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Justice Purview

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Justice Purview Empty Justice Purview

Post  Admin Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:31 am

• Judgment
Book: Hero
Dice Pool: Perception + Empathy
Cost: None
This Boon aids a Scion immensely in determining guilt, one of the foundations of meting out justice. When she confronts someone she suspects committed an injustice and accuses that person of having done so, her player rolls (Perception + Empathy). (This roll isn’t modified by supernatural powers or contested by the suspect’s player.) On a success, the Scion can intuitively tell whither the suspect is guilty as charged. A failure yields an indeterminate reading and means that the Scion can’t try to determine the same subject’s guilt for 24 hours. A botch yields a false reading.

• • Guilt Apparitions
Book: Hero
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Integrity
Cost: 1 Legend
When a Scion knows that someone is guilty of an injustice but she lacks either the evidence to prove it or the leverage to make him admit it, she can rely on this Boon instead. To use it, she accuses the guilty party of the injustice (be it in person, in a letter, over the phone, via skywriting…), and her player spends a point of Legend and rolls (Manipulation + Integrity). If the roll succeeds, the accusation causes the victim to periodically hallucinate like Macbeth or his wife. These hallucinations occur randomly, torturing the guilty party with the knowledge that justice hasn’t been served. They also render him unable to regain Willpower.
The effect lasts for a number of days equal to the activation roll’s successes, or until the offender makes fair amends, or until the offender confesses this crime to someone who can force him to make fair amends – whichever occurs first.

• • • Guilt of the Damned
Book: Companion
Dice Pool: Perception + Empathy
Cost: 1 Legend
The Scion calls out one of the failings of a foe while striking him, and then spends the requisite Legend point. If the subject has a lower Legend score than the attacking Scion, the power functions automatically; otherwise, the player rolls (Perception + Empathy) against the opponent’s (Willpower + Integrity + Legend). If the power succeeds, the enemy becomes wracked with guilt at its lack of integrity and questions its ability to uphold the high standards of Virtue that it considers important. (A titanspawn might instead become uncertain of its ability to wreak havoc and lose confidence in its ability to overcome the Scion.) These feelings of inferiority reduce all of the target’s Virtue ratings by one dot for the rest of the scene. A target can only be subjected to this Boon once per scene, although a Scion can choose to use it against multiple different opponents.

• • • Shield of Righteousness
Book: Hero
Dice Pool: None
Cost: 1 Legend Point + 1 Willpower Point
This Boon can protect an innocent victim from suffering someone else’s due punishment. The Scion cries out against the injustice – a simple “He didn’t do it” will suffice – and spends the Legend and Willpower point. Doing so, she renders the next action that would inflict harm on the innocent victim completely impotent, obviating any damage that action should inflict. Whether the victim is being stabbed by a jealous wife, shot be a firing squad, lynched by a mob, hurled off a cliff by a duped Scion vigilante or whatever; he suffers no damage from that action.
For the Boon to work, the Scion must be present at the site of the unjust punishment, and the victim must actually be innocent.

• • • • Dream Wrack
Book: Demigod
Prerequisite: Guilt Apparitions
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy
Cost: 1 Willpower
The Scion gains the ability to plague a victim with torturous dream of a recent crime and its aftermath. She stares into her target’s eyes for a single action then names the victim, names the crime and says something to the effect of, “Now see how you like it” – except more dramatically eloquent than that.
When the perpetrator next sleeps, he dreams of the wrongdoing the Scion named and suffers through exactly what the victim of that crime suffered through, experiencing everything from the victim’s perspective. The Scion who uses this Boon must know the gist of the events of the crime as well as the crime’s aftermath, but she doesn’t have to know all the details. The victim of the Boon will fill in any details he knows, even if the Scion doesn’t know them, and his subconscious will color in the blank spots neither of them knows with information from his ugliest imaginings.
When he wakes, the target’s Willpower pool is completely empty, and he can’t regain any Willpower points for a number of days equal to the Scion’s Legend. Each night, he dreams of the crime again, unable to wake and unable to escape.
The Scion can use this power on anyone she wants, regardless of whether they actually have any connection to the crime. The only restriction is that the Scion must know who the victim is, she must know the basic circumstances of the crime, and she must have that, she can afflict anyone she chooses with the awful dreams. On the upside, the Scion cannot affect the same character with this Boon again until the duration of the first effect wears off. What’s more, beings of greater Legend can contest this Boon’s activation roll with a (Willpower + Integrity + Legend) roll to ignore the effect altogether.

