Flaws
From Ascension Sojourns
- Flaws marked as Companion only can only be taken by non-human characters PCs or NPCs. These may apply to familiars, bygones, cyborgs, animals, etc.
- NOTICE: When books differ on cost of a merit or flaw, the cost from Mage20th books is used first. If there is a reason to use the cost from another book it will be noted in the desc of the merit/flaw.
Example: Sterile can be a merit or Flaw for 1 pt in Mage, but a Kinfolk only flaw in Werewolf for 4 points.
In this case mages and mortal/+ pays 1 pt, except Kinfolk which pay 4, because they are needed to perpetuate the werewolf race.
- Merits and Flaws taken from books other than the Mage20th set will only include those that fit the game. Those used exclusively by Garou (ex: Mixed-Morph) will not be included unless that sphere becomes open for play. Flaws listed but lacking write-ups are still being decided upon and are not currently available in-game.
- Merits and Flaws taken from books other than the Mage20th set will only include those that fit the game. Those used exclusively by Garou (ex: Mixed-Morph) will not be included unless that sphere becomes open for play. Flaws listed but lacking write-ups are still being decided upon and are not currently available in-game.
| Flaw | Cost | Type | Notes | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Absent-Minded | 3 | General | Mental | |
| Addiction | 1 or 3 | General | Physical | You are addicted to some activity or substance that interferes to some degree with your daily life. Perhaps you crave sex, drink constantly, or can't stop playing video games. Whatever the nature of the addiction it drives you to irrational and possibly dangerous extremes. 1pt - A craving for some trivial enjoyment (game, tobacco, social media) 3pt - A drive to secure something illegal, dangerous or both. (cocaine, fight club, child porn, etc) |
| Aging | 2/4/6/8/10 | General | Physical | You aren't as young as you use to be...or perhaps you're a little too young. The years have taken their toll on your physical capacities, and while the spirit may be willing,the body certain isn't. For every 2 points in this Flaw, the character looses 1 dot from any Physical stat (strength, dexterity or stamina) because he is past his prime, or too young to be physical mature. See Also Child Flaw, in the case of being "too young" for additional requirements. |
| Alien Impression | 1 - 5 | Companions only | Physical | Your appearance freaks people out. Perhaps it's your lidless serpentine stare, your cobalt-blue skin, or the wings jutting frrom between your shoulder blades. It might not eve be a feature of your visual appearance, per se; maybe you've got a synthetic techno-voice, a crackling aura of prickly invisible energy, or an uncanny way of moving when you walk. Whatever the specifics might be, your presence evokes whispers, unease or -- at the highest levels -- outright fear. The more disturbing your impression, the mor ethis Flaw (originally known as Alien Appearance) is worth: * 1pt - Minor feature, generally concealable, that inspires minor discomfort from people who notice it. * 2pt - Noticeable feature, hard to conceal, that inspires discomfort in people who notice it. * 3pt - Major feature, difficult if not impossible to conceal, that weirds out most people who notice it. * 4pt - Unmistakably alien feature that rather frightens most people. * 5pt - You stand out almost anywhere a human mage might go. Minor features include oddly colored eyes, artificial tone of voice, eerie lightness or density of form, and so forth. Noticeable ones get stranger and more troubling for the average mundane (horns, sharp claws, animalist hair), with major and 'unmistakable features becoming more overt and less "natural" by earth-reality standards. Ref: M20 G&M, 194 |
| Amnesia | 2 | General | Mental | You have suffered complete and total amnesia due to some accident, fugue state, etc. The Storyteller will choose five "mystery flaws" and will present them to you in interesting ways over time. Perhaps when all is revealed you can buy off this flaw (or have it "paid off" by the Storyteller in lieu of xp.). Then for better or worse you'll remember who you are. **Logs will be required** |
| Animal | 2 | Companions- non-humans only | Social | In a human-centric world, you aren't human. I mean, it's cool and everything that you're a fox or a bear or a cat or a raven, but the majority of your surroundings aren't made for you, folks call Animal control when you walk around without a leash, nystandards keep trying to pet you, bus drivers refuse to let you on the bus, fleas burrow into your fur, adults speak to you in baby talk, etc. Obviously, this Flaw oesn't count if you can change into a human form. For Flaws dealing with an inablitity to manipulate human tools and so forth, see No Hands and Ungainly Fingers. If being an animal isn't a hinderance in your chronicle, then this Flaw does not apply. 'Ref: M20 G&M, 196 |
| Anachronism | 1 - 3 | General | Supernatural | Time has passed you by… or maybe it simply hasn’t caught up with you yet. Your beliefs, personality, mannerisms, fashion, and expectations are radically out of step with your surroundings. This could be a deliberate affection on your part (“The Old Days were better than today” /“Why wait for the future to arrive when you can become the future?”), a Time Sphere-related temporal hiccup or Paradox Flaw, the result of paranormal longevity or back-tracking time travel, the manifestation of an especially assertive past (or future) life… hell, even you might not know quite why you’re like this, but you are, and the rest of the world can’t help but notice. The value of this Flaw depends upon the amount of trouble you get into as a result of your anachronisms: • (1 point) You seem a little weird, and potentially offen-sive (“Why are they not sitting in the back of the bus? Aren’t there laws about that sort of thing?”), displaying quirks from a recognizably different past or future that isn’t radically behind or ahead of the current age. Add +1 to the difficulty of understanding current technology and modes of behavior. • (2 points) You’re a relic of a distinctly earlier age, or the harbinger of a seriously advanced one. The things you say, wear, expect, and believe are disturbingly out of touch with your surroundings, and can present significant problems… especially if and when you hold forth on silly little things like politics, social mores, sexuality, and the law. Current technology puzzles you, either because it’s inexplicably advanced or staggeringly primitive. Add +2 to the difficulty of all efforts to understand your current era, including social rolls based upon getting along with people in this age. • (3 points) You hail from a time so distant that the current era seems as alien to you as you seem to people of this era. Hell, you might not even speak English (a common trait of folks who existed before the expansion of British and American influence in the 1800s), or speak your language with an accent and idioms that essentially turn it into another language entirely (think Shakespeare, or Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange). Your expectations regarding technology and social mores are wildly divergent, and you could easily get yourself into serious trouble. Add +3 to the appropriate rolls, and you may be unable to process certain things (driving, politics, current computer tech, etc.) at all. Assuming you have a chance to acclimate to your surround-ings, this Flaw can be bought down with experience points. Until that time, your companions will have a lot of explaining to do on your behalf! Ref: M20 BOS, 81 |
| Apprentice | 1 - 5 | Most metaphysical societies, the Technocracy included, employ a mentor /apprentice system. During a members’ early years, an elder member is assigned to, or chooses to, teach a new and inexperienced member. During the later days of membership, an elder is expected to pass on their experience to the younger generation. In addition to the usual training programs a given group may purse, a new recruit often winds up in the care of a seasoned member of that group. And in the case of this Flaw, you’ve got a real winner on your hands. When you mentor an apprentice a mentor, you’re responsi-ble for someone (whatever his formal title might be) who makes your life difficult. You can’t just kick this person to the curb, but must instead provide discipline, guidance, training, and quite often a support system (room, board, research space, and so forth) so that the newbie can become a successful member of your sect. An apprentice, however, is not a houseplant; even the most cooperative apprentices demand time and attention, and their deeds – good and otherwise – reflect upon your own social status. The more troublesome ones, by extension, can drive a mentor toward curmudgeonly solitude. As a Flaw, this Trait reflects the range of potential appren-tices and the effect they have upon your life: • (1 point) A cooperative and dedicated ideal student who takes up very little of your space and time, reflects well upon you, and seems eager to learn from you while being reluctant to argue very much. • (2 points) A typical student who needs a fair amount of hand-holding; makes occasional mistakes of protocol and discipline; and takes up a fair amount of time, space and patience. Even so, this person remains attentive and more or less respectful, providing plenty of reasons for you to be proud of him. • (3 points) A rather clueless student whose presence consumes a significant amount of time and attention. This apprentice can be clumsy, obnoxious, thick-witted, and occasionally problematic in social situations and training exercises. He’s got promise, but it’s going to take a lot of work to get him to realize his potential. • (4 points) A seriously challenging student whose behav-ior and dedication leave a great deal to be desired. This apprentice may have talent, but the burdens begin to outweigh the potential benefits of his instruction. • (5 points) An obstinate, haughty, disrespectful ass whose presence is more trouble than it’s worth. Dangerous to himself and everyone around him (yourself included), he’s a disgrace to the society you share. Why are you training this person, again? There might be a light at the end of the tunnel someday, but it’s gonna take a lot of work and sacrifice before this apprentice amounts to anything more than a waste of your time. Read More ->Ref: M20 BOS, 81 | ||
| Bard's Tongue, The | 1 | General | Supernatural | A curse has rendered you unable to lie. It may even compel you to speak the truth when you struggle to remain silent. Worse still, you tend to say things that later turn out to be true even if you hadn’t known anything about them at the time. (“Don’t try and score food from that guy over there – he’s got a gun and is having a really bad day.”) You often get a certain “look” when the urge to speak truth comes up, and folks who know you have begun to recognize the signs of a forthcoming “honesty blast” before you even open your mouth. Life and Mage chronicles are both filled with times when it’s best to keep a lid on the truth. And so, in order to avoid saying speaking the proverbial inconvenient truth (or worse), you need to spend a Willpower point to keep your mouth shut about it. Repressing that truth may also cost you one health level in bashing damage if the truth you’re clamping down on is one of those “things that really must be said” which isn’t a smart thing to say under the circumstances. (“Yeah, Agent Courage, everybody knows you work every angle with every group – that’s not exactly a ‘secret,’ now is it?”) Ref: M20 BOS, 82 |
| Beast Within | 5 | Supernatural | Supernatural *restricted* | You’ve got a truly infernal temper: one so violent it feels like a volcano in your soul. As with a werewolf or vampire, you’re subject to the dreaded frenzy that turns you into an engine of hot rage. Under intense stress, you risk losing every shred of enlightenment you possess. Driven to such extremity, you let loose with the most immediately destructive powers at your command, and “vulgarity” be damned! Everyone in your vicinity becomes a target, and the consequences matter to you only when this inner storm has passed. System-wise, this Flaw sends you into deadly rages as per the Berserker /Stress Atavism Trait featured in Mage 20, p. 644. Instead of rolling your Willpower to avoid the frenzy, however, you roll your Avatar rating plus one die, with your Willpower as the difficulty of that roll. If, as an example, young Vyper Trabia suffers from the Beast Within Flaw, with an Avatar of 4 and a Willpower of 5, Vyper’s player rolls five dice against a difficulty of 5 when that Akashic hothead is under ferocious stress. A failure on that roll sends Vyper into a berserk rage. Yeah, this probably happens pretty often. Vyper’s friends don’t stick around for long when things go poorly. (If you employ the optional Resonance Trait, you could substitute your highest Resonance, plus one die, as the dice pool for your rage. The roll’s difficulty is still your Willpower Trait, and your Resonance plus that extra die should at least equal, if not exceed, your Avatar Trait. In this case, the Resonance in question must be something capriciously unstable – Wild, Primal, Ferocious, and so forth – instead of calm and centered energy. Considering that the Avatar could be seen as your inner Beast, a character with the Pattern Essence cannot take this Flaw. It’s best suited for Dynamic Essences, although a Questing or Primordial Avatar could attain frightening rages too. A berserk mage cannot employ rituals or employ complicated tools; only the most direct methods of attack – magickal or otherwise – will do. Although mages rarely suffer from such grotesque lapses of self-control, an Awakened Ghoul (as in that Merit), a cyborg, a Victor, a Shapechanger Kin (again, as per the Merit), or an animalistic shape-changer could possess such inhuman monstrousness. |
| Beta | 1 | Companions only | Social | You are born to follow, not to lead. Although capable in your own right, you're the reliable support staff to you group's real leaders. Alpha dominance is not your style; instead, you keep the rest of your "pack" in line while following the alpha's lead in all ways. Challenging authority seems alien to you, and where other companions of yours might seek status and ambition, your interests lay in doing what's (at least apparently) best for your group as a whole. That's your role and your duty, and you're damned proud of both. The common perception of "beta" as inferior and subservient misses the point: An Alpha might get the glory, but the betas keep the pack alive. Ref: M20 G&M, 196 |
| Bedeviled | 6 | Supernatural | Oh, you poor bastard! A mysterious power has decided to fuck with you, and it’s perfectly capable of making your life a chronicle of woe. Misery and setbacks are your bread and butter; should things start looking up for you, you begin looking up as well to spot the inevitable anvil dropping toward your head. This sort of thing goes way beyond simple misfortune or even a paltry little curse. Your enigmatic foe is a dedicated cuss, and whatever it might be (it’s not necessarily an actual devil, though it certainly seems like one to you!), that force has apparently unlimited resources and a very sick sense of humor; in short, then, it’s your typical Storyteller. A story-based Flaw, this wretched Trait essentially grants the Storyteller a license to give your character the starring role in a twenty-first-century Book of Job. (And again, check out Tragedy.) There ought to be a certain rhyme and reason behind this metaphysical fuckery, of course, but the source of your agonies, and the way you could potentially end them, are for your Storyteller to know and you to find out… should you be fortunate enough to live so long. ref: M20 BOS,94 | |
| Bigot | 3 | General | Mental | |
| Bizarre Hunger | 2 - 5 | General | Supernatural | You prefer – maybe even need – to eat weird shit… quite possibly in a literal sense of that expression. Perhaps you’ve sworn a vow, suffered a curse, been treated (or created) with unhallowed rituals or arcane hyperscience, or initiated into an occult fellowship with… interesting admission demands. In any case, you must consume substances that may be degrading, unpleasant, expensive, or downright illegal. The more inconvenient the substance, the more this Flaw is worth: • (2 points) Easy to procure, though not as easy to devour (paper, fresh eggs, poop, etc.). • (3 points) Unpleasant, hazardous, and perhaps illegal to consume (rotten meat, swamp water, raw cannabis, and so forth). • (4 points) Specialized, foul, criminal, and /or expensive chow (human blood, custom-brewed potions or meals, and the like). • (5 points) You really shouldn’t eat such things… but you must (live humans, toxic sludge, gold dust, highly specialized food-like concoctions, and other similar forms of sustenance). For each dot in your Stamina Trait, you can go one day without satisfying your special dietary requirements. After that, you lose one health level per day until you either consume your particular substance, or else die of hunger or thirst, suf-fer the punishment of a vow unfulfilled, or otherwise endure whichever other consequences might result from denying your bizarre hunger. For a related (and probably essential) companion Trait, see the physical Merit: Cast-Iron Stomach. And for a potentially related focus-instrument, see the Chapter Three Expanded Instruments entry for Cannibalism, M20 BOS,pp. 206-207. Ref: M20 BOS, 87 |
