Lores

The process of learning a non-house Lore from a teacher outlined in the Players Guide is generally too slow and complicated for the purposes of a living game like this. As such, a simplified method has been established:

1. The Teacher demonstrates the evocation to be taught to the student. This is a regular evocation of the Lore in all regards, i.e. all perquisites for using the evocation have to be met and there needs to be a valid target (if required).
2. The student observes the evocation carefully. Mechanically, the student makes a Perception + Alertness roll against Difficulty 7.
3. Step one and two are repeated until the student has accumulated a number of successes equal or greater than the number of XP necessary to buy the evocation in question (e.g. ten successes for a level one evocation, five for two, etc.)
4. In a final step the student has to perform the evocation for themselves. This requires the standard evocation roll (spending Faith on additional successes is permissible). If they succeed, they gain justification to buy the evocation at standard cost. If they fail, they can try again. If they botch all progress is lost and they need to restart the learning process from scratch.

Please remember to ping the Demon ST to validate your success and to link to the scene in your purchase request.

Additional Notes:

• The process outlined in this section cannot be used to learn evocations out of order. E.g. to learn Lore of Flame 2 the character needs to already know Lore of Flame 1.
• Your character cannot perform the evocation until after the purchase request has been completed. Their successful use of the evocation in step four is considered a fluke, the character will need to practice the Lore off-screen for a while before they can securely evoke it on command.

If an evocation requires more successes to produce the desired effect than the player is confident they can achieve in a single roll, they can try for an extended roll.

The first roll takes as long as it would take to perform the base evocation (typically one round), and every further roll adds time equal to twice the length of the previous roll. So if the first roll takes one round the second one will take two rounds, the third one four, and so on.

A failure simply means that no successes are gathered in this period, but on a botch the evocation fails, all accumulated successes are lost and the demon looses one point of temporary Faith.

This rule does not apply to evocations that already ask for extended rolls (e.g. Lore of Paths 2), in those cases the time requirements stated in the lore descriptions take precedence. It also does not apply to resisted evocation rolls (e.g. Lore of Radiance 1)

Since this evocation as presented in the book is underpowered, confusingly written, and has a completely inappropriate name, it gets replaced by the following evocation:

Lore of Radiance has extremely powerful mind-manipulating abilities, but often balanced by the fact that the book explicitly says 'mortals.' Obviously, in a game like this, 'mortals' is a fairly ambiguous term. After discussing with several STs, we have decided that the following supernatural types qualify as 'mortals': Imbued (Hunters), Mages, and Shapechangers (Garou and Fera). Vampires (because they're undead), Mummies (because they're literally immortal), Changelings (because they're immortal souls in human bodies), other demons, and Wraiths (because they're not even alive) do not count as mortals in this game.

You can:

• Use this ability to buff (or debuff, with the High Torment form) Mages, Imbued, and Shapechangers.
• Buff a Mage's Arete with this. However: Because of the possibility of this Lore turning an entry-level mage into an Archmage-tier monster with enough successes, after discussing with the Mage ST, we've added House Rules for using this with Arete. The Mage may take the extra dice and add it to her Arete roll, but the actual effects of the roll cannot exceed what their Arete score would allow. For example, if a Mage has Arete 3, and uses the Exalt dice to score 6 successes, her roll still functions as if she had had 3 successes (Willpower added to this roll is unaffected and still counts). Note that this carries a risk; you are using an Infernal power to increase your magick, which means botching an Arete roll powered by Exalt generates two Paradox instead of one per botched die.

You cannot:

• Use this Lore on Mummies, Vampires, Changelings, or Wraiths. For other Demons, that's what Lore of the Celestials 3: Pillar of Faith is for. The exception is if one of the former three supernatural types are the Demon's Thrall, in which case, they gain a maximum number of Exalt dice equal to their demonic master's Permanent Torment score.
• Stack Exalt dice with risked Conviction for Imbued. Conviction comes from angels. Exalt comes from demons (usually; technically, Namaru Angels can use it too). They… don't really get along these days. Using Conviction and Exalt are mutually exclusive for a roll. There is only one exception to this: If and only if that Imbued is the Devil's thrall, she can risk a number of Conviction with infernal powers (including Exalt) equal to her demonic master's Permenant Torment score.
• Buff an Imbued's Edges or other abilities with that Imbued's Conviction up. Because Conviction makes them completely immune to any 'monster's' mental effects (including beneficial effects), they must voluntarily lower it for one turn before Exalt or any other effect can be applied. Note that this also leaves them vulnerable to negative mind effects.

This lore has been completely rewritten. See here for the version in use in SotS.

The general rule that no roll can have its base difficulty lowered by more than three (see General Systems House Rules for details) stays in effect. So when using this evocation you cannot invest more than three successes into lowering the difficulty of using an ability with this item, and no roll can ever have a difficulty lower than three.

