Magical Sparkles 6: Enchantment of Smarts
Magical SparklesAn Enchantment listing for Princess: the Pink.
Calling Enchantment: Smarts
Guarding virtue in the world is more than just beating up demons. Princesses of the Pink Clouds have the responsibility to ensure that everybody can prosper and to encourage them to do the right thing. For this reason, the guardians teach the gift of Smarts, the ability to read sparkles in the air to glean the knowledge they need to do their job.
Princesses following the Guiding Light receive experience discounts when learning the Enchantment of Smarts.
• Enchanting Wisdom
In order to foster virtue, you need to know how to properly share its bounty with the world. A princess with Enchanting Wisdom can listen to what the ambient sparkles tell her, gaining a better understanding of her position and how to put it forward. She who wields Enchanting Wisdom understands instinctively the ways to put her best foot forward and appeal to the listener. While a princess can attempt to channel her Enchanting Wisdom over more than one person at once, it becomes much more difficult to weave an approach that appeals to so many people at once.
Cost: -
Action: Instant
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Persuasion + Smarts - target's Splendor
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your princess mishears what the sparkles tell her. While she believes she knows exactly what topic to bring up to endear herself to the target, she actually intuits an upsetting topic for the listener.
Failure: Your princess fails to channel her Enchanting Wisdom properly. She learns nothing.
Success: Your princess listens to the sparkles and learns something held close to the listener's heart. The Storyteller tells the player something her character could say or do that would create a good impression in the listeners and help those involved understand each other.
Exceptional Success: The princess can hear even the subtlest impressions in the sparkles of the area. She understands not only how to best appeal to her particular approach, but she intuits what would be the best thing to say to or ask of the person to encourage them towards fulfilling their Virtue.
Suggested Modifiers:
-2For every target after the first.
•• Moral Intuition
In order to urge people on to be their best and not their worst, it's important to know a person's moral strengths and weaknesses. Princesses on the path of Smarts learn to observe sparkles' natural trails through the world, called airts. By seeing which sparkle trails are left behind connecting to a person, she can see which manner of virtue the person is suffused with most, and which weakness they carry through the world.
Cost: -
Action: Instant
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy + Smarts - target's Composure + Splendor
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your character misreads the airts, drawing a false conclusion and receiving misinformation.
Failure: Your character cannot focus well enough to read the airts.
Success: By reading the airts, your character intuits the target's Virtue and Vice. Moral Intuition can sometimes be used to detect certain otherworldly entities who do not possess a Virtue or Vice. For example, a demon does not truly possess any Virtue, and the guardians similarly are free of Vice. In these cases, your character does not intuit any knowledge of Virtue or Vice, confused by the unnatural nature of the airts. She may know enough to realize that this indicates some unnatural nature to the target; or she may simply think she has failed to read the airts properly.
Exceptional Success: Your character's intuition is exceptional, able to discern the entire lattice of astral trails connecting a person to the greater world. She may choose to learn the target's current Morality rating rather than their Virtue and Vice. This method of discerning Morality does not tell the princess whether the target possesses any derangements, nor does it identify whether the person's Morality has been changed into some other moral system, such as Purity. The princess only learns how well the person lives up to their inner moral code.
••• Light of Truth
The light of truth blots out the shadows of falsehood. A follower of the Enchantment of Smarts can learn to see the paths truth takes through the world, strange paths of metaphysical light illuminating the airts. It's not the kind of light you can see by, but it causes falsehood to cast shadows. Princesses girded by knowledge of the Light of Truth become impossible to fool, bastions of wisdom. Whenever a princess who knows Light of Truth is lied to, she may reflexively roll the Light of Truth in an attempt to spot the shadows cast and detect the spread of lies.
The Light of Truth is only triggered by intentional lies; subtler falsehood is more insidious, and its shadow is too hard to spot. The Light of Truth triggers when a target uses mundane means to assert something he believes to be false. Supernaturally augmented falsehoods, including some demonic powers, are immune to the Light of Truth. They either communicate in more arcane ways that bypass the airt, or directly work on the princess's mind, directing her attention away from the airt. Additionally, some particularly insidious demons who rule over the domains of deception don't even need to use a special power to bypass the Light of Truth. They are such incarnations of deceit that their own minds are twisted such that they can no longer tell the truth from the lie themselves.
Cost: -
Action: Contested; reflexive
Dice Pool: Wits + Streetwise + Smarts versus target's Manipulation + Subterfuge or other rolls of deception + target's Splendor
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your character misses the shadow, but believes she has seen the light, lending credence to the plausibility of the lie. She is led to believe it, even if she wouldn't have without the Light of Truth; her overconfidence in her magical prowess is her undoing.
