Blessing (mage V20)
Blessing
Someone out there has left its mark on you. That mark is usually beneficial, but it comes with uncanny side effects. Maybe you always find a few extra bucks when you need them but get stuck with the check when you grab some drinks with the girls. Perhaps you’re lucky in lust but can’t find a lasting partnership. This Background gives you a minor perk at the cost of a related quirk.
In game terms, Blessings gives you a single, minor, story- based benefit. This benefit seems to come from an element in your character history, one that’s tied into the beliefs that focus your magick. An Akashic, for example, could consider herself blessed by the wind-god Fei Lian because she’s always cooled by a faint breeze; a Sister of Hippolyta never gets lost (a blessing of Athena), whereas a one-eyed Syndicate boss with an unsettling sense of physical and energetic androgyny also seems to know little things no one should know about. (No one actually calls the boss Odin, but that picture of two ravens on the boss’s wall hints at a certain familiarity...)
At the same time, this benefit seems a little... weird. Why’s there a breeze blowing inside this locked apartment? How’d you know your way through this maze? Is that boss “him”... or “her”... or... um, I think I’ll just call them “Boss.” This sense of oddness could be considered a constant bit of Resonance, a wink from your patron god, a quirk of localized reality-streams, or whatever else seems appropriate. The obvious explanation is that it’s a sign of the figure who blessed you, but that sort of thing doesn’t happen in the real world, does it?
Like the Dream, Legend, Past Life, and Totem Backgrounds below, Blessings ties your mage into forces greater than himself. Although those forces, in your mage’s mind, appear to stem from his deeply-held beliefs (and thus might be a latent form of uncontrolled magick), they remain ultimately mysterious. Odin won’t be showing up at that boss’s door saying, “Hey, guess who made you androgynous,” though certain story-based quirks might make the answer obvious to someone familiar with Norse mythology. (The raven picture, the one eye, the way crows always fly past when the boss goes for a walk, that sort of thing.) The character might not admit that he or she believes in the Blessing (“Old Viking gods? Ridiculous!”), but there’s a lingering connection that runs deeper than anyone suspects. (The boss still recalls that Norse mythology book from third grade rather fondly...)
In game terms, choose one non-combat, story-based ability that blesses your character with an unusual talent. The higher the rating, the more useful that talent becomes. Contrary to the original Blessings entry in Guide to the Traditions, this talent is NOT chosen from among Sphere Effects, Merits, or Flaws; instead, it’s a minor twist of fate that influences the character’s life in story terms – see the examples below. (That Blessings Background – an open-ended set of superpowers with conflicting causes, effects and systems – has been revised for this edition.)
Your Blessings talent must follow certain guidelines:
• It’s based in the character’s beliefs about the world – in short, his magickal paradigm.
• It’s tied into your mage’s personal history, probably somewhere in her childhood.
• It’s connected to a potent supernatural/ mythic/ paranormal figure of some kind – a god, a hero, an archetype, a Fae queen – whose favor fits your character concept.
• It does not influence combat, except perhaps in a roundabout way (your knives remain sharp, you always have one bullet left in the chamber, your punches have movie-like sound effects, and so forth).
• It does not influence magick casting rolls either. Although a Blessing may influence the character’s choice of Spheres and should be tied into his focus, it will not alter the difficulty for Arete rolls when casting spells.
• It’s not an obvious display of inhuman or impossible phenomena (no flight, iron skin, fiery hands, and so forth) and might have a rational, scientific explanation.
• It has a corresponding weird quirk, also story-based, with effects that follow or mirror the Blessing (the odd breeze, one eye and an affinity for ravens, a tendency to always scramble directions even though you never get lost, etc.).
• If the character breaks faith with her apparent patron – say, by a grave insult or religious conversion – then the Blessing disappears. (Gods hate ingratitude...)
These Blessings share a clear connection to the figure who apparently favors your character: a dude blessed by Pan always goes home with the best-looking woman (or man) in the club, even though he’s kinda hairy and has a powerful smell; the woman blessed by Allah has a knack for improvised poetry, yet never writes any of it down; that chick blessed by the Lady of the Lake always carries sharp knives... and she really enjoys swimming; that guy nicknamed “Lucifer”? Well, he’s not actually a devil or anything, but he seems to be able to talk folks into anything... and doesn’t his skin seem a little... red...?
Blessings are not infallible. In high-stakes situations, the blessed character may still need to roll for success. If, for instance, the Lucifer guy wants to talk an important character into some truly crazy scheme, his player has to roll for it. In such rolls, the Storyteller deducts one level of difficulty per dot in this Background from the usual difficulty of the task. Our Lucifer guy, for instance, has Blessings 4, and so subtracts -4 from the difficulty of his roll. Again, a Blessing does not affect combat actions or magick-casting rolls, so it does not alter such rolls.
As suggested earlier, this Background fits well with Destiny, Legend, Past Life, and most especially Totem. The Storyteller has the final say about the Blessing’s effects and manifestations and may veto a Blessing that doesn’t fit her chronicle, seems too powerful, or tilts the game too far in that character’s favor.
- X -- No figure favors you.
- • -- Life gives you small favors: your clothes always look clean and pressed, your kitchen never gets filthy, you find dollar bills on the ground, etc.
- •• -- Little things go your way: You always find a parking space, win small amounts whenever you play the lottery, score someone’s phone number whenever you ask for it, etc.
- ••• -- You possess a strange affinity for certain things: your cooking always tastes good, you never get lost or lose your keys, babies fall asleep as soon as you start rocking them, etc.
- •••• -- Your knack gets downright uncanny: kids shut up as soon as you tell them to, your suggestions always sound reasonable, you score with whomever appeals to you, etc.
- ••••• -- A major blessing follows you: your wallet and bank account always have one dollar left, your gun has one final bullet, you know secrets no one should be able to know about, etc.
