Persona Basics, Fool/Magician

PERSONA

All Persona-users have the following abilities regardless of Arcana:

• Know Arcana: A Persona-user can extend his senses to the supernatural world and identify the Arcana of other Persona-users. This ability can only be used to read other Persona-users’ individual Arcana; it cannot be used to penetrate the masks of changelings, reveal Promethean disfigurements, etc.

• Reveal Persona: A Persona-user can manifest his Persona to other Persona-users; if desired, a Persona-user can add his ranks in his Arcana to his Intimidation dice pools if trying to Intimidate other Persona-users. Consequently, Persona-users also use their ranks in their Arcana to resist the Intimidation rolls of opposing Persona-users, subtracting their rank in dice from that opposing dice pool.

• Create Social Link: a Persona-user feels very strongly the psychic energies of well-defined personalities. If conditions permit (at the Storyteller’s discretion), a Persona-user can establish a Social Link with any being, regardless of background. A Persona-user can buy ranks in a Social Link’s Arcana and use the powers associated to that Arcana; he will not however, ever be able to reach full power in that Arcana save entering Servitude to that Arcana’s Dealer.

Dots are arranged as follows:
o Social Link 1: Serves as a one-dot Ally.
o Social Link 2: Serves as a two-dot Ally; Arcana Power Rank 1.
o Social Link 3: Serves as a three-dot Ally; Arcana Power Rank 2.
o Social Link 4: Serves as a four-dot Ally; Arcana Power Rank 3.
o Social Link 5: Serves as a five-dot Ally; Arcana Power Rank 4.

• Keep the Dark Hour/Enter the Fog: A Persona-user can enter either the Dark Hour or the Fog without ill-effects a rate of one day per rank of their Arcana. After this time, they must make Willpower rolls to avoid Apathy.


THE ARCANA

I. The Fool

“Live to laugh, live to play, live to put the fear away. Whatever your reason, just live and be merry.”

Human beings die of random causes all the time---the idiot who left the gas running and burnt his house down, the freak lightning strike, the drunk driving incident---but few die to awaken to the power of mischievous fate. Persona-users of the Fool Arcana are those who stayed alive because they were having too much fun---they’d expected a lot more out of life and they’ll be damned if they can’t enjoy a few more moments left.

Unfortunately, it is this leaning towards joy that makes those empowered by the Fool dangerous and unpredictable. For every Fool who gets his fun from practical jokes, there is the Cruel Jester who gets pleasure from the misfortune of others. A Fool can be of any type: the police officer who relishes the thrill of the chase and needs to arrest his greatest criminal rival or the sadistic killer who just loves to have his “guests” for dinner.

The Fool’s Dealer at the moment is a young girl named Thessaly Kemp. Like all Dealers, she is considered to be among the finest exponents of what it means to be a proper Fool. She’s courageous, reckless and enjoys every iota of her borrowed time.

For all that she’s but eighteen years old, she is still the most experienced of the Fools currently running amok in the world; almost strangled at birth, Thessaly is the youngest known human to awaken to her Persona. To serve her is to cater to a capricious girl’s whims---and what could be more foolish than that?

The Powers of the Fool:

Thessaly prefers to accept Servitors who died before they knew themselves, or had little to no awareness of who they really were; she’s very fond of the thrill of self-discovery. Still, she cannot contradict the primary precept of her Arcana: to live for joy and the pursuit of self-knowledge. It has distressed her to accept several “darker” types in the past, but she values her own existence far too much to question whoever is behind her Arcana.

Fool 1: Fill in the Blank
Roll: Presence + Numina
This ability allows the Fool to mask his Arcana and Persona and reveal another one in its place.

Exceptional Failure: The manifested Persona is the Persona of the onlooker, clearly revealing a fake.

Failure: The power fails to function.

Success: The manifested Persona and Arcana is of the player’s choosing, lasting for the duration of the scene.

Exceptional Success: The manifested Persona and Arcana lasts for as long as the character wishes.

Fool 2: Aware of Self

Roll: Presence + Numina/ 1 Numen
This ability allows the Fool to traverse the Fog or Keep the Dark Hour without risk of Apathy for double the allotted period.

Exceptional Failure: The Fool’s Numen rebounds on him, forcing him to roll Willpower against Apathy.

Failure: The power fails to function.

Success: The Fool can stay for double the amount of time allowed in either the Dark Hour or the Fog without any ill effect.

Exceptional Success: The Fool can stay for triple the duration.

Fool 3: Placeholder
Roll: Presnce + Resolve + Numina vs. Presence + Numina/1 Numen per contested round.
This power smothers another Persona-user’s ability to make his Persona manifest.

Exceptional Failure: The Persona-user’s Numen rebounds on him, smothering his own Persona.

Failure: The power fails to function.