| Black and White | 1 | Supernatural | Social | Everyone quibbles about shades of gray and nuances, but you don’t get bogged down in such wastes of time. The world is actually very simple, and everything falls into neat categories that you can judge in an instant. For you or against you, good or evil, easy or impossible, necessary or not, your judgmental nature causes misunderstandings and social friction as you oversimplify everything. In social scenarios where your closemindedness comes to bear, increase the difficulty by one. This Flaw combines well with other focusing Merits like Code of Honor |
| Blacklisted | 1 - 5 | Supernatural | Social | Having crossed some Powers That Be, you’ve now been pariah-fied among some segment of the Masses. The results impact your employment potential, social standing, legal status, credit rating, background checks, rental possibilities, and other significant elements of existing in the everyday world. Originally presented as an Adversarial Background for Certification, this Flaw affects your regional, national, and perhaps international official status. The degree to which you’ve been professionally shunned depends upon the value of this Flaw: • (1 point) Trivial – poor driving record, suspected shop lifter, banned from a local union. • (2 points) Minor – misdemeanor criminal record,sus pended license. • (3 points) Significant – disbarred lawyer, defrocked clergy, unpopular political affiliation, dishonorable military discharge. • (4 points) Major – convicted felon, registered sex offender, government watch-list, revoked medical license. • (5 points) Pariah – FBI’s most-wanted, suspected terrorist, convicted pedophile, declared legally incompetent or insane. A four- or five-point Blacklisting will also wind up in the Technocracy’s supervision database – a very dangerous place for a mage to be! And although the Awakened don’t typically check in with mundane authorities before recruiting or making alliances with their own kind, a mage who’s had major problems with such authorities is likely to have problems with mages too… especially if such problems include offenses like terrorism or pedophilia, which certain mages take very, very poorly. M20 BOS, pg 59 |
| Blood-Hungry Soul | 2/3/5 | General | Supernatural | In a previous incarnation, you had been a ghoul in thrall to an unholy addiction to vampiric blood. Now, you must resist the call of that ravenous past life and its fixation on intoxicating Kindred vitae. The deeper your thirst for this damning fulfillment, the more this Flaw is worth: • (2 points) You recall the glorious temptations of the blood, but remember it like a poor choice from long ago. If the opportunity presents itself to you, however, you’ll need to make a Willpower roll (difficulty 5) in order to resist the urge to pursue that addiction again. If you succumb to that temptation again in this life, your difficulty to resist further temptations rises to 6 every time the chance to consume such blood arises again. • (3 points) That temptation is stronger. Now the roll to resist that first taste is 6, and the roll to resist further crimson snacks becomes 8. • (5 points) You’ve got it bad. Really bad! Obsessed with the memories of glorious mystic blood, you must beat difficulty 8 in order to resist your old habits, and diffi-culty 10 each time you try to deny that thirst after you’ve fallen back to that damned addiction again. This is so not going to end well… Ref: M20 BOS, 87 |
| Blood Magick | 5 | Supernatural | Supernatural | Your Arts demand blood… specifically, your own blood. And while many practices employ small amounts of ritual cutting or bloodletting, this degree of sacrifice demands an injurious amount of vital fluid each time you cast a spell. With this Flaw (mislabeled as a Merit in the sourcebook Sorcerer, Revised Edition), you must suffer one unsoakable health level in bashing damage whenever you employ an Effect. Story-wise, you cut yourself, slash designs in your skin, or otherwise hurt yourself enough to shed the required amount of blood. This sort of thing can, of course, add up quickly if you’re throwing lots of magick around without giving yourself a chance to heal, as bashing damage soon leads to lethal damage. Meanwhile, your bloodletting looks pretty gross and obvious (often vulgarly so), and tends to make a mess as well. Your companions might appreciate the results of your magick, but may well object to the methods you employ… especially since blood magick has a rather unsavory rep among all but the most primal of practices. Ref: M20 BOS, 92 |
| Bound | 5 | Supernatural | Supernatural | Mentor always told you not to make bargains with strange entities. But did you listen? Nope. Now you’re in deep to someone whose power dwarfs your own, and your prospects for getting out of bondage are laughable at best. Haunted by thoughts of the payment to come, you live on borrowed time and realize that the worst is yet to come… Sometimes known, with minor variations, as Faust’s Bargain, Bound puts your character in the Faust-like position of getting something interesting in return for something sig-nificant – her life, her soul, a thousand years of servitude, or a similarly awful fate that no one in their right mind would want to risk. Still, occultists are infamous for short-term thinking, and literal devil’s deals are common currency in the magickal world. The specifics of that deal are for you and your Storyteller to arrange. Like the Flaw: Dark Fate, this debt throws a fore-boding air over your character’s part of the chronicle. In this case, though, your doom may be averted if you can wrangle a way out of this pact. In the meantime, your creditor will call in occasional favors – nothing large enough to pay off the debt (unless that entity needs a significant service and agrees to write off the larger obligation), but deeds that can spark new stories or complicate existing ones. Despite tradition, this debt doesn’t have to be a soul-pact owed to a devil – a promise to your god(s) or their immediate emissaries can be just as terrible as one owed to Old Scratch! Ref: M20 BOS,92 |
| Branded | 3 - 5 | Supernatural | Supernatural *Trad only* | You’ve been found guilty by a Traditions Tribunal, who Branded your Avatar with a sigil that indicates your crime. Folks who can see that sigil recognize that you’re a criminal of some sort, and the worse the Brand, the more severe your crime and the more appropriate their reaction will be. Those reactions won’t always be negative; considering the sort of people who’d be favorably inclined toward a known criminal, though, do you really want the goodwill of such people? • (3 points) A temporary Brand for a Low Crime (see below), which fades after one to three months. At the end of that period, this Flaw goes away. This Brand raises the difficulty of your social rolls by +1 for “average” Tradition mages and +2 for especially law-biding ones. • (4 points) A lasting Brand for a Low Crime. This Brand lasts for a year or more, and marks you as a rather notorious offender. The difficulty of your social rolls rises by +2 among most mages who can recognize the Brand’s significance, and +3 among mages who take such offenses and punishments seriously. • (5 points) A lasting Brand for a High Crime, which will not fade for at least nine years and may be essentially permanent. The Brand raises the difficulty of your so-cial rolls by +3 for any character who cares at all about Tradition justice and the people who incur its pun-ishment. Certain parties will target you for additional punishment, and others will consider you to be prime meat for their recruiting efforts. Ref: M20 BOS, 89 |
| Broken | 5 | Companions only | Mental *restricted - trigger warning* | Your will to resist has been trashed. Your master broke you to their service, and their wish is your command. Maybe they're the mad scientist who created you, the psi-ops Technocrat who destroyed your will, the necromance who crafted you from the bodies of the dead, or the wizard who bound you with ancient packs and potent spells. The abuse they used to break you may have been subtle: emotion manipulation, pervasive gaslighting, social isolation, and the like. Then again, they might tyrannize you with raw brutality, terrorize you with fears of damnation and destruction, compel obediance through blackmail, torment you with magick and crime...Hell, they might use every trick in the book to keep you in line. It works too. What master says, you do. It's far too late to resist. A seriously nasty Flaw, this Trait reflects the ugly side of paranormal lore. Your character was, and remains, abused into servitude, and whatever your Willpower Trait might be with regard to other tasks, it's only 1 (dot) when it comes to standing up to your dominator. Circumstances can change this situation, of course, but the recovery from such staggering abuse should involve powerful roleplaying and long-term consequences for every character involved. Ref: M20 G&M, 196 |
| Casts No Shadow / Reflection | 1 - 2 | Supernatural | Supernatural | According to certain legends, witches cast no shadow. And while that isn’t true of most mages, it’s somehow true for you. Maybe you suffer from a lingering Paradox Flaw, manifest your own cultural fears, or made a bargain that cost you your shadow or reflection. In any case, your shadow and /or reflection are absent from your presence. For one point, you’re missing one of those things, for two points you lack them both, and although most folks won’t notice this consciously, they do tend to feel uneasy in your presence even if they’re not sure why. (Techno-logical machines record this phenomenon, too.) Add +1 to the difficulty of all your Social-Trait rolls under most circumstances, and +2 to the difficulty if a witness makes a perception-based roll (difficulty 7) and figures out why you seem so weird.Ref: M20 BOS, 82 |
| Catspaw | 2 | General | Social | You trusted the wrong person, did the wrong thing on their say-so, and have now become a liability to others and to yourself. A dupe for someone vastly superior in power, you need to watch your back now while hoping for an opportunity to extract yourself from this position. For the moment, you have to follow orders, and your “cat” needs to keep you safe. Not long from now, however, one or both of you will change your priorities, and then things will truly become interesting for everyone concerned Ref: M20 BOS, pg 63 |
| Child | 1 - 3 | General | Physical | Awakening often happens before legal maturity. This wasn't a problem in the old days, but within modern society a young mage has certain built-in limitations: physical size, life experience, legal status (or lack thereof), and the challenge of being taken seriously in a grown-up world. Perhaps you are a child prodigy...or adolescent whose reality truly is beyond understanding. In any case, this flaw represents the social, legal and physical obstacles of being a kid. 3pt - A young child (5-11) *Must also take SHORT Flaw, and Ageing Flaw 4 2pt - a pre-adolescent (12 - 14) *Must also take SHORT flaw and Ageing Flaw 2 1pt - pre-adult (15 - 17.9) Ref: M20 Book of Secrets pg 39 |
| Chronic Depression | 3 | General | Mental | |
| Color Blindness | Ref: Book of Shadows, The 34 | |||
| Compulsion | 1 | General | Mental | And almost reflexive mental tic drives you towards compulsive, almost subconscious, behaviors. In some cases, especially mages, the behaviors manifest as ritualized activities: hand-washing, excessive grooming, doing a task exactly the same way every time. (A particular dangerous compulsion could be considered Derangement Flaw.) Ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 46 |
| Compulsive Speech | 1 -2 | General | Social | Dude, please just shut up! But no, you just keep talking…and talking… and talking some more. This compulsion could come from a nervous social habit, a know-it-all personality, a sense of awkwardness in silence, or some other (potentially metaphysical) urge to fill up space with words. Worse still, those words often feature rude observations, sensitive information, and other stuff that’s best left unsaid. Day-um – did you just say what I think you just said? Yep. You did. Arg… As far as this Flaw is concerned, the one-point version means you run at the mouth too much, while the two-point one (also known as Big Mouth) means you say the wrong things to the wrong people on a fairly regular basis, often to people who sit higher than you do on the proverbial totem pole, or who do not exactly have your best interests at heart. You can spend a Willpower point to keep your mouth shut for a scene or two; sooner or later, though, the words start flowing again… Ref: M20 BOS, pg 59 |
| Conflicting Loyalties | 1 - 3 | General | Social | Though deeply loyal (probably to the point of having the Merit: Loyalty), you’re facing a crisis of commit ments: two or more of the parties you feel loyal to are at odds with one another, and you’re caught in the middle trying to support them all. Your best friend could be in trouble with the police force your father worked for; your lover may have betrayed the trust of your Convention; your Allies may have decided that your Mentor has to go. And so there you are – poised in an impossible situation, attempting to do the right thing for everyone involved. The value of this Flaw, as always, depends upon the in tensity of the conflict: • (1 point) A minor crisis forces you to shuttle between loyalties while remaining true to all parties. • (2 points) A significant clash leads you to mediate un tenable situations with frustrating frequency. • (3 points) Irreconcilable differences will eventually compel you to choose between loyalties, and that’s not a choice you’re sure you can make. Until that time, you’re fighting an apparently doomed campaign to support all sides without betraying anyone. The nature of your loyalties, relationships, and disputes should, of course, be worked out when you take this Flaw. Your Storyteller will make sure to bring them into play often enough to keep you scrambling for the best solution to an apparently impossible dilemma. Ref: M20 BOS, 60 |
| Conniver | 1 | General | Social | As far as most folks who know you are concerned, you’re a perpetual knife in someone else’s back. That rep might not be accurate (see the Flaws: Cultural Other, Infamy, Troublemaker, and Profiled Appearance), but people expect treachery from you even if they’re wrong to think so. Subtract one die from any non-magickal dice pool you employ when you’re trying to get other characters to trust you. This penalty does not extend to Arete dice pools when you’re casting Mind-Sphere magick (or any other Sphere’s magick, for that matter), but if you’re having to cast spells in order to be believed, then you’ve kinda just lived up to that reputation. Ref: M20 BOS, pg 60 |
| Crucial Component | 2 - 5 | Supernatural | Supernatural | Your metaphysical practice demands specialized instru-ments. It’s not simply that you need fuel for your hypermodded Porsche 911 Turbo S – you need your own specially prepared blend of fuels, or the car won’t go. A simple rowan wand will not suffice – your spells demand a hand-carved branch cut from an unscarred rowan tree at high midnight on Samhain Eve. In game terms, at least one of the instruments in your magickal focus must be specifically created, harvested or modified to work with your magicks. No lesser tool will suffice. How hard is it to procure or employ this specialized com-ponent? That depends on the value of the Flaw: • (2 points) Easy to procure and /or employ (sunlight, yoga postures, motor oil, strong emotions, a book 88 The Book of Secretscommonly found in the New Age section at your local bookstore, etc.). • (3 points) Challenging to procure, employ, or replace (open flames, the Kurmasana posture, professional racing oil, genuine sorrow, an out-of-print occult text, and so on). • (4 points) Pretty damned hard to obtain, employ, and replace (liquid fire, the Vrschikasana pose, alchemically formulated oil, deep-core grief, a genuine Roman text of De Daemonum Socrates by Apuleius, and other rare and precious instruments). • (5 points) Unique, obscure, forbidden, cumbersome, or some combination of those four (a bottle of alchemically distilled sunfire, an impossibly complex yoga posture invented by the practitioner, personally formulated and distilled hypertech lubricating oil, the heartfelt scream of a grieving mother, a woodcut-illustrated Renaissance Grimoire of Honorius inscribed on flayed human skin, and similarly rarified instruments). When used, the chosen instrument functions as a Personalized Instrument (M20 Ann, pp. 503 and 587) – possibly a Unique Personalized one in the case of a five-point component. Ref: M20 BOS, 87 |