• • • • • Scarlet Letter
Book: Demigod
Dice Pool: None
Cost: 1 Willpower + 1 Legend
When a Scion knows that a perpetrator is guilty of some wrongdoing – be it through the Judgment (Justice •) Boon, a judicious use of the Stench of Guilt and Blurt It Out Knacks or because she just has incontrovertible proof – she can make sure everyone else knows it too. She need only touch the exposed skin of the guilty party as her player spends the appropriate points. When she does, an arcane mark appears on the guilty person’s flesh and will not wash off or fade away. No matter what the perpetrator does to his flesh – scar it irrevocably, tattoo over it, get a skin graft – the mark always rises to the top and remains clearly visible. Thereafter, whenever the Scion who put it there spends a point of Legend and commands him to do so, the criminal must draw attention to the mark and tell anyone who can see him why it was placed there.
The mark remains for a number of years equal to the Scion’s Legend. The only thing that will get rid of it before then is if the Scion spends another Willpower and Legend to make it disappear. If the crime is especially heinous, though – or if she’s a harsh bitch – the Scion can sacrifice a dot of Willpower instead of spending just a point along with her Legend point. Doing so make the mark permanent, such that even she can’t remove it.

• • • • • • Sympathy Pains
Book: Demigod
Dice Pool: Wits + Command
Cost: 1 Willpower + 1 Legend (+1 Legend per extra person)
When the Scion is in the middle of a confrontation that she wants to see ended with as little bloodshed as possible, she calls out in a stentorian voice and does whatever she must to get everyone’s attention. Her player then rolls (Wits + Command) and spends a Willpower point. If the roll succeeds, the Scion ties together the physical health of as many people who are present as possible. That is, if one person in the group suffers any damage, everyone included in the effect suffers the same pain and damage. For the base cost, she can tie the health of two people together. She can include one extras Legend point she spends at the same time. The effect lasts for a maximum number of days equal to the Scion’s Legend.
This damage cuts through soak and armor and any defensive abilities a connected party might have. If the damage gets though all the defense and toughness of damage gets through all the defense and toughness of one person, it affects everyone equally. If one person in the affected group should die, everyone else in the group dies too, regardless of how many health levels they might have had left over. The Scion herself is the only exception. Unless she is the victim whose death brings everyone else down with her, the effect ceases to apply to her if someone else in the circle dies. Other victims included in the effect have a chance to pull themselves out of the connection when another member dies as well. Doing so requires a successful (Stamina + Fortitude) roll at the moment the connected party dies. If that roll garners more successes than the Scion’s activation roll did, the successful party does not die. He simply collapses unconscious with only once health box left empty.

• • • • • • • Psychic Prison
Book: Demigod
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy
Cost: 3 Legend
The Scion stares into the victim’s eyes for once minute without interruption. If the victim’s player cannot get more successes on an opposing roll of the Scion’s (Intelligence + Empathy) versus the victim’s (Willpower + Integrity + Legend), the victim is rounded up by indistinct, faceless figures who drag him away and throw him into the cramped interior compartment of some sort of vehicle. The vehicle drives for a long time before it stops and the indistinct figures drag him out into the light. They throw him into a featureless gray cell with only a small slot in one wall through which they deliver food, and a grim-looking drain in the floor though which he must eliminate waste. This cell has one light source in the ceiling behind a translucent plastic panel that cannot be broken. There is no door. No one speaks to him. He sees no one. He hears no one except when voiceless figures approach to give him food. He can scream and thrash and bang his head against the walls, but nothing ever changes. Even if he has the Escape Artist Knack, he just winds up in another room exactly like the one he left. Things go on like this for a number of years equal to the Scion’s (Legend x 5). Then one day, a door that wasn’t there the day before opens. Light floods into the room, and the prisoner notices smells he hasn’t smelled since before he came to this awful place. He stands on shaking legs and stumbles into the light…
…to find himself staring in the eyes of the Scion who imprisoned him. He comes to his senses to find that only minutes have actually passed – one minute per dot of his Scion captor’s Legend. Every maddening minute of the years and years he spent imprisoned remains fresh in his memory, but now he’s somehow got to get on with his life among all these other people after all that time alone.
For every 10 mental years the character spent imprisoned, he loses one dot from his Charisma, his Manipulation or his Willpower (captor’s player’s choice). This degradation cannot reduce one of these traits to less than one dot. As the character loses dots in those two Attributes, though, the maximum available number of dots of their related Epic Attributes decreases as well. The character doesn’t lose the Epic Attribute dots too, but he can’t use them until he gets a high enough number of dots in the mundane Attributes back. (He can still use all of his Knacks freely, though.)
Only the warden – i.e., the Scion who used this Boon – can set the victim free before his sentence is fully served. Every minute that goes by offers the Scion the opportunity to let her prisoner go free. No one can force her to decide in the prisoner’s favor, though. It’s entirely up to her.

