The Doors of Death [Geist: The Sin-Eaters]

Geist: The Sin-Eaters

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The Bound are not merely people possessed by the dead. A Sin-Eater’s geist is a conduit through which she can draw on the power of the Underworld itself. She unleashes tendrils of Plasm that take physical form as bleeding walls, flying knives, and skeletal apparitions. She lays deadly curses, draws her geist into her flesh to transform her body, or infuses her voice with the keening wails of the dead.

All Haunts draw their power from the Underworld, the Sin-Eater (or her geist) weaving Plasm into a form that befits the Haunt, whether that’s invisible strings that fling objects around a room or black-iron talons wrapped around her fingers. As she advances her understanding of a Haunt, she discovers novel new ways to weave Plasm into the Haunt’s effects, and as her raw ability to store and channel Plasm increases, she gains the ability to sling powerful Haunts at a moment’s notice.

Haunts

For Geist Second Edition, we’ve kept the seven Haunts from the first edition core rulebook (back when they were called Manifestations), but we’ve added three new ones to allow each Burden to have a signature power:

The Boneyard is the classic “haunted house” power: By suffusing an area with Plasm, the Bound gains a perfect awareness of the area and the ability to create minor poltergeist-like effects. At higher levels, she can project her senses to anywhere within the area, trap people inside the Boneyard, or even warp the environment to fit her whim.

is the classic “haunted house” power: By suffusing an area with Plasm, the Bound gains a perfect awareness of the area and the ability to create minor poltergeist-like effects. At higher levels, she can project her senses to anywhere within the area, trap people inside the Boneyard, or even warp the environment to fit her whim. The Caul allows the Sin-Eater to suffuse her body with Plasm, becoming a protean horror of malleable flesh. She can twist her visage into a nightmarish form, bud off a horde of weird homunculi, or even consume the recently-dead to take their shape.

allows the Sin-Eater to suffuse her body with Plasm, becoming a protean horror of malleable flesh. She can twist her visage into a nightmarish form, bud off a horde of weird homunculi, or even consume the recently-dead to take their shape. The Curse expresses the displeasure of the dead, hexing her victim with bad luck. At higher levels she can turn technology against the victim, wither his limbs, or give him a brief glimpse of what it’s like to be a ghost, forgotten and invisible.

expresses the displeasure of the dead, hexing her victim with bad luck. At higher levels she can turn technology against the victim, wither his limbs, or give him a brief glimpse of what it’s like to be a ghost, forgotten and invisible. The Dirge is a haunting, wordless melody that plucks at the heartstrings of the living and the dead alike. It can mesmerize those who hear it, heal or inflict madness, and even call forth the dead into the living world.

is a haunting, wordless melody that plucks at the heartstrings of the living and the dead alike. It can mesmerize those who hear it, heal or inflict madness, and even call forth the dead into the living world. The Marionette gives the Sin-Eater the ability to reach out with tendrils of Plasm and manipulate objects at a distance. At higher levels she gains greater control, terrible strength, and even the ability to trap her targets in a prison of their own flesh (or Corpus) that dances to her tune.

gives the Sin-Eater the ability to reach out with tendrils of Plasm and manipulate objects at a distance. At higher levels she gains greater control, terrible strength, and even the ability to trap her targets in a prison of their own flesh (or Corpus) that dances to her tune. The Memoria is the Haunt of memory, calling up events buried and forgotten. At the basic level, the Bound can experience the memory herself; at higher levels she can manifest it as a phantasmal image, bring others into the memory, and ultimately change the memory, breaking cycles of abuse and granting closure to those traumatized by the past.

is the Haunt of memory, calling up events buried and forgotten. At the basic level, the Bound can experience the memory herself; at higher levels she can manifest it as a phantasmal image, bring others into the memory, and ultimately change the memory, breaking cycles of abuse and granting closure to those traumatized by the past. The Oracle flings the Bound’s shade into the Underworld to seek forbidden knowledge and lost secrets. And all it takes is for her to die. Again.

flings the Bound’s shade into the Underworld to seek forbidden knowledge and lost secrets. And all it takes is for her to die. Again. The Rage is, as its name suggests, the fury of the grave unleashed. It is rending claws, a scream that strikes its listeners blind, a wrath that cracks open the world.

is, as its name suggests, the fury of the grave unleashed. It is rending claws, a scream that strikes its listeners blind, a wrath that cracks open the world. The Shroud wraps the Sin-Eater in her geist, pulling her briefly into Twilight. At higher levels, she becomes preternaturally ghost-like even while not in Twilight, and learns to slip between the world of the living and the Underworld with equal facility.

wraps the Sin-Eater in her geist, pulling her briefly into Twilight. At higher levels, she becomes preternaturally ghost-like even while not in Twilight, and learns to slip between the world of the living and the Underworld with equal facility. The Tomb is the Haunt of things lost to time, of grave goods and the symbolic meaning of the grave. It allows her to make whole what was destroyed, spinning wrecked hot rods or dead loved ones from shells of Plasm. At higher levels they can invite ghosts into the replicas they create, imbue their creations with weird powers, and even spin reality out of symbolic representations, creating Staff out of wax ushabti figurines or Resources out of joss paper Hell Money.