| Cultural Other | 1 - 5 | General | Social | In the eyes of your society, you’re clearly divergent. Disreputable. Other. People suspect you of criminal, or at least unsavory, behavior; the authorities harass or detain you for little or no reason, and your loved ones probably “wish you could just be like normal people.” Granted, every mage is “other” to some degree. In your case, though, the othering threatens your life, liberty, and happiness. Also known as Mistreated Minority, this Flaw reflects prejudice within your society. The amount of trouble it causes, and the frequency of said trouble, determines the value of your Flaw: • (1 point) Folks around you tend to harass you in small but noticeable ways (acting uncommonly brusque, using slurs in your presence, taking uncomfortable liberties with your privacy, property or person, etc.) and seem to feel there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Other people might stand up for you, but more often than not they won’t. • (2 points) As above, but now your family and other in timate companions feel that you deserve to be avoided, shamed, insulted, and so forth because you are who or what you are. • (3 points) Strangers feel free to shame, insult, avoid, and perhaps physically attack you on general principle. Authorities might intervene, but probably won’t do so unless major laws are broken… and maybe not even then. • (4 points) Authorities discriminate against you too. Your house may be searched, your job may be terminated, you might be evicted, robbed or assaulted and very few people will care. • (5 points) Merely living in this society is physically, socially, emotionally, and legally hazardous to your safety, your sanity, and possibly your life. You could be imprisoned, enslaved, tortured or killed with little-or-no response from the authorities. Unlike the physical Flaw: Profiled Appearance, this discrimination isn’t based on physicality. A character with this Flaw cannot also take the Profiled Appearance Flaw; if your character stands out physically while also being discriminated against socially, simply take more points in this Flaw. Nor is this Flaw tied to any particular creed, gender or ethnicity; while a Wiccan could be a Cultural Other in a town filled with fundamentalist Baptists, a fundamentalist Baptist could be a Cultural Other in a Wicca-based Horizon Realm. You could follow a “heretical” creed, belong to a “disreputable” subculture, identify as a sexual /gender /ethnic /religious “mi nority,” hold an unpopular political opinion… anything that inspires others around you to treat you poorly and get away with it could be considered grounds for this Flaw. ... To be clear: This Flaw in no way reflects judgment on the part of this game, its creators, or – one hopes! – your gaming group. It’s intended to reflect the ways in which mortal (and, often, Awakened) society tends to treat people who stand out from their cultural norms. Being who they are and what they do, mages often do stand out in ways that can be hazardous to their social and sometimes physical health – hello, Burning Times! (Read more in the book) Ref: M20 BOS, pg 60 |
| Curiosity | 1 | General | Mental | Curiosity killed the cat, as they say. Make a Wits roll to avoid following your curiosity. Diff 5 for casual mysteries (the identity of that intriguing barrista). Diff 9 for more compelling mysteries (who dropped off the roses at your Chantry house). Ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 48 |
| Cursed | 1 - 5 | Ref: M20 Ann, 646 | ||
| Dark Fate | 5 | Supernatural | Supernatural | You’re screwed. No matter what you do, regardless of your heroic deeds (possibly because of them), there’s a terrible end in your not-too-distant future. Prophecies speak of it, visions remind you of it, and other folks seem to know it too. You realize this fact, and it weighs upon you. From time to time, you must spend a Willpower point in order to shrug aside the dread of your impending damnation; otherwise, you lose one die from all rolls for the rest of that day. A common Flaw for Nephandi, Infernalists, and other folks who don’t know when to stop fucking with Forces That Should Not Be Fuck’d With, this Dark Fate becomes Damocles’ sword in your Storyteller’s hands. Sleep well… while you can. Ref: M20 BOS, 93 |
| Dark Secret | 1 | General | Social | A skeleton or two is hanging rather precariously in your closet. If (let’s be honest – when) it slips out and clatters to the floor, your life will get even more difficult than it already is. Did you steal something precious that was in your trust? Or live on the streets for a while? Maybe you came from a family you would rather not discuss (see the Flaw: Family Issues), were involved with a criminal organization, Awakened into a rival faction, or had a child or lover you’re trying to forget about. In any case, you’ll be in trouble unless you manage to keep that dark secret hidden… a feat that, in a world where reading minds is damned near entry-level magick, can be difficult indeed. (Note: Although this Flaw is traditionally worth only one point, Dark Secrets with potentially deadly consequences might be worth more points, at the Storyteller’s discretion.) If revealed it would cause you great embarrassment at best and make you an outcast or even hunted in your society at worst. Perhaps you had a lover who is a Black Spiral Dancer. Maybe you were responsible for the slaughter of your former pack/cabal/etc or the mysterious death of a sept/chantrt leader. This secret preys on your mind at all times, even though your friends (and packmates) are unaware of your shame. Occasionally, hints about your secret may arise in stories and you must take precautions to keep the knowledge from coming out into the open. So long as your secret remains unknown to those who might use it against you, you may keep the Flaw, even if a few individuals discover it. If your Dark Secret ever resolves itself so that it is no longer a factor in your life, you must sacrifice the experience points to buy it off Ref: M20 BOS, pg 61 and WW20 Ann, 480 |
| Debts | 1 - 5 | General | Social | Mages (and mundanes) still need money in order to function in the human realm. And in your case, you’re kinda fucked financially. Student loans, credit-card debts, child-support payments, gambling losses, legal judgments, medical bills, car and /or mortgage payments… the ways in which a modern mage can get in over her head financially are as numerous as the parties who prosper from such debts. And then there’s the possibility of financial manipulation from Awakened sources – mages or Night-Folk who, intentionally or otherwise, are keeping you broke in order to assert their hold over you (see Technocracy: Syndicate, p. 28). Maybe you just suck at the whole paying-your-bills thing. For whatever reason, your income keeps going back out. You might indeed have the Background: Resources, but the money just doesn’t stay in your bank account for long. As a Flaw, these Debts represent a minimum amount of money you owe your creditors. The more you owe, the more this Flaw is worth: • (1 point) Minimal debt (less than $10,000). • (2 points) Moderate debt (less than $50,000). • (3 points) Significant debt (over $50,000). • (4 points) Crushing debt (over $100,000). • (5 points) Overwhelming debt (over $500,000). From the three-point level onward, your creditors will expend a fair amount (perhaps a great deal) of effort to collect those funds from you. Certain creditors, like loan sharks, will start far lower than that. Tactics could range from round the-clock phone calls and red-envelope letters to lawsuits, repossessions, threats, eviction, and physical violence. For folks with small and /or irregular incomes, the pressure from debt and debt-collection harassment can cause intense emotional and psychological distress… which, in turn, affects one’s ability to make money… which deepens the debt… which deepens the stress… in a desperate cycle that can lead to desperate acts. Ref: M20 BOS, pg 61 |
| Degeneration | 3/6/9 | General | Physical | Your body is falling apart. A curse, disease, flawed biotech, corrupting magicks, or some other affliction is rotting your physical form. Although Life magick can repair the damage to a degree, this degeneration remains unless the Flaw is somehow removed. 3pt - inability to heal without the use of magick or medical technology. Until treated with Life magick or medical intervention the character can not regain health levels lost to injury or disease. 6pt - character suffers a constant stream of injuries even without outside trauma. Whenever the character is at full health, they loose 1 level per every two weeks until healed or dead. Character can not heal on their own. 9pt - health loss is aggravated damage and can not be healed except through vulgar Life magick effects. |
| Demented Eidolon | 3 | Supernatural | Supernatural *Techno and Technomancers only* | There’s someone in your head, and it’s not you. Despite your commitment to logic and reason, a mad heretic rants through the inside of your skull, insisting that what you do is magick, not science. This rough voice drives you toward Su-perstitionism and Reality Deviance. Not that you would ever consider such insanity. No, really – seriously, never. A Flaw for Technocratic operatives and other techno-mancers who refuse to view what they do as “magic,” this Trait pits your conscious-self against an Avatar hell-bent on reclaiming the identity of mage. The Eidolon (Technocrat-ese for Essence) invested within your Genius (Avatar) whips that paragon of Enlightenment into Deviant directions. While most Technocratic Geniuses behave themselves for the most part, this one assumes a flagrantly supernatural mien and batters at the fortress of Reason (and Social Processing) that protects you from Deviant thoughts. It may even be entertaining to have a different player assume the role of your Genius, especially during a Seek… I mean, during one of those meditative interludes which allow you to process the enigmas of Enlightenment. Ideally, this Flaw compliments a Genius (Avatar) Trait rated at 3 or higher, and it goes well (from a “dramatic roleplaying” standpoint, anyway!) with Backgrounds like Past Lives, Destiny, and Legend, Merits like Twin Soul and Avatar Companion, and Flaws like Throwback, and – as one may imagine – Dark Fate. Ref: M20 BOS, 89 |
| Deranged | 3/5 | General | Mental | |
| Devil's Mark | 1 | Supernatural | Supernatural | A pact or some other metaphysical occurrence has left you with what old-school witch-hunters consider a “devil’s mark”: a minor but noticeable deformation that remains insensate to pain and yet allows a creature to draw your Quintessence out through your body in physical form. Despite preconceptions, the origins of this mark might not have come from a pact with some infernal entity. That fact doesn’t keep people – Sleepers and otherwise – from looking askance at you if and when this mark can be seen, especially since there’s often something disconcerting about the way it appears – a third nipple, a red or black growth, a vaguely demonic face or sigil embedded in your flesh, and so forth. Thankfully, you don’t have to worry too much about witch-hunters in the technologically industrialized world. (Other regions are a different story; even rural areas of so-called advanced nations still hold people who will harm or kill someone who’s “different.”) The mark’s disconcerting appearance, though, may lead you to cover it up anyway. Folks who do believe old-fashioned ideas about “witches” will not take kindly to that devilish brand, so it could become a real problem under the wrong circumstances. On the plus side, however, you actually can nurture a Familiar (as in the Background Trait of that name) on the mark, and do so without physical discomfort. Of course, the idea of a talking, midnight-blue winged tarantula taking hits of Quintessence off your body may be uncomfortable in its own right. Ref: M20 BOS, 83 |
| Diabolical Mentor | 2 | General | Social | Your mentor wasn’t merely bad at his job – he turned out to be actively malevolent. That person could be an actual Nephandus, a demented Marauder, a ruthless wizard, a diehard “black hats and mirrorshades” type of Technocrat, an Infernalist sellsoul… maybe you don’t even know what your mentor really is, but it’s just plain bad. Obviously, this personage has fucked you up. Additionally, if you’ve uncovered things he would rath er keep secret, that could lead to other Flaws as well: Enemy, Cursed, and worse… Ref: M20 BOS, 63 |
| Discredited | 1 | General | Social | In your chosen field, your name is mud. Perhaps you’re a scientist whose bizarre theories have cost him the respect of his peers… or an academic who wound up on the wrong side of departmental politics… or a journalist who stepped too far over the line of credibility. Whatever it is you did (or are reputed to have done), your professional associates look down on you. Add +2 to the difficulty of your social and Background-based rolls when you’re trying to get those associates to take you seriously. Although this is a common Flaw among the feud-happy Etherites, anyone who depends upon a professional reputation can be discredited in this fashion – professorial Hermetics, corporate-ladder Syndicate ops, White Tower agents, and other competitive-field mages can fall afoul of a bad rep too. (May be taken by mortals and Mortal+) Ref: M20 BOS,pg 62 |
| Dogmatic | 1 | General | Social | Look, it’s great that you’ve got such strong spiritual con victions… but do you have to be such a dick about them? This Flaw represents a religious, spiritual, and /or philosophical approach that defines your moral and magickal beliefs. Trouble is, your beliefs don’t play well with others; rules-wise, you add +2 to the difficulty of all social rolls which involve dealing with people of differing beliefs. Even when you’re trying, dammit, to get along with those misguided heretics, folks can tell that you don’t approve. You sneer, you argue, you try to convert everyone around you to your way of thinking… you can’t help it, really – your convictions are just that formidable! After all, you do use them to change the world, so how could they possibly be wrong? Ref: M20 BOS, 63 |
| Double Agent | 2 | General | Social *restricted* | You work both sides of a very spiky fence; one of these days, you’re gonna get stuck on it. Perhaps you’re a Syndicate spy in the Ecstatic Cult, or an Etherite working with Iteration X. In the days of the Disparate Alliance, you might belong to a Tradition while ferreting data to your true Craft. Eventually, this dangerous game will catch up with you. Make plans, establish contingencies, and try not to get yourself perished! Obviously, this Flaw must be kept secret from the other characters in your group. For extra drama, try to keep it hidden from the other players, too… Ref: M20 BOS, 65 |
| Driving Goal | 3 | General | Mental | |
| Easily Intoxicated | 2 | General | Physical | Shit really fucks you up fast. (Opposite of Alcohol/Drug Tolerance Merit) Your roll to resist drugs or poisons (though not disease) suffer a +3 to difficulty. Contrary to popular belief, this does not make you a great Cult of Ecstasy canditate. In this case you don't control the drug, it controls you. |
| Echo Chamber | 4 | General | Social | You surround yourself with groupthink. All opinions on important topics (politics, religion, magick, and so forth) must remain unified. No disagreements on such matters are permitted within this echo chamber, and anyone who bucks that decree is shown the door – often with great force – and shunned, probably vilified, afterward. Loyalty to the group is measured by the devotion each member shares with regards to the “truth” as your group understands it. As a result, that “truth” soon gets distorted. Like an echo reverberating within a closed space, it verges into a distortion of the original source, growing wilder and more extreme until something has to give. Will that breaking point be you? Gods forbid… Essentially a story-based Trait, this Flaw cuts your char acter off from information that runs contrary to the group’s determined “truth.”Ref: M20 BOS, 65 |
