can clear the last (rightmost) box in another character’s Health track in a fraction of the time usually required. Bashing damage takes a single turn, while lethal damage takes an hour. More incredibly, the character can clear a character’s last box of aggravated damage, provided she reaches the injured party within a number of turns equal to her Medicine rating. The character cannot heal boxes farther left on the Health track with this Trick; Lifesaver is strictly an immediate response to a potentially crippling or fatal problem. In addition, the injured person’s body must be intact. A character who has been decapitated might technically have a track full of aggravated damage, but clearing that last box isn’t going to reattach the head. Likewise, while this Trick can be used to prevent death by disease or poison, it is not a cure — all it will do is buy time.
Plot Hook: This guy is dead. He’s been dead for hours.
His body is cold, and the gunshot wound in his chest isn’t bleeding. So why are all the bystanders saying he was just shot seconds before you arrived on the scene?
• Medical Advantage (Combat): If the character
has access to a target’s medical history, even in part, he can use that information to his advantage in a fight. Knowing a target suffered a knee injury means that the character can aim a kick at that knee for maximum effect, for instance. The player adds the character’s Medicine rating to attacks against the target. Plot Hook: The target’s medical history leads you to believe this guy is in his 60s. He looks even older than that. So why is he fighting with the energy of a 30-year-old prize fighter?
• Medical Bureaucrat (Story Advancement): The
character might not actually be a doctor, but he has a deep understanding of the business side of the medical profes- sion. He knows where the cracks are, who the local drug reps are (and what they drink), which hospitals have lax security, and which doctors’ secretaries hate their arrogant employers. The character can obtain medical goods — equipment, drugs, even ID badges — in a number of days equal to the Resource cost of the item — the character’s Medicine rating. Use common sense, here; an MRI ma- chine isn’t exactly portable, though the character could probably arrange access to such a machine after hours. Plot
Hook: You and your compatriots sneak into the hospital
after hours, wave nonchalantly to the security guards, and make your way to cold storage — where you find three people already there. Who are they? How did they get in? And why are they stealing all the blood bags?
Occult
• Harmless versus Dangerous (Story Advance- ment): Long years of exposure to the occult has given the
character the ability to recognize the difference between someone whose beliefs are strange, but harmless (ghosts exist, and cannot pass on unless their bodies are given a
proper burial) and someone whose beliefs are dangerous to those around them (ghosts exist, certain people act as beacons for them, and those people must die). After having a discussion with a character on spiritual or occult matters, the character comes away knowing the subject’s Morality rating, whether or not she has any derangements (though not what they are), and whether she poses a threat to herself or anyone else. Plot Hook: You meet a woman in the parking lot of a state park, and after talking to her, you’re terrified. You can’t tell if she’s dangerous, but you do know that she’s not human. She has no understanding of what it means to be human. And she keeps looking at that treeline, like she is waiting for someone to meet her.
• Mental Healing (Extra Talent): Some things,
people just aren’t meant to see. The character can look those things in the face, and while she might scream, her sanity remains intact. The character never risks derange- ments from witnessing supernatural occurrences, and if she is present when other people run this risk, she can help talk them down. In game terms, other players add this character’s Occult rating to any relevant dice pools to resist gaining spontaneous derangements (see p. 96 of the World
of Darkness Rulebook). Plot Hook: You’ve seen strange-
ness before, but it was never personal. This time, it touches you. It reaches into your past, and it changes things. And now you can’t decipher which of your memories are from before that horrible caress, and which are the real ones, the ones that came after — no, that’s backwards. Isn’t it?
• Myth Expert (Story Advancement or Extra Talent): No matter how strange or random the super-
natural event the character witnesses, she can relate it to some culture’s beliefs, and thus come up with a way to fight back. Whether this method actually works or not depends on whether the problem really is supernatural, but in the event that the Storyteller rules that the remedy might have an effect, the character can add her Occult rating to any necessary rolls (using abjurations, for instance — see p. 213 of the World of Darkness
Rulebook). Plot Hook: The character recognizes the
ritual markings on the walls. Written in human blood, re- sembling an inverted prayer, complete with the sacrifice of a serpent. The problem is that this ritual is designed to open a gateway into the darkest, most profane parts of Hell — and there is no known way to close it.
• Occult In-Jokes (Story Advancement): Super-
natural beings often think they are above the “mun- danes.” Vampires love making jokes using plays on the words “dead,” “alive,” and “blood.” Werewolves do the same sorts of things, but work dog references into their humor. Most people just blink and shrug, but the character has learned to pick up on this sort of banter. This makes her an effective, if not foolproof, detector of groups of supernatural beings. Plot Hook: You don’t detect a group of vampires. You find people who think
they are, or are pretending they were. And now one of them is dead, because you and your friends put a stake through his heart. What are you going to do with the body? And why is his body still warm?
