Light – Challenges of Jade

The subtle element of Light sits at the frontier of cultivation, and most of its mysteries remain untapped.

You do not Challenge directly against Light; the pure ephemeral element eludes one’s grasp. Instead, the Challenges listed here are only possible as a result of Light Harmonies.

Light Harmonies are outlined in the player cultivation section. In brief: a Light Harmony is the union of ephemeral Light to a single concrete element. These vary in strength from 1 to 3.

The Challenges outlined below require a Light Harmony of at least 1 in the matching element.

Commune

Hear. Think. Feel.

Required Harmony: LightAir

You may extend your spiritual senses to commune with your surroundings and even possessions. When you commune, you receive glimpses of the past of the area or item of your focus. While this process is too slow to resolve a chase, it can provide powerful hints.

To Commune, spend a Downtime and Challenge LightAir.

Outcome:

  • Disaster: The storyteller lies to you. Or tells the truth and pretends it’s a lie. Do your level best as a roleplayer to roll with it.
  • Failure: You cannot calm your mind
  • Success: You vibrate with visions of the past and present for the area or object of your focus
  • Flourish: These visions include fragments of (possible) futures!

However, Commune has a significant restriction. The domain of Light belongs among the spirits, and they may interfere.

  • If you are within a Spirit Realm, the Ruler of the Realm may choose to forbid your communion. Treat the result as a failure; you may not reroll or overrule.
    • You are aware that you have been blocked and by who. In fact, they generally appear directly in your vision!
  • Spirits within several kilometers automatically sense that you are communing and your approximate location
  • Spirits within your direct presence share in the communion and learn the same things you do
    • Those freeloaders!

Commune does not work in Shade Realms; the raw volume of Dark memories overwhelms any ability to parse the visions.

There are no special rules for Fae Realms; the Fae gain no special power or influence. Make full use of this blind spot!

Purify

Required Harmony: LightWater

Purify is Medicine for one’s spirit. You may Challenge Water against Curses to reduce their Severity.

Like medical care, Purify can make use of Hearth structures to improve its power.

Alternatively, you may take your patient to the Spirit Realms and avail yourself to the power of the spirits.

  • Many spirits can outright heal Curses, though they will demand a price

Manipulate Spirit Gate

Required Harmony: LightFire

Identify

To recognize a Gate for its true form, you may Challenge LightFire.

  • The Gate will have a Stealth score as its Difficulty
  • Long-dormant Gates may have exceedingly high Stealth scores

Dormant Gates are often near impossible to discover based on their Stealth scores. Two options:

  • You may degrade the Gate’s Stealth score by accomplishing related Challenges such as following the ley lines or correlating historical accounts
    • Degrade by your Result on a successful Challenge
  • Or, the storyteller may treat the Gate’s location as a Mystery (Air) and resolve with that subsystem

Open

There are two methods to open a Spirit Gate:

  • Concordance with the cycle of the Gate
  • Commanding the Gate

Concordance

Spirit Gates open under many circumstances, such as: the command of their Ruler, the alignment of the stars, the movement of the ley lines, and even specific bribery such as Crystal Cores and other offerings.

To understand the exact requirements of a Gate, Challenge LightFire.

Base Difficulty: 6 * Gate’s Rank

Result:

  • Disaster: You gain no understanding of the Gate
  • Failure: You gain a general understanding of how to open the Gate, but you mistakenly assume that additional expenses will be required
    • Such as extra Crystal Cores, mythological requirements, rare reagents…
    • Once you believe this, your spirit enforces the requirement and undermines any creative attempts to avoid paying the extra toll
  • Success: You gain a general understanding of how to open the Gate
    • This understanding is sufficient to open the Gate but may not include every detail
    • Last minute complications and requirements may still arise; these requirements will simply be within the realm of possibility to accomplish
  • Flourish: You gain an exact understanding of how to open the Gate, including any clever twists or unexpected requirements to come

Command

To open a Spirit Gate through sheer cultivated prowess, Challenge LightFire

Base Difficulty: 10 * Gate’s Rank

Requirements:

  • You and your allies must collectively pay Charge equal to the Gate’s Rank
    • This requires physical contact with the Gate
    • This does not need to be all at once; you need only complete the payment within one Scene
  • Your Circle must be at least as high as the Gate, or you lack sufficient spiritual authority to command the Gate
    • Attempts to open a Spirit Gate of a higher Circle automatically fail

Result:

  • Disaster: Your arrogant conduct offends the heavens themselves; the storyteller generates Dissonance
  • Failure: You fail to open the gate like some mortal peon
  • Success: The Gate opens for a short period of time (this Scene)
  • Flourish: The Gate opens as though it had reached its natural concordance

Ritual

Ritual is a catch-all Challenge type for any of the large-scale Kingdom works not otherwise covered by this system.

Rituals by their nature take multiple hours or days to complete and have wide-scale effects. These usually require multiple participants and a great deal of preparation.

Examples of ritual:

  • Renewing wards not covered elsewhere by this system, such as those that repel Fae
  • Opening rare gates into other realms
  • Evoking an Auspice within a Floran
  • Interacting with strange magics of Siren or Centauri

In a ritual, one character will take the central position and make the Challenges of Light. This character is usually locked into the ritual and depends on others for support.

Allies help by making Challenges in other elements, providing reagents and material support, and protecting the ritualist from harm.