| Echoes | 1 - 5 | REf: M20 Ann, 646-647 | ||
| Enemy | 1 - 5 | General | Social | Someone hates your guts and will do whatever he, she, it, or they can do in order to make your life unpleasant. Game-wise, the value of the Flaw determines the strength and hatred of that enemy; a single point reflects a minor grudge from some inconsequential party, and five points represent the deadly plans of some powerful entity or group. 1pt -- May refer to someone in your sphere of the same rank. 3 pt -- May represent a pack or cabal of "the enemy side" who bear a grudge against you. 5pt -- You have annoyed a someone of high rank and clout. (ie, a legend within Garou society, a powerful vampire, Mob or Mafia bosses, etc) Ref: M20 Ann, p. 647. and WW20 Ann, 480 |
| Esoteric Discourse / Technobabbler | 1 | General | Social | Your obsessive love of a specialized field inspires you to fill every waking hour with obscure jargon and obtuse metaphrase ology. Most folks can’t understand half of what you say, and their incomprehension of such elementary terminology impels you to facilitate obligatory (if remedial) pedagogy. Oh, for fuck’s sake – just talk normal for a change! In game terms, this Flaw imposes difficulty modifiers (+1 or +2) on social rolls, thanks to the character’s compulsive jargonization, hyperinitiated nomenclature, and condescending pedanticism. The Flaw’s first variation reflects arcane special ization, the second reflects tech-based terminology, and other variations (Specious Legalese, Obtuse Academia, and so forth) could reflect similar fascinations with other fields. For people who actually understand you, however, the usual penalty might become a social bonus instead… at which point everyone else probably leaves the room and lets the experts talk amongst themselves. Ref: M20 BOS, pg 62 |
| Expendable | 3 | General | Social | An upper-level member of your group wants you dead, and sticks you with missions that will probably get the job done sooner rather than later. You could be the lab assistant who keeps being told to send those big metal kites up into the thunderstorm, the apprentice who keeps getting sent off to obtain forbidden artifacts, or the Black Suit who keeps facing off against yet another goddamned werewolf pack while his dispatcher makes excuses for the lack of timely backup. Either way, you’re pretty screwed. Worst of all, no one will openly admit that’s the case, and you may not even know who’s got it out for you, much less why they’re trying to get you perished. Although this Flaw works best for Technocratic operatives (who remain subject to orders no matter who they might be), it suits any Awakened group that operates with a top-down hierarchy wherein high-ranking mages assign missions to lower-ranking ones and expect those orders to be obeyed – say, the Templar Knights, the Order of Hermes, the Celestial Chorus, and so forth. It does not suit shamans, Ecstatics, or other mages who don’t give a flying fuck what their so-called superiors say. (Note: This Flaw resembles the Flaw of the same name in Vampire: The Masquerade. Mages, however, die much more easily than vampires do when one of their superiors wants to get them killed, and so the Flaw is worth considerably more in Mage than it is in Vampire.) |
| Extreme Kink | 3/5 | General | Mental | |
| Failure | 2 | General | Social | Having blown a high-profile job, you’re now considered a washout by your peers. Until and unless you manage you redeem yourself, you’re essentially a laughingstock within your group. Were you a Syndicate tycoon gone bust? A priest caught doing the nasty with the choir? A cowardly Templar? A Pagan gone Evangelical (or vice versa)? Life is made of reversals of fortune, of course. Yeah, you’ll get back on top someday – it’s just gonna be a hard climb. (**Requires on-going plot if you want to get back on top) Ref: M20 BOS, 65 |
| Faithless | 5 | Supernatural | Magick, according to your beliefs, does not come from you – it comes from your god, and you’ve broken faith with him. Until you can shake this crisis of faith, perhaps atoning for your perceived misdeeds, your Spheres remain stuck at Rank 1 – potent enough to perceive the presence of Divinity around you, limited enough to remind you that you have failed. This Flaw (which is more likely to be “awarded” to you through the course of the game than it is to be something you purchased during character creation, though of course you can start off a new character in such a crisis) represents the power of faith in your character’s life – a power so strong that it can interfere with your abilities as a mage. Ironically, the strength of that faith denies you the ability to use magick when you feel that your faith is lacking. From a game-system standpoint, you are denying yourself the ability to access your magick because you believe that your magick comes from a source you have betrayed. Your mage believes that his god is cutting him off from magick, though… and, considering that the player is pretty much the “god” of a gaming character, in a meta sort of way, that’s true. Although a character with this Flaw can pursue any sort of spiri-tual focus, his paradigm and practice must be oriented toward religious devotion. You could be a shaman or a priest, a Goddess-bound witch, a spiritual scientist, even an Infernalist whose hell-spawned powers flow from a damnation pact. Obviously, this Flaw means nothing to an atheist, or to someone with nebulously casual beliefs. Only a mage who believes deeply in some greater power can believe that she has so much to lose from a sudden lack of faith. In order to discard this Flaw, the player must pay a five-point “fine” in order to buy off the Trait itself, and roleplay out a “dark night of the soul” sort of Seeking in which he faces his sins and rededicates himself to his divine Path. The character, meanwhile, must first undergo an atonement that suits his belief system and the “sin” that invoked this punishment. Maybe he needs to take strict vows within a re-ligious order… or take on even stricter ones if he had already broken his previous set of vows. Did he violate a taboo? Then he must undergo ritual purification, often by way of fasting, marathons of prayer, and some traditionally torturous ordeals. A mage who has sworn never to kill, and yet who has killed someone, may be forced to make significant restitutions to the murdered person’s family. Traditional atonements in-clude pilgrimages, vision quests, oaths of poverty, appalling mortifications (self-torture, radical fasting, mutilation, and so forth), and other difficult paths back to the favor of one’s god. Regardless of the creed and specific atonements, however, the mage must spend endless hours in intensive prayer. A faithless soul, after all, must find his way back to the presence of his god… typically on his knees. Ref: M20 BOS, 93 | |
| Family Issues | 1 - 3 | General | Social | Many mages leave their families behind. You didn’t do that, although you may often wish you could. A flipside of the Merit: Family Support, this Flaw saddles you with a basket of goodies from Dysfunction Junction, family-style. You might have a meddling uncle, an abusive sibling, an alcoholic parent, or “simply” the leftovers from dealing with such peo ple. You might have tried to escape them, but if so, someone in your family is still looking for you. The family doesn’t have to still be part of your physical reality, but the mess they left behind if you managed to get away from them remains a part of your existence today. As with Supportive Family, the clan in question could be blood relatives, an adopted family, or a family-of-choice you kinda wish you hadn’t chosen. The more points you have in this Flaw, the more your family issues interfere with your Awakened life. They could be mages themselves, though that’s not often the case. More likely, they’re folks who still look for you even in your Newlife, hangers-on who won’t leave you alone, sickly relations who need tending (see also the Flaw: Ward, p. 66), kids or siblings (or even parents) who have constant troubles with the law… the possibilities are as endless as the real-life complications that a troubled family can bring. And no, you can’t just ditch out on ‘em even if you’ve already tried to do so. If you could, they wouldn’t still be your problem, now would they? Ref: M20 BOS, pg 62 |
| Faulty Enhancements | 2 - 5 | Supernatural | Well, crap. The warranty on your cybernetic gear has expired (assuming, of course, that it ever had such assurances in the first place), and now you’re stuck with malfunctioning hardware that has literally gotten under your skin. Does your BCI keep crashing? Do your legs keep seizing up? Is your bioware constantly trying to eject your iron? Whatever the problem might be, this Flaw gets rated by the amount of misery it causes you: • (2 points) You suffer constant disorientation and pain. • (3 points) The malfunctions keep you in such severe discomfort that you need to take specialized medication,or employ other forms of pain relief, at least once a day. Failure to do so costs you one die from all dice pools until the problem is rectified. • (4 points) Your Enhancements fail you at critical times (generally on a botched roll), crash or freeze up, and must then be repaired by a technician who understands the gear you’ve got. • (5 points) That shitty gear consistently conks out when you need it most. Roll one die against difficulty 7 whenever you employ cybertech in some important way (lifting heavy things with bionic arms, sensor-scanning for enemies, deflecting incoming enemy spells, and so forth). If you succeed, then the Enhancements function normally; if you fail, they fail and must be rebooted; if you botch, they lock up or shut down until a skilled technician manages to repair them. Ref: M20 BOS, 88 | |
| Feral Mind | 3 | General | Mental | |
| Fifth Degree | 5 | Supernatural | Social **Technos only** | Whether you know it or not, you have outlived your use fulness to the Technocratic Union. Your superiors have set you up to fall, and your date with Room 101 or a suicide mission waits right around the corner. Combine all the deficits of the Flaw: Rogue with the assurance that you’re only alive because someone would rather have you take out the bad guys when you go down in a blaze of glory than spend the resources necessary to take you down themselves. You have one more chance to make good and stay alive. Step out of line again, and your fate will be the sort of thing that makes cyborgs cringe. Ref: M20 BOS, 67 |
| Flashbacks | 3 | General | Mental | |
| Gremlin | 1 - 5 | Supernatural | There’s a perverse imp running around your home. Okay, maybe it’s not an actual imp – it could be a malfunctioning robot companion, a vain and selfish bioconstruct, a trouble-some spirit, an obnoxious beast, that talking winged tarantula we mentioned a few entries ago… the form of the creature is unimportant. Like the above Flaw: Apprentice, this Trait reflects a companion character who, despite being supposedly on your side, remains a constant pain in your ass. Originally presented as the adversarial Background for Familiar, this Flaw becomes more significant as the power of the creature, and its attendant nuisance, grows: • (1 point) A creature of unusual, but minor, ability, which busies itself with trivial annoyances. • (2 points) An entity whose power and intellect (or at least its cunning) make your life frustrating but not actively hazardous. • (3 points) A being of notable power whose mischief has begun to shade into actual damage to your property, health, status, and relationships. • (4 points) A metaphysical pain in the tuchus whose powers cause lasting harm to you and to the things you consider precious. • (5 points) A walking plague of significant power and malignancy. Said critter might not actually mean to be bad, but its effects on your life are inescapably destructive. Read More -> Ref: M20 BOS, 84 | |
| Gullible | 2 | General | Social | You believe everything folks tell you. You repost memes without checking their accuracy or source. You fall for cons and pranksters every single time. Seriously? How can a mage be so goddamned gullible? Beats me, but yeah – subtract three dice from every dice pool you roll (down to a minimum of one die) when you’re trying to penetrate falsehoods (lies, not stealth), or to fool people with your own bumbling attempts at deception. Ref: M20 BOS, 65 |
| Hatred | 3 | General | Mental | |
| Haunted | 3 | Supernatural | An angry ghost – perhaps even more than one of them – has an entire skeleton to pick with you. Did you kill her yourself, or does she blame you for her death? Did you commit some awful crime against her during her living days, or were you foolish enough to attempt (and perhaps succeed at) a bitter act of necromancy against her after she had died? Whatever your sin might be (and whether or not you actually did anything wrong in the first place), this wraith is determined to make you suffer for whatever remains of your own life… and possibly your afterlife too, if she can manage that! REf: M20 BOS, 90 | |
| Hero Worship | 1 | General | Mental | You admire someone to the point that they can do no wrong. This is a common trait of folks in an Echo Chamber(M20 Book of Secrets, pg 66). If your hero tells you to do something, you are inclined to obey. A Willpower roll is required to go against your Hero. The difficulty of this roll depends on the extermity of those desired. "Gimme a kiss", would probably be diff 5, "Go stab your best friend in the back for me", would be a 9 or 10. Read more: Ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 46 |
| Hit List | 4 | General | Social | A rival group wants you dead. You might be a Templar who’s made enemies among the Etherites, an Etherite who crossed the line with the New World Order, and so forth. Whatever happened, it’s personal and extends to the entire group. As with the Vampire 20 Flaw: Clan Enmity, this is a deadly business, far worse than the one-point Sect Enmity, above. Social rolls when dealing with members of this group add +2 to their difficulty – if you get a chance to make such rolls at all. Whether or not the enemy group actively attacks you on sight, its members will go out of their way to make your life solitary, unpleasant, nasty, brutish, and short. Ref: M20 BOS, 66 |
| Horrific | 5 | General | Physical | Beyond Monsterous! You may not be one a Nephandi or Marauder, but those that know what those words mean will assume you are one. A normal life for you is impossible. Inflicts a +3 difficulty modifier to any social roll that involves NOT scaring the shit out of people. ** This flaw may make it hard to get valuable RP.** |
| Icy | 2 | General | Mental | |
| Immortal Enemy | 5 - 8 | General | Supernatural | Oh, dear. You’ve pissed off someone whose concept of “eternal grudge” could be taken literally. Essentially, you’ve got the Enemy Flaw with a powerful and more or less immortal entity: a vampire elder, a demon, a demigod, totem spirit, Loa, dragon, or other being who measures its existence in centuries or millennia, with resources and abilities to match. Foolish wizard, what will you do now?For the relative power of this enemy (or perhaps for the number of your enemies), see the Merit: Powerful Ally. Ref: M20 BOS, 93 |
| Impediment | 1 - 6 | General | Physical | Due to some physical condition you are less able to deal with certain situations.Replaces Deaf, Blind, Lame, etc. Unlike the labels applied to such "handicaps" the Impediments Flaw does not carry any judgment. 1pt - chronic headaches, impaired vision, minor arthritis or a few missing teeth. The impediment presents occasional inconveniences but is not a major hassle in your life unless something worsens the condition or removes the things that help you compensate for it.(glasses, dentures, pain reliever) 1pt - chronic headaches, impaired vision, minor arthritis or a few missing teeth. The impediment presents occasional inconveniences but is not a major hassle in your life unless something worsens the condition or removes the things that help you compensate for it.(glasses, dentures, pain reliever) 2pt - As with dyslexia, high-functioning Asperger's, chronic fatigue or pain, poor or deteriorating eye sight, or other internal obstacles, your impediment represents constant but not insurmountable problems. In certain situations you may suffer a +1 to difficulties that deal with that element of your life. 3pt - Your Impediment - severe migraines, significant autism, allergies or asthma, missing finger or eye, near deafness, palsy, Tourette's, deteriorating limbs, etc. Add +1 to difficulties for rolls dealing with your impediment. 4pt - missing limb, profound autism or deafness, malformed bones or connective tissues, severe arthritis, gnarled hands or feet, etc. Add +2 dice to difficulties involving your Impediment 5pt - profound physical condition, partial paralysis, constant and severe pain, advanced cancer, inability to speak, muscular skeletal deterioration, etc. Add +2 to physical difficulties unless you've got a reliable method of compensation. 6pt - Many physical feats are beyond you. Add +3 physical difficulties that you can do EVEN with Major effort.Ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 39 |
