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 Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 7:18 pm
Shadow ArchetypesThornsEvery wraith has his own worst enemy living in the back of his head. Though the wraith’s original personality, the Psyche, is the face that a wraith presents to the world, his Shadow is always there, seeking to twist and defile all that it can. The whisperer in the dark, the bringer of temptation and scorn, a wraith’s Shadow is all of the malice and selfishness in his soul given a voice that can never be stilled. Just as the Psyche strives to follow its Passions, the Shadow has Dark Passions to fulfill. A wraith’s existence is fueled by the pure emotional energy of Pathos, but his Shadow feeds on its opposite, Angst. While Shadows aren’t exactly evil, they are relentlessly negative and destructive. A combination of the classic Freudian id and the bully from the elementary school playground, the Shadow is possibly the worst thing about being a wraith. After all, external voices can be drowned out somehow. No one can quiet the tempter within. The Shadow’s FaceA wraith’s Shadow is an implacable, inescapable foe, common to all of the Restless but uniquely personal. Selfish in its desires, the Shadow is all of the malice, hate, greed and darkness that is part of all of us, but refined, distilled and allowed to stand on its own. It wants what it wants, selfishly and it chooses to act without concern for the fact that its actions will inevitably drag both Psyche and Shadow down to the Void. Indeed, most Shadows would rather face annihilation than pay the piper for what they’ve done. In the meantime, however, there are other goals to achieve: perverting and corrupting the Psyche; taking over from the Psyche when circumstances permits; feeding other wraiths to Oblivion; spreading negative emotion; and thwarting the Psyche’s goals whenever possible. A Shadow has reserves of strength that can offer to the Psyche in times of need, but this help often comes with a terrible price, and the wraith who starts to count on his Shadow’s assistance may find that aid revoked at the worst possible time. A Shadow is a personality distinct from the Psyche, and many go so far as to give themselves a name. It is a personality without conscience or restraint, though it can fake both of these should the need arise. There is also a definite sadistic streak in most Shadows, and some will forgo a quick and easy victory in order to prolong the Psyche’s agony.
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Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 7:25 pm
A Shadow’s Archetype serves as a method of interpreting how that Shadow will assault its Psyche. A Shadow with the Leech Archetype will whine and cajole in order to get its way, while a Monster Shadow will be obscene and direct.
• The Abuser - Hurt terribly once, this impatient and jealous Shadow exists to inflict his pain on others. He scrutinizes the failures of everyone around him, heaping scorn upon them whenever he can. This is done partially in order to bolster his own self-image, but primarily to make everyone else hurt just as much as he does. The Abuser will often goad you to attempt the impossible, just to watch you fail so that he can dine upon the self-loathing failure engenders. Chaotic and crazed, the Abuser will lash out at any target other than his favorite one: himself.
When dominate, the Abuser will spew his vitriol in all directions. Any excuse will set him off, and if no excuse is provided, he will create one. Demands for obedience, absurd requests and systematic verbal or physical abuse are this Shadow’s hallmarks. After all, why should the rest of the world hurt less than he does?
• The Director - Quiet and organized, the Director will take you apart with clockwork precision. Icy in her hatred, she will strip your defenses away layer by layer, taking pleasure in the surgical nature of the torment she inflicts. There’s nothing personal in what the Director does; she’s just setting the record straight by removing any delusions you might have about goodness, sanity or any other worthwhile qualities you thought you had.
The Director’s usual modus operandi is to rifle through the back drawers of your mind, cataloging every weakness, every painful memory and every personality flaw, no matter how minor. This ammunition isn’t randomly flung about, either, but is hoarded for special occasions. When you grasp on reality starts to falter, the Director knows just how much pressure to apply in order to push you over.
When in control, the Director likes to lay long-range plans for the next time she is dominant, and to prepare nasty little revelations for you to discover at carefully timed intervals. She also enjoys picking apart your companions, making cutting observations that will poison any friendships you had made on the other side. The fact that the Director is usually quite accurate doesn’t help matters, either.
