An alternative to After Sundown's existing Magic chapter.

nightshift_magic.md

Magic

In addition to being monsters with shark teeth or blade hands or whatever else, in After Sundown most monstrous things have access to at least a little bit of magic. It's known by many names in many languages across the four worlds, and it's a fact of the universe that you have to be prepared for if you're hunting monsters or if you are the monsters.

The thing to keep in mind with magic in After Sundown is that it's never good magic. Magic is energy flowing from one of the three hells, and it's always evil. It might be used for a good cause, but in time the taint of evil will eventually twist even the best of intents until it begins to cause misery for the people involved.

Magical Terminology

"Now first let's get one thing straight about what's going on here."

An individual magical ability is known as a Power. Most powers require that you cast them. Casting a power involves you spending the action, possibly spending some power points, and possibly making a roll. Powers that involve a roll each have two different dice pools available, representing multiple paths of magical power. Some magic or other effects can alter your stats or skills from their base values, but magic is directed through your soul itself, so when casting powers you must always use your base, unaltered stats and skills. Only the permanent gains through Karma cards increase your magical prowess.

An Instant is a power that you cast and the magic is gone as soon as the power is resolved, even if the result remains (such as a book burned by a fire power). An Enchantment is a power where the magic lasts for some period of time after the power is cast and then things go back to normal when the enchantment ends. Either some specific amount of time (such as one round), Scene (which is about up to an hour), Twilight (the next sunrise or sunset), or Permanent (it never runs out on its own).

If the target of an enchantment is killed or destroyed the enchantment ends, regardless of how much duration was remaining. Creatures cannot automatically end their own enchantments simply by willing it unless the power says so, though they can dispel their own enchantments just like anyone else can (see "Countering Magic", below). Many self-enchantments are permanent, and for these it can be assumed that they are active at all times. The action required to cast it is only needed if you wish to re-cast the power once it is dipowered and things are currently happening in combat time.

Instead of being an enchantment, some lasting powers are Intrinsic. They simply have their effect at all times and can't be removed, halted, or countered. These are usually powers relating to the basic form of a thing. A vampire just doesn't age, that's the point of wanting to be a vampire. Intrinsic powers are in some sense "stronger" than a permanent enchantment because they can't be counterpowered, but they usually have a much weaker effect in exchange. Intrinsic powers are not subject to suppression by Sunlight, Alcohol, or Water the same way that a creature's other magic is.

Powers are grouped, roughly by theme, into Disciplines. Each power is either Basic or Advanced. When learning powers, you must know at least one Basic power within a discipline before you can learn an Advanced power within that discipline. The disciplines are themselves grouped into one of four categories based on where the energy that powers them comes from.

• Universal Disciplines use the power source of whatever creature uses them.
• Astral Disciplines are powered by the dreams and nightmares of Maya.
• Infernal Disciplines are powered by the fires and ash of Limbo.
• Orphic Disciplines are powered by the death and blood of Mictlan.

Supernatural creatures have some inherent protection against magic with the same power source as themselves, and count as having 2 additional hits on any Resistance Test that they make against powers with the same power source as their own. Universal Disciplines count as the power source of whatever creature uses them for the purposes of dispelling, tracking, and Resistance Tests.

Example: Revive the Flesh is a Basic power in the Fortitude discipline (a Universal discipline), so when cast by a Strigoi (the Orphic Vampire) it acts just like Orphic magic, and when cast by a Werewolf (the Astral Lycanthrope) it acts like Astral magic. Beast Form is a Basic power in the Call of the Wild discipline (an Astral discipline), so it counts as Astral magic when used by either the Strigoi or the Werewolf.

Detecting Magic

"No way. No way, no how."

Sorcery and witchcraft don't normally "just happen" on their own. It requires a bit of evil knowledge and effort. That effort can be tracked by those in the know.

When a creature casts a power, characters with the right equipment and knowhow can spot the lingering power surge with a Dowsing Test. The dice that you roll depend on the type of magic being detected for:

• Astral: Intuition + Perception or Logic + Operations
• Infernal: Intuition + Perception or Logic + Survival
• Orphic: Intuition + Perception or Charisma + Animal Ken

Basic Powers are detectable to Way Out Range (100m), Advanced Powers or the expenditure of 3 or 4 power points at once is detectable to Extreme Range (1,000m), and the expenditure of 5 or more power points is detectable out to 300m per power point. The threshold to notice magic at normal range is 2, and you can detect out to double the normal range with a 3. Net hits on the test allow you to get a sense of direction towards the exact spot of the magic use. You usually need two net hits for a good sense of where to look, though in especially deserted or crowded areas you might need more or less.

The equipment you use to detect for magic depends on the sort of magic that you're detecting for.

Magnets

Astral Sorcery has a noticeable, if weird, affect on magnetic fields. You can track Astral Sorcery and gauge its power with a lodestone. Natural magnetite reacts more strongly than an electro-magnet for whatever reason, so experienced geomancers seriously carry a black rock on a string when they want to find dream sorcerers.

Clean Water

Clean water is pure, healthy, and brings joy and solace. It is very much inimical to the magic of the Dark Reflection, which causes clear water to be come darkened momentarily as if it was tainted with soot. An experienced douser can track the strength and direction of the use of Infernal sorcery by the darkness, apparent direction, and persistence of the image of taint in otherwise clear water.

Flowers

Orphic Sorcery is bad for you. Like polonium or something. But for big creatures it's really not something you'd notice without years of exposure, leaving the really observable effects to the very most fragile of lifeforms - those who would soon die in any case. And while one could tote around a bag full of mayflies or the like, most people in the know who want to track necromancers choose to use potted plants. A flower that blooms and dies every day is of course ideal, as it has a high responsiveness and gives good directionality.

Countering Magic

"Try this one on for size."

In addition to being able to detect for magic, you can also try to counter it. The process is not complex: You just throw a pile of stuff at the source of the magic. In the case of a power being cast you can throw it at the caster. In the case of an Enchantment on something or someone you can throw it at the enchanted target as well. Remember that Intrinsic magic cannot be countered at all.

To counter a spell, spend a Simple Action throwing the correct material and make an Intuition + Rigging or Agility + Athletics test. The hits of the power are reduced by the hits of your test. If the power is reduced to 0 hits as it's being cast it fails to activate at all. Otherwise, it still activates but with a reduced number of hits. An enchantment that is in place has its hits reduced by the result, and if the hits are reduced to 0 then the enchantment ends immediately.

Some powers do not have a dice pool that is rolled when casting them, and in this case the power's entry gives a number of effective hits that the power counts as having for the purposes of counterpowering. You usually don't need to write the number down until someone actually tries to dispel your magic.

If power points were spent to cast a power they also add a buffer of additional hits that must be de-powered before the actual hits of the power are reduced. This applies to any required power points as part of a power's casting, but you can also add power points into a power simply to make it harder to counter.

Counterpower materials are spoiled by evil once used, and they can't be swept up and used again. The whole process is technically magic itself, but any Luminary can do it with a moment's explanation. You just throw a handful of the stuff with the intent to nullify and it works. The opposing intent is a vital element though — simply falling onto a pile of salt isn't going to disrupt all your Astral magic.

The actual material that you use to nullify magic depends on the type of magic that you're attempting to nullify. Some forms of ritual magic cannot be countered by any of these materials. The strange circumstances of their creation give them equally strange requirements for their negation. Raising a castle above the clouds, making all the skies burn, things like that.

Salt

Salt draws water into itself and preserves food. Things treated with salt remain clean and non-poisonous long after untreated objects blacken and stink with putrescence. Thrown at Astral magic it draws the wetness and poison of the sorcery into itself and dampens it.

Sand

The fires of Limbo burn ceaselessly, but they are still fires. Clean sand thrown upon them douses them - cutting off the source of wicked Infernal sorcery.

Seeds

Representing the promise of new life and the growth of great strength from humble origins, the seed is a key ritual component in practically every mortal magical tradition ever devised. And indeed, throwing it on Orphic magic results in the nullification of both.

Protean Powers

Some powers are Protean abilities: ones that change the character's form. A character who knows a protean power can return to their real form with a Complex Action and a Power Point, ending all shape-shifting enchantments on them instantly.

Furthermore, if a character has multiple protean abilities, they may activate more than one simultaneously, and the entire transformation takes the action of the longest transformation. So if the character has two different abilities that both take a Complex Action, they may activate both as a single Complex Action.

Reading a Power Entry

The exact format of a power entry depends on the power, but the general format is as follows:

---

Example Power Name

[tags]

• Dice: Stat1 + Skill1 or Stat2 + Skill2
• Effective Hits: Value One + Value Two
• Resistance: Stat + Edge
• Duration: time, Scene, Twilight, or Permanent

Action Time, pp cost: Description Text.

---

The power tags (Basic or Advanced, and others such as Protean) will be given in square brackets. Powers either have you roll some number of dice to activate them or they have an effective hits entry if they're an enchantment that you don't roll dice for. Powers that target others will have a Resistance test that the target can roll. For enchantments a duration will be given. Finally, the action to cast the power, as well as any power points required, will be given at the start of the description of what the power does. If the power is intrinsic it will simply say intrinsic instead of giving an action type.

nightshift_magic_astral.md

Astral Disciplines

The mercurial rain of the Deep Maya has an origin that few can even speculate upon. But whether The Dreamlands represent an intrusion of our subconscious minds into the realm of the physical or the intrusion of an alien realm into our sleeping thoughts, the fact remains that it is a source of power that those who delve deeply into its mysteries can tap. Astral Sorceries are spells and powers that tap into that strange reality. Magic from Maya has a tendency to be as untamed and inhuman as the implacable beasts and plants that inhabit it.

