Bad Luck

All with the power source of the Malevolence have the following abilities:

• Curse
• Call Upon the Darkness

Curse

Short, short version:

• Think up a power using the Custom Power rules
• You may use these extras:
  • Mitigating Factor': limits the effectiveness of the curse, such as "you will become a wolf, but only during the night of the full moon". Minor mitigation: 25% BP discount. Major: 50%. Extreme: 75%.
  • Escape Clause: the curse must provide some sort of way to end it permanently. Easy: 75% discount. Moderate: 50% discount. Hard: 25% discount. Nigh-impossible: 0% discount.
  • Heighten: for each 1 BP you spend, you may add +1 to the DC of your curse. Also, this increases the "level" of the curse by +1 (minimum: your level); if the level is twice the target's own level, he is allowed no save.
  • Permanence: to make a duration-based effect permanent costs some BP. TBD. For now, some guidelines: max cost: +20 BP, min cost: about 10.
• Also, the following apply:
  • Justification: Depending on how justified the curse is, you may suffer a "blowback", or a curse of BP value equal to a percentage of the curse you created. Totally justified: 0% blowback. Partially unjust: 25%. Moderately unjust: 50%. Completely unjust: 75%.
• Death Curse: You may spend more Bad Luck than you have, up to 5 per skill rank in all Shadow skills, at the cost of your own life (resurrection is not possible).

GG - Notes

• Like an on the fly power generator
• Powered by Bad luck. (Can you borrow bad luck against yourself?)
  • Severity cost increase (embarrassing curse, frustrating curse, troublesome curse, dangerous curse, lethal curse).
  • Cost mitigated by justification(i.e. Vengeance curse mitigated for transgressions, minor, major, etc.)
  • Dying Curse (High power as the caster borrows as much "bad luck" as they need, since they will be dead in moments anyway, to make it as nasty as possible).
  • Cost mitigated by components? (i.e. thaumaturgical components).
  • Cost mitigated by broadening escape clauses, increased by narrowing.
  • Cost mitigated for triggered curses, increased for constant.
  • Cost increase for immediate action, multiple targets, etc. (Could conceivably curse an entire village, town, kingdom, or race!)
• Some sort of check, or random chance factor?
• Lifting the curse, a factor of the power invested?

Sample Curses

• Curse of Swordshatter: "You bring the blackness of the night./Your heart is evil, full of spite./Until some fair amends you make,/Each sword you wield shall surely break!" Curse Level (Troublesome), Triggered (Wielding a sword), Justification (Variable, dependent), Components (Variable), Escape Clause (Major-Alignment change), Effect (Swords wielded by bearer break in combat)
• Curse of Weakness: "As a raven's winging flight,/Gone forever is your might!/Weakened be your mortal frame,/With these words, your strength I claim!" Curse Level (Troublesome), Constant, Justification (Variable, dependent), Components (Variable), Escape Clause (None-Cost increased!), Effect (Bearer's STR -4)
• Curse of Serpent's Tongue: "With liar's tongue thou spakest here/when false thy words/a serpent hear!" Curse Level (Embarrassing), Triggered (Telling Lies), Justification (Variable, dependent), Components (Variable), Escape Clause (Frustrating - Tell the Truth), Effect (Bearer hisses when telling lies).
• Curse of the Thief's Mark: "Hands that stray to other's get,/shall 'ere be marked by dyes of jet." Curse Level (Embarrassing), Constant, Justification (Variable, dependent), Components (Variable), Escape Clause (None), Effect (Bearer's hands turn inky black, marking him as a thief).
• Curse of the Coward: "Thy cowardly flight thy vengeance reaping/no rest thou take 'ere two nights sleeping./Restless be thy tired head/with ne'er same pillow for thy bed." Curse Level (Troublesome), Constant, Justification (Variable, Dependent), Components (Variable), Escape Clause (None), Effect (Bearer can not find rest by sleeping in the same place more than once).
• Curse of Prince's Vanity: "For thy self-possessed preening/take a toad for thine own seeming/'ere a maiden of blood royal/kisses thee upon thy boils" Curse Level (Dangerous), Constant, Justification (Variable, dependent), Components (Variable), Escape Clause (Major-A princess' kiss), Effect (Bearer is turned into a toad until kissed by a maiden princess).
• Curse of Heartstop: "As thou hast bled me, so bleed. As thou hast broken my heart, so breakest thine. As thou hast stolen my life, so let thine be forfeit" Curse Level (Lethal), Constant, Justification (Variable, Dependent), Components (Variable), Escape Clause (None), Effect (Bearer's heart ruptures, death).

For now, just see Temp: Vistani

Also:

• Hex: At-will, immediate, long range; you force any other actor to re-roll a check that succeeded. Costs 1 BL. Global cooldown does not apply; you may keep force re-rolls, but the cost increases by 1 BL each time. You must define some random event that caused the otherwise successful action to fail, and each new attempt requires a new explanation; the more re-rolls are required to finally force a failure, the more ridiculous the final event should be. You cannot use this to force a re-roll of a failed action.

Call Upon the Darkness

At any time, you may "borrow" an amount of Energy, up to 5 times your level, for whatever purpose you deem fit. You immediately gain the same amount of Bad Luck.

If your Bad Luck exceeds a certain threshold, bad things start happening to you.

• Threshold = 5 + total ranks in all Malevolence prime skills

For each point over the threshold, you suffer a -1 to all d20 rolls. If the penalty would reduce the natural roll to 1 or less, before other modifiers, an Unfortunate Event occurs.

Other ways Unfortunate Events occur:

• Every time your Bad Luck total changes, if the new result is above your threshold (including hourly changes)
  • Note: Unfortunate Events modify your Bad Luck total. This does not itself cause an Unfortunate Event in an infinite loop (except in special cases, see A Series of Unfortunate Events).
  • Note: critically failing a check causes a -1 Bad Luck adjustment. This happens just before the Unfortunate Event triggered by said failure, and does not itself cause an Unfortunate Event.
  • Note: critically succeeding at a check causes a +1 Bad Luck adjustment. This does not trigger an Unfortunate Event, unless you had enough Bad Luck penalty to lower the natural result to 1 or less (which itself does not necessarily prevent the critical success).

When an event occurs, the DM determines the following:

• Roll 1d6.
  • If the result is 5, roll 1d6 again and add that, but do not make any further re-rolls.
  • If the result is 6, roll 1d6 again and add that. Rolls of 5 or 6 on the next die follow the same rules as this one.
• Take the total sum of all dice rolled.
  • If this is greater than the difference between the player's current Bad Luck and their threshold, use the difference instead.
• Craft a Curse of the same BL value as the number you just calculated. This immediately affects the poor PC.
  • Alternatively, you may inflict Harm as The Malocchio, using the same BL total.
• After this occurs, the PC's Bad Luck total is reduced by the amount of the curse.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Special Rule: whenever an Unfortunate Event occurs, if, after lowering your Bad Luck, your Bad Luck is still above twice your threshold, another Unfortunate Event occurs. This can cause a series of events, all happening in rapid sequence, until your Bad Luck total is finally reduced to below twice your threshold.

• The Malocchio
• The Sight
• Shadow Magic