• The Freak - Everything that you ever were ashamed of wantig to do is what the Freak lives for. Gleefully perverse, the Freak is an expression of pure self-hatred. It revels in taking each of your imperfections and holding it up to the light, so that it can be ridiculed by the rest of the world. Anything you’re ashamed of doing, the Freak will encourage you to do, and the more you resist the more insistent he’ll become. Once you give in, though, he’ll turn around and point out how perverted you are, how sick your wants are, and how no one else would sink as low as you. This won’t keep him, however, from reminding you how good all of those perversions felt, and how enjoyable it would be to taste their pleasures again…. Shame and abandon are the Freak’s favorite weapons, and he uses them as often as he can.
A Freak in control is a frightening thing. He’ll take your darkest desires and play them out for the rest of the world, leaving you to explain your actions when his control fades. Of course, excavating others’ dirty little secrets is almost as much fun, as far as the Freak is concerned.
• The Leech - Wearing on the will and nerves like sandpaper, the Leech gets its way through whining and cajoling, begging and throwing tantrums. It’s a black hole for attention and affection, and no matter how often you give in to its demands, it’s never enough. No matter how much you give the Leech, it will want more, and won’t relent until its wants are satisfied for the moment. Of course, the price of givin in again- and again, and again, and again- is to go deeper and deeper in debt, sliding slowly into Oblivion. Childish and selfish, the Leech can never be satisfied, and every time you give it what it wants, it’s that much harder to say no the next time.
When the Leech takes control, it attempts to work its wiles on others in order to extract whatever sustenance they offer. If permitted, it will drain everyone around it dry, then discard the husks and set out to look for new victims. As far as the Leech is concerned, everything others have and more is just its rightful due. It’s owed the world on a silver platter and more besides, and woe betide any who try to tell a Leech otherwise.
• The Martyr - noble self-sacrifice has its place, but what the Martyr offers is a shallow mocker instead. By constantly demanding that you give of yourself because you can take the pain better than anyone else, the Martyr cheapens your faith and indulges your arrogance. Claiming your sacrifice will bring about a greater good, the Martyr will then take pleasure in demonstrating that your pain didn’t do anything at all, and that all of your suffering was pointless. Still, that won’t keep it from urging you to give up yourself for others every chance it gets. After all, it’s just looking for a good excuse to take the easy way out.
When the Martyr takes control, it will attempt to maneuver you into situations where, no matter what, in order to escape you’ll have to give up something important. The Martyr also tries to arrange for witnesses whenever possible, so that its very public sacrifices can be used to shame others into similarly self-destructive acts.
• The Monster - Brutally direct, the Monster is all about pain and greed. Whatever it wants, it will command you to take. Whatever it hates, it will demand that you destroy. If you refuse, it will try to destroy you as well, for it cannot stand to be balked in any way. There’s no compromise or subtlety in the Monster, and often it’s the most dignified and delicate wraiths who have a Monster lurking behind their eyes.
To see the Monster dominant is to see a foreshadowing of Spectrehood. It will lay waste to anything in its path, taking what it wants and destroying everything else out of sheer spite. Gutteral and vulgar, the Monster rarely has anything to say that isn’t an obscenity. Why bother being polite to anyone else when they’re nothing more than obstacles to your pleasure?
• The Parent - No one else can love you as much, or as well, as the Parent. No one else can take care of you aw well, or make you as happy. The Parent even accepts all of your little imperfections, which she’ll harp on endlessly in order to prove to you that she loves you despite your nearly infinite flays. She’ll protect you from people who don’t have your best interests at heart, and only she can decide who those are (usually, it’s everyone else you know). You’re her darkling baby, so naturally she’ll help you with those hard decisions, and even make them fro you. Mother knows best, even if you break her heart by never listening to her and running around with those Renegade hooligans….
When in command, the Parent will seek to insulate you from any corrupting or dangerous influences (i.e., anyone and anything else). To accomplish this, it will do and say anything to alienate those who care about you, using the fat that they could be driven off as proof that they weren’t really your friends anyways. It just goes to show that she’s right, and that no one else can love you the way she does.
• The Perfectionist - Nothing you do will ever be good enough for the Perfectionist. Perform seven impossible things before breakfast, and he’ll be screaming at you for not having pulled off eight. Any imperfection can serve as a launching point for a tirade; any flaw will be a magnet for withering sarcasm. By playing up your inevitable errors, the Perfectionist inspires your self-hatred and saps your confidence in your own abilities. Then, once your confidence is shot, he’ll be more than happy to step in and show you haw to do things right. If you had any sense at all, you’d turn things over to him permanently and make sure that everything got done properly the first time. It’s not like you’re capable of it, after all.