Astral Sorcery disturbs magnetic fields, including that of the Earth itself (at least on a local level), and a skilled augur can track and judge the strength of the magics of the dreamlands by carefully observing a lodestone. Astral magic "feels wet" to those who feel its wrath, and indeed it can be countered by judiciously throwing clean salt on it. Salt used in this manner becomes caked and discolored like it had absorbed dirty water.

Call of the Wild

"Be what you want to be until you don't any more."

Call of the Wild is the sorcerous path of attuning one's self to wild animals.

Governing Dicepools: Intuition/Potency; Survival or Empathy; Strength or Willpower+Charisma

Beast Form

[Basic, Protean]

• Effective Hits: Intuition + Potency
• Duration: Twilight

Complex Action, 1pp: You can transform into an animal. The type of animal transformed into is chosen when the ability is learned. When Beast Form is gained as a fixed ability from a character's supernatural type, the form of the beast is often predefined (for example, a Nezumi becomes a rat). No beast form can be much larger than a human, or smaller than a mouse. Some animals are stronger or more agile than a human, but the total bonus to these attributes never exceeds +2. Many animals are much weaker than a human. For example: a Rat Form always has a strength reduced to 1 regardless of the original character's Strength score, and gains a +2 bonus to Agility.

Unlike most spells, this one can be learned multiple times to learn different animal forms. Each time you learn this spell you learn one more form than the amount you learned last time (e.g. the second time you learn this spell you you learn two more forms and have three total, the third time you learn this spell you learn three more forms and have six total).

Tongue of Beasts

[Basic]

Passive: You can talk to animals. This is important for training and information gathering, but remember that most animals don't have an increased understanding of their environment. They usually understand less than a person would. Dogs are a lot like the dog from Up! and other animals aren't much better. Most non-mammals are downright disappointing conversationalists (with the exception of corvids, octopuses, things like that).

The Beckoning

[Advanced]

• Dice: Strength + Survival or Charisma + Empathy
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action, 3pp: You release some suitably animalistic noise and call creatures of a desired group to you (dogs, cats, birds, etc). The number of beasts that come is dependent upon how many of the type of creature that are within the area. The urgency with which they come and the degree of control the character has over their actions upon their arrival is based on the number of hits achieved. The normal range of this power is 100 meters per Potency. When dealing with either large or predatory animals, the range increases to 500 meters per Potency. When calling large and predatory animals the range extends to 5 kilometers per point of Potency.

Transformation

[Advanced, Protean]

• Dice: Strength + Empathy or Willpower + Survival
• Resistance: Intuition + Edge
• Duration: 1 day base (net hits increase)

Complex Action, 1pp: You transform the target into a beast form of your choice. This is a humiliating ordeal, as the target doubtless has little familiarity with their new form. It is generally quite awkward and difficult for the victim even once the transformation is complete.

Chasing the Storm

"Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves, and ye that on the sands with printless foot do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him when he comes back".

Chasing the Storm is the astral sorcery dedicated to understanding and controlling the weather.

Governing Dicepools: Agility + Rigging / Logic + Operations, Logic + Electronics

Howling Winds

[Basic]

• Dice: Agility + Rigging or Logic + Operations
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action: You can make the winds within 100 meters per Potency rise or soften, and blow in a direction of your choice. You can shift the wind's Strength by your Net Hits. This effect doesn't stack, but you can cast it again to try and roll higher.

Rising Mists

[Basic]

• Dice: Agility + Rigging or Logic + Operations
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action: You can fill the area with a thick fog that obscures vision and makes things spooky. The range is 10 meters times your Potency, and the thickness is based on your hits. By spending 2pp you can extend the spell into its own weather pattern, with the mists creeping out to a kilometer per Potency.

Hits	Distance to Total Concealment
1	6 meters
2	3 meters
3	1 meter
4	50 centimeters
5	20 centimeters
6	5 centimeters

Stormblood

[Basic]

Passive: You always know precisely what the weather is and what it should be a week into the future out to 10 kilometers times your Potency. This gives you +3 on all Survival checks (even ones not related to the weather, such as Healing Tests, somehow), and also lets you know when any changes in the weather within range are a result of Chasing the Storm or other strange effect.

Lightning Strike

[Advanced]

• Dice: Agility + Rigging or Logic + Electronics

Complex Action: You can direct a lightning bolt to come down from the clouds and strike your target. It cannot be dodged. Your threshold to hit is 2 at any range out to 100 meters per Potency (the spell's maximum range). It has a base damage of 5, and uses the normal rules for Electric damage (including that net hits on the roll do not affect the damage, instead you just roll 1 die and add +1 damage if it's a hit).

Tumultuous Rain

[Advanced]

• Dice: Agility + Rigging or Logic + Operations

Extended Action (Base time 1 hour), 3pp: You can pull clouds into a clear sky, and pull rain from the clouds. The more it is "naturally" clouded, the easier this is, and the character gains a +2 bonus if there are already clouds somewhere in the sky, raising to a +6 bonus if there is already some tiny amount of rain coming down. The weather can be affected out to 5 kilometers per Potency. Once established, a weather pattern persists until natural forces blow it away, and it cannot be dispelled.

Coil of Thorns

"Leaves drop in Autumn not because of the shortening of the day, but because of the lengthening of the night."

The Coil of Thorns is the Astral Sorcery dedicated to understanding and manipulating plant life. Characters with Coil of Thorns can also make something edible and even delicious out of literally any plant matter. It's not at all obvious how it's done, but their redwood pasta is not bad at all. This magic is inextricably linked in the minds of many supernaturals with the Evil Plants, and indeed any practitioner can speak with Evil Plants of any kind. A Coil of Thorns laboratory is called a "Kitchen" and can indeed be created with materials purchasable at a farmer's market.

Governing Dicepools: Logic + Medicine, Logic + Rigging / Intuition + Survival

Bitter Fruit

[Basic]

• Dice: Logic + Medicine or Intuition + Survival

1 Hour, 1pp: You can make powerful medicines and poisons out of ordinary fruits and roots. You must have a kitchen to work with, and the result can be a balm or a curse to those who consume it with a strength equal to the number of hits of your test. Such products can be made into clearly medicinal pastes and the like, or covertly disguised as fresh foods such as shiny apples. Doses with other effects can also be produced, but if the requisite number of hits is not achieved the resulting product is merely a standard damaging poison with a strength equal to the hits achieved. With Advanced Coil of Thorns knowledge comes the learning of additional recipes such as making powerful acids, paralytics, or explosives. The seed that transforms a Luminary into a Dryad has a threshold of 6 to brew.

Hits	Poison	Effect
1	Anti-toxin	Reduces the power of toxins by its hits.
3	Sleep Drought	Consuming victim falls into a deep sleep.
5	Hypnotic	Consuming victim enters a highly suggestible state for an hour.

Grass Rope

[Basic]

• Dice: Logic + Rigging or Intuition + Survival
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action: You can have plant matter grow at tremendous speed and grasp their enemies with wooden fastness. The leafy strands lash out with a Strength and Agility equal to the number of hits on your test.

Mind Root

[Advanced]

• Dice: Logic + Medicine or Intuition + Survival
• Resistance: Strength + Edge

1 hour, 4pp: You plant a seed in a victim that slowly roots into the target's brain and leaves them an emotionless pawn. The casting time creates the mind root, and once in place it takes another hour or two for the root to fully grow into the target's brain. After that the mind root is connected to the victim's life force, and the effect cannot be dispelled (it must be removed through some other means). Because of the great amount of time required for this spells to go into effect, it is essentially worthless against a target that is not willing, bound, or sleeping.

Puppetry

[Advanced]

• Dice: Logic + Medicine or Logic + Rigging
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: see text

Complex Action: You can command plants to perform actions, and they will actually perform them at a reasonable speed. Normal plants within 10 meters per Potency do not require a roll and have an effective Agility equal to your Intuition or Logic, acting for 1 round. You can also issue them long term commands that they will carry out at their normal speed (usually centimeters per day). Commanding a magic plant requires a roll, and lasts for 1 round per net hit.

Rain of Maya

"Bitterest of all is not the sorrow, but to have one's sorrows ignored."

Rain of Maya is a magical discipline which harvests the power of misery. In the Deep Astral there is a liquid that is literally created by the fact that sadness exists. This material is called the Tears of Maya, even though in a very real way it is the psychic residue of human sorrow from the Material World. Those who know spells from this discipline are very good at finding the sadness in any situation.

Governing Dicepools: Not easy to express. Take Willpower + Sabotage and then either Willpower + Rigging or Agility + Combat or take Willpower + Rigging and choose between Willpower + Intimidate / Willpower + Sabotage.

Curse of Failure

[Basic]

• Dice: Willpower + Sabotage or Willpower + Rigging
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: Permanent (until activated)

Simple Action: You place a curse upon the target to have luck abandon them at some later time. Once placed, you can activatee this curse as a free action as long as you're on the same plane as the target. When activated, all of the target's hits on their current or next roll must be rerolled. A target can only be affected by one Curse of Failure effect at once.

