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 Reasonably clean sand must be used to counter, and by the time the sand hits the floor it has been replaced by sand filled with ash.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.

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.

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.