Failure: Your character fails to read the light of truth. She must rely on her non-magical discernment to tell whether she is being lied to.
Success: If your character gains more successes than her opponent, she spots the shadows cast by the light of truth. She knows that an intentional falsehood has been told, although not exactly what.
Exceptional Success: If your character gains five more successes than her opponent, the light of truth is brilliant and the shadows cast clear. She not only knows she has been lied to, she knows the exact lie told.
•••• Magical Synthesis
There's nothing sneaking by a princess practiced in the Enchantment of Smarts. By simply feeding herself a sparkle for brain food and looking a situation over, she can spot potential sources of trouble and suspicious aspects about the situation. Her mind works overtime to take in every small detail of the area and put them together. For a moment, by the grace of sparkle magic, she is Sherlock Holmes.
Cost: 1 sparkle
Action: Instant or contested; resistance is reflexive
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Streetwise + Smarts
If somebody else has set up a trap for the princess, Magical Synthesis can be used as a contested roll against the roll made to conceal the trap, whether Intelligence + Crafts to hide a timebomb, Dexterity + Stealth for someone to hide from the princess, or whatever else.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your character draws precisely the wrong conclusion. If the coast is clear, she thinks there is a deadly trap waiting; for example, she sees a number of household cleaners and assumes they're signs of an amateur chemist cooking dangerous substances rather than of a janitor who forgot to take his supplies back with him. Or the situation is dangerous, but her attention is fixed on the wrong clues, and don't tip her off to the danger waiting.
Failure: Your character is unable to turn up any useful conclusions.
Success: If your character rolls successes on an instant action, or more successes than her opponent on a contested action, for a moment she has a full view of the entire scenario in total context. If something suspicious, noteworthy or dangerous is happening, it is not beyond her notice; she can follow even the most minute logic trail of the smallest clues to the most intricate plan. If nothing is out of the ordinary, she knows the coast is clear and any major details about her surroundings. Magical Synthesis can only detect things that the greatest of mundane detection could; it cannot reveal things concealed by means no mortal could possibly find, such as ghosts lying in wait in Twilight or demons supernaturally concealed within host bodies.
Exceptional Success: If your character rolls five success on an instant action, or five more than her opponent on a contested action, her logic is supercharged by the sparkle magic thrumming through her mind. Her reasoning seems bizarre and her conclusions seem divorced from her premises, but they are absolutely true and allow her to divine fine details about what's going on. If the coast is clear, she might be able to discern from the condition of the grass, given wind conditions and time of day, that the site was once an ancient Indian burial mound. If there's an ambush lurking behind the bushes, she might not only be able to discern the ambush, but given the make of shoe spotted under the brush and the way the attacker has laced it, she knows it must be Mr. Steadman from up the block, under some supernatural influence to take the princess's pageant down with his favorite baseball bat.
••••• Astral Prescience
Once a princess has fully mastered the Enchantment of Smarts, even time itself is not a barrier to her senses. She can enter some state of concentration in search of what's going on, or even what the future has in store. This state of concentration may vary; a gadgetry whiz might use her glitter-enchanted magical computer to analyze the situation, a mystic might settle into an intense session of prayer or meditation, and a self-styled detective might patrol her block and take in all the clues to be had. But whatever method she uses, it's a focus to search the airts, enabling the princess to sense and understand more astral trails as she descends into deeper concentration. When she emerges from her focus, she may have the answer to the question burning within her, even if the event that answers her question has yet to transpire.
Cost: 2 sparkles
Action: Extended; one roll is one hour
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult + Smarts
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your character's concentration is catastrophically disrupted, causing her to lose all her progress. Her computer suffers data corruption, something distressing rouses her from her trance, local security gets suspicious as to why she's taking all those photographs, or something else happens. All successes towards Astral Prescience are lost, and she must spend another two sparkles to begin again.
Failure: Your character has not yet determined what's going on. She just needs a little more time...
Success: At 20 successes, or however many the Storyteller decides your princess's question demands, she's got it. She knows the answer to the question burning her up. Knowledge gained by Astral Prescience may be of events yet to transpire, such as where a demon's evil plan will transpire, in which case it yields the potential future that is the most likely to happen should the princess do nothing with her newfound knowledge. It may be of the status of the present, such as where a lost local child has gone. It might even be events of the past, such as what terrible thing led the local oppressive businessman to become the disconsolate man he is today. Some supernatural beings may be able to put up wards to protect some things from being found out by Astral Prescience.
Exceptional Success: As a success.
Princess: the Pink to do list:
• Character creation template Done!
• Character sheets Done!