Pain Drops

[Basic]

• Dice: Agility + Combat or Willpower + Rigging
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: 1 hour

Simple Action: Tiny drops fall from you to your target, dampening not their skin but their pride. This works like a ranged attack (range, cover, etc), but the target's normal soak roll is replaced with the resistance test of the spell. The spell's maximum range is 100 meters per Potency. The base damage of the spell is equal to your Edge, with net hits increasing the damage rating as normal. Damage from this spell is from psychic pain and agony only. It deals Normal damage, but can't overflow into dealing Lethal damage and cannot kill the target. Creatures with Indomitability or any other sort of pain immunity are immune to this spell.

Dark Night of the Soul

[Advanced]

• Dice: Willpower + Sabotage or Willpower + Intimidate
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: 1 hour

Complex Action: You belittle and bertate the target, provoking a Despair Frenzy in them (regardless of their normal Master Passion, if any). This ability is largely covert, as it does not appear that the character did anything other than behave in a rude and perhaps senselessly cruel fashion towards the victim.

Water Prison

[Advanced]

• Dice: Willpower + Sabotage or Willpower + Intimidate
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action, 1pp: You can manipulate water into three dimensional shapes that hold their form like steel. With a ranged combat test (same dice pool as the casting test) you can use the water to perform an unarmed attack or grasp onto a target. Grasping water has a Strength equal to your Willpower.

Veil of Morpheus

"When you dream, dream of me."

The veil between the waking world and the world of sleep is both vast and unfathomable. The Veil of Morpheus discipline deals with bending it to your will.

Governing Dicepools: Charisma; Charisma + Expression, Charisma + Empathy / Logic + Medicine, Logic + Research

Enchanted Slumber

[Basic]

• Dice: Charisma + Expression or Logic + Medicine
• Resistance: Intuition + Edge
• Duration: 1 hour per net hit (see text)

Complex Action: Your hands release a faintly glowing dust that you sprinkle over the target (the affected targets themselves don't remember you doing this, similar to Authority spells). Targets that are already asleep will not awaken for one hour per net hit, even in the face of loud noises or shaking. An awake target will go to sleep at the first possible opportunity and then stay asleep for a similar amount of time once they do. Targets that are in combat or otherwise amped up on adrenaline or other stimulants are totally immune to this power.

Dream Vision

[Basic]

• Dice: Charisma + Expression or Logic + Research

Extended Action (Base time 1 hour): You can send messages and images into the dreams of another creature. The dream visions can target anyone within the same world as you. Net hits reduce the time required to send the visions.

Denial of Privacy

[Advanced]

• Dice: Charisma + Empathy or Logic + Medicine
• Duration: Twilight

Complex Action: You can view into the dreams of a sleeping target. The target must be asleep and within 100 meters per hit on a test. While so attuned, the character can make themselves appear in the dream or simply voyeuristicly watch the proceedings.

Horrid Reality

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Charisma + Potency
• Duration: Twilight

Complex Action: The stuff of dreams becomes the stuff of reality. The effects from the target's dream reality draw their toll on their actual body. While the effects of a sexy or merely surreal dream may not even be immediately obvious upon waking, the effects of a nightmare can be catastrophically fatal. You can target any dreaming creature in the same world as you as long as you know their name and the location of their body, distance is not a factor.

nightshift_magic_infernal.md

Infernal Disciplines

The Dark Reflection is a horrible place from which few things escape, but its reach and grasp can be felt far outside the ashen pits of Limbo itself. Infernal Sorceries are those magics that manipulate and harness the taint of that parched landscape and turn them to one's own advantage.

The magic from Limbo is a lot like fire. It is also quite specifically malicious and it corrupts things it touches. When clean water is nearby, it discolors slightly as if ash had fallen into it. A skilled exorcist can track the power and location of magic from the Dark Reflection by consulting distilled water in a clear container. When Infernal Sorceries are cast they can be doused by throwing sand on them. Reasonably clean sand must be used to counter, and by the time the sand hits the floor it has been replaced by sand filled with ash.

Descent of Entropy

"Everything ends the same way: it no longer matters, and no longer persists."

The fires of Limbo have long dulled and all there is left is misery and ash. Those who delve into the knowledge of entropy learn grim ends of human nature and command the power of wickedness to compel disease agents to action. To those who follow this path, the inevitable unraveling brought about by time appears entirely normal and expected.

Abyss of the Body

[Basic]

• Dice: Strength + Survival or Charisma + Medicine
• Resistance: Strength + Edge
• Duration: Twilight

Passive: You are immune to all disease. You are still a potential carrier of any diseases that you come into contact with as normal.

Simple Action: You can spread a magical disease into a target that you touch. This works like a Damage Over Time effect. Net hits on the casting reduce the Delay counter on the disease's effect. The specific disease you inflict is chosen when you learn this spell, and you can learn this spell additional times to gain additional disease options.

Disease	Delay	Effects
Chud	5	Victim dissolves into white goo.
Cooties	3*	No Damage, Victim driven mad with lust.
Doom Flies	8	Victim eaten up by maggots, explodes into swarm of flies.
Rage Virus	3	Victim transforms into Soulless.
Thing Infection	11	Victim fills up with roots, Triffid bursts out of their husk.
Z-Virus	No Damage	When Victim dies, it rises as a Shambler.

Light of Ennui

[Basic]

• Dice: Charisma + Artisan or Charisma + Empathy
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: Permanent

Simple Action: You become a beacon of apathy and despair, causing all caught within the metaphorical glow to cease to care. Others within 10 meters per Potency must must each resist seperately against the effect. Affected creatures are unable to muster an emotional response to much of anything. Frenzy cannot happen, and even magical attempts to incite emotions fail unless they have more hits than the light's hits. This ability can be canceled as a free action. Within the Dark Reflection this ability sheds actual light and is enough to see by.

Aura of Decay

[Advanced]

• Dice: Strength + Artisan or Charisma + Medicine
• Resistance: Intuition + Edge
• Duration: Scene

Simple Action: When the Aura of Decay is activated, things fall apart into grime and dust. This can be directed somewhat, but generally anything within a few meters of you will degrade as if left unattended for days and weeks in mere moments. Objects that are literally on the person of someone else will not be devastated by decay unless you focus in on them and marks them for destruction. You spend a Complex Action to focus the effect, and then the target must roll a Resistance Test against the spell's hits or their object corrodes. Normally the aura is far too slow to affect a fast moving object, but by spending a power point, the speed of corrosion can be enhanced to the point where it will tear items out of the air before they reach you, depending on the spell's hits. Disposing of an incoming thrown piece of wood is easy (threshold 1), stopping bullets is hard (threshold 3), and corroding one's self a path through being otherwise run over by a truck is crazy extreme (threshold 5).

Contradiction

[Advanced]

• Dice: Charisma + Artisan or Charisma + Bureaucracy
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge

Extended Action (Base time 10 minutes): You can convince someone to do something that they would never do. Oddly, this power is unable to convince them to do something that they are merely moderately opposed to.

Names of the Blasphemies

"It is hubris of the first order to name that which is not known."

There are words that should not be spoken. Mostly, these are the names of ancient unspeakable evils. And the reason these evils are unspeakable is because they will hear you if you speak about them. Upon learning each ability from this discipline, the character is able to choose for themselves a True Name. Abilities that function based upon the character's name only respond to that name, no matter what they refer to themselves as.

Learn the Heart's Pain

[Basic]

• Dice: Charisma + Empathy or Intuition + Larceny

Simple Action: You concentrate and learn the limits of a person's psyche. This power is completely covert, but can only be used once per scene.

Hits	Knowledge Gained
1	The target's Master Passion, if any (humans usually have no Master Passion)
2	The target's Driving Passion
3	General details of the target (such as career and name)
4	Specific details of the target's hopes and dreams
5	Intimate details of the target's life that the target barely even cares about.

Poison Heart

[Basic]

• Dice: Charisma + Empathy or Intuition + Larceny
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action: The target feels intense feelings of betrayal and disappointment. If you know the target's Master Passion you can incite a Frenzy. If you know the target's Driving Passion you can make them bitterly sullen and full of failure (net hits on the spell are a dice pool penalty while the spell lasts). If the names of any of the target's friends or loved ones are known the target can be made to strongly distrust them. This ability is covert.

Bind The Name

[Advanced]

• Dice: Intuition + Empathy or Charisma + Bureaucracy
• Duration: Permanent

Complex Action, 5pp: By speaking a creature's name you can bind them in Limbo, making it far less likely that they can escape. This is called a Name Binding. It works at any distance as long as the target is in Limbo or the Mortal World and you are in the same world as them. The hits of the spell increase the threshold for the target to escape Limbo. A name binding works as an enchantment of a place, not the creature, so you can only dispel it where it was invoked, and it remains in place even if the target dies for a while.

Banishment

[Advanced]

• Dice: Intuition + Larceny or Charisma + Bureaucracy
• Resistance: Intuition + Edge

Complex Action, 1pp: You hurl a target within sight into Limbo. The target gets an automatic three bonus hits on their Resistance Test against this spell.

Progress of Glass

"We do not always see where we go, but we always go."

The Progress of Glass is a path of Infernal sorcery that deeply investigates the connections between the mortal world and the Dark Reflection. Followers of the Progress of Glass are able to handle different perspectives very easily - some would say that they have already driven themselves mad. In any case, spending so long gazing into mirrors has left them able to write in mirror writing or use reflections for targeting without penalty.

