Enchantments

Enchantments shape your mind and perceptions to conform to an illusion.

While afflicted, you must make a good faith effort to roleplay that belief and its logical extensions. You will ignore circumstantial evidence that contradicts the Enchantment, such as second-hand accounts or the reasoning of your allies.

However, Enchantments are weak against direct contradiction. When you are presented with obvious, personal exposure to facts that contradict the Enchantment, you may immediately Challenge to degrade the Condition.

Contradiction:

  • Disaster – No effect
  • Failure – Degrade Severity by 1d6
  • Success – Degrade Severity by Cd6
  • Flourish – Instantly break the Enchantment and remove the Condition

You may Challenge based on contradiction at most once a scene. The storyteller may grant Bonus Dice to represent particularly compelling evidence.

Your clouded mind

Foes may take advantage of your clouded state of mind. At most once per round, a single foe may:

  • Inflict a Penalty 6 against you
  • In return, you degrade the Severity of the Enchantment by 1d6

The foe that inflicted the Enchantment may influence your thoughts and memories.

  • The foe narrates their version of events; you believe this retelling
  • Or the foe narrates thoughts that enter your mind
  • In return, you degrade the Severity of the Enchantment by 1d10

This is a form of suggestion, not outright mind control. Thoughts and events that clearly violate your senses or principles cause the Enchantment to automatically end.

For example:

  • “You saw your Winter Wolf pocket a gemstone” would be a valid Enchantment when your ally is a shifty sort already
  • “You saw your Doe wax poetic about how much she loves meat” would be an extreme stretch and generate a Contradiction
  • “Your ally has been replaced by a monster. Attack!” is beyond the pale of believability and would break the Enchantment

Clever foes instead rely on isolating you from your allies and then slowly adjusting your memories and thinking where allies cannot intervene. Given enough time, the foe can apply additional Conditions and become a puppetmaster (below).

Puppetmaster

Multiple stacked Enchantments divorce your character from reality.

  • If a foe manages to apply one Enchantment into each of your six elements, then you are no longer capable of discerning reality from the Condition
  • The storyteller takes control of your character
  • You should consider playing another character in the interim

Though your character is lost to your direct control, they might be restored by destroying the Enchantments that control them.

  • Your lost character continues to degrade Severity as usual; the Puppetmaster must have a means to continually strengthen the Conditions

Additionally, there is a special option available for reclaiming such an ally

  • Smack some sense into them
    • Instead of dealing a Wound to your lost ally, you may instead smack them upside the head
    • On a successful Attack, degrade the Severity of one Enchantment by C * Damage that would be dealt
  • The lost character then regains Aura as usual, taking no Wound

All related Enchantments must be removed to reclaim the ally. However, as the ally’s head clears, they may notice contradictions and aid in destroying these mental shackles.

Managing your Enchantment

Enchantments hide from easy inspection by their nature.

Like any Condition, an Enchantment consumes one of your Chakra. This is not sufficient evidence to Challenge against the Condition. Instead, you would explain away this lost capacity as being tired, stressed, sick, or otherwise off your best performance.

You may spend Downtimes to Convalesce against your Enchantment. This represents your subconscious chewing at the intrusion; you are not consciously aware of this.

Your allies may notice odd behavior and Challenge against your Enchantment. When doing so, they should Challenge against the Difficulty of the Enchantment or the defense of the foe that afflicted it.

  • Disaster – Your attempt to detect the Enchantment accidentally reinforces it. Severity of the target Enchantment increases by 2d6.
  • Failure – You dismiss the behavior as a minor anomaly
  • Success – You realize that the character’s odd behavior is too unusual to dismiss
  • Flourish – As Success, and degrade the Enchantment by 1d6