| Impatient *** | 1 | General | Mental | You are driven to act NOW, not later. In situations where others just seem to take for-freakin'-ever to get something done, make a Willpower diff 6 roll to restrain yourself from just running off and doing it. Ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 46 |
| Inappropriate | 1 - 4 | General | Mental **Restricted** | Required discussion with Staff. Minds do wierd shit, and so this Flaw reflects a mental condition or psychological kink that drives the character to embarrassing behaviors. Contrary to popular belief, this does not necessarily mean the character is Asperger's/austic, although it could compliment the FLAW Impediment. 1pt - You occasionally say or do sill shit that causes small degrees of embarrassement to you or others. +1 to social roll difficulties when you act out. 2pt - Your quirk inspires some pretty mortifying behavior on a regular basis. +1 difficulty social rolls, even if you aren't acting out at the moment. 3pt - You need to STFD or STFU or you're going to be in big trouble...again. +2 to social roll difficulties that aren't related to making an ass out of yourself. 4pt - You are a source of constant headaches to anyone who dares to identify you as a friend. +@ difficulty to social roll, plus a bad reputation amoung those who have hear about or know you. Ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 46 |
| Infamy | 1 - 5 | General | Social | You’ve made a bad name for yourself among the Masses. Like the Background: Fame, this Flaw represents a degree of recognition; in your case, though, that’s not a good thing… especially not when you want to keep your life as a mage a secret from the Sleepers. Once again, the weight of the Flaw determines its value: • (1 point) Certain people within a region or subculture recognize and dislike you. (Examples: the local drunk, Vox Day.) • (2 points) Your notoriety was wide once, but has faded to occasional recognition and disdain (H.R. Clinton, M.C. Hammer). • (3 points) You’re famous, but many people do not like you (Kanye West, Nickelback). • (4 points) The authorities don’t like you either (Roosh V, Jared Fogle). • (5 points) You’re a household name, and that name is shit (O.J. Simpson, Charles Manson). Ref: M20 BOS, pg 62 |
| Inferiority Complex | 1 | General | Mental | Nope, you’re not worthy. Never have been, never will be. In situations requiring you to take charge or be personally responsible, all your difficulties are raised by one. Ref: WW20 Ann, 382 |
| Insane / Infamous Mentor | 1 | General | Social *Mage only* | The mage who taught you the ropes is dangerously tangled up in them. Maybe she’s out of her head (though probably not a Marauder… yet); or he’s got an awful rep that has splattered all over you. That person could be angry at you for some reason (good or otherwise), or live downstream on Shit Creek, with a nasty habit of dragging you along for the ride. This Flaw makes an excellent addition to the Background: Mentor, and has a way of fouling up your relationships with other mages as well as your bond with the mentor herself. Ref: M20 BOS, pg 62 |
| Intemperate | 2 | General | Mental | |
| Isolated Upbringing | 2 | General | Social | You were raised within a reclusive environment and have had little contact with the “mundane” world. This could mean you were the child of Arcanum scholars, were born in a Uzome ile, or were extensively home-schooled away from society. This gives you a limited understanding of how the “normal” world works, and whenever you are outside of your childhood Affiliation, you have a –1 die penalty to all social skills. |
| Jinx /Infernal Contraption | 2 - 10 | Supernatural | Stormbringer. The One Ring. The Monkey’s Paw. Sure, that paranormal doohickey may possess amazing powers, but it’s also a sack of miseries the likes of which few humans can imagine. And you’ve got one. Lucky you… • (2 points) Your Jinxed item features an annoying drawback that, while not deadly, makes life difficult for the person who owns it. Examples: it attracts ghosts, smells bad, makes irritating sounds at inconvenient times, or radiates a pervasive aura of discomfort. •• (4 points) The Jinxed item has several annoying drawbacks (as above), or perhaps one or two problematic ones. Examples: It must shed blood each time it’s employed, has a contentious and unpleasant personality, attracts malignant spirits, or tempts the owner to violate her moral code. ••• (6 points) Your item features a host of annoying drawbacks (at least six of them), three or four problematic ones, and /or a major flaw. Exam-ples: The item belongs a powerful paranormal entity that wants it back, it inflicts constant pain on whomever uses it (three bashing health levels per turn of operation), the object radiates an aura of corruption and decay, or it steadily drives its owner toward atrocities. •••• (8 points) In addition to at least six annoying drawbacks and /or five problematic ones, plus two or more major flaws, the item also backfires if you fail a roll of Wits + Esoterica (or Wits + Hypertech, if the item employs advanced technology), against difficulty 7. The Storyteller is encouraged to get creative when deciding how that backfire manifests; for suggestions, see the Mucking About with Wonders chart, Chapter Two, p. 141. •••••• (10 points) In addition to the previous level of difficulty, the Storyteller essentially has an open license to make your life difficult in unexpected, creative, and often mysterious ways. Examples: A bloodthirsty cult that’s after the treasure, a demonic entity imprisoned within the item, a cross-dimensional vortex of probability fluxes and quirks of physics that manifest in the object’s vicinity, and so forth. Ref: M20 BOS,88 | |
| Lifesaver | 3 | General | Mental | |
| Limbless | 5 | Companions only | Pysical | You possess no arms, legs, or other useable limbs other than perhaps a prehensile tail. You're a serpent, you're a blob, you're a worm or snail or something else like that. In order to manipulate your surroundings in a human world, you must use Telekinesis or a related power that can maneuver those things for you. This Flaw doesn't mean you're slow or clumsy; it does mean, though, that you can't employ most human tools, climb ladders, or grab things with anything other than your mouth or tail. A character with this Flaw cannot also take No Dexterous Limbs. Ref: M20 G&M, 196 |
| Locked Vidare | 1 | Supernatural | Supernatural | Mages view the Otherworldly Penumbra through a meta-physical perspective called the Vidare. Most of them can alter that perspective by changing their point of view. Not you. For you, the Periphery remains “locked” into a single perspective: the glittering clarity of the Vidare Astral, the primal luminosity of the Vidare Spiritus, or the rotting deathscape of the Vidare Mortem. Essentially, your metaphysical perspective is frozen in place. This is literally the way you view the world around you, and that view never really changes. (For details about the Vidare and the impressions they present, see Mage 20 Ann, pp. 82, 89, 94-95, 98-99, and 474.) In addition to shaping the way your Storyteller describes the Vidare to you, and guiding your reaction to what you perceive, this Flaw also influences your personality, your sense of fashion, your philosophical and metaphysical paradigms, your magickal focus, and so on. When you perceive things in a certain way, after all, that perspective tends to color most aspects of your life. Ref: M20 BOS, 85 |
| Mayfly Curse | 5/10 | General | Physical | Your lifespan burns bright and fast. Perhaps due to biotech, cloning, or some other inhuman heritage or modification, you are far more quickly than the average person. 5pt - Your character ages 1 year for each month of Earthly time (you age 6 years per 1 earth year)<>br>10pt - You age 1 year per earth week.(52 years in 12 months) |
| Mental Lock | 1 | General | Mental | Somewhere between impulse and action, things get stuck inside your head. You tend to perform "nervous actions" to try to break yourself out of it such as stuttering or hand flapping. My pass a Willpower diff 7 roll and spend a temporary Willpower to get yourself out of it. Or otherwise stand around and wait for it to pass (about 5 turns). ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 46 |
| Mentor's Resentment | Ref: Book of Shadows, The 42 | |||
| Mistaken Identity | 1 | General | Social | You’re not who folks think you are, but that doesn’t stop them from thinking that you are that person. For some reason – similar features, related habits, a bureaucratic fuck-up that linked their data to you, or maybe some far more insidious connection – confusion follows you around. This situation is awkward at best, and can get downright dangerous if that not-you person is wanted for serious crimes… Ref: M20 BOS, pg 62" |
| Monstrous | 3 | General | Physical | A frightening appearance marks you as an outsider. Regardless of your true personality and temperament, some profound deformities, scars, body mods, or other characteristics fill people with terror and repulsion. You have APPEARANCE 0 and probably suffer penalties on social rolls. Though you might get a bonus if you are trying to scare people but that depends on what you look like and who you are dealing with. Ref: M20 BOS, pg |
| Mr. Red Tape | 4 | General | Social | Bureaucracy hates you. Any official complication that could go wrong will go wrong if you’re the one who’s dealing with the authorities. Essentially the opposite of the Merit: Master of Red Tape (p. 58), this Flaw adds + 2 to the difficulty of any roll you make when trying to get something done through an established system, and throws stupid mistakes and delays into the works whenever you’ve got to work with any sort of bureaucracy. Ref: M20 BOS, 66 |
| Naive | 1 | General | Social | Surely, the world can’t be that dark… can it? (Spoiler: Yes, yes it can.) Oblivious to the depths of misery around you, you retain an intrinsic faith in the best possible outcome. And while this sort of optimism can provide the foundation for literally world-changing beliefs (Mages: see the paradigm It’s All Good – Have Faith! in M20 Ann, p. 570), it can also blind you to the realities you face. When making a roll that could detect another character’s bad intentions or malignant nature, add +2 to the difficulty of your roll. Story-wise, you have a hard time believing that the terrible things you see around you could really be as bad as they seem, and may perhaps lack empathy for other people’s pain (+2 to the difficulty of Empathy-based rolls, at the Storyteller’s option) because you recognize so little about pain yourself. Ref: M20 BOS, pg 62 |
| Narc | 3 | General | Social | Cursed with the rep of an informer, you’re on the outs with your would-be associates. As with other reputation-based Flaws, this shunning may be based on mistakes and rumors; in this case, though, it’s probably at least somewhat accurate. Known spies and spymasters, intelligence officers, witnesses against their fellow mages, members of groups that are assigned to investigation and justice (like House Quaesitor or the Ivory Tower), and other real or assumed snitches generally catch such reputations by default. System-wise, this Flaw adds +1 to the difficulty of social rolls when dealing with people who fear you might be spying on them; story-wise, such people could be feeding you misinformation, stonewalling you, or plotting to take you out when the moment to do so seems right. Ref: M20 BOS, 65 |
| New Kid | 1 | Supernatural | Social | You’ve just recently Awakened, and you still have some thing to prove. Your peers don’t think much of you just yet, and although you’ve got allies who consider you worth their time, their investment in your goodwill is minimal. Add +2 to the difficulty of your social rolls with more experienced mages until you’ve earned the right (and the experience) to buy off this Flaw. On the good side, however, you’re likely to be popular with certain companions, although – as “new meat” in a social scene often discovers – that’s not always the kind of attention you’ll want. Ref: M20 BOS, pg 62 |
| Nightmares | 3 | General | Mental | You suffer horrible nightmares. They could come from psychic trauma, abuse, brain damage, Quiet, Paradox, Social Processing, etc. These nightmares play havoc on your character's mood, sleep, and long-term sanity. 3pt - Roll Willpower diff 7, EACH TIME your character wakes from sleep. A failed roll subtracts 1 die from all their roll for that day. Ref: M20 Book of Secrets pg 47 |
| No Dexterous Limbs | 4 | Companions Only | Physical | Though you're got paws, jaws, or other ways of grasping and manipulating many objects, you lack the complex prehensile fingers that allow you full access to the human world. Sure, you could pick up a laptop in your mouth or push a door open with your paws; you won't be using that laptop's keyboard very well, though, and you're helpless before a locked doorknob. Horses, dogs, eagles, and the like are extremely smart and clever beasts, beut even when their intellect and perspective approach human levels of cognition, such critters won't get much use out of, say, a smartphone. Animals with precise prehensile digits (like monkey fingers) or limbs (like tentacles) should tak the Ungainly Fingers Flaw instead. |
| Notoriety | 3 | General | Social | Thanks to this inverse of the Merit: Prestige, you’re saddled with a bad reputation among your peers. System-wise, this Flaw adds +2 to the difficulties of all social rolls within your faction (Traditions, Crafts, Technocracy, etc.), and predisposes pretty much everyone outside your closest friends to think the worst of you. Rumors dog your steps, and whispers precede your appearance. Whether or not the stories are true, you’ve been linked to some disgrace, and will be shunned and probably punished accordingly if you haven’t been punished already. (See the Supernatural Flaw: Branded, for a potential punishment, or for an alternative to this Flaw that could be taken by a Tradition mage character.) You might be able to shuck this bad rep eventually, but it’s gonna be a pretty rough road until you do. Ref: M20 BOS, 65 |
| Oathbreaker | 4 | Supernatural | Sworn oaths are powerful things, especially when magick is involved. And yet, you have broken your vow – not a simple promise, but an oath of serious significance. “I’m sorry” won’t cut it here; you need serious atonement in order to make things right, and until that point, anyone who can read auras or listen to gossip within the proper circles will know you for the faithless swine you are. A story-based Flaw, Oathbreaker marks your character out as someone who is not to be trusted. People who place great value in honor will shun her, and others will exploit what they consider her generally dishonorable nature. Beyond that, other characters may be hunting her, with the intention of exacting penance or revenge… maybe both! Resonance, Paradox, Seek-ings, and Quiet will reflect the metaphysical dimensions of this broken vow. Your Seekings may involve literal guilt-trips in which you’re confronted with the potential (or real) consequences of your violated promise; your Resonance remains tainted by the presence of dishonor; Paradox will assume appropriately ironic forms, like visitations from the entity called Judgment in Mage 20, Appendix I; and should you fall into Quiet, there’ll be no place to hide from the transgression you’ve committed. In short, then, you’re screwed for reasons that are very likely your own fault. Read More -> Ref: M20 BOS, 90 | |
| Obsession | 2 | General | Mental | |
| OCPD | 3 | General | Mental | |