Distant Reflection

[Basic]

• Dice: Logic + Operations check or an Intuition + Perception
• Duration: Scene

Extended Action (Base time 1 hour): You peer into a reflective surface and can see out of another reflective surface within 100 meters per point of Potency. You must have a good idea of where the other reflective surface is to use it. Net hits on the casting reduce the time to lock on to the target surface.

Deny the Gauntlet

[Basic]

• Dice: Logic + Operations check or an Intuition + Perception
• Duration: 1 round (net hits increase timeframe)

Simple Action: You can remove the effects of the Gauntlet on a specific portal you can see for as long as the spell lasts. The threshold is 1, net hits increase the timeframe, and if the gateway is strong enough to allow creatures below a certain Potency to cross for free that is added as a dice bonus on your test. The effects of this spell don't affect anyone who's under a Name Binding.

Mirror Pocket

[Advanced]

• Dice: Logic + Operations or Intuition + Stealth
• Duration: Permanent

Complex Action, 2pp: You can create and then access a dimensional pocket within a reflective surface. Things can be stored in and retrieved from the mirror pocket with relatively little fuss. This looks like a cartoon activity: the character's had passes into the surface causing it to ripple slightly and then some object is left within or drawn out - in either case demonstrably having more volume than the mirror possibly could. Once created, the dimensional pocket can be accessed by anyone who knows at least one Progress of Glass spell. The pocket is as wide as the surface, and 20cm deep per hit. A single surface cannot be affected by more than one casting of this spell at once. If the spell is countered, all of the things inside are dumped to a random location on the far side of the Gauntlet from you (eg: in Limbo if you're on Earth, and on Earth if you're in Limbo).

Rain of Glass

[Advanced]

• Dice: Agility + Combat or Logic + Operations

Complex Action, 1pp: Shards of blackened, jagged glass erupt from you, tearing the flesh and bones of those within the area. You can project either a cone that is 30 meters long per Potency (and an equal width) or a blast in all directions that is 10 meters per Potency. The base damage of the glass is 3 plus your spell's hits, and the damage is resisted like a normal explosion (including the additional protective effects of cover).

Song of Swarms

"I'd like to help, but I'm covered in bees."

Insects are kind of creepy at the best of times, but in the horror genre they actually are a source of wickedness and danger. Having Song of the Swarm allows you to treat crustaceans and bugs as if they were smart animals like parrots or dogs for the purposes of Animal Ken.

Insect bites to creatures inside insect swarms are usually not much to report on, causing just Damage 1 strikes even en mass, although these strikes do not require a to-hit roll and are not dodged. Anything special that happens with your unarmed attacks applies to you insects as well.

Body Colony

[Basic]

Passive: Your body has bugs growing inside it. In addition to being really gross, the bugs can also fly out of your body and crawl back in without causing any lasting damage. The bugs growing in your body do pretty much what you will them to do, so they can follow much more complex routes than a normal bug of their type. Your bugs can swarm one person at a time or carry very small objects. They take an entire round to crawl into or out of your body, but they take no actions to direct around.

Small Witness

[Basic]

• Effective Hits: Intuition + Potency
• Duration: Permanent

Simple Action: You can see though the eyes of insects in your vicinity. You can target a bug that is within 1 meter per Potency, and then you can maintain your vision through them as long as they stay within 1 kilometer per Potency. You can maintain a number of small witnesses at once equal to your Intuition score and the additional sensory input does not distract you in any way. You roll your own Perception tests when witnessing through the bugs.

Magnify the Swarm

[Advanced]

• Dice: Charisma + Animal Ken or Willpower + Survival
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action, 1pp: You call upon the powers of Limbo turn a small number of insects into a large one. Each net hit lets you swarm over pretty much everyone any everything within a 10 meter cube. All the cubes must be contiguous.

Swarm Body

[Advanced, Protean]

• Effective Hits: Strength + Potency
• Duration: Twilight

Complex Action: Your body breaks into a cloud of insects with a total mass approximately equal to your natural form. While in swarm form the deaths of individual bugs does not affect you, but every 10% of your bugs missing when you reform into a human deals you one Lethal wound. When the spell ends, you can reform at any place that at least some of your bugs are. All other bugs have 1 round to get to that locaiton or they count as "missing" and you take the appropriate damage.

Walk of Flame

"People running around. Skin on fire. It's beautiful."

Fire is likely the dividing line between man and beast, and yet while it is undeniable that fire provides light, warmth, protection from the monsters of the darkness, and the forging of bricks and steel - that's mostly a facet of technology. Magical fire is a terrifying thing that rages at the limits of control and burns things down to ash. The Walk of Flame draws strength from the Dark Reflection.

Fire Walking

[Basic]

Passive: Your body is immune to heat and flame. This does not protect you from an explosions's shrapnel, but you never take damage from heat of any tempature. Molten metal is like clay to you.

Hand of Flame

[Basic]

• Effective Hits: Agility + Potency

Simple Action: You conjure a flame in your hand, any size from a small lighter's flame to a 30cm blaze. The fire does not burn you while you're holding it, but you aren't otherwise protected if the fire begins to spread. If used as a weapon, the flames deal base damage equal to your Edge. They can be used as either a melee attack, or a thrown attack up to 10 meters away.

Fire Starter

[Advanced]

• Dice: Agility + Combat or Logic + Research

Simple Action: You throw a bolt of flames at the target. This is resolved as a ranged attack with a base damage equal to your Edge. The flames can go out to Extreme range (1,000m), but they are Inaccurate beyond Short range (20m). Net hits apply to the damage, but the attack is treated as an explosion for the purposes of cover.

Flames of Panic

[Advanced]

• Dice: Logic + Intimidation or Agility + Survival
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: 1 round per Net Hit

Complex Action, 1pp: You can send waves of terror into every creature that you can see at once (so closing one eye or turning your head lets you limit the effect somewhat, if you like). Targets are panicked and stampede around irrationally for the duration.

nightshift_magic_orphic.md

Orphic Disciplines

Orphic Sorceries are collections of spells and occult knowledge that draw their arcane power from Mictlan. The Gloom provides power that is dark, timeless, destructive, and really very frightening to the living. And for good reason, it truly does act as a window into one's mortality. The land of the dead calls inexorably to all living creatures, and sooner or later it will claim them all. When Orphic Sorceries are used, the draw of death becomes even stronger. This effect is not particularly noticeable for large creatures like humans or even dogs. The cells on the outside of your body are in a constant state of death and rebirth anyway, and even the heaviest exposure to the Gloom is unlikely to give you more than a mild frost burn. But for the very tiny and ephemeral creatures whose lives are over in a day anyway, death magic signals the end. A skilled occultist can use a bag of mayflies or the like to spot the moment that death magic is used, and to gauge the strength, distance, and direction towards the source of the Gloom.

Magic of Mictlan is highly antithetical to seeds, and you can counter Orphic Sorceries by throwing grains at them. Rice, wheat, barley, or maize kernels work equally well, but they have to be live grains. Remember that many commercial food products are neutralized with radiation or flash heating to keep them from going bad.

Lure of Destruction

"Lately just gazing into the Abyss has lost its thrill. I'm pissing into it."

There is something distinctly alluring about the end. Not just that we cannot help but eventually reach the conclusion, but that indeed there is always a part of us that wants to. Practitioners of the Lure of Destruction are very well acquainted with doom in all its forms.

Tongue of the Serpent

[Basic]

• Effective Hits: Agility + Potency

Passive: You are immune to poison.

Special: Your bite is toxic. Upon gaining this ability, you must choose whether your poison is a Simple Action toggle or a Passive. A character whose poison is a toggle will have some kind of clear and potentially Vow of Silence breaking physical manifestation of their poison "turning on" while a character whose poison is passive has no outward sign that their bite carries unusual properties. For example: a Strigoi has retractable serpent fangs, and they are perfectly capable of retracting them and kissing people without anything special happening; while a Soulless has a mouth that appears to just be a normal human mouth but their saliva is a deadly venom. You can learn this spell additional times to gain the ability to inflict new kinds of poison.

Poison	Effect	Notes
Euphoric	Victim dazed and anesthetized, addictive	This is the poison that Strigoi get.
Hallucinogenic	Victim goes crazy, addictive
Paralytic	Victim immobilized	This is the poison that Triffids get
Soporific	Victim fatigued
Toxic	Victim suffers damage	This is the poison that Soulless get

Touch of Darkness

[Basic]

Passive: Your unarmed attacks inflict aggravated damage. You can scratch and bite into metal even.

Glimpse of the Abyss

[Advanced]

• Dice: Strength + Athletics or Willpower + Expression
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: 1 round

Complex Action: You can show a bit of the inevitable doom that awaits us all to a group of targets. Every victim who is affected is stunned for a turn with awe and despair. Even Doom loses its impact, and a target who is affected will be harder to affect in the same evening - apply a 1 hit penalty to the character for each time a particular victim has been assaulted with this spell already. You can affect any target in a cone out to 100 meters.

Withering

[Advanced]

• Dice: Agility + Combat or Strength + Athletics
• Duration: Scene

Simple Action: You accelerate the rush of death upon a target. They weaken until they cannot stand. The target's strength is reduced by the hits of this spell. More than one Withering will not stack, only the highest applies. If a target's Strength is reduced to zero they collapse.