When in control, the Perfectionist will take every example to criticize whatever or whoever catches his eye. He’ll also take the opportunity to embroil you in impossible scenarios, anxiously awaiting your inevitable failure. Still, at least he doesn’t play favorites. When everyone around him is equally flawed, one target’s as good as the next.
• The Pusher - The Pusher will always be glad to help you achieve the impossible. He wants you to think of him as a friend, a friend you can always ask for help. Of course, the price for the Pushers help is always too high, and if you don’t pay, he’ll extract it with interest. Every so often when you’re counting on him, he’ll decide that you need to appreciate him more, and he’ll withhold that support you were counting on so desperately.
When the Pusher is in charge, he’ll do everything he can to put you into situations you’ll need his help to escape. The quicker he can make you rack up a debt to him, the happier he is. Then again, an unhappy Pusher can be unpleasant indeed….
• The Rationalist - The Rationalist will give you all of the right reasons for all of the wrong decisions. Calmly leading you down the path to Oblivion, it offers rationales and explanations for why you should do what it says. It offers proofs for the wisdom of everything it tells you, making all of its suggestions seem so sensible. The more you argue, the tighter its bonds of logic become, and the more foolish you feel for resisting. In many ways the Rationalist is similar to the Director, but without the Director’s personal involvement. As far as the Rationalist is concerned, sending the Psyche to Oblivion is an intellectual exercise, albeit a challenging one.
When dominant, the Rationalist takes precise, well-organized steps toward the Void. It will sabotage your long-range plans and set in motion ones that superficially look better; it will systematically make you enemies and alienate or eliminate your friends. There’s no sense in taking one’s time giving in to Oblivion, is there, when it’s assured of winning in the end? The Rationalist is just making the surrender more efficient.
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Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 7:29 pm
Thorns are certain, unique powers the Shadow has at its disposal. These range from minor tricks to potent abilities that can threaten a wraith's very existence, and their use is entirely up to the Shadowguide. The Shadow can also use Thorns (when applicable) during Catharsis.
Spectre Prestige: (1 point/level)
Many Spectres have the ability to communicate with wraiths' Shadows. Shadows with this Thorn have garnered the respect of the Shadow-Eaten, and will be treated accordingly.
Dark Allies: (1 point/level)
A Shadow with Dark Allies regularly communicates and plots with Spectres, and can call on them for aid.
Tainted Relic: (1 point/level)
The Shadow has an important relic that manifests only when it is in power. This relic could be a mask, a weapon or some other item. The character should be able to recognze its origin if it is described to him or if he sees it in a mirror; the relic usually had some some significance to the character in life, whether she admits it or not. The manifestation of this relic demonstrates to others in the wraith's Circle that the Shadow is in control.
Infamy: (1 point/level)
Memoriam for the Shadow, Infamy is the measure of how much feat and loathing the wraith still inspires in the living. Just as Pathos can accumulate for the Psyche, Angst can collect for the Shadow.
Every time a wraith with Infamy falls into Slumber, the Shadowguide rolls one point for each point of the Thorn possessed. The difficulty on this roll is 6, and each success gives the Shadow a point of Temporary Angst. Botches remove temporary Angst, and just might cause the living to think more kindly of the wraith. . . .
No more than five points of Infamy can be taken, and an Infamous wraith had best be prepared to deal with the consequences of the hatred of the living.
Death's Sigil: (1 to 3 points)
Death's Sigil is a prominent sign of Oblivion's touch on a character that manifests no matter where she goes. Each Sigil is unique; one wraith might have wings of choking smoke, another might leave footprints of seawater in the Skinlands, and a third could exude the odor of a charnel house. This Thorn naturally makes a wraith very distinctive, with all of the advantages and disadvantages this offers. Only by spending a Willpower point can a wraith turn off the effects of this Thorn for a scene.
The more points put into the Thorn, the more pronounced the effect is. A one-point Sigil might not be that noticable, while the three-point version could go so far as to alter the effects of the wraith's Arcanoi.
Shadow Traits: (2 points)
The Shadow can purchase one dot of any Attribute or Ability that the Shadow can bestow as a bonus to the Dice Pool for that Trait. The Attribute or Ability must be specified when the Thorn is bought during the creation of the Shadow. The character may access the Shadow Trait at will, but the Shadow gains one temporary Angst each time the character accepts help and makes a roll using the Shadow Trait.
