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.

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.

This one can be learned multiple times to learn different animals forms. Each time you learn this spell you learn one additional form than the amount you learned last time. The second time you take this spell you learn two more forms for a total of three; the third time you learn this spell you learn three more forms for a total of six, and so on.

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 diappointing 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, and 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Curse of Failure

[Basic]

• Dice: Willpower + Intimidate 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 + Expression 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: Agility + Combat 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.

Enchanted Slumber

[Basic]

• Dice: Charisma + Expression or Logic + Medicine vs. Intuition
• 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.