Necromancy

"Everything ends and everything dies. That is not a good thing or a bad thing. It's simply inevitable. More than any other truth, the end cannot be eternally avoided."

Necromancy is the incredibly creepy sorcerous path of handling the dead.

Compel Spirits

[Basic]

• Dice: Willpower + Empathy or Logic + Bureaucracy
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge

Complex Action: You can send a ghost in your presence from Mictlan to Earth, or vice versa.

Summon Spirit

[Basic]

• Dice: Logic + Medicine or Logic + Operations

Complex Action: By naming a dead person or holding up a part of their body, you can draw their Ghost to themselves unless it has been bottled, destroyed, or subsumed into a Poltergeist. The difficulty depends on how well you can describe the ghost you're looking for.

Threshold	Description
1	"My brother Mike."
2	"My friend Todd."
3	"The owner of this body."
4	"That missing girl Karen."
5	"The guy who was killed last night."
6	Any dead person known only from books.

Nightcry

[Advanced]

• Dice: Willpower + Empathy or Logic + Bureaucracy
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge

Complex Action, 4pp: You scream a wail of pain into the deepest portions of Mictlan, drawing a poltergeist to you. You can compel it to begin its rain of destruction upon a target of their choice. What else the Poltergeist does from there is totally up to it.

Reanimate

[Advanced]

• Dice: Logic + Medicine or Logic + Operations

Extended Action (Base time 1 day), 1pp: You can turn a body into a Shambler or Soulless. A Shambler comes into existence under your control, and a Soulless does not. If the body was once a Luminary, their spirit is drawn back into their body and they become an uncontrolled Revenant. You can only maintain control of 2 Shamblers per point of Willpower. If make more Shamblers than that, you lose control of some of your Shamblers at random at some inconvenient time in the next day or so. Reanimating the dead is hard (Threshold 3), and net hits reduce the time taken. Remember that Shamblers don't have the capacity to follow complex orders. Reanimate can only be dispelled during the casting. After that, the Zombie will have to be dealt with normally.

Play of Shadows

"Spooky. Seriously."

Play of Shadows is a sorcerous discipline that governs and depends upon shadows. Darkness is in no short supply in a game called "After Sundown", and areas with no light at all can be thought of as being like some singular giant shadow. Even extremely bright lights cause objects to cast shadows that are really quite noticeable. As such, in a general sort of way, the fact that Play of Shadows requires shadows to function is pretty much a formality. However, if characters are in the process of sky diving or are in the areas of exceptional ambient light, the powers of Play of Shadows can be neutralized.

Eyes of the Night

[Basic]

• Dice: Intuition + Empathy or Intuition + Perception

Passive: You can see in darkness as if it wasn't there.

Complex Action, 1pp: You can see and hear out of distant shadows. You can draw your senses from a shadow location within 100 meters per Potency, with a threshold based on how accurately you can describe the shadow you wish to peer out of.

Shadow Casting

[Basic]

• Dice: Intuition + Empathy or Intuition + Stealth
• Duration: Scene.

Complex Action: Your lighting is as if it was done by professional special effects technicians. You can manipulate shadows and to a lesser extent light as well. This gives a +3 bonus to any attempt to become the center of attention or to escape unnoticed.

Cloak of Shadow

[Advanced]

• Dice: Intuition + Empathy or Intuition + Stealth

Complex Action, 1pp: You can wrap light around yourself completely, becoming transparent along with everything you are carrying. You still cast a normal shadow while the cloak is in place. The cloak works on anything that uses light - including cameras - but has no effect on sounds or smells. You can dismiss the cloak as a Simple Action.

Solid Darkness

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Intuition + Potency
• Duration: Twilight

Complex Action, 1pp: You can fashion steel hard tendrils of solid shadow and use them to grasp, carry and tear. The darkness can extend out to a meter per Potency from its source Shadow, and has Strength equal to your Intuition. The source shadow must be within line of sight of you and the origin of the shadows can move along continuously shadowed paths at the rate of a Careful Walk (10m/round). Solid Darkness is completely silent, and can rather easily grab someone by complete surprise. Directing the tendrils of shadow is a Simple Action. The Solid Darkness can grab or disarm using its own Strength and your Combat skill.

Path of Blood

"Given time, blood does become thicker than water."

The Path of Blood delves into the intricacies of life and death from a very liquid and visceral standpoint. It is important to note that not everything creeping in the night has any blood. A character or object without any blood cannot use Gift of Health or Blood of Acid, and cannot have Theft of Vitae or Blood Puppets used against them. Golems and Androids generally do not have blood, nor does any kind of Ghost. However, even really gross blood like that found in Zombies or gooey sap like the stuff that oozes from cuts in Dryads or Evil Plants totally counts.

Gift of Health

[Basic]

• Duration: Permanent

Complex Action, Variable pp: You can place power points into a sample of your own blood. Others who consume the blood gain the power points (up to their normal PP limit). The gift comes at a price, because the blood is also horrendously addictive; like freebase cocaine. If you also know the Vigor or Revive The Flesh you can spend additional power points to add their effect to the blood. The magic will last in the blood until consumed or dispelled, but the addiction is a non-magical one and cannot be dispelled.

Thaumaturgical Forensics

[Basic]

• Dice: Logic + Medicine or Logic + Research

Extended Action (10 minutes): You can make accurate pronouncements about biological samples and give weird CSI-style tirades given access to creepy magical equipment. The kinds of information gained varies by the number of hits. Examples follow of investigating the origin of a lock of hair and investigating the source of a lethal wound:

Hits	The Hair Sample	The Wound
1	"Human Woman. Blond."	"Burns. Nasty Ones."
2	"She's still alive."	"These fires burned by magic."
3	"She's a Luminary."	"A Firestarter did this at short range."
4	"Her name is Susan."	"The Firestarter was a Baali Witch."
5	"She is currently in Dresden."	"His name was Karlov."
6	"She is thinking about betraying her friend Elizabeth."	"This was a fight over money."

Blood of Acid

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Strength + Potency
• Duration: Permanent

Complex Action: You bleed like a Xenomorph. Anyone within melee range of you when you are injured has to soak a Damage 3 attack. If you're bleeding you can try to get your blood onto a target as a melee attack. You can cast this spell again to disable the effect.

Theft of Vitae

[Advanced]

• Dice: Agility + Larceny or Logic + Medicine
• Resistance: Strength + Edge

Complex Action: You suck the blood directly out of a victim. Not like through their neck with a bite, just from everywhere all at once. The net hits of the spell become Lethal damage, and the target also loses an equal number of power points. The extracted blood flies toward you in a suitably dramatic way, and you absorb it, gaining the power points extracted from them, if any. If you have a Feeding power schedule you can gain power points even if the target does not have any.

Symphony of Silence

"Silence is Deafening."

The Symphony of Silence is a set of magical music that brings things to a frozen stop. Supposedly it constitutes portions of the inevitable music that ends all of existence. In order to use any ability from the Symphony of Silence, the character must be capable of making music - although whether through playing a musical instrument or singing is irrelevant. Learning the Symphony of Silence gives you perfect pitch, for as much as that's worth.

Frozen Note

[Basic]

• Dice: Logic + Artisan or Charisma + Expression

Simple Action: You can play a song that sharply reduces the temperature in an area or object. The temperature drops by 5 degrees per hit. When focused on a living creature, this can be quite damaging. Cold blooded creatures pass out, and warm blooded creatures resist one Normal Damage per hit. This has no adverse effect on undead creatures or Animates. Temperature dropped in this way returns to normal when exposed to heat sources (such as those contained inside a mammal), but there is nothing preventing the character from maintaining the song round to round to keep the temperature low (continuing to damage living creatures). Multiple songs played in rapid succession do not stack. Frozen Note can be focused out to line of sight and cannot be dodged. Making the Frozen Note is a Simple Action, but it can only target each thing once per round.

Missing Voice

[Basic]

• Dice: Logic + Artisan or Charisma + Expression
• Duration: See text

Simple Action: You can alter the apparent origin of sounds. The required music appears to eerily come from empty space, and you can decide the origin of any other sounds as well. You gain control of the apparent origin of every sound you are aware of within 3 meters per hit for as long as you continue to play (a free action).

Silent Toll

[Basic]

• Effective Hits: Logic + Potency
• Duration: See text

Simple Action: You can suppress all sound up to the volume of the music generated, including the music itself. The noise suppressed equals the local peak amplitude, you don't have to keep track of potential spaces between notes and the like. So long as you continue to make the music, maintaining the Silent Toll is a free action.

Prison of Ice

[Advanced]

• Dice: Logic + Artisan or Charisma + Expression
• Resistance: Agility + Edge

Complex Action, 1pp: You create ice sufficient to hold someone in place or build something out of. You can create a cubic meter of ice within 10 meters. The ice can be in any shape, forms instantly, and can cover someone's wrists, feet, or even head. Targets can attempt to get out of the way with their resitance test, but the ice forms even if they do escape. Net hits on the spell improve the workmanship and solidity of the ice. Once created, the ice is real ice and cannot be dispelled.

