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)

Lore of Flame 4: Holocaust

For the purpose of this game, the name of this evocation shall be “Incinerate.” The original name is in extremely bad taste and meshes poorly with our 'No Politics' rule.

Also known as 'Vicissitude for Demons,' the fact that the book explicitly allows messing with attributes - permanently - could render spending XP on Physical and Mental attributes utterly pointless. Obviously, this needs to be addressed, otherwise a Rabisu in this game will break it.

Lore of the Flesh 3: Manipulate Flesh:

You can:

• Increase (or decrease…) any attribute allowed by the evocation of any character temporarily, and without a Pact. These attribute changes are reverted at the end of the scene. In-game, the changes last for roughly two hours.

You cannot:

• Increase social attributes. No, not even Appearance; that's Lore of Transfiguration.
• Use this evocation on a Wraith. Their bodies are not corporeal. No, Lore of the Realms won't help you. Orpheus operatives are fair game, though. Risen… I'll need to talk with the Wraith ST. Watch this space.
• Increase any attribute above 5. That's Flesh 5.

Lore of the Flesh 5: Shape Flesh:

Balance:

• Increase Attributes permanently at a cost of spending 1 Willpower Point point dot added or removed.
• Increase Attributes above 5, but at a cost: Raising any attribute above 5 marks this person as obviously supernatural. Raising Strength above 5 turns this person into the Hulk, with more muscle mass than should be biologically possible. Raising Dexterity above 5 turns this person into a circus freak with double-jointed limbs, able to contort themselves in ways Harry Houdini only wishes he could have. Raising Stamina above 5 turns this person's skin into ultra-dense flesh that is as hard as a rock; they can't even be injected with anything anymore, and it feels like polished marble rather than skin. Raising mental attributes above 5 will require reshaping the skull into an unnatural shape to accomodate the extra gray matter. The balance here is that this person becomes a walking Veil/Masquerade violation, not unlike the Nosferatu or certain Tzimisce. Note that this ability CAN change Appearance… by lowering it. For each attribute raised above 5, subtract one point from Appearance, because this person is now a freak of nature. Note that this Appearance loss CAN be fixed with other abilities, but there's always going to be something 'off' about them that nevertheless marks them as obviously supernatural. Particularly drastic changes may result in Flaws. You have been warned!

You can:

• Permanently increase the Attributes of other characters only with a Pact. Doing so automatically gives the other character the Devil's Mark flaw (1 point, Mage 20: Book of Secrets, page 83). This is to discourage characters who have Lore of the Flesh 5 from being an 'Attribute dot dispenser,' something that has happened in the past.

You cannot:

• Make any change to a Mummy that persists after a Death Cycle. This applies mainly to Corruption or Direction Mummies, as Amenti and Wu'Tian cannot form Pacts.
• Increase any Social Attributes. Again, no, not even Appearance. That's Lore of Transfiguration.

Also known as 'Presence on Steroids,' 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.

Lore of Radiance 2: Exalt

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.

Lore of the Forge 1: Enhance Object

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.

Also known as 'How Demons go to the Umbra/Shadowlands,' Lore of the Realms can make you intangible, tear holes in the Gauntlet, or enable instant travel that is basically teleportation by any other name or means.

Lore of the Realms 2: Step Beyond the Veil

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.