• Symbolic Intent (Story Advancement): Folks who
write (or draw, or sing, or blog) about the occult frequently encode their messages, whether out of a paranoid belief that others might take exception to their revelation, or out of the certain knowledge that they would. The problem is that anything shrouded in symbolism can be misinterpreted, a fact that so-called prognosticators have taken advantage of for centuries. The character, however, is able to look past the symbolism and see the intent. The Storyteller should tell the player if his interpretation of what the character sees or reads is correct or incorrect, provided that the material is occult-related. Plot Hook: The painting itself is about hubris and the Fall from Grace, you’re sure of that. What you don’t understand is the odd symbols worked into the smoke from the fallen tower, and why your eyes just seem to slide off of them.
Politics
• Butterfly Wings (Story Advancement): The char-
acter has an intuitive understanding of cause and effect in the political world, and can exploit that for his own gain. The character does an innocuous favor for someone, which doesn’t require more than a day of attention. In a subsequent chapter, the character can reap the benefit. For every chapter that the character waits to cash in the favor, the effective Status he can wield increases by one. For example, the character, a teacher, pulls some strings and gets the senator’s son a lead role in the school play. The senator promises to attend the play on opening night (one session; if the player cashes in the favor now, it is worth Status 1). The character sells this information to someone who wishes to break into the senator’s office (two sessions; Status 2). The senator upgrades his security system (Status 3). Getting the senator to agree to take possession of a strange mahogany box without opening it is a tall order, but with Status 3, it’s appropriate — and besides, now the senator has tightened the security. Plot Hook: You horribly misjudge how things are going to progress. The senator isn’t burglarized while at his son’s play — he’s murdered.
• Follow the Money (Story Advancement): Every-
one has a price, even the supposedly incorruptible. The character can figure this price out with a few minutes of conversation. The character knows what the target would need to be bribed with — or threatened with — in order to acquiesce to some favor. In addition, if doing this favor would cause the target to risk degeneration, the character realizes that, as well. Plot Hook: You know this guy is rich and well-respected in the art world. But when you try to figure out what it would take to get him to low-ball the price of a painting at an auction, you don’t much like the
feelings you’re getting. He wants to… meet people. And he smiles all shark-like when he says that.
• Hot Buttons (Extra Talent): Wise people know
not to discuss religion or politics in polite society. The character can creatively ignore that piece of advice, pushing people’s beliefs until they snap, or agreeing with them enough to make them pliant. Add the character’s Politics rating to any Social roll, provided that the char- acter spends time talking about the political scene (local, national, personal, whatever) for a few minutes first. Plot
Hook: You keep looking for a way to push this woman’s
political buttons, but nothing seems to work. It’s not that she’s apolitical, it’s just that her views seem… alien. Almost as if she’s working on the assumption that before you know it, the current system will be obsolete.
• Friends in High Places (Time Saver): The
character might not really have gone to school with the local Congressman, but she knows his name, his family’s names, what position he played in football, and how he takes his coffee. That’s enough to convince a cop to, say, overlook what she’s doing here so late. The character can name-drop to get out of immediate trouble with the law or gain access to someplace from which she’d normally be barred. Extreme situations, obviously, counteract this Trick. You might actually be the Congressman’s best friend, but that’s not going to stop the police from arrest- ing you if you’re found over a corpse, holding a hammer.
Plot Hook: You use the mayor’s name occasionally to
grease the wheels, but you never expected it to come back on you. Now, though, the mayor’s office is on the phone, and they say you owe the city a favor.
• Master of Red Tape (Time Saver): The charac-
ter, perhaps through direct experience, perhaps through friends in the system, knows where the cracks in the bureaucracy are. Wait times associated with permits, licenses, bail, processing, and other government-based nightmares are reduced to one-fourth their usual periods or one working day, whichever is less. Plot Hook: The minor functionary who should be handling your case has been ordered to sit on his hands. You know that by talking to him and listening to his excuses — but you also know that if his boss was responsible, he’d have just passed the buck. Who is he really reporting to?
Science
• Applied Sciences (Penalty): With a good knowl-
edge of physics, chemistry, engineering, or any of a dozen other disciplines, the character can manipulate the world around him to his benefit. Given a number of hours equal to (6 – Science), the character can set up security measures or other environmental hazards to intruders and enemies. In game terms, the character’s Science rating can be applied to rolls to break into the area, combat rolls to attack the character in his own space, or rolls