Author: Richard

Clairvoyant

You can view the world, one location at a time.

Basic Clairvoyance: You can view a location you cannot physically see.  By making a Notice roll with against a Fair (+2) obstacle, you can see what is happening in a zone you cannot see into.  While you can observe the room like a camera, you cannot interact with it.  Any attempts to Investigate are against a Great (+4) obstacle since you cannot thoroughly examine objects in the zone.  If the subject of your observation leaves the zone, you must make a Notice roll against a Fair (+2) obstacle to maintain the connection and move to the new zone.

Enhancements

Master Clairvoyant: Your ability to view remote locations is spot on.  Gain a +2 to Notice when using your power.

Through Her Eyes: Instead of anchoring your clairvoyance to the zone, you can instead view the world through the eyes of your target.  Doing so is a Good (+3) obstacle, but if the target leaves their current zone you do not need to roll to stay focused on them.

Home Movies: You don’t just see what’s going on, you can hear it as well.

Common Power Synergies

Shielding: You know how to prevent people from psychically surveilling you.

Machine Control: You are the ultimate universal remote control.

Improved Special Effect

Sight Beyond Sight: You can let others see what you see.  You must touch the recipient of your sight and make an Empathy roll to establish the connection.

Incorporeal Sleuth: You can examine objects for virtually any angle.  You gain a +2 to Investigate remotely.

Drawbacks

• Your sight can only be in one place at a time. When you use Clairvoyant, you are Temporarily Blind.
• Knowing that you can spy on others, you are aware that someone might do it to you. You can’t shake the feeling that Someone’s Watching Me.

Collateral Damage Effects

Shifting Perspective: If you want to do some serious damage to another person’s sense of self, then unleashing this effect will have some seriously unintended consequences to everyone but you in the zone.  Everyone’s eyesight is through someone else’s eyes every exchange.  Everyone stumbles about and is in danger of injuring themselves, taking a moderate physical consequence if they move around.  Nameless NPCs are taken out while named NPCs and PCs can make an Athletics roll against a Great (+4) obstacle to leave the zone without injury.  This effect lasts until you end it or the scene ends.

Shattered Worldview: You can force people up to one zone away to see the world through the eyes of another.  Everyone in the zone has their sight replaced with someone else’s.  The effect is so dizzying that everyone makes a Will check against a Good (+3) obstacle to avoid being stunned while in the zone until you turn off this effect or the scene ends.

Change Size

Your body grows or shrinks.

Basic Change Size: Choose either growth or shrink.  You are able to grow large enough to treat adjacent zones as the same zone you are in or shrink small enough to ignore obstacles that impede your movement.

Enhancements

Master Change Size: If you grow, you gain a +1 to Fight attacks against opponents in another zone.  If you shrink, you gain Armor:1 due to your small size.

Any Size: You can shrink and grow.

Change Another’s Size: When you physically touch a target, you can make their size change.  If they wish to resist the change, they make a Physique roll against a Fair (+2) obstacle.

Common Power Synergies

Gadgeteering: Your power is a ray gun or other portable defice.

Super Strength: Your great size provides you with prodigious muscles.

Phasing: You bypass obstacles because you’re small enough to slip through the cracks.

Drawbacks

• Unfortunately, being so large means you Can’t Grasp Things as they tend to slip from your fingers.
• You’ve spent enough time in a miniaturized state that even at normal size You Feel Small.

Collateral Damage Effects

Size Shock: If you wish to change your state in a hurry, you can displace the air mass in the zone like a concussive burst.  Everything in your zone is pushed into adjacent zones, named NPCs and PCs can make an Athletics roll against a Fair (+2) obstacle to remain in the zone.

Shrink Wink: Through sheer force of will alone, you cause everything to miniaturize and return to normal in the blink of an eye.  The effect is devastating to the physical form and rips apart objects to send debris flying around the zone.  Anyone within the area makes an Athletics roll against a Fair (+2) obstacle to avoid taking two points of stress from the detritus.

I’ve been working behind the scenes on a lot of material for a game program for my library.  I’ll be throwing up more of the material in the upcoming weeks as I’ve gotten the bulk of the rules ironed out.  The rest of the zones for the Fate game will consume most of the development time and, who knows, I might have enough to release it as a product using the SRD material for Venture City as the springboard.  In that vein, here’s the first full write-up for one of the setting’s villains.