| Offline | 1 - 3 | General | Social | You hate the goddamned Internet. As far as you’re concerned, it’s a complicated waste of time. You loathe social networking, lack a webpage, refuse to Twitter, and don’t really even know (or care) how to Google stuff. Anyone who wants to contact you can damned well write a letter, use a telephone, or just leave you the hell alone! (Damn kids, get off my digital lawn…) While this Flaw is worth only one point in cultures where the Internet is an occasional (and often privileged) indulgence, it’s a three-point Flaw in cultures where Internet access and participation are major elements of most people’s social lives. Those cultural divides are more tied to generational and eco nomic divides than they are to ethnic or geographical ones. A poor, elderly, or simply old-fashioned New Yorker might not really care about net access, so long as she can still stay in contact with her friends and family; a college student in Rio, however, would be at a pretty significant disadvantage if he chose to avoid the Internet. And yeah – twenty-first-century mages use the Internet too, even if they don’t visit the Digital Web. Online presence isn’t just for Virtual Adepts anymore! Ref: M20 BOS, pg 62 |
| Old Flame | 2 | General | Social | A former love of your life now works for the enemy. Worse, she knows your weak spots, and can still call on you “for old times’ sake.” Unless you manage to succeed in a resisted Ma nipulation-based social roll contest (see M20 Ann, pp. 390-391) when your old flame tries (again) to win you over (again), you’ll find yourself doing things (again) against your better judgment again… and again… and again… Ref M20 BOS, 65 |
| Omega | 4 | Companions only | Social | Like a beta, you occupy a low place in your social hierarchy. But while the beta still retains a position of honor, you don't. Instead, you occupy the bottom layer of your group's social structure. You get whatever they choose to give you and take whatever they dish out. Verbal and perhaps physical abuse are your daily lot, and although the group will genereally protect you from outside forces, no on will protect you from your group. Although this Flaw generally raises the difficulty of your Social rolls by +2 when you deal with parties outside your group, and by +4 within that group, certain Social rolls (for Intimidation and perhaps Seduction) might remain unaffected if you're a dangerous sort of beast. After all, an omega wolf is still a wolf, and the beast who cowers from his packmates could still rip out a human's throat. Ref: M20 G&M, 196-197 |
| Outsider | 2 | Kinfolk | Social | Because of rumors (true or not), an ill-done deed, poor decision, or some other character flaw, you have a poor reputation among Kinfolk and Garou. They don’t necessarily hurt you, but they let you know you aren’t welcome in their camps or homes. Make all Social rolls involving interaction with werewolves and Kin at +2 difficulty. Ref: WW20 Ann, 382 Shifter sphere is not open, but this can apply towards other Kinfolk characters on the game and in plots where more of shifter society is presented. |
| Overextended | 4 | General | Social | You’ve tried to do too much, and the strain has begun to show. Even when you add Time Sphere magick to the equation, there really are only so many hours in a day, and you spend most of them just trying to keep up with various commitments. You’re on too many committees, stuck with too many reports, nurturing too many connections, maintaining too many resources for one person – even a mage – to handle. Other characters, on top of it all, have begun to undermine your ability to juggle all those plates, and folks are gunning for your position if and when you finally fuck up badly. While this Flaw best suits members of the Technocratic Union, it’s appropriate for any mage who belongs to a group that prizes involvement, most especially the Hermetic Order, Celestial Chorus, Wu Lung, and Templar Knights. (**Applicable to all spheres) Ref: M20 BOS, 66 |
| Pacifist | 5 | General | Social | You’ve chosen to cause no intentional harm to anyone, be it a religious restriction or a moral decision you made. You may defend yourself with magic, and this may be something that you have specialized in for that purpose. If you take this Flaw, you should be prepared to play with these restrictions sincerely. |
| Paranormal Prohibition or Imperative | 1 - 8 | Supernatural | Supernatural | Also known as Geasa and Magical Prohibition or Imper-ative, this Flaw represents a thing you either must do, or are forbidden from doing, on pain of awful consequences. Generally, this imperative comes from an oath you swore, a curse that was inflicted upon you, or a legacy that follows your family lineage. Faerie grudges, infernal pacts, godly inheritances, ancient proph-ecies, Fortean quirks of physics… any one of them can inflict such a burden upon you. So long as you never cross that line, you should be okay – and may, in fact, possess some blessing (a Merit or Background Trait) that’s linked to this Flaw. Ah, but life has a way of pushing us to do things we don’t want to do, and that’s especially true in the case of people who have a curse or geas upon their heads! The value of this Flaw is based on your chances of vio-lating the prohibition, and the consequences that occur if /when you do: • (1 point) You break the prohibition only with an easily avoided circumstance (never kill a cat, go to London, or have sex with a married person), or find it easy to fulfill your imperative (you must shave all your hair off, walk outside every day, or wear blue clothing). • (2 points) Your prohibition is easy to break (never tell a lie, leave your home town, or have sex with anyone), or your imperative is challenging to fulfill (you must always cover your head, walk at least three miles every day, or go barefoot at all times). • (3 points) It’s very hard to not break your prohibition (never speak, have a home of your own, or fall in love or lust with anyone), or to honor your imperative (you must blindfold yourself every day even though you can see, walk everywhere you go, or remain naked at all times). • (+1 point) Inconvenient consequences – you botch your next three rolls, suffer a migraine, develop a rash for several days, etc. • (+2 points) Annoying consequences – you lose your voice for a day, lose a die from all your pools for a week due to constant pain, add +2 to all your social rolls with members of your faction until you can atone from breaking your oath, and so forth. • (+3 points) Painful consequences – until you can atone, you go blind or mute, lose one dot from an Attribute, lose an Ally, Mentor, or Familiar, take the Flaw: Oathbreaker (below), or suffer a similarly awful fate. • (+4 points) Crippling consequences – until you atone, your Avatar abandons you, you lose a total of three dots from various Attributes, you take the Flaws: Oathbreaker, Deranged or both, or else endure a related punishment. • (+5 points) Fatal consequences – either you’re gonna die soon, you’ll be whisked off to an Otherworldly punishment Realm, or both. Atonement, if it’s even possible, will be very harsh, so do NOT break this oath or forsake this imperative! This Flaw makes an excellent companion to numerous Backgrounds (Familiar, Legend, Past Life, Totem, Wonder, and potentially others at the Storyteller’s discretion) and Merits (pretty much anything, really, depending on how you define the source of that Merit). Although this does not reduce the cost of that Trait (despite the description of this Flaw in Mage Revised, which employed a complex and potentially abusive rule system that’s not found in other World of Darkness games),a Prohibition /Imperative can represent vows, obligations, and /or legacies associated with the beneficial Trait. Your Prohibition /Imperative must be tied in with your character’s backstory, and probably has a connection to all three elements of her magickal focus (paradigm, practice, and instruments). The conditions must be something that could conceivably present an obstacle for your character (no prohibitions, for example, against having sex with Voormas, or imperatives to get out of bed in the morning), and your Story-teller will, of course, make a point of throwing said obstacles in your path at various points during the chronicle.... Although it’s rather unusual, a technomancer could have a metaphysical pact or prohibition too. She may, for instance, need to work on a Mac, employ only steamtech, or invent all of her own technology to avoid suffering some paranormal malaise. Thus, this Flaw is not always “mystical” in nature, even if the line separating mysticism from paranormal phenomena is more a matter of semantics than of metaphysical principles. Ref: M20 BOS, 83 |
| Permanent Paradox Flaw | 2/4/6 | Supernatural | Supernatural | Following a nasty brush with Paradox, you’re got a Flaw that just won’t go away. System-wise, select a trivial (two points), minor (four points), or significant (six points) Paradox Flaw as described on Mage 20, p. 551. That Flaw is now part of your character’s life until you buy off this Flaw, preferably with ex-perience earned through some extraordinary adventure that’s related to the Paradox Flaw in question and the mishap that created that Flaw in the first place. REf: M20 BOS, 89 |
| Permanent Wound | 3 | General | Supernatural | You are suffering some form of permanent pattern leakage, a Paradox Flaw, or some other physiological deficit. Regardless of the cause, the character is always at WOUNDED health level; even with magickal healing the injury returns to its normal state at sunrise or sunset (player's choice). IF the character takes more damage, another 4 level will kill the character. Permanent Wound does not resolve completely until it is bought off through a dramatic story-based cure. * will require logs be sent to staff. |
| Phobia | 1/3 | General | Mental | |
| Phylactery | 7 | Supernatural | Supernatural | Your magick, perhaps your very soul, resides outside of your physical self. Maybe you’ve placed your soul within a ring, a jar, or a wooden doll in order to protect yourself from possession and control. Or perhaps you believe that your wand, not your Will, is the source of your mystic powers. You could have built a robot as an extension of your Genius, or crafted a jacket into which you’ve instilled the very essence of who you are. The receptacle itself is not important except with regards to its portability. This Flaw reflects the fact that you must have the receptacle before you can employ your Arts. Without it, you’re just another Sleeper. All told, a phylactery offers a few powerful benefits in ex-change for some pretty significant drawbacks. On the plus side:• A phylactery allows you to preserve a part of your con-sciousness outside your mortal body. That body may be destroyed, but your soul and consciousness live on until or unless the phylactery is destroyed. With Mind 4, you can project that consciousness into another body or an astral form, while a character with Mind 5 /Spirit 5 can place your Awakened consciousness into a new body for you. • If the phylactery is taken from you, or you’re taken away from it, you can retrieve it, or return to it, with a successful application of the Correspondence Sphere. The difficulty for this return Effect is 4 if the return would seem coinci-dental to a witness, 5 if it’s vulgar without witnesses, and 6 if it’s vulgar with witnesses. (Yes, the usual Paradox applies.) • A living phylactery retains a psychic bond with you, as if you’re in constant empathic and telepathic contact with that character. (No roll necessary.) If the phylactery is a place, then you retain an awareness of that place, and can check in with it by using Perception + Awareness, difficulty 6. (For very large areas, the check-in difficulty may range from 7 to 10.) • With the addition of the Merit: “Immortal” at the seven-point level, your physical body may continue to survive until the phylactery is destroyed… which, if you don’t mind going without your magick for a while, could render you more or less immune to death if you then hide your phylactery away in a safe location. Traditionally speaking, that’s why many mages make phylacteries in the first place: to preserve their mortal lives indefinitely. • So long as your phylactery remains safe and undamaged, you remain immune to Gilgul and other soul-trapping attacks. Your body may be possessed, but your soul cannot be stolen or destroyed unless someone attacks your phylactery instead… in which case you’re screwed, as described below. For details about Gilgul, see that entry in Chapter Four, pp. 218-220.• And if you invest your soul into a place, you literally carry the essence of that place within yourself, while a part of you always remains there. For practitioners of certain an-cestral forms of magic (or simply for hardcore romantics), that’s a very powerful reason to do such a thing. Those are the good points. The downsides are as follows: • If the phylactery gets destroyed, your ability to use magick in this life gets destroyed along with it. • You cannot perform magick or recharge your Avatar unless you have some form of physical connection to your phylactery. That form could involve a physical gateway to virtual contact, as with a computer that accesses a mainframe, but you still need that gateway in order to reach a distant phylactery. (Yes, you may use Correspondence Sphere magick to reach the phylactery, and you are always counted as being one success away from your phylactery when you use Correspondence to reach out to it.)• If your phylactery is a place, you must be in that place in order to employ the Spheres. If it’s a living thing, then that character has got to be within touching range before you can use the Spheres. (Explains a lot about Blofeld and his cat, doesn’t it?) • If you’re using your phylactery to cast magick, you need to be rather obvious about it – shouting commands to your hypertech robot pal, holding your mystic crown aloft, hewing your demonic sword through enemies as you shout invocations to your patron god, that sort of thing. • If your Avatar communicates to you through an embod-ied phylactery character, then you need to purchase the Merit: Manifest Avatar (p. 71) to represent the Avatar’s physical form. • If your phylactery is an item, then it’s considered a unique personalized instrument, as per the rules in Mage 20, pp. 587-588. It can be broken, stolen or repaired, but cannot be replaced if it’s totally destroyed. Creating a phylactery of this sort demands high-level magick – Correspondence 5 /Prime 5 /Spirit 5 /Mind 4 to be exact, plus Matter 4 to invest one’s self into a material item, Life 5 to invest it into a living thing, and Life 5 /Matter 4 in order to instill it into a place with an active biosphere – a forest or lake, as opposed to a bare room or large metal box. Ref: M20 BOS, 94 |
| Power Source | 1 - 5 | Companions only | Physical | You require energy in order to function. Your makers thoughtfully provide a power source for you, but it tends to run out and must be periodically replaced if you're to stay in good working order. A common Flaw for robots and cyborgs, this Flaw's value depends up on the frequency with which your power source must be renewed. 1pt - You need a new power source or recharge every 30 days. 2pt - Every 15 days. 3pt - Every 7 days 4pt - Every 3 days. 5pt - Every day. For each day you go without a renewed power source, you lose one die from ALL of your dice pools until a new power source get installed. The penalty applies to all dice pools equally - not different rates for different pools. When your higest dice pool runs out, you go inactive until you've received a new power source. Although that new power source starts you right back up again, an especially long period of inactivity might (ST option) damage your systems to the point where you function at half of your normal dice pools until an appropriately skilled technician can repair you. Those with Technocratic power sources can be recharged easily so long as there's a supply of the correctly standardized power sources available. Those with unusual, ancient, experimental, or unique power sources would be much harder to resupply, especially if only a limited number of such power sources exist. Although generally intended for mechanical characters, the power source in question might also be mystical (specially cut jade crystals bathed in sunlight), metaphysical (an hour of meditation with a properly trained monk), or else otherwise paranormal or immaterial (the light of the full moon, a gallon of bats' blood, rocks collected at the Burning Man festival, etc). Ref: M20 G&M, 198-199 |
| Primal Marks | 3 | Supernatural | Supernatural | You’ve been marked by some god, spirit, myth, or other metaphysical entity… and the mark is not a pleasant one. Maybe you share Papa Ghede’s nasal voice and crude sense of humor, or Coyote’s grotesquely huge cock, or Christ’s bleeding stigmata. Essentially, this Flaw is the flipside of the Merit: Mark of Favor; in your case, though, the mark complicates your life, twists your body, and alerts people who understand the significance of that mark. In certain circles – say, being marked by Satan while living in a deeply religious region – a Primal Mark can be a life-threatening affair. Such marks can also indicate the profound displeasure of the entity in question, like the Mark of Cain (in a non-vampiric sense, anyway) which set the First Murderer apart while sparing his life for a long-enduring punishment. But even if the entity in question likes you, this particular mark is more of a burden than a blessing. Ref: M20 BOS, 90 |