• Enchantment list - in progress
• New Advantage sections: Splendor, Sparkles, Purity
• Antagonists section
• Storytelling section
Calling Enchantment: Smarts
Guarding virtue in the world is more than just beating up demons. Princesses of the Pink Clouds have the responsibility to ensure that everybody can prosper and to encourage them to do the right thing. For this reason, the guardians teach the gift of Smarts, the ability to read sparkles in the air to glean the knowledge they need to do their job.
Princesses following the Guiding Light receive experience discounts when learning the Enchantment of Smarts.
• Enchanting Wisdom
In order to foster virtue, you need to know how to properly share its bounty with the world. A princess with Enchanting Wisdom can listen to what the ambient sparkles tell her, gaining a better understanding of her position and how to put it forward. She who wields Enchanting Wisdom understands instinctively the ways to put her best foot forward and appeal to the listener. While a princess can attempt to channel her Enchanting Wisdom over more than one person at once, it becomes much more difficult to weave an approach that appeals to so many people at once.
Cost: -
Action: Instant
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Persuasion + Smarts - target's Splendor
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your princess mishears what the sparkles tell her. While she believes she knows exactly what topic to bring up to endear herself to the target, she actually intuits an upsetting topic for the listener.
Failure: Your princess fails to channel her Enchanting Wisdom properly. She learns nothing.
Success: Your princess listens to the sparkles and learns something held close to the listener's heart. The Storyteller tells the player something her character could say or do that would create a good impression in the listeners and help those involved understand each other.
Exceptional Success: The princess can hear even the subtlest impressions in the sparkles of the area. She understands not only how to best appeal to her particular approach, but she intuits what would be the best thing to say to or ask of the person to encourage them towards fulfilling their Virtue.
Suggested Modifiers:
-2For every target after the first.
•• Moral Intuition
In order to urge people on to be their best and not their worst, it's important to know a person's moral strengths and weaknesses. Princesses on the path of Smarts learn to observe sparkles' natural trails through the world, called airts. By seeing which sparkle trails are left behind connecting to a person, she can see which manner of virtue the person is suffused with most, and which weakness they carry through the world.
Cost: -
Action: Instant
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy + Smarts - target's Composure + Splendor
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your character misreads the airts, drawing a false conclusion and receiving misinformation.
Failure: Your character cannot focus well enough to read the airts.
Success: By reading the airts, your character intuits the target's Virtue and Vice. Moral Intuition can sometimes be used to detect certain otherworldly entities who do not possess a Virtue or Vice. For example, a demon does not truly possess any Virtue, and the guardians similarly are free of Vice. In these cases, your character does not intuit any knowledge of Virtue or Vice, confused by the unnatural nature of the airts. She may know enough to realize that this indicates some unnatural nature to the target; or she may simply think she has failed to read the airts properly.
Exceptional Success: Your character's intuition is exceptional, able to discern the entire lattice of astral trails connecting a person to the greater world. She may choose to learn the target's current Morality rating rather than their Virtue and Vice. This method of discerning Morality does not tell the princess whether the target possesses any derangements, nor does it identify whether the person's Morality has been changed into some other moral system, such as Purity. The princess only learns how well the person lives up to their inner moral code.
••• Light of Truth
The light of truth blots out the shadows of falsehood. A follower of the Enchantment of Smarts can learn to see the paths truth takes through the world, strange paths of metaphysical light illuminating the airts. It's not the kind of light you can see by, but it causes falsehood to cast shadows. Princesses girded by knowledge of the Light of Truth become impossible to fool, bastions of wisdom. Whenever a princess who knows Light of Truth is lied to, she may reflexively roll the Light of Truth in an attempt to spot the shadows cast and detect the spread of lies.
The Light of Truth is only triggered by intentional lies; subtler falsehood is more insidious, and its shadow is too hard to spot. The Light of Truth triggers when a target uses mundane means to assert something he believes to be false. Supernaturally augmented falsehoods, including some demonic powers, are immune to the Light of Truth. They either communicate in more arcane ways that bypass the airt, or directly work on the princess's mind, directing her attention away from the airt. Additionally, some particularly insidious demons who rule over the domains of deception don't even need to use a special power to bypass the Light of Truth. They are such incarnations of deceit that their own minds are twisted such that they can no longer tell the truth from the lie themselves.
Cost: -
Action: Contested; reflexive
Dice Pool: Wits + Streetwise + Smarts versus target's Manipulation + Subterfuge or other rolls of deception + target's Splendor
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your character misses the shadow, but believes she has seen the light, lending credence to the plausibility of the lie. She is led to believe it, even if she wouldn't have without the Light of Truth; her overconfidence in her magical prowess is her undoing.