Aura of Corruption: (2 points)
Through this Thorn's effects, the Shadow somehow defiles the wraith's presentation of herself, making her presence unpleasant to other wraiths. The effect of Aura of Corruption is generally not grotesque; instead it is subtly disturbing. Indeed, it may have no overt impact, merely serving to make other uncomfortable.
If a wraith has Aura of Corruption, all difficulties on social interaction rolls are raised by +2. This Thorn can be purchased only once.
Shadow Call: (2 points)
Shadow Call allows a wraith's Shadow to summon nearby Spectres. This Thorn can only be used when a wraith is in the Tempest or standing at the mouth of a Nihil, otherwise it has no effect. The Shadow Call is audible on the edge of a wraith's consciousness as a thin, piercing shriek; in time most wraiths will come to recognize its significance.
To make a Shadow Call, the Shadowguide spends a temporary Angst point and rolls against his permanent Angst score (difficulty 7). The number of successes indicates the number of Spectres summoned, however, the type of Spectre that answers the Shadow Call is entirely up to the Storyteller.
Pact of Doom: (3 points)
The Shadow can make a pact with its host, granting increased knowledge of Arcanos in exchange for greater control. Each pact spells out the host's duties and exactly how much Arcanos knowledge is granted. A pact cannot be forced on a character - she must accpet it knowingly . When a pact is made, the Shadow gains a number of permanent Angst points equal to the level or levels of Arcanos it teaches. A Shadow doesn't have to know the Arcanos to teach it: it may simply access that information from the body of arcane knowledge all creatures of Oblivion can access. This Thorn can be purchased only once.
Tainted Touch: (3 points)
Whenever the character touches something or someone, there is a chance the thing or person will become tainted with Oblivion. Roll three dice (difficulty 6). The number of successes equals the number of Angst points or Health Levels that the Shadow inflicts on the target. The character can fight this Thorn by spending a Willpower point and making a Willpower roll (difficulty 6); the number of successes on the roll must equal or exceed the Taint roll. This Thorn mat be purchased only once.
Trick of the Light: (3 points)
The Shadow can subtly alter the perceptions of a character to fit its needs. This is a very, very subtle power of the Shadow, but is extremely potent when used correctly. The Shadow spends one Angst point per scene to maintain the perception-shift. Note that this tool only covers one sense per use: multiple senses require multiple expenditures of Angst. The Shadowguide, not the Storyteller, describes what the character senses.
Bad Luck: (3 points)
The Shadow can spend Angst points to reduce the number of successes gained by its host character, just as the player can spend Willpower to increase the number of successes.
Doppleganger: (3 points)
The Shadow can appear as one completely different person. The person can be known or unknown. This makes it difficult for the character's friends to recognize him if his Shadow takes over.
Shadow Familiar: (5 points)
The Shadow has a smaller spirit of Oblivion that acts as its familiar spirit. This familiar can be the Shadow's eyes, ears and voice. It is usually relatively harmless, for it is not menat to be anything more than a spy. The familiar is small, but may be any shape desired by the Shadow.
Freudian Slip: (5 points)
By spending an Angst point, the Shadow may cause the character to take an involuntary, sudden, action, or may insert a single, unbidden thought into the character's head. This can be resisted by the character spending a Willpower point and making a Willpower roll (difficulty 7). One success is needed to resist.
Shadow Life: (5 points)
The Shadow lives a parallel life. Whenever the character Slumbers, the Shadow takes over and acts without her knowledge. This can lead to some vey interesting problems as the character meets people whom the Shadow has wronged or attacked in some way. The character may not even know about this property of his Shadow. For two more points of Thorn, the character suffers a mental block about the fact. This Thorn may be purchased only once.
Devil's Dare: (7 points)
By investing a number of Angst points into a single command and writing that command on a note to be passed to a player, the Shadowguide can stipulate some action that the Psyche must take. The Devil's Dare must be very specifically defined, and must be something that the character can actually do. The angst points are immediately spent. Each point of Angst so spent represents the severity of the action: if the action is very severe, the player may petition the Storyteller to have it lowered. If, by the end of the session, the dare isn't somehow worked into the character's actions, then the character loses the number of Willpower points equal to the Angst invested in the dare.
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