite the similarities, these shadow bodies are not the same as titanspawn shinobi created by the power of the Titan Mikaboshi. This subtlety can easily be lost on Scions in the heat of the moment, though.

Strike Blind
Dice Pool: Wits + Medicine Cost: 5+ Legend With this Boon, the God shows a victim what lies within the soul of depthless dark. He need only be able to see his victims in person as his player rolls (Wits + Medicine) and spends five Legend points. With the base activation, the God can affect a number of targets equal to his Legend. Each additional Legend point he spends adds another number of victims equal to his Legend. Each victim’s player resists the God’s player’s single activation roll with a (Stamina + Fortitude) roll. If the God wins this contest, non-reflective blackness clouds the victims’ eyes, and the victims go blind. For mortals and other characters with no Legend rating, this effect is permanent. For characters with a Legend rating lower than that of the God using this Boon, the effect lasts for a number of days equal to the God’s threshold successes. For characters with a higher Legend rating, the effect lasts for a number of hours equal to the threshold successes.

Oubliette
Dice Pool: (Dexterity or Strength) + Brawl Cost: 10 Legend When a God gets control of a clinch against a foe, one option he has is to break the hold by throwing the foe back or to the ground. If he has this Boon, he can break a clinch by throwing a foe not to the ground, but into a realm of black nothingness. This realm, known only as the Oubliette, is a forgotten null space between the World, the Underworld and the Overworld, and only Gods of Darkness seem to have any access into or out of it. Lesser characters—extras, mainly—disappear into the darkness of the Oubliette, never to be seen again.

Gods of Darkness who also have this Boon can let themselves into the Oubliette and out again, emerging from the same spot whence they entered. Other characters hurled into the Oubliette find themselves floating alone in smothering blackness. It stifles their hearing and numbs their flesh. If other Gods of Darkness strand disparate victims in this space simultaneously, no victim is aware of any other. Using Boons to illuminate this space (or looking around with Night Eyes) shows only endless emptiness with the victim in the center.

Once a God has thrown a character into the Oubliette, he or another God with this Boon may retrieve that character at any time, and from any place. Doing so requires another 10 Legend points. If the God who wants to retrieve someone is not the same God who put that person in the Oubliette, though, his player must make a (Perception + Awareness) roll to find the person.

Eclipse
Dice Pool: Strength Cost: 1 Willpower + 15 Legend This power works just as the power Shadow Shroud (Darkness ••••• •) does, with the God tearing light from the very air. Instead of the radius of the effect being equal to (roll successes x 5) yards, though, the area of the effect is equal to (roll successes x 5) square miles. The darkness lasts for a number of hours equal to the successes on the roll, unless the God wills it to dissipate first. It is not reduced by direct sunlight.

Avatar of Darkness (The Abyss)
Cost: 1 Willpower + 30 Legend For one scene, the character becomes The Abyss. The Abyss is unknowable, and all living things fear its approach. It strikes mortals blind and engulfs characters of greater importance. Fires go out, electric lights burst, and even the sun and stars recede out of respect. Those ensnared in The Abyss stand perfectly still, trying not to be devoured by the ice-cold currents that flow through it. Things that survive The Abyss’ embrace emerge frail and withered, their colors either faded or perversely vibrant. Some things The Abyss covers are never seen again. Even a Titan can be blinded as The Abyss washes over it.