Failure: Your character fails to read the light of truth. She must rely on her non-magical discernment to tell whether she is being lied to.
Success: If your character gains more successes than her opponent, she spots the shadows cast by the light of truth. She knows that an intentional falsehood has been told, although not exactly what.
Exceptional Success: If your character gains five more successes than her opponent, the light of truth is brilliant and the shadows cast clear. She not only knows she has been lied to, she knows the exact lie told.
•••• Magical Synthesis
There's nothing sneaking by a princess practiced in the Enchantment of Smarts. By simply feeding herself a sparkle for brain food and looking a situation over, she can spot potential sources of trouble and suspicious aspects about the situation. Her mind works overtime to take in every small detail of the area and put them together. For a moment, by the grace of sparkle magic, she is Sherlock Holmes.
Cost: 1 sparkle
Action: Instant or contested; resistance is reflexive
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Streetwise + Smarts
If somebody else has set up a trap for the princess, Magical Synthesis can be used as a contested roll against the roll made to conceal the trap, whether Intelligence + Crafts to hide a timebomb, Dexterity + Stealth for someone to hide from the princess, or whatever else.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your character draws precisely the wrong conclusion. If the coast is clear, she thinks there is a deadly trap waiting; for example, she sees a number of household cleaners and assumes they're signs of an amateur chemist cooking dangerous substances rather than of a janitor who forgot to take his supplies back with him. Or the situation is dangerous, but her attention is fixed on the wrong clues, and don't tip her off to the danger waiting.
Failure: Your character is unable to turn up any useful conclusions.
Success: If your character rolls successes on an instant action, or more successes than her opponent on a contested action, for a moment she has a full view of the entire scenario in total context. If something suspicious, noteworthy or dangerous is happening, it is not beyond her notice; she can follow even the most minute logic trail of the smallest clues to the most intricate plan. If nothing is out of the ordinary, she knows the coast is clear and any major details about her surroundings. Magical Synthesis can only detect things that the greatest of mundane detection could; it cannot reveal things concealed by means no mortal could possibly find, such as ghosts lying in wait in Twilight or demons supernaturally concealed within host bodies.
Exceptional Success: If your character rolls five success on an instant action, or five more than her opponent on a contested action, her logic is supercharged by the sparkle magic thrumming through her mind. Her reasoning seems bizarre and her conclusions seem divorced from her premises, but they are absolutely true and allow her to divine fine details about what's going on. If the coast is clear, she might be able to discern from the condition of the grass, given wind conditions and time of day, that the site was once an ancient Indian burial mound. If there's an ambush lurking behind the bushes, she might not only be able to discern the ambush, but given the make of shoe spotted under the brush and the way the attacker has laced it, she knows it must be Mr. Steadman from up the block, under some supernatural influence to take the princess's pageant down with his favorite baseball bat.
••••• Astral Prescience
Once a princess has fully mastered the Enchantment of Smarts, even time itself is not a barrier to her senses. She can enter some state of concentration in search of what's going on, or even what the future has in store. This state of concentration may vary; a gadgetry whiz might use her glitter-enchanted magical computer to analyze the situation, a mystic might settle into an intense session of prayer or meditation, and a self-styled detective might patrol her block and take in all the clues to be had. But whatever method she uses, it's a focus to search the airts, enabling the princess to sense and understand more astral trails as she descends into deeper concentration. When she emerges from her focus, she may have the answer to the question burning within her, even if the event that answers her question has yet to transpire.
Cost: 2 sparkles
Action: Extended; one roll is one hour
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult + Smarts
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your character's concentration is catastrophically disrupted, causing her to lose all her progress. Her computer suffers data corruption, something distressing rouses her from her trance, local security gets suspicious as to why she's taking all those photographs, or something else happens. All successes towards Astral Prescience are lost, and she must spend another two sparkles to begin again.
Failure: Your character has not yet determined what's going on. She just needs a little more time...
Success: At 20 successes, or however many the Storyteller decides your princess's question demands, she's got it. She knows the answer to the question burning her up. Knowledge gained by Astral Prescience may be of events yet to transpire, such as where a demon's evil plan will transpire, in which case it yields the potential future that is the most likely to happen should the princess do nothing with her newfound knowledge. It may be of the status of the present, such as where a lost local child has gone. It might even be events of the past, such as what terrible thing led the local oppressive businessman to become the disconsolate man he is today. Some supernatural beings may be able to put up wards to protect some things from being found out by Astral Prescience.
Exceptional Success: As a success.
Princess: the Pink to do list:
• Character creation template Done!
• Character sheets Done!
• Enchantment list - in progress
• New Advantage sections: Splendor, Sparkles, Purity
• Antagonists section
• Storytelling section