Catharsis

Dr. Christopher Hernandez, like most villains, didn’t set out to become what he is.  He’s a brilliant psychologist who approached his studies the way he did life: he fought for them.  Dr. Hernandez wasn’t born well-off, but his perseverance and tenacity paid off.  Growing up in Angelwood meant having to deal with the normal problems of adolescence combined with the flak he caught for being a bit scrawny and so studious.

Dr. Hernandez devoted a significant part of his time to helping out people in his old neighborhood because he understood the problems the community faced.  There were a handful of particularly tough cases that he tried to crack so his patients could move on with their lives, but underlying issues proved too difficult.  He threw himself into the problem and desperately wanted to help his patients find relief.  Up until that point, Dr. Hernandez hadn’t experienced failure, only setbacks.  The more he worked, though, the more the answers eluded him until he suffered a mental breakdown.

Christopher Hernandez still runs his practice, but isn’t like other psychologists.  He isn’t interested in helping you recover.  Once, maybe, but not now.  The doctor’s mind didn’t heal the way he hoped.  Something in the research or the intensity of his search awoke a sleeping portion of his brain.  When he came to, he found that he had reached a height other psychologists only dreamt of: the ability to know exactly what others were thinking.

Dr. Hernandez can’t escape the thoughts and got more than he wanted since what he found is that most people’s thoughts are horrible and those who’ve suffered psychological trauma are worse.  The constant amongst all the minds he’s encountered: pain.  In his broken condition, this has led him to adopt the persona Catharsis.

As Catharsis, Dr. Hernandez has turned to helping end his patients’ suffering through reinforcing not just their pain, but preparing them to embrace a final exit.

 

Aspects: Psychologist by Trade, Manipulator by Choice; Well-versed in Psychoses; Nondescript Appearance; Driven to Prove Himself; Observes What Others Don’t

 

Skills

Superb (+5):	Rapport
Great (+4):	Investigate, Empathy
Good (+3):	Will, Contacts, Lore
Fair (+2):	Resources, Deceive, Notice, Provoke
Average (+1):	Drive, Burglary, Athletics, Crafts, Stealth

 

Stunts

 

Face in the Crowd (Fate Core, page 126)

Best Foot Forward (Fate Core, page 121)

Psychologist (Fate Core, page 109)

 

Powers

Suppression of Will: Catharsis is a master manipulator because of how intimately he knows what people are thinking through Telepathy using Investigate rolls.  He uses this to read opponents and dominate them by attacking their minds with a +4 to Rapport to get them to do what he wants and he gets a +2 to Deceive to ensure they are none the wiser that it’s his choice and not theirs.

 

Power Breakdown

• Influence

o Master Influence

o Convincing

• Telepathy (Investigate)
• Intensive Training

Special Effects: Mental Recovery, Inflict Condition

Drawback: Deeply Haunted by Living Nightmares

Collateral Damage Effect: Catharsis can create havoc not through affecting a mass of people, but by selecting one victim and truly preying on her fears.  He does this by getting the character to relive their worst psychic traumas all over again.  Anyone witnessing this display makes a Will roll against a Fair (+2) obstacle to avoid one mental stress.  The victim makes a Will roll against a Good (+3) obstacle to prevent inflicting a fatal wound.  Success means the victim takes a moderate physical consequence and a mild mental consequence.  Catharsis takes a mild mental consequence for using this ability.

 

Mental Shield: Catharsis has learned to ward his own mind from the manipulations of others.  He can use his Investigate skill to defend against mental attacks.  Catharsis has no defense against physical attacks as a result.

 

Power Breakdown

• Telepathy (Investigate)
• Shielding

Special Effects: Extra Movement, Extra Action

Drawback: Psychologically Distant

Collateral Damage Effect: Catharsis has the ability to create a sense of pure disquiet in a zone up to one zone away where everyone feels completely isolated from the rest of the universe.  The effect is so unnerving that most fly into a panic attempting to escape the sense of unmitigated solitude.  Nameless NPCs are taken out, while named NPCs and PCs make a Will roll against a Fair (+2) obstacle to avoid a moderate mental consequence from feeling so isolated.

 

Physical Stress: □□                  Mental Stress: □□□□