This evocation is unfortunately rendered mostly useless in this game, since we don’t use the standard initiative rules. To remedy this problem the evocation shall be replaced by the following one:

The evocations of this Lore all last “for a number of turns equal to the Defiler’s Faith score” according to the book, which is completely insufficient for most purposes. This means in practice that it’s inevitable to make the effects permanent in order to gain any use from them. Therefore the base duration of any evocation of this Lore is increased to “for the rest of the scene, or until the Defiler dismisses the effect.” The effects of the second, third, and fifth evocation can still be made permanent by expending a point of Willpower.

If a demon uses an evocation of this Lore to make permanent alterations to themselves or to another player character that would lead to an increase in a trait (like a higher Appearance attribute) or to them gaining a merit then the player of this character has to pay the normal XP costs for this increase. An exception are traits that have previously been lowered or merits that have been removed by supernatural means. However, the completion time for these purchases is reduced by 100 % and the normal limit of one dot per trait per month doesn’t apply.

Since there is occasionally confusion on what the different evocations of the Lore of Transfiguration do, here some clarification:

• Mimic allows you to alter your voice, speech patterns, mannerisms, and body language to resemble those of another person.
• Alter Appearance allows you to change your hair and skin color, but also the shape of your face or your facial features. You could use this evocation to make yourself look like someone else if you know what this person looks like, but unless they match the build of your character closely you likely need to apply Alter Shape as well.
• Alter Shape allows you to alter the physical dimensions of a body. You can make someone taller or smaller, more corpulent or thinner, or you can change the proportions of their body parts.
• Doppelganger combines Mimic, Alter Appearance, and Alter Shape with a touch of telepathy in order to allow you to take the appearance of a person your target expects to see. The evocation takes the relevant information directly from the target’s mind, the demon doesn’t have to know who the target would expect, or even know beforehand what said person looks like. However, demons need to use their own wits to avoid blowing their cover by doing or saying something that would be out of character for the person they are impersonating.
• Shapechange finally pulls out all the stops. Previous evocations can only affect changes that are roughly within the limits of what humans can look like. But Shapechange surpasses these limitations and allows the demon to sculpt their target into an inhumanly beautiful work of art or a grotesque monster, or anything in between.

• Increasing to someone's attributes made with this lore persist for one week, unless the player of the modified character pays for them with XP. The purchase request has to be posed before the effect elapses.
• An exception to this rule are attributes that were previously lowered by the Lore of Flesh, or another form of flesh crafting (like a vampire using Vicissitude). Such “repairs” are free.
• The rules above don't apply to NPCs that aren't advanced via XP.
• While the attributes have to be payed in full, the use of this evocation grants a 100 % reduction in completion time (the change is already done).
• The evocation can increase an attribute by several dots at once, circumventing the normal limit of one dot per trait per month.
• Please note that this evocation can explicitly only change physical and mental attributes. Never social ones, those are governed by the Lore of Transfiguration.

• This evocation can grant or remove dots in physical and mental attributes, as well as physical merits and flaws. Other merits and flaws might be possible as well with the Demon ST's permission.
• Merits and attributes gained with this evocation, as well as flaws removed, have to be payed normally with XP (see the rules for the Manipulate Flesh evocation above). Again, undoing damage done by earlier applications of flesh crafting is free.
• It is possible for this evocation to grant attributes beyond the normal human limits (usually 5), but doing so will leave the subjects with a visibly inhuman appearance, as the demon literally has to go beyond the limits of the human form to achieve the desired result. Such extensive reshaping should be discussed with the Demon ST beforehand, who will make a case-by-case ruling on the details, in conjunction with the splat ST of the subject (if applicable).
• Changes made to vampires with this evocation don't revert during daysleep, unless they conflict with the vampire's clan bane.
• Changes made to the reborn might be reversed by their gods during their next death cycle. The Mummy ST has the final word on the matter.

Without an Asharu to breathe fresh life into the corpse, this evocation can only ever grant a form of half-life. Since the evocation requires the body to be quite fresh, those who are returned in this manner can pass for one of the living at a glance, but they don't have a pulse, their wounds don't bleed, and they don't feel pleasure or pain. The returned don't need to breathe, or sleep, eat or drink. In fact, eating and drinking causes them discomfort and they vomit up anything they imbibe almost immediately.

Should Lore of Awakening 5: Restore Life at any point be used on someone in this state, they will be restored to true life.

You can:

• Travel the Soul Storm/Avatar Storm/Maelstrom/whatever else you want to call it safely, but you MUST possess and use this ability first. Otherwise, the mechanics from Mummy: the Resurrection apply for the Soul Storm. Also, note that 'safety' in the Soul Storm is relative. No, you won't be constantly taking damage, but that doesn't mean Spectres and the like will be happy to see you, either.