Piercing the Distance

Piercing the Distance

The character learns to use his connection to the Shadow Realm to short-circuit distance, first with his perceptions and then with her movement. Using any of these three Siddhi requires an extended roll where the target number is five times the number of dots of the Siddhi being used. This power is also limited by how familiar the character is with the target. Seeing or even walking to a well-known location is relatively easy, while spying on a room the character has only seen once is far more difficult. All three of these Siddhi use the mystical connection table (below) to determine the difficulty of observing or otherwise interacting with a distant person or location. The player should also apply the dice modifiers for Gauntlet Strength (below) based upon the strength of the Gauntlet at the target location. For example, all attempts to observe or travel to a location with a Gauntlet Strength of 4 suffer a –2 dice modifier. This modifier applies to attempting to observe or visit locations on either side of the Gauntlet.
In all cases, the character must concentrate to use this power. Any time the character experiences a significant distraction or attempts to perform any activity that is at all demanding while using this power demands another roll, with the appropriate modifiers for distraction. Failing this roll instantly ends the use of this power, and experiencing a dramatic failure on this roll results in some sort of serious problem like temporary blindness that lasts for a scene.

MYSTICAL CONNECTION TABLE
Dice Penalty	Magical Connection Between Caster and Target
- 0	Intimate: The purified has a piece of the target's physical substance, such as hair, nail clippings or blood from a person or animal, a leaf or flower from a plant, or a sliver of material from an object or building. Alternately, the character knows the target intimately. Examples include close friends, beloved pets, prized possessions, or locations like the character's home or a building the character has visited many times.
- 3	Known: The character has a personal possession belonging to the target. Alternately, the character can see the location on live video or hear the target over live audio or the character spent time with the target or visited the location more than once, for at least a few minutes each time.
- 5	Acquainted: The character has a photo or a detailed painting of the target or an object that the target once touched or that once resided in the target location. Alternately, the character once met or visited the target.

GAUNTLET STRENGTH TABLE
Location	Strength	Dice Modifier
Dense urban areas	5	- 3
City suburbs and towns	4	- 2
Small towns, villages, other built up areas in the countryside	3	- 1
Wilderness	2	0
Loci	1	+ 1
Verge	The Gauntlet is nonexistent; any being, including mortals can pass in and out of the Shadow Realm freely, and sometimes inadvertently.

[ 1 ] Distant Vision

Cost: 1 Essence
Dice Pool: Wits + Investigation + Chi
Action: Extended (target number 5)
The character can see and hear events happening around the target of this power as if she were physically present in this location. To use this power, the character must remain stationary and focus on the desired target. Many purified use objects like crystal balls or mirrors to help focus their concentration. Such tools are not necessary, but can provide up to a +2 bonus on the roll. While concentrating, the character may make rolls every minute. Once the character succeeds in this extended roll, he can see and hear the target. However, he must maintain his concentration to continue to use this power. The character can write or speak normally and can respond to questions, but cannot examine the world around him or take any physical action that is not both simple and very slow. This power can also be used in any realm. If the purified is in the mortal world, he can use it to look at a familiar location in the mortal world or a spirit in the Shadow Realm, just as one of the purified projecting in the Shadow Realm can use it to see a person or place in the mortal world.

[ 2 ] Ethereal Presence

Cost: 1 Essence
Dice Pool: Charisma + Expression + Chi
Action: Extended (target number 10)
Using this ability is almost identical to using distant vision, except that in addition to being able to simply observe and hear the target location, the character can also create an illusory image of himself at this location. This image looks and sounds identical to the character and moves just like the character does. However, it is nothing more than a completely intangible image. Also, while it seems to move like the character, its feet don't actually touch the floor and it often floats a few inches in the air. To use this Siddhi, the character must go into a deep trance and make a roll every 10 minutes. While in this trace, he cannot sense his present surroundings, but can see, hear, and even smell the location his image is in, exactly like he was there in person. The character can also speak normally and can talk to people and spirits in the location just as if he were physically present. However, the character appears in the target location as an intangible image that cannot touch anything. Also, nothing in this location, including spirits, ghosts or magicians, can affect this image in any fashion. The character can move the image at her normal Speed and in doing so can move through walls and other barriers as if they did not exist. As a result, the character can explore regions that he has never seen before by moving through a wall an examining them. However, whenever the character enters a region he was previously unfamiliar with, he must make another roll, with no modifications for lack of familiarity. Failing this roll instantly ends the current use of this Siddhi. Once the character has projected his image successfully, he can make another roll to alter the appearance of this image. He can do anything from change how his image is dressed to attempting to look like someone else. Making this change requires another Presence + Expression + Chi roll. Attempting to disguise the appearance of his image as someone else also requires a Wits + Subterfuge roll to determine how accurately the character can alter his image. A failure on the first roll means that the character cannot alter the appearance of his image and must wait 10 minutes before attempting to change his appearance again, a failure on the second roll means the disguise is less accurate than desired. As with the Siddhi distant vision, purified can also use this Siddhi to project her image into realms other than the one she is currently in.

[ 3 ] Walking The Hidden Shortcut

Cost: 3 Essence (+3 additional Essence and +2 Willpower if also moving a vehicle)
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Athletics + Chi
Action: Extended (target number 15)
The character has now learned to walk from one location to another by stepping halfway into the Shadow Realm. This type of travel carries the character through the boundary between the mortal world and the Shadow Realm and greatly reduces distances. However, it is not particularly exact. To use this ability, the character may make one roll every hour. For the first hour minutes, the character must walk around the mortal world. He seems to be wandering aimlessly, but he is actually seeking an entrance into the strange border-realm through which he travels. For all subsequent rolls, the character is in this nebulous in-between realm, where he cannot be seen or affected by residents of either the mortal world or any supernatural realm. The character can take others along on his journey, but they must all maintain physical contact with him. Each additional person the character brings along costs another point of Essence. If desired, the character can even take an entire vehicle along with him. To do this, the character must spend an additional three points of Essence and two points of Willpower. Also, the size of the vehicle cannot exceed 18, all passengers must ride inside the vehicle and the character must be the person driving or piloting the vehicle. The character cannot simply be a passenger. When moving a vehicle in this fashion, the character can take as many other passengers with him as will fit in the inside of the vehicle. Purified can use this power to move to any location, but the time needed to use it means that for traveling short distances it is often faster to use conventional means of travel. Also, purified can only travel to locations where they can pass through an opening like an open or unlocked doorway, a tunnel, a natural archway or some similar natural or artificial structure. As a result, the character cannot use this power to travel to a barren desert, the interior of a locked vault or any other location lacking any opening that is not locked or otherwise impassible. Making at least one successful roll, but failing to achieve the required number of successes on the extended roll needed to use this Siddhi means the character re-enters the mortal world at some reasonably safe, but occasionally awkward location between where he left it from and his destination. The same happens to anyone who the character is bringing along on the journey who either breaks physical contact with the character or leaves the vehicle the character is driving. If the character makes a dramatic failure on the roll needed to use this Siddhi, he finds himself, and anyone accompanying him, in an exceptionally awkward and utterly random location. The character could appear in the Shadow Realm, in front of the lair of a feared enemy, in the middle of a large lake, inside a maximum security prison, or in some equally problematic location.