• • • • • • • Star Chamber
Book: Companion
Dice Pool: Charisma + Politics
Cost: 3 Legend, + 1 Legend per Legend dot of the target
Crying out for justice, the Scion calls out to Fate to balance the universal scales. The subject’s Fate becomes twisted by the demands of justice, and Fate conspires to see that the target is punished for the sins that it commits.
The actual execution of such punishment can be convoluted indeed. While it’s unlikely that a burning helicopter will suddenly crash upon the target (although it’s possible), a subject will find that every minor infraction and past misdeed comes back to haunt him. A hardened criminal with many years of treachery behind him will discover that his own possessions are stolen, his family and friends become subjected to investigations by the police, old evidence turns up against him and cold cases suddenly become hot again due to testimony of witnesses who previously disappeared. Every time he tries to flee persecution, something snarls his attempts and causes him even more grief. If, for example, he buys a plane ticket, he discovers that his flight from prosecution has added federal charges. If he tries to lie low in a hide-out, he find that his bad luck has all of his former friends turning him out on the street.
The severity of the curses levied upon a lawbreaker is proportionate to the magnitude, frequency and supernatural potency of the criminal’s actions. A bad neighbor who yells at other tenants and kicks the sweet old lady’s dog may discover that his walls have become full of mold and he has developed corns on his feet. A powerful titanspawn that rampages across a town, enslaves the people and devours human sacrifices will almost certainly find a Band of Scions drawn inexorably into its lap to destroy it.
Star Chamber only functions on a creature with a higher Legend rating than the Scion if the player scores more successes on the activation roll than the subject’s (Willpower + Integrity + Legend) roll.

• • • • • • • • Sanctify Oath
Book: God
Dice Pool: Charisma + Command + Legend
Cost: 10 Legend
Oaths are powerful agreements based on trust and good faith, but usually good faith is all that enforces them. Two characters agree to abide by their terms either out of mutual respect or because they each fear the other’s retaliation. With this Boon, however, a God can enforce an oath with the full power of divine justice. Fate itself punishes those who break sanctified oaths, regardless of what recompense the offended party might also seek.
To swear an oath is to vow to do something or abide by some specific condition and say something like “I promise,” “I swear,” “You have my word,” “I give you my oath” or “Scout’s honor”. A character can swear an oath individually, or several characters can swear an oath over some agreement they’ve made. When a character with this Boon witnesses someone swearing such an oath, he may spend 10 Legend as his player rolls (Charisma + Command + Legend). If this roll succeeds, the player of every character who swore the oath willingly – even those who did so grudgingly – must roll (Willpower+ Integrity + Legend). Any character whose resistance roll comes up short against the activation roll is now supernaturally bound to the terms of the oath. Any time a bound character breaks the terms of the oath, that character is doomed to a series of disastrous failures. For every success by which the activation roll surpassed his resistance roll, the oath-breaker suffers a botch on some crucial action. It doesn’t matter how many dice the oath-breaker has in his pool or how many dots of an applicable Epic Attribute he might have. If the Storyteller decides that the character’s action is crucial, that action botches. Any time a character breaks his oath anew, the number of botches he has coming resets to the threshold level.
A character need not know that his oath has been sanctified to suffer the effects of breaking it. If he realizes why disaster seems to be following him – or if he knows good and well – he can petition the God who sanctified his oath to lift the burden from him. If that god is so incline, he can lift the oath from the participant, but that rarely happens.