| Profiled Appearance | 2 | General | Physical | You are a book judged by its cover. People think you are one of "those" people.. they type that do bad things. You are judged on your appearance rather than on your social behavior. This FLAW can not be removed without magick. It is part of the character's identity. (related to: Cultural Other Flaw) Ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 41 |
| Probationary Member | 4 | General | Social | Having recently defected from a rival group or faction, you’re on probation with the current group. Peers expect you to turn on them, and certain folks have probably decided to throw you under the bus on general principle. Your continued membership (possibly even your survival) depends upon doing everything right and nothing wrong… and just how often do things really go that well in the real world, anyway? Ref: M20 BOS, 65 |
| Prone to Quiet | 4 - 5 | Supernatural | Supernatural | In an effort to avert the inevitable stresses of Awakened life, you tend to drop into metaphysical Quiets (as per Mage 20, pp. 554-561) more easily than most other mages do. The easier you fall into them, the more this Flaw is worth: • (4 points) Quiet is your default Paradox backlash, and so a backlash of five points or more automatically sends you into Quiet. • (5 points) Quiet is your default backlash, and you can fall into it even without a Paradox discharge. Roll your Intelligence + Enigmas dice pool when you’re faced with an unusually stressful situation; if you succeed, then you’re able to puzzle your way out of the fall – and if not, well, then, welcome back to Quietville… (The roll’s difficulty ranges from 6 to 10, depending upon the severity of the stress and whether or not you’ve dealt with this particular kind of stress before.) Although it’s most often noticed in Virtual Adepts and other Netizens, who tend to set off into the Digital Web in order to escape physical unpleasantness, any mage can suffer from this Flaw. Ref: M20 BOS, 91 |
| Psychic Vampire | 5 | Also known as the Reaper’s Touch, this dreadful curse makes you a life-force siphon. Your presence consumes vitality from your surroundings and the living things who happen to get too close to you. Unless you do so, however, your own life-force withers. Despite your best intentions, you’re essentially a walking void into which life itself pours in order to sustain your own existence. Story-wise, you’re a drain on the energy of your compan-ions. Insects and small plants perish in your presence, while children and animals smaller than a horse feel ill when you stand near them. System-wise, any character who’s in physical contact with you for an hour or more loses one health level per hour to bashing damage. If you’re unable to soak up someone else’s life-force, though, then your own vitality drains away. In system terms, you lose health levels in the reverse order that you would heal lethal damage, dropping to Bruised after one day, to Hurt after three days, to Injured after one week, and so on. If you employ Life Sphere magicks, your difficulties for healing or improvement-type Effects are raised by +2, while your difficulties with corrupting, damage, or illness-related Effects are lowered by -2. (In both cases, the usual maximums and minimums still apply.) Each health level you inflict on someone else with Life Sphere magick heals you of one health level if you’re injured, or else forestalls the “starvation” loss of your own health levels by one day per health level inflicted. An inversion of the Merit: Spark of Life (p. 78), this Flaw darkens your aura, makes your blood taste awful as far as vampires are concerned, and keeps your close associates constantly sick with low-level ailments. Life-affirming mages consider this to be a mark of profound misfortune or outright evil, while folks who love corruption (Nephandi and the like) see you as a ripe candidate for recruitment. Mundane science can’t do a damn thing about this metaphysical malady, and dismisses such fluffy concepts as “life-force energies.” The Technocratic Union, on the other hand, that this sort of thing seriously, and tends to view psychic vampires as Reality Deviants of the most unfortunate kind. | ||
| Overconfident | 1 | General | Mental | You are the best at what you do, and no one can do better or convince you otherwise. Nothing is beyond your reach. You almost never back down from a challenge, no matter how absurd it is. Ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 47 |
| Repulsive Feature | 2 | General | Physical | Essentially the inverse of Enchanting Feature Merit. Unlike Impediment Flaw, the affects the way people regard you, not the way your body functions. The feature in question does not represent overall ugliness, as per Monstrous Flaw or Horrific Flaw. Add +2 to difficulties to social-trait rolls when this feature comes into play. Ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 41 |
| Rival House | 1 - 5 | Supernatural | Social | You belong to a Chantry (or Construct, or whatever) that has a longstanding animosity with another such organization. This could be a rival Hermetic Chantry, a temple whose members consider you to be heretics, a hostile street gang, an opposing martial arts order, a coven that has declared a witch war against your group, a Construct that has marked you all for death, and so on. This antagonism is mutual, too, and you’re expected to act accordingly. Mediation remains unlikely, and things could get worse before they get better… if improved relations are even possible. Obviously, such hostility is personal, with deep roots in the backstory of your chronicle and its characters. Groups of mages don’t generally pursue mass grudges without serious reasons to do so! The Flaw’s value depends upon the power of that other stronghold and the level to which they hate members of your own. • (1 point) A minor rivalry with an associated Chantry of equal or lesser power in relation to your own. For the most part, the antagonism involves pranks, competition, minor sabotage, and occasional “friendly” brawls. • (2 points) A significant rivalry (serious fights and slanders, major sabotage) with a Chantry of similar power, or a minor rivalry with a Chantry so powerful they don’t consider yours to be a true threat. • (3 points) Deadly antagonism between roughly equal Chantries. • (4 points) A significant rivalry between your Chantry and one that’s powerful enough to inflict serious damage upon your own. • (5 points) Deadly hatred from a Chantry that could level yours if they really wanted to… and they probably do. From the three-point version onward, it’s pretty unlikely that the rivalry can be resolved without a shared enemy or some significant interference from an even more powerful third party. It might not be resolvable even then. This Flaw requires the Background: Chantry /Construct, but any character with such associations can take it – the Flaw is not restricted to mages from the Traditions and Technocracy. Your rivalry might cross factions, too; a Hermetic House might hold a longstanding enmity with a Progenitor lab. It can also exist within a single group (two rival Etherite collectives), or between two related groups that do not belong to the same faction; alchemist sects, for example, have been arguing over the name Solificati for centuries, with no end in sight! Ref: M20 BOS, pg 62 |
| Rivalry | 3 - 5 | General | Social | "An associate of yours has it out for you, and while this rival cannot openly move against you (probably because of an external authority she doesn’t want to risk annoying, or social pressures that she can’t avoid), she’ll make your life as difficult as she can under the circumstances. Rumors, sabotage, exposed scandals, and perennial traps are just a few of your rival’s weapons against you. And while you can dance around most of them, a few still manage to hit their mark. The value of this Flaw depends, as usual, on the amount of trouble this rivalry causes for you: • (3 points) Someone of a lower or equal degree of power and influence wants to complicate your life. • (4 points) A rival of greater power and influence throws obstacles in your path whenever possible. • (5 points) A far more powerful rival is seriously dedicated to keeping you miserable… possibly even to making you dead. Why does this person hate you? It could be a “simply business” sort of situation, like the rivalry between Syndicate executives or Hermetic Adepts. There may be a romantic tangle or family history involved, or perhaps an academic dispute, as is often found among members of the Etherite Tradition or Progenitor lab-groups. Chances are, this person doesn’t actually want you dead – just disgraced or removed from further consideration. Fatal rivalries do arise, however… and as Doissetep’s implosion proved long ago, such things can get really ugly when mages are involved." Ref: M20 BOS, 65 |
| Rogue | 4 | General | Social | The loosest of cannons, you’re gonna do whatever you damn well please, and to hell with any and all consequences! You might still belong to a group, but your membership is more a matter of habit or convenience than of loyalty. Alternately, you may have gone your way and now exist in a nebulous state between fondly remembered comrade and total outlaw. Certain Backgrounds (Requisitions and Secret Weapon) are forbidden to you now, and others (Allies, Backup, Chantry, Resources and potentially many more) are hard to access – perhaps even impossible to access – if their connection to you depends upon your allegiance to a group. Former peers consider you a liability, and the main reason no one has taken you out yet is because nobody’s gotten around to doing so successfully. For Technocratic operatives, this Flaw is a slow-motion death sentence; for other mages, it could involve similar threats to longevity, although many Crafts (aside from the Templars, Wu Lung, and Hippolytoi) and most Traditions (aside from the Chakravanti, Akashayana, and Order of Hermes) take a more liberal approach to rogue members. Either way, your relationships with former allies are strained at best (+3 to the difficulty of most social rolls involving their goodwill), and you’re on rather hostile terms with your so-called (or former) superiors. Some mages manage to live for quite a while in this state of mutual antagonism. Most, however, do not. Ref: M20 BOS, 66 |
| Rotten Liar | 3 | General | Social | "Man, you suck at lying! You could not tell a credible un truth if your life depended on it… which it might, so this can be sort of a problem for you. It may be that you’re just too honest for your own good, or cursed to speak the truth as you know it, regardless of the cost or your intentions; then again, you might just stammer your way through attempted deceptions, telegraphing your lies through body language and vocal tone. Whatever the reason, add +2 to the difficulty of any die roll you make when you’re trying to deceive another character. Yes, this penalty extends to magickal deceptions too, like illusions or mind control. Honesty might not always be the best policy among the Awakened, but for you it’s generally the best option. " Ref: M20 BOS, 65 |
| Sect Enmity | 1 | General | Social | "Mage groups tend to have issues with each other by their very nature. You, however, have managed to piss off an entire sect of mages within your larger group. You could be a Verbena witch who hacked off the Hermetic House Flambeau (yipe), a Black Suit on the wrong side of the Friends of Courage, or a Red Spear who trash-talked the Ghost Wheel Society and lived to regret it. Although your enemies won’t try to kill you – you are theoretically on the same side, after all – they really don’t like your face, or much else about you. (Hit List is a more severe version of this flaw.)" Ref: M20 BOS, pg 63 |
| Short | 3 | General | Physical | "You are shorter than 5 feet tall, maybe a lot shorter. Character runs at half speed, has trouble reaching things, lacks physical leverage for certain feats, and probably gets a lot of shit from people that refuse to take them seriously. *Required if you also take the Child Flaw*" Ref: M20 BOS, |
| Short Fuse | 2 | General | Mental | |
| Shy | 1 | General | Mental | Commonly called social anxiety these days. Add +2 to social rolls, thanks to your uncomfortablness around people. IF you end of the center of attention, gods forbid, add +3 dice to your social rolls. Ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 47 |
| Sleeping with the Enemy | 3 | General | Social | A paramour of yours belongs to an enemy group – Awakened antagonists, perhaps, or maybe one of the Night-Folk (as per the old Flaw: Massasa Contact). This isn’t simply a matter of rivalry; if you’re discovered, you’re both probably gonna die. Still, love (or lust) is a powerful force, and so you and your loved one live out one of those Romeo and Juliet situations. Just remember, though: Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, not a romance, and things are likely to go the same way for you." Ref: M20 BOS, 65 |
| Soft-hearted | 1 | General | Mental | Whether because of an abundance of empathy and compassion, or simply a weak stomach, you cannot stand to watch others suffer. You must avoid or leave any situation that involves someone in physical or emotional pain, unless you succeed on a Willpower roll (difficulty 8). WW20 Ann, 477 |
| Special Responsibility | 1 | General | Social *discuss with staff* | You and your big mouth! Shortly after you joined your current group, you stepped up and assumed a duty to that group. Doing so earned you some points with the leadership, but that duty comes at great cost to you. This responsibility weighs on you to a significant degree, consuming time, energy, and social, emotional and perhaps monetary resources you’d rather devote to other things. <br.Obviously, you need to define what you’re doing for whom, and what you need to do in the course of doing it. Although it’s (probably) not dangerous in life-threatening ways, this Flaw demands constant attention. Until you buy off the Flaw, you really can’t skip out on your responsibilities. Ref: M20 BOS, pg 63 |
| Speech Impediment | 1 | General | Mental | For Psychological reasons (instead of Physical reason covered under Impediment). You have some sort of frustrating imperfection: a lisp, stutter, too-broad an accent, whisper, and so forth. Add +2 to difficulty of social rolls that require speaking clearly. This Flaw should be RPed out whenever possible. If you are able to change forms, this flaw carries over since it is a mental condition, not physical. Ref: M20 Book of Secrets, pg 47 |
| Sphere Inept | 6 | Supernatural | Supernatural | A particular element of Reality eludes you. No matter how devoted you might be to mastering its complexities, this field of magick remains a challenge. Essentially, this is the reverse of the Merit: Sphere Natural, described above; one Sphere costs 130% more (rounded up) to learn than the other Spheres cost. RankCost /Affinity Sphere Cost New Sphere 13 pts 2 11 /9 pts. 3 21 /19 pts. 4 32 /28 pts. 5 42 /37 pts. Again, this Flaw can apply to only one Sphere (fortunately!), and comes through in your practice and backstory. Someone who’s inept at understanding, say, Time will have a very wonky relationship with schedules and timing. "Ref: M20 BOS, 94 |
| Sterile / Barren | 1 or 4 | General | Physical | For non-kinfolk characters this flaw costs 1 point. For Kinfolk, it costs 4 points as it has a greater stigma attached. WW20th: For Kinfolk, who serve werewolves as perpetuators of the species, inability to reproduce is a serious Flaw indeed. Not only does it carry a social stigma, it may also incur abuse, neglect, or even exile. Kinfolk who can’t reproduce lose a great deal of their value in Garou eyes. For obvious reasons, vampires and wraiths who were Kin can’t take this Flaw Ref: WW20th, 382 M20th: For some physical reason, you’re unable to sire or conceive children. Whether this is a Merit or a Flaw depends upon whether or not you want to sire or conceive children. Generally, this sort of condition can be easily cured with a little Life-Sphere magick; in your case, though, it can’t be rectified until and unless you, the player, discard the Merit or pay off this Flaw. Ref: M20 BOS pg 37 Cost to buy off this flaw is 2xp, period. You will need to log a scene of how it gets corrected as well. |