Death Note

[Advanced]

• Dice: Logic + Artisan or Agility + Combat
• Resistance: Intuition + Edge

Complex Action: You play the song that ends life. The music counts as a ranged attack to determine the base Threshold, and inflicting Lethal damage with a based damage equal to your Edge. Death Note is resisted by the spell's resitance test instead of a normal Soak Test. This spell can only be cast if the character has already been playing for a minute or more.

nightshift_magic_universal.md

Universal Disciplines

"This is what we are, and this is what you are."

There are many things that magic can do in horror, and one of the most salient things for After Sundown is that it allows supernatural creatures to do amazing things. Universal powers are those that owe no special allegiance to any world or cult.

A character who has the requisite tarot card can simply acquire a Universal spell without any access to special training or magical research books (See the Character Advancement section in the Character Options and Motivation chapter for the full rules).

Authority

"Look me in the eyes and tell me that again."

Authority is the power to impress one's Will directly upon another. Authority requires eye contact to function, although only cursorily. A character who is closing their eyes or wearing mirror shades cannot be controlled with Authority (unless the caster knows Will to Power). Activating Authority is generally an opposed test with the target defending with Willpower. A character who is actively attempting to avoid seeing a potential dominator's eyes may be able to do so, depending upon the actions in question.

When a character is compelled to do something which is against their ideology (generally including following suicidal orders), they may spend a turn dithering. They at this point lose an entire round of actions as they have their internal struggle, making an additional resistance check to attempt to shake off the effects. If they again fail to resist the effects, they carry out the order even if it is something they are ideologically opposed to. Most uses of Authority require instructions to be given to the victim in a manner that they can comprehend. Usually this requires verbal orders to be given in a language they understand; but sign language, written directions, and even telepathic commands can suffice.

Command

[Basic, Language Based]

• Dice: Willpower + Intimidation or Logic + Persuasion
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: 1 round

Complex Action: You give a brief verbal command, which the target then follows to the best of their ability during their next turn. After that they are free to do as they please. The target of a successful casting of Command does not remember that the user gave them the command, but any other witnesses do.

Mesmerism

[Basic, Language Based]

• Dice: Willpower + Intimidation or Logic + Persuasion
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: Twilight

Extended Action (Base time 1 minute): The character can hypnotize a victim, allowing them to give extended commands that will be obeyed. Commands must be stressed and repeated. During the period of hypnotism, the victim stands there like an obviously hypnotized drone, but behaves seemingly normally when they go off to carry out their instructions. Any sudden sensory stimulation (such as a nearby gunshot or someone shaking the victim) during the Mesmerism breaks the spell. You can deliver a series of major instructions, one after another. Multiply the result time of the extended test by the number of instructions you are issuing. The maximum number of instructions per casting is equal to your net hits.

Suggestion

[Basic, Language Based]

• Dice: Logic + Tactics or Willpower + Expression
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: 1 round

Simple Action: The character can offer a suggestion that the victim will then immediately themselves suggest as if it were their own idea. Whether this idea is followed up upon or discarded as "a bad idea" depends entirely upon how they feel about the idea once they've said it to themselves. If your spell is successful the immediate victim does not remember being fed the suggestion in the first place, but the scene may look odd to onlookers. If your spell is fully resisted the target will remember your attempt, however.

Cloud Memory

[Advanced]

• Dice: Willpower + Expression or Logic + Artisan
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: Permanent

Complex Action: Cloud Memory allows the character to erase or alter the memories of a victim. A single use of Cloud Memory can alter about 5 minutes of memory, but net hits increase the time frame. A Luminary who is presented with proof that their memories are incorrect may spend an Edge to break the spell. Extras just have to resolve those discrepancies somehow.

Conditioning

[Advanced, Language Based]

• Dice: Willpower + Intimidation or Logic + Tactics
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge
• Duration: Permanent

Extended Action (Base time 1 day per target Willpower): Using extended mind controlling techniques, a victim's will is broken and they are transformed into a servant of the character's. Conditioning is Hard and has a threshold of 3 in addition to being resisted by the target. Conditioning supernatural creatures with higher Potencies than the coditioner is even more difficult, and the difference is added to the threshold in that case.

Once a victim has been thralled, they follow all orders their new master gives them as if they had been imparted with the force of a successful Mesmerism. At the time of conditioning, the character may choose to alter the ideologies and demeanor of their victim (this is often done to make the giving of orders that would be against the original nature easier to do). Using Conditioning requires an Edge, and it fails if the process is interrupted for more than 24 hours.

Purify the Mind

[Advanced]

• Dice: Willpower + Tactics or Logic + Empathy

Extended Action (Base time 10 Minutes), 2pp: You can heal madness in others. The purification requires continuous hand-to-face contact. The threshold of the casting depends on the severity of the problem that you'tr trying to remove. A mere life damaging phobia requires professional intervention (Threshold 2), while a life destroying insanity is crazy extreme (Threshold 4). Undoing mental damage and memory edits from magical sources always has a Threshold equal to the number of hits of the effect. If you cure an affliction you learn what it was and what it was about, so you can say something explanatory and insightful if you want. If you fail, you get nothing but some nightmarish imagery and vague clues. You can't use this power on yourself.

Shorten the Fuse

[Advanced]

• Dice: Willpower + Survival or Willpower + Intimidation
• Resistance: Willpower + Intimidate

Complex Action: You can weaken the resolve and composure of the subject, sending them into a frenzy of destructiveness or a panic as the case may be. The target loses their cool completely and enters a Fear or Rage frenzy (whichever is most appropriate to the circumstances). The net hits are the strength of the Frenzy.

Will To Power

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Willpower + Potency
• Duration: Permanent

Complex Action: While this enchantment is active, you can use Authority powers without making eye contact with your target. They must still be able to directly hear your voice (that is, without going through some electronic medium), or be connected to you telepathically. Bypassing the eye contact limit is not entirely without cost: using Authority through Will To Power gives the target +2 dice on their Resistance Test.

Celerity

"Gotta. Go. Fast."

Celerity is is the discipline of connecting yourself to the universal speed force, and then going fast. This discipline introduces a special stat called Speed Tier. Normal things move at speed 1, but with this discipline in effect you can go faster. When you take a physical action against a target with a lower speed tier than your own you can buy hits at a rate of 3 dice per point of speed you have over them. So if you're speed 2 and the target is speed 1, you can buy hits 3 for 1 against them. If you're speed 3 and they're speed 1 you can buy hits 3 for 2 against them. Spare dice can be rolled as normal. You can also use this when taking unopposed actions, treating the world itself as a speed 1 entity. If you act against someone with a higher Speed Tier than your own there's no special modifier.

In general, a character who more than doubles their speed in any way with this discipline is considered to be performing a Masquerade violation.

Quickness

[Basic]

• Effective Hits: Agility + Potency
• Duration: Scene

Free Action, 1pp: You gain +1 Speed Tier.

Nimble Feet

[Basic]

• Effective Hits: Agility + Potency
• Duration: Scene

Free Action, 1pp: You can move up to five times the normal distance for the movement category you use on your turn. You can also ignore any penalties for acting while moving over difficult surfaces (though they still might slow you as normal).

Alacrity

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Agility + Potency
• Duration: Scene

Free Action, 1pp: You gain +1 Speed Tier.

Quicken Sight

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Agility + Potency
• Duration: Scene

Free Action, 1pp: You can perceive and derive meaning from even the fastest moving objects. You can follow a specific card in a shuffled deck, read a sign on a fast moving train, or gauge the trajectories of bullets in flight. You get +4 bonus to Dodge Tests, negates any bonuses opponents would glean from multiple attacks during an Initiative Pass, and count as +1 Speed Tier when targeted by others.

Shifting Sands

[Advanced]

Free Action, 1pp: You can rewind time and change your actions accordingly. The sands of time are both heavy and small, and you can only rewind a split second of time. As such, crucial events whose effects are not immediately obvious to you have already escaped your grasp long before any calamity is apparent. You can shift your position slightly (less than a meter) if you are immediately aware of some kind of danger (such as the floor giving way or being hit with a bullet) or other disaster. You can use this to dodge a bullet or to be hit by a bullet that was intended for someone else, but the timing is so fine that you must make this choice before the soak roll is made. If you redirect an attack to yourself you are struck with no net hits, regardless of whether you would have been easier or harder to strike than the intended target. This can also be used socially to prevent a major faux pas, though it is useless if you merely gradually got on the nerves of someone else. If you get no hits at all on a Social test, you can use this power to reroll all the dice. If you got even one hit, then whatever mistakes were made are too far in the past when they become apparent and this power cannot be used.

Clout

"I have the power!"

Clout is the power to draw upon the great strength of the supernatural in order to perform feats of literal strength. Clout is an odd case as regards the Vow of Silence because while it is accompanied by no flaming runes or crawling shadows, demonstrations of incredible strength strain credibility and perhaps worse they draw comments from observers.

Clinging

[Basic]

• Effective Hits: Strength + Potency
• Duration: Permanent

Complex Action: You can hold yourself onto vertical surfaces and even ceilings for extended periods of time without special equipment or apparent effort. They can easily move up or down sheer surfaces at the rate of a steady walk, and scuttle across ceilings at the rate of a careful walk without danger or exertion. When such a character attempts to pull Wuxia or Spiderman inspired stunts involving running on walls or brachiating over a crowd they find this much easier, because they can support their weight merely by putting a hand against a wall. For practical purposes, this means that such stunts are much less extreme for them than they appear to outsiders. The thresholds are generally reduced by 2 (a crazy extreme stunt would be merely a professional stunt from their perspective).