• • • • • • • • • Overworld Judgment
Book: God
Prerequisite: Sanctify Oath
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Presence + Legend
Cost: 15 Legend
What the god says is law in the ears of those who hear it. The law might not last forever, but while it does, none can deny its authority. When the God uses this power, he dictates some specific behavior or some particular rule and spends 15 Legend points. His player then makes a (Manipulation + Presence + Legend) roll. The player of every character who hears this pronouncement live and in person must make a (willpower + Integrity + Legend) roll. Anyone whose resistance roll nets more successes than the activation roll can take or leave the new rule as just another thing the god said. Anyone whose resistance roll doesn’t measure up is compelled to abide by that rule of law.
This compulsion affects only those characters who are of equal or lesser Legend than the God who issues the divine edict. Players of characters with higher Legend don’t’ even have to roll to resist. Titans are likewise immune to this effect unless they have willingly sworn a sanctified oath to obey the God’s laws.
A character who is supernaturally compelled to follow a law may still break the law or act out against it. The compulsion isn’t total, after all. If the character has no Virtue ratings or has only Dark Virtues, he need only spend one point of Willpower per action to be able to flaunt the law. If the character has divine Virtue ratings, not specific to the edict-issuing god’s pantheon, the character’s player must spend a Willpower point and fail a roll of the most circumstance-appropriate Virtue.
Finally, if someone who is compelled to follow a rule or law willingly breaks it (per allowance granted by the previous paragraph), the God who spoke the law into existence becomes aware of it immediately, regardless of where he is. What he chooses to do about that breach is up to him.

• • • • • • • • • • Divine Enforcement
Book: God
Prerequisite: Judgement
Dice Pool: Perception + Empathy
Cost: 5+ Legend (+ 1 Willpower)
When a god has this Boon, his mind becomes a comprehensive legal database that maintains a complete list of the written laws of any society. He need only spend a single scene among the members of society, and the knowledge expands in his brain automatically (for no roll or point expenditure). Whatever the written local, state and federal laws are in the community, he knows them all as they currently stand. As long as he remains I the community, the God understand all its laws in all their minutiae. Dredging up a specific law for a community outside the one he’s in requires a single Legend point if the law is not covered under the same greater legal umbrella as the community. In America, for instance, federal laws remain the same regardless of what state you’re in. Understanding and being able to cite a US federal law costs no Legend as long as you’re in America. Being able to automatically cite a specific penalty in the Georgia State Tax Code, however, would cost a single Legend point anywhere in the World or beyond except in the state of Georgia.
As useful as that expansive knowledge is, the Boon has an active effect that the God may engage at will. For five Legend, the God’s player may roll (Perception + Empathy) and concentrate on the society around him. If the roll succeeds, the God becomes magically aware of everyone within a number of miles equal to successes on the roll who either is breaking or has broken without punishment a secular law to which the offender is subject. Each additional point of Legend spent increases the radius by another amount equal to successes on the activation roll. Once this awareness fills the character’s consciousness, he can choose to do one of two things: A.) zilch, or B.) spend a point of Willpower to enforce the laws. If the god does the latter, every offender within the radius of effect loses all Willpower points, understands how he broke what law (even if he didn’t know the law existed), and is compelled to turn himself in to the nearest legitimate authorities with a full confession. The god can eliminate certain types of offenses from his divine enforcement (jaywalking, for instance), but he cannot single out offenders.
With creative applications, this Boon can cripple a city or an army of mortals. Characters of Legend 9 or higher are not subject to this Boon, as they are laws unto themselves.

Avatar of Justice (The Arbiter)
Book: God
Cost: 1 Willpower + 30 Legend
For one scene, the character becomes The Arbiter – the avatar of divine Justice whose single, unblinking eye can see in all directions and whose gavel silences all dissent. Mortals cannot commit unrighteous acts in The Arbiter’s sight, and no being can lie to The Arbiter’s face. Past sins burn inside when The Arbiter draws near, compelling mortals to confess, and discomfiting even the most treacherous Gods and titanspawn. Even the defeated Titans had to remain in their prisons when The Arbiters commanded them to submit. (Only the fact that someone let them out allowed them to escape.)

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