| Strangeness | 1 | Supernatural | Supernatural | Your metaphysical prowess occasionally warps reality in your presence, even when you don’t want it to do so. Weird stuff happens when you’re not expecting such phenomena, and those quirks of strangeness seem to be rooted in the sort of magick you pursue. A specialist in Entropy could suffer twists of probability and decay; a Life-attuned healer discovers odd growths and mutations in the life-forms around him, while a Forces-gifted mage bends the physics in his general vicinity. These phenomena ebb and flow without your guidance or control. Perversely, the more skilled you become in magick, the stronger these tides of weirdness become. System-wise, the Storyteller determines, once or twice per game session, to roll your Arete against difficulty 6. If the roll succeeds, the Storyteller throws in some random occurrence that’s based on a Sphere you possess – most often, on your Affinity Sphere. Grass could grow suddenly, mirrors could crack, psychic impressions could inform you of the sexual habits of the person standing next to you in the elevator – that sort of thing. If the roll fails, then nothing unusual occurs. If the roll botches, however, then a Paradox backlash expels one point of Paradox in your current pool for each dot you have in your Affinity Sphere; or all of your current Paradox, if you have fewer points than that in your Paradox pool. Ref: M20 BOS, 85 |
| Sympathizer | 1 | Supernatural | Social | Hey, they’re okay once you get to know them! You’ve expressed some degree of sympathy for an enemy faction, and that sympathy does not make you terribly popular! Maybe you’re a Technocrat who sees validity in the Traditions, a Trad mage who shares some part of the Technocratic vision, a Disparate mage with secret ties to one of the other factions, or even – gods help you! – a mage from pretty much any group, who dares to view the Mad and Fallen as something other than walking targets for instant execution. This Flaw goes well with other Flaws like Rogue, Branded or Fifth Degree, and could well wind up getting added to your character sheet if you’re not discreet about your associations with rival mages. Ref: M20 BOS, pg 63 |
| Taint of Corruption | 7 | Supernatural | Supernatural | Evil has an intimate hold on you. Your spirit has been corrupted – possibly since birth, as with the reborn Nephandi known as widderslainte – and you are, as the werewolves put it, “of the Wyrm” whether you wish to be or not. This doesn’t necessarily mean you behave in an evil manner – you can choose to resist the evil inside you. On a metaphysical level, however, you bear an innate corruption which tests the ideal of Enlightened self-determination. You may, perhaps, defeat it, but it’ll be a hard struggle before you do. From a story perspective, this Flaw could come from de-monic possession, the aftermath of an awful Quiet or a badly botched high-level Seeking, corrupt Resonance, one too many deals with malignant Umbrood, a curse, a vile past life, wicked karma, Nephandic heritage, poor life-choices, the influence of the Wyrm, a collection of tainted texts or artifacts, time spent in a hell, or other forms of metaphysical poison. It almost certainly shapes your magickal focus, and the things you do in pursuit of your magicks (that is, your practices and instruments) may well perpetrate this corruption. (Hey, now, hey now now…) To entities who recognize such soul-stains, you are either a mortal enemy (as far as most werewolves are concerned), an object of pity and potential salvation (the nicer sorts of mages), or – most likely – both. (“Hey, it’s a mercy killing, right?”) Meanwhile, inside your skin, you wrestle with the urges born from that corruption. Whether or not you give in to them (which would, of course, just deepen the decay), your dreams and impulses hold a distinctly unpleasant edge. Working malig-nant magick is frighteningly easy for you (-2 to your difficulties, up to the usual modifier limits), but your “good” spells are harder to cast (+2 difficulty, as above) and have a tendency to leave traces of corruption even when you succeed. Your aura crackles or swirls with leprous stains, and your Merits, Flaws, Backgrounds, and other Traits reflect the damnation you carry inside. A truly epic quest might purge this evil (and buy off this Flaw), but maybe it’s just easier to go with the flow, even if that flow leads you straight into the gutter and beyond… Ref: M20 BOS, 96 |
| Thaumivore | 5 | Companions Only | Supernatural | To survive in the material world, you must consume that lifeblood energy of Creation that mages call Quintessence. Without it, you suffer debilitating hunger, weaken steadily, and eventually perish and fade into nothingness. Ideally, you consume solidified Quintessence in the form of Tass. Your patron mage con feed you raw-energy Quintessence, but it's not terribly satisfying. Although a steady diet of it won't harm you, it will leave you grouchy enough to reconsider the terms of your relationship. Ideally, you'll be given a regular diet of metaphysically energized substances -- magic toadstools, enchanted amulets, batteries charge with raw lightning pulled from the heavens, that sort of thing. The nature of your food, of course, must suit your innate nature; trying to feed a unicorn with Technocratic fuel cells will go about as poorly as trying to recharge a HIT Mark with goblin fruit. (In game terms, no -- that won't work.) System-wise, your character must devour at least one point of Tass or Quintessence per day. Each day you go without that nourishment, you lose one health level, and suffer a one-die penalty to all your dice polls. This damage cannot be soaked, and your body rapidly decays until nothing's left at all. (See also: Unbelief) Once you begin to feed again, all previous damage heals. Your mood, however, might take quite a while to abate.... This Flaw can (and probably should) be taken in connection with the Flaw: Unbelief. Ref: M20 G&M, 198 |
| Throwback | 1 - 5 | Supernatural | Haunted by a past life (often as per the Background Trait of that name, described above), you suffer from awful memories and act out in ways that are, shall we say, not pro-ductive to your current incarnation. Perhaps you still loathe the clergymen who tortured a former “you” for witchcraft 400 years ago; the smell of cooking meat still sends you into panic attacks. Or you’ll get vertigo and acrophobic surges from that time a previous incarnation fell off a castle wall. You may slip into archaic accents, foreign languages, or terminology that is not exactly au courant (or socially acceptable) in today’s world. Flashbacks, time segues, inappropriate behavior – it’s all part of the package in this life you lead today. For each point in this Flaw, up to a maximum of five points (and dice), the Storyteller will roll one die against difficulty 8 when the potential arises for a past life to affect your present life. The more successes he rolls, the more that past life affects you. The symptoms of this “throwback syndrome” generally depend upon the Storyteller’s whim, but you could collabo-rate with him to hash out a backstory (or several backstories) for the previous incarnations your character recalls, and then roleplay symptoms that seem appropriate to those histories. For especially strong flashbacks (three successes or more), you may need to roll your Willpower (again, difficulty 8) to suppress the reaction to what your character recalls. Described in Guide to the Traditions as an adversarial Background of Past Life, this Flaw makes a fitting companion to that Background, the Dream Background, and to other Merits and Flaws related to reincarnation (Twin Souls, Shat-tered Avatar, and similar Traits described within this section). With a few appropriate changes to the symptoms, you could also describe the Throwback Flaw as manifestations of a Leg-end Background, or as memories from a life that goes back several centuries. You’d rather forget the things you did, and endured, back during the Conquest of the Americas, but you never really can. Ref: M20 BOS, 85 | |
| Troublemaker | 2 | General | Social | Pretty much the inverse of the Merit: Sanctity (p. 57); you project an impression of guilt even when you haven’t done anything wrong. Folks blame you for pretty much everything, and the authorities go harder on you than they might if you didn’t seem like such a noxious little turd! You come across like a natural-born sinner regardless of how you behave. Gee, if you’re gonna get punished no matter what you do, maybe you ought to at least have some fun before the whip comes down. Ref: M20 BOS,65 |
| Twisted Apprenticeship | 1 | Supernatural | Social | Someone taught you all the wrong things. For whatever reason, the mentor who introduced you to the Awakened realm did a terrible job, and now you reap the benefits. They may have told you lies about other groups, filled your head with nonsense about the nature of magick (though in all honesty, pretty much everyone does that), or simply behaved like a raging shmuck and left you with the payoff. Now folks blame you for things you did not do (or you did out of ignorance), and the mentor’s bad rep and worse teachings hang about you like a god-slaying stink. You’ll probably recover eventually, but your Awakened career got off to a wretched start. (Staff will require logs to justify buy-off.) Ref: M20 BOS, 63 |
| Ulterior Motive | 2 | General | Mental | Something other than love and respect for your Garou relatives and Kinfolk (your sphere peers, be it Sorc/Psyc and mages, demons and thralls, etc) guides your actions. This “something” may be as simple as greed or a lust for vengeance; you could also be a traitor working for an outside agency. Whatever the case, this ulterior motive holds your ultimate loyalty. Should someone suspect things aren’t as they seem, you could be in big trouble. This Flaw makes a good complement for the Flaw: Dark Secret Ref: WW20 Ann, 382 |
| Unbelief | 3/5/8 | Companions only | Supernatural *restricted* | Once upon a time, your kind may have freely wandered the mortal realm. Now, the weight of human disbelief has turned you into a walking paradox... or literally speaking, a Paradox. On the other hand, you might be a hypertech entity whose existence offends the natural world. Regardless of the details, you fit in only within certain surroundings, and violte reality in most others. Unless you remain hidden in a region where culture, solitude, or both protect you, the weight of disbelief soon crushes you out of existence. Thanks to this Flaw, you must remain within a Reality Zone (M20 Ann, 611-617) that's appropriate to your essental nature. A pair if shisa hanging out in the Ryuku Islands are literally part of the landscape so long as they don't bite the tourists; a devlish imp in a wizard's workshop is pretty much de rigueur for such a place; a white hart dashing though the English mists belongs to that land as surely as any human resident. Transplant such creatures to other settings, though, and the weight of the modern Consensus soon proves fatal...not for the hart, perhaps, but surely for any less-natural thing. In game-terms, this Flaw reflects the character's affront to Consensus Reality outside of the specific sort of Reality Zone. That character remains healthy inside an appropriate Zone but suffers damage once they leave the Zone and wanders around a world that's not ready to deal with their existence. The damage assumes two level of severity: painful, in which the creature's essenetial nature clashes with the area they're in; and fatal, in which the creature's nature is so deeply opposed to that area that their body begins to break down under the force of Unbelief. * Painful: One health level of bashing damage per turn, which beomes lethal damage once the character's health levels run out * Fatal: One health level of aggrivated damage per turn. This damage cannot be soaked, as its cause is metaphysical, not physical. The value of the Flaw depends upon how remote the safe Zone is from the rest of the world, and how "allergic" the character is to places outside their home territory. 3pt - The character is comfortable in most types of Zones, suffers painful damage in an opposed category Zone, and gets fatally damaged by specific Zone that are diametrically opposed to the character's nature (a robot in a mystic region, or a forest-spirit in a Technological Installation). 5pt - The character is comfortable only within a specific category of Zone, suffers pain in most others, and gets fatally damaged by an opposed category of Zone. 8pt - The character is comfortable only in a specific type of Zone (like a Node, Rural Area, or a Technological Installation), suffers pain in most places even within their comfort Zone, and gets fatally damaged in any other category of Zone. When creating the character, decide which type of Reality Zone is most suitable for this creature, which types make them uncomfortable, and which types conflict with their innate nature. A Cyber-Tooth Tiger with 8 points in this Flaw will be perfectly at home in a Technocratic Construct (a specific type of zone), feels uncomfortable in the middle of a mundane city (even though it's still part of the Technocratic Reality), and quickly perishes in a Primal Zone where such hypertech is anathema. If taken by a character with the Thaumivore Flaw, the fatal damage becomes bashing damage, and the painful damage disappers entirely, so long as the character eat at least one point of suitable Tass or Quintessence per day. If this food supply ends, damage kicks in immediately if the creature is stuck in a "fatal" category Zone. A character who dies of Unbelief begins to decay almost instantly. Like a cinematic vampire in the such, the corpse crumbles to dust, bursts into flame, fades away, dissolves into a puddle of good, collapeses into a heap of bones, or performs some other suitable act of rapid disintegration. Within a minute or two, nothing but unidentifiable debris remail where that creature died. This Flaw does not apply at all to the Umbrae. It may, however apply to Umbral Realms, the Old Roads, and so forth if the vision of reality in such a place is diametricall opposed to the character's nature -- an android in Midrealm, or a tree-spirit in a Technocratic space station. **Discuss this with staff if you want to take it. Due to game population there may not be a zone that would allow you rp. House Rule: No loners. ref: M20 G&M 198-199 |
| Uncanny | 1 - 5 | Supernatural | Supernatural | No matter how unobtrusive you try to be, you remain re-markably memorable to anyone who encounters you. You’re the very opposite of “arcane,” which is why this Flaw was originally described as an adversarial Background for the Trait of that name; rather than moving through life with near-invisibility, you stand out like a HIT Mark at a Verbena barbeque. Once again, the point-value of this Flaw depends upon the extent to which it interferes with your life: • (1 point) You stand out in a crowd. • (2 points) It’s pretty hard to conceal your oddities. • (3 points) People remember you long after you’re gone. • (4 points) You creep people out simply by existing. • (5 points) You scare people simply by existing. By its nature, this Flaw represents an unmistakable impres-sion. Each point in this Flaw adds one die to the dice pool of anyone who’s trying to notice you, recognize you, or penetrate your attempts at stealth or concealment. You may, however, attempt to cover up your uncanny presence with a roll of Intelligence + Subterfuge, assuming you have a method of doing so – it’s easier to conceal your glowing red eyes with sunglasses than to get those wailing damned souls to piss off for a few minutes! The difficulty of such attempts is generally 5 + the value of your Uncanny Flaw; if, for instance, the clever bioconstruct Victoria Carliotti gets two points in Uncanny for her too-perfect skin, rippling muscles, and impossibly green eyes, her concealment difficulty would be 7. That said, this Flaw does not increase the difficulty of social rolls and may, depending on what you’re trying to do, decrease such difficulties instead (Storyteller’s option). This Flaw makes an excellent companion to a variety of Physical Merits and Flaws – Enchanting Feature, Hyperflexible, Hideous, and so forth – and fits in with Back-grounds like Legend, Past Life or Totem quite well too. Although the Flaw: Echoes can manifest similar odd phenomena, this Flaw reflects a constant and recognizable distinction. Ref: M20 BOS, 86 |
| Vanilla | 1 | General | Mental | Oh my gods, you're such an innocent! IN a world of sex magick and power plays, you're a little lamb whose strayed too far from home. Jokes get past you, clues escape you, and references to anymore more raw than a Disney flick go over your head. |
| Veiled | 5 | Kinfolk and Mage | Supernatural | For some reason, you