Mechanics

Haunts are rated from one to five dots, but the power progression works a little differently than, say, Vampire’s Disciplines or Mage’s Arcana. The first dot of every Haunt is the only one that has an activation roll, and it creates the basic effect of the Haunt in the form of a Condition (or, sometimes, a Tilt). Higher dot levels allow the character to spend additional Plasm to add effects to the Haunt or improve the efficiency of the Plasm spent on the base power. With a rare few exceptions, most Haunt levels add a single, significant option, so you won’t be faced with the choice paralysis of having a huge menu of potential effects.

For example, the first-dot power of the Boneyard allows the Sin-Eater to haunt an area ranging from a few rooms up to a large warehouse, depending on how much Plasm she spends. The second dot lets her spend Plasm to remote-view from anywhere within the Boneyard, while the third dot increases the base area of the Boneyard and also lets her spend Plasm to inflict a penalty on any attempts to escape the Boneyard.

Oh, and that initial Condition? It resolves if someone throws your geist’s ban or bane at you. So keep that information secret.

The net result of this is a system that makes your Plasm reserves and Plasm per Turn a significant part of power use — a low Synergy Sin-Eater has to allot more time to create her Haunts, or find creative ways to acquire more Plasm. Higher-Synergy characters can throw around lots of Plasm per turn and create some truly terrifying effects at a moment’s notice.

Keys

The gates of the Underworld are locked. Everyone knows that. They open only to admit the shades of the dead — but over the millenia, common motifs wear grooves in the fabric of death itself. Every bloody-handed murder, every plague, every senseless accident that snatches away a life, leaves an impression on the land of the dead. It’s a process not unlike taking a wax impression of a lock, but in reverse: instead of the tumblers imprinting on the soft wax of the key, the Key shapes the lock to fit itself.

While anyone with the proper knowledge can use these Keys to open Avernian Gates (p. XX), the Bound, standing as they do on the borders between the land of the living and the land of the dead, are themselves doors to the Underworld. Unlocking themselves yields a rush of power and Plasm. That power doesn’t come free: each Key bears a Doom that afflicts those who call on its power. If there’s an argument for the active, thinking malevolence of the Underworld, it may well be these.

For Geist Second Edition, we’ve trimmed the list of Keys down to nine: one for each Attribute. Your character starts with one innate Key tied to their own death and a second tied to their geist’s. To get more Keys, you’ll need to collect Mementos — or practice ectophagia on some other geist.

The Key of Beasts (The Primeval Key, the Key of Tooth and Claw, the Key of Verdant Savagery) – Wits

The Key of Blood (The Stigmatic Key, the Key of Veils and Shades, the Key of Crimson Agony) – Presence

The Key of Chance (The Bastard’s Key, the Key of Jinx and Hex, the Key of Black Humor) – Dexterity

The Key of Cold Wind (The Breathless Key, the Key of Gale and Garrote, the Key of Ivory Sorrow) – Resolve

The Key of Deep Waters (The Tear-Stained Key, the Key of Wave and Whirlpool, the Key of Azure Grief) – Manipulation

The Key of Disease (The Wasting Key, the Key of Plague and Pestilence, the Key of Bilious Despair) – Stamina

The Key of Grave Dirt (The Crushing Key, the Key of Stone and Barrow, the Key of Slate Futility) – Strength

The Key of Pyre Flame (The Burning Key, the Key of Ash and Brand, the Key of Golden Annihilation) – Intelligence

The Key of Stillness (The Silent Key, the Key of Shroud and Shadow, the Key of Jet Deception) – Composure

(The sharp-eyed among you might notice that two of the Keys from first edition are gone, and have been replaced by the no-longer-used Thresholds. The Phantasmal and Passion Keys were cut because there are now entire Haunts dealing with illusions and emotions, while the Industrial Key didn’t really fit thematically.)

Mechanics

Remember before where we said that Sin-Eaters need to find creative ways to get more Plasm? Keys are the main one of those. You can unlock any Haunt with any Key (or even with none at all), but you get more out of it if you use a Key that’s thematically relevant.

So what do Keys do? First, they give you a kicker of free Plasm — a number equal to the Key’s Unlock Attribute. This Plasm ignores the normal per-turn limit, so by using a Key, even a low-Synergy character can throw out a big effect. (If you need Plasm for something that isn’t a Haunt, you can use a Key just for the free Plasm — but you still suffer its Doom.)

Second, they let you add the Key’s Attribute rating to the activation roll for a Haunt. Finally, if you use them in a situation that’s resonant with the Key — using the Key of Chance when something you love is on the line, or using the Key of Stillness on an unaware or helpless target — you earn an exceptional success on three successes instead of five.

Of course, there’s a cost associated with all this goodness. Isn’t there always? Once you’ve used a Key, you fall under the effects of its Doom. While you’re Doomed, you can’t use that Key from that source again until the Doom is triggered. The Doom of Blood, for instance, makes you fail dramatically the next time you try to avoid a violent confrontation, whether by de-escalating, running, or what have you. (This, incidentally, is why it’s useful to keep a large collection of Mementos handy. While you’re under the Doom of Stillness from your own innate Key, you can still use the Key of Stillness from the Cold Harbor Diary, for example.)

Next Time

It seems logical to go from the main supernatural powers of the Bound to their supporting abilities. So next time, will we learn about Ceremonies or Mementos?