Success: For every contested success, the targeted Persona-user cannot manifest his Persona; this prevents him from adding his Arcana ranks for Intimidation rolls. Conversely, it also prevents others from reading his Arcana and Persona. This power is sometimes used to protect a Fool’s allies from detection. The Fool may not use this power on himself.

Exceptional Success: As Success.

Fool 4: Lesson Learned
Roll: 2 Numina; Reflexive
A Fool who uses this power can convert one skill into a Rote Action. Only one skill can be converted into a Rote one per scene.

Fool 5: Careless Arrogance
Roll: 3 Numina
For the duration of the scene, the Fool’s Presence is raised by 50%, rounded up. (1-2, 2-3, 3-5, 4-6-, 5-8).

II. The Magician

“Hide if you want, I’ll find it anyway.”

If the life of a Fool is one long party, the life of a Magician is an extended experiment. Those whose power is dealt from the hand of the Magician lived to have their curiosity of the unknown satisfied. They are the cats of the Arcana, constantly living---and getting killed---for the sake of curiosity.

Perhaps it would be better to note what the objects of the Magician’s curiosity are---the things that go bump in the night, the monsters, the bestiary of the World of Darkness. Often they are the victims of the supernatural because they deliberately placed themselves in the path of those beings. They know firsthand the dangers of dealing with creatures more (and less) than human.

Despite having knowledge of this danger, it is that curiosity that allows the Magician to live. After all, he died for this information---shouldn’t he live for it as well?

The Dealer of the Magician Arcana is a disembodied spirit simply called the Missing One. Even the oldest Magicians aren’t sure what he is precisely. Some think he’s the victim of a magical experiment gone awry; others think that he’s a true mage who also happens to possess the power of Persona. Regardless, the Missing One isn’t talking and while he understands that Magicians are driven to seek answers, he also knows that this curiosity doesn’t mean they’re entitled to the answers they want.

The Powers of the Magician

The Missing One prefers Servitors who awakened due to a death caused by supernatural means. He plays his Cards towards psychics, other awakened Persona-users and various supernatural entities. He keeps his reasons to himself. Most Magicians believe he does this so that one of them could find a way for the Missing One to return to the corporeal world.

Still, Magicians aren’t limited to purely supernatural pursuits. Many Magicians were once scientists who died in the pursuit of their research. One notable Magician--- Marie Skłodowska---was 66 when she died pursuing her work on radioactive isotopes. She lives on 75 years later, puttering in her lab, using her Persona-granted abilities to good use.

Magician 1: Feel the Flow
Roll: Wits + Numina.
Magicians use this ability to detect the use of supernatural energies in their midst. The range of the ability is 20 yards/Arcana rank.

Exceptional Failure: The Numina reveals itself as it scans for supernatural energies; it fails to detect any, but alerts other supernatural creatures that they are being searched for.

Failure: The power fails to function.

Success: Supernatural energies are detected, but their type is not; Persona-users simply know that “something strange is in the air.”

Exceptional Success: The Magician detects and identifies the kind of supernatural energy: Vitae of vampires, Glamour of changelings, etc. However, this does not detect the strength of the creature’s actual power rating. As such, a Magician might know a changeling is his vicinity, but he will not know how powerful that changeling’s Wyrd is.

Magician 2: Reliquary
Roll: XP. (See below.)
For every XP spent, an object is enchanted to hold 1 Numen. The XP is forever lost. Spending the Numina in the reliquary drains the object until XP is spent to recharge the object. A Persona-user can invest an object with Numina equal to his effective rank in the Magician Arcana.

Magician 3: Studied Technique
Roll: Academics + Wits / 2 Numina
Magicians with this ability can use their chosen Persona abilities with greater familiarity than other Persona-users. This power can be applied to only one Persona ability per scene.

Exceptional Failure: The Numina fizzles, barring the character from using the selected Persona ability for the rest of the scene.

Failure: The power fails to function.

Success: For the duration of one scene, a Magician can designate one of his Persona abilities as a Rote Ability.

Exceptional Success: For the duration of the scene, the Magician can designate two abilities instead of one. He must still pay the cost in additional Numina, however.

Magician 4: Claim Essence
Roll: Wits + Resolve + Numina vs. Resolve + Numina.
Magicians who need more power to use their powers can take it from other Persona users if necessary.

Exceptional Failure: The channel of power backfires, giving the opposing Persona-user Numina equal to the number of failed dice.

Failure: The power fails to function.

Success: The Magician steals Numina equal to the difference of success in the contested roll.

Exceptional Success: As Success.

Magician 5: Convert Essence

Roll: Wits + Resolve + Numina vs. Resolve + Numina.
This ability works just like Claim Essence with the difference that the Magician can harvest the energies of other supernatural beings as well. The failures and successes operate in the same manner.