Vigor

[Basic]

• Effective Hits: Strength + Potency
• Duration: Scene

Free Action, 1pp: By spending a power point you can increase your Strength by 1. You can stack this effect up to a maximum bonus of your Potency + 3.

Primal Strength

[Basic]

Passive: You are so infused with the power of Clout that you have +1 Strength at all times.

Devastation

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Strength + Potency
• Duration: Permanent

Complex Action: Your strength can emanate from many places at once along an object being touched, allowing you to lift very large, awkward and even fragile things without issue. It also allows you to have a blow from their hand or foot repeated many times across a wall or floor, causing it to shatter (which is where the power gets its name). This kind of contact telekinesis is best represented in superhero comics, where characters routinely lift cars by the ends without parts falling off or the ground underneath them giving way. The source of force can be directed out across a distance of 2 meters per Potency, and you can effectively lift or smash something as if you had five identical friends. When used as an attack, you and your five "friends" can attack several opponents at once or focus attacks on particular individuals (using the normal Multiple Attackers rule). Either way you roll just once and then apply the effects against each target. A character with Devastation can use any weapon they can use at all in one hand with no penalty.

Giant Size

[Advanced, Protean]

• Effective Hits: Strength + Potency
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action, 4pp: You can grow to a muscular 3.5 meters in height. All of the things that a character wants to grow along with them grow along with them while they are being carried by them, and anything they aren't carrying or that they wish to leave normal size stays normal size. While in Giant Size, you have +6 Strength, +1 Armor, and the base damage of your melee weapons increases by 2 (assuming you have it grow with you).

Some creatures have Giant Size as a Passive effect instead. In this case, objects do not resize for them when they pick them up or put them down.

War Form

[Advanced, Protean]

Complex Action, 4pp: You can transform into a monstrous beast. The specifics of the monstrous beast that you become are chosen and fixed when this spell is learned. A character's War Form is about a 50% larger than their normal form, and it has claws, or teeth or spines or something that count as a Lethal damage 4 natural weapon. With War From your Strength is +3 and your Agility is +2.

When a character goes into Frenzy they can (and often do) transform into War Form immediately as a Simple Action and without needing Power Points. A Frenzy transformation discount cannot be saved for later - it must be the character's first action upon entering Frenzy to count.

Burrowing

[Advanced]

• Dice: Strength + Survival or Strength + Larceny
• Duration: Permanent

Free Action, 1pp: You can tunnel into earth or stone. You can go up to a number of meters equal to your hits. You can leave a tunnel behind you at your option, or just a mild discoloration where you entered the ground/wall. If you don't leave a tunnel behind you don't need to breathe while burrowed, and you can emerge again as a free action without needing another power point.

Flight

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Strength + Potency
• Duration: Scene

Free Action, 1pp: You can fly, like a superhero. You can fly for the duration of a scene so long as you maintain a speed of at least an Ordinary Walk (18m/round). If the character wishes to be able to move any slower, or to hover, without falling out of the sky, you have to spend another power point. Taking off or landing in cramped areas may require an Agility + Athletics stunt. You moves 4 times as fast as normal when flying, and it is not particularly tiring unless you actually make a Draining Sprint. When this spell ends you fall at full speed if you're not already on the ground.

Discernment

"You see what you want to see. You hear what you want to hear."

Discernment is the discipline of having unusual and/or enhanced senses.

Supernatural Senses

[Basic]

• Effective Hits: Intuition + Potency
• Duration: Permanent

Free Action: You can enhance your perceptions well beyond human norms. Vision can become telescopic or even function in total darkness, hearing can become acute enough to hear heart beats, smell can become powerful enough to track at a brisk walk, and so on. Among other things, this gives you +3 on all Perception tests. Bringing one's senses into the realm of magical badassery also makes one vulnerable to intense sensory input, so your threshold to resist overstimulation is increased by 2. You can cast this spell again to deactivate it if you need to.

Aura Perception

[Basic]

• Effective Hits: Intuition + Potency
• Duration: Permanent

Simple Action: You can bleed your perceptions into other worlds and see magical forces and beings in other worlds. You can perceive creatures up to one world away from you (the shallows of a world while you're in the mortal world, or the depths or the mortal world while you're in the shallows, or the shallows while you're in the depths). A character with active Aura Perception can also see clear halos around active enchantments, supernatural creatures, magic items, and Luminaries (this property is why Luminaries are called that). A character can attempt to identify the type of a supernatural creature, magic item, or sorcery with an Intuition + Empathy or Logic + Research test, with a threshold of 5 minus the Potency of the target (or the creator of the target). You can cast this spell again to disable it or to change what other world you're seeing into.

Sensory Damper

[Basic]

• Effective Hits: Intuition + Potency
• Duration: Permanent

Complex Action: You are protected from harmful stimuli such as glare, pepper spray, and loud noises. You can dial down unwanted sensations to the point of unobtrusiveness. This lets you ignore both sudden stimulations (such as bright flashes) as well as continual low-level sensations (such as ignoring all conversations within a room to focus on the one of interest). You can stay conscious regardless of wounds taken, but this does not reduce your wound penalty.

Psychometry

[Advanced]

• Dice: Logic + Research or Intuition + Empathy

Extended Action (1 minute base time), 1pp: You can view past events by touching and concentrating upon items or people that were involved in those events. The event in question must be described, although that description may well be entirely conversational such as "What happened here?" when at a brutal crime scene. The events must have taken place within the last month. Seeing farther back into time can be done by increasing the base amount of time by one step and increasing the cost by 1 power point for each time increment the viewing window is increased.

Telepathy

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Intuition + Potency
• Duration: Permanent

Complex Action: You can communicate mentally with people within line of sight. Voluntary telepathic messages can also be sent and received between people the character knows the name of and who they have touched (regardless of line of sight) so long as they are within 1 kilometer per point of the caster's Potency.

The contents of an unwilling mind can be read, but only with physical contact and difficulty. Mind reading is a Resisted Extended Action. Mind reading uses either Willpower + Intimidation or Intuition + Empathy versus Willpower + Edge. If the target also knows Telepathy and takes effort to obscure details and engages in counter thought, they can use Willpower + Intimidation or Intuition + a relevant Background for resistance. Telepathy is covert except to someone receiving a telepathic communication.

Hits Needed:

Net Hits	Thought is...
1	On the surface
2	Important
3	Unimportant to the target
5	Something the target does not know they know.

Time Taken:

Base Time	Thought is...
1 minute	A simple fact.
5 minutes	A mental image.
20 minutes	A short narrative.
1 hour	An involved explanation.
5 hours	The whole story.
1 day	Their life story.

Chain of Eyes

[Advanced]

• Dice: Intuition + Operations or Intuition + Tactics
• Duration: 10 minutes (net hits increases)

Simple Action, 1pp: You can choose two or more creatures you can perceive and allow one or more of the chosen creatures to perceive what one or more other chosen creatures can perceive. You can cast this again to add a creature you can perceive to the chain. However many creatures are in the chain, you can decide which creatures in the chain can voyeuristically leech off the senses of which other creatures in the chain. You can change that list as a Free Action on your turn. Creatures unused to receiving sense data directly into their mind by magic power may become confused.

Phantasmagoria

[Advanced]

• Dice: Intuition + Artisan or Charisma + Expression
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action, 2pp: You can make a magical illusion that fools both recording devices and creatures. You can control the vetical, the horizontal, and the audio within 3 meters per point of Potency from the center of the effect. The effect can be relocated to any place within line of sight of you as a Simple Action. The illusion can react to events around it, and its general realism is determined by your hits on the test. Observers generally roll Intuition + Empathy or Intuition + Perception to spot that it's a fake. By spending an additional power point you can extend the illusion's duration until Twilight. Binding an illusion in this way makes it unable to move its origin.

Telekinesis

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Willpower + Potency
• Duration: Permanent

You can manipulate things at a distance. Things are moved with a Strength equal to your Willpower. Telekinesis is only slightly more accurate than a grabber hand, and does not grant the amazingly devastating effects of leverage you might expect. With intense concentration, telekinesis can be made to perform tiny acts of fine manipulation - like writing something. When used in this manner, telekinesis is tortuously slow and not very strong (Strength 1). Think of dramatic spirit writing scenes from a movie of your choice and how long it takes to write something short like "Murder".

Tracking Echoes of the Muse

[Advanced]

Free Action, 1pp: Whenever you are exposed to sensory stimuli, you can use this spell to know where it came from. So, if they hear a phrase, even over a telephone or from a recording, they can know where in the world it was spoken. By seeing a picture, they can know where it was painted. And so on.

Fortitude

"Endure. In enduring, grow strong."

Fortitude is the ability to resist destruction. Some powers of Fortitude are continuously in operation, while others must be activated with power points. What makes Fortitude special is that it does not require an active choice to activate. A character may activate their Fortitude powers while unconscious, or in some cases even while dead.

Patience of the Mountains

[Basic]

Passive: You endure as the mountains do, night after night. You don't need to eat, drink, or breathe. Never aging or decaying, you can hold any position no matter how awkward without cramping or moving. You are immune to poison. You also get +2 on all Soak tests.

Revive the Flesh

[Basic]

Free Action, variable pp: You can channel your magic into healing your wounds. 1 box of Lethal damage or 2 boxes of Normal damage can be healed in a single round for 1 pp. 1 box of Aggravated damage heals in an hour and takes 2pp. Even though this spell is a Free Action, you must wait until the damage is healed before you can use it again.

Indomitability

[Advanced]

Passive: Wounds do not hamper you. You suffer no wound penalties, do not go unconscious from injury before you die, and you are not affected by the Incapicated status at all. If you have a Terminal wound you'll still bleed out, and you can still be killed outright by Death Threshold overflow, but you'll be conscious and able to act while that's all happening. You are also capable of straining yourself severely without noticeable effect, so you can carry home anything you can lift.

Restoration

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Edge + Potency

Four Hours, variable pp: Death is no longer an insurmountable obstacle. While you are dead, you can spend 2 power points plus an additional power point per point of Potency to clear your 10th box on your wound track and bring yourself back to life.

Restoration cannot be used if your body has been impaled with something that inflicts aggravated damage or if there is total separation of your head and heart. If you stay dead for a whole month you lose any remaining power points and cease to gain power according to your normal power schedule. At that point someone else will have to invest the required power points into your body for you to be restored.

Adaptive Resilience

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Edge + Potency
• Duration: Permanent

Free Action, 3pp: Activate this power when you make a Soak Test and you gain 3 bonus hits on all future soak tests against that type of thing. It continues to protect against that kind of threat until you activate this power against a new kind of threat.

Empty Body

[Advanced]

Passive: As much of a curse as a power, you become intangible (but not invisible). Things pass through you unless they are made out of a substance that bypasses your resistances, they are created by magic, or your powers are being nullified generally. For example, a Bagheera with Empty Body could lift a silver fork or be shot by a silver bullet, or burned by Walk of Flame, but could not open a wooden cabinet. Characters with Empty Body are always solid in the world associated with their power source. While the character is insubstantial they can walk on any surface or no surface at all. Moving up or down vertically can be done, but is more work than walking along the floor or hovering at one level - it's kind of like climbing steep stairs. Empty Body can be learned a second time, allowing the character to turn it on and off by spending five minutes and three power points.

Flesh of Marble

[Advanced, Protean]

• Effective Hits: Strength + Potency
• Duration: Scene

Simple Action, 2pp: You can transform your skin into something very hard. It is not necessarily marble, or even stone: some creatures turn into metal or magically hardened wood. Some creatures get skin that is all craggy or jointed (like The Thing or Colossus), and others simply turn into what are apparently living statues. While active, you gain 4 bonus dice when Soaking physical damage and your Strength increases by 2. Electricity does not harm you, either because you are too conductive (if metallic) or too insulated (if stone). You can end this power early with another Simple Action.

Magnetism

"Alright everyone! Let's hear it... for me!"

Magnetism is the power to affect others with the otherworldly charisma of the supernatural, to attract, repel, or bend.

Attract

[Basic]

• Dice: Willpower + Expression or Charisma + Tactics
• Duration: 10 minutes

Complex Action: You can "turn on the charm" and grab someone's undivided attention. The number of hits when casting determines how many people's attention you grab. Attract does not guarantee that someone will agree with you, nor does it guarantee that they will sleep with you, but it does guarantee that the target will not ignore you or discount the importance of what you say. Attracted onlookers do not actively resist the next Adjacent attack if it comes from anyone else.

Repel

[Basic]

• Dice: Willpower + Intimidation or Strength + Tactics
• Resistance: Willpower + Edge or Strength + Edge
• Duration: 1 round per net hit

Simple Action: You can become extremely frightening and intimidating, inspiring fear and shame in onlookers. The target runs away or cowers in terror for at least a number of rounds equal to the net hits. Thereafter, they are shaken up for the remainder of the scene and suffers a -2 penalty on all actions.

Dismissal

[Advanced]

• Dice: Charisma + Tactics or Willpower + Intimidation

Simple Action, 3pp: You wrap yourself in the air of unapproachability, making aggression against you, or even refusal of your demands, almost unthinkable. Anyone who wishes to summon the nerve to act against you must roll Willpower + Intimidation or Willpower + Survival and get a number of hits equal to the spell's hits. Otherwise they lose their turn dithering. Your orders are also extremely likely to be obeyed (especially if they involve moving away from the issuer), and the spell's hits are added as a bonus dicepool on any Intimidation or Tactics tests to command or demand.

Betrayal of the Tongue

[Advanced]

• Dice: Logic + Research or Charisma + Operations
• Resistance: Intuition + Edge
• Duration: 1 Hour (net hits increases)

Complex Action, 1pp: The affected target cannot speak lies. They do not have to speak at all, but if they do, the complete truth as they understand it will pour forth from them on any subject they attempt to hold discourse upon.

Summons

[Advanced]

• Dice: Charisma + Bureaucracy or Charisma + Empathy
• Resistance: Logic + Edge
• Duration: Twilight

Complex Action, variable pp: You can send a brief telepathic message (25 words or less) to someone whose name you know so long as that person is in the same world as you and no more than 10 kilometers away per point of Potency. The target can also send back a reply. This does not require a roll or allow a resistance test. You can also spend 2 pp and roll a casting test to attempt to demand the presence of the target. If successful, the target becomes aware of where the character basically is, and must attempt to figure out how to get there themselves.

Cleanse the Body

[Advanced]

Complex Action, variable pp: You can spend power points to heal others. 1 power point heals two Normal or one Lethal damage in a round. 2 power points heals an aggravated wound in 10 minutes. The power works out to Short Range (20m) and it is very eerie to see. Once the healing is finished you can cast this spell on them again.

Veil

"...Now you don't."

Veil is the ability to draw upon one's magical nature to hide things from view. Veil does not affect cameras or other objective traces of a creature's passing, merely prevents observers (even indirect observers) from noticing what is there. Normally, Veil can only take effect while the target is not being observed. If observation is continuous, the observers will not see any change. Onlookers do not normally have any say in what they see as presented to them by Veil any more than they have any choice to not see things that are actually there. Characters who have Discernment powers active or who carefully search the area that the character is in have a chance to perceive through it by making an Intuition + Perception test against the number of hits made to activate the power. Anything a character covered by Veil carries is likewise covered by Veil and anything that the character stops carrying will cease being covered by Veil. An onlooker who notices an object pass into or out of Veil pierces the Veil altogether. Veil is inherently multisensory, onlookers are just as fooled if they close their eyes and listen or try to smell the character as they are relying entirely on their eyes.

Hide From Notice

[Basic]

• Dice: Agility + Stealth or Intuition + Survival
• Duration: Permanent

Simple Action: While active, you are not noticed so long as you don't do anything incredibly obvious to give yourself away.

Mask of a Thousand Faces

[Basic]

• Dice: Agility + Stealth or Charisma + Larceny
• Duration: Permanent

Simple Action: Those who meet you will treat you as if you were a different person. You may choose the appearance (including clothing and carried items) freely, but taking any action that would be impossible for the facade allows onlookers to see through the illusion. For example, if you use the Mask to appear as a person who has no gun and then you fire your gun, people would see them as they really are.

Lost and Found

[Advanced]

• Dice: Agility + Stealth or Intuition + Larceny
• Duration: Base time 1 hour, increase with hits.

Free Action, 1pp: A carried object can continue being covered by veil after it leaves physical contact with you. You can see through your own veil and find it again.

Hide in Plain Sight

[Advanced]

Free Action, 1pp: By adding a power point to the cost of any other Veil power you can activate it while being observed. All onlookers are entitled to an immediate check as if they had been carefully searching the area, but if they fail to notice the discrepancy, their mind will fill in vague details that excuse the character's sudden disappearance.

Blind the Senses

[Advanced]

• Dice: Intuition + Stealth or Logic + Larceny
• Resistance: Intuition + Edge
• • Duration: 5 minutes (net hits increases)

Simple Action: You remove a sense from the target. This is covert, and it is not immediately apparent to anyone else that anything has happened.

Desire Reflection

[Advanced]

• Dice: Charisma + Empathy or Intuition + Larceny
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action, 1pp: You can appear as whoever or whatever someone else would respond most favorably to. The normal limits of Veil apply, so if you don't have Hide in Plain Sight you must active this while unobserved and then you appear according to whoever spots you first. If you do have Hide in Plain Sight you can pick anyone in your presence. This power can potentially provoke a Loneliness or Greed Frenzy.

Facade of Nonchalance

[Advanced]

• Dice: Charisma + Larceny or Intuition + Survival
• Resistance: Intuition
• Duration: Scene

Free Action, 1pp: When activated, the facade prevents any extras in the area from noticing that events going on around them are in any way out of the ordinary. Taking actual damage will snap a victim out of their complacency. The Facade has to be used before the shit hits the fan, because it won't cause people who have already freaked out to calm down.

The Familiar Stranger

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Intuition + Potency
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action: You appear to each onlooker as if you were someone they expected to encounter, someone who "belongs" in the scene. This need not, and often will not, be the same person for each onlooker. This power is subject to the normal limits of Veil, save that you need not be at all familiar with any of the visages you assume.

Holistic Ventriloquism

[Advanced]

• Effective Hits: Intuition + Potency
• Duration: Scene

Complex Action: You can have the sounds and images generated by your presence shift in apparent origin by up to 2 meters. In many cases, the character can become completely invisible and avoid detection by cameras altogether by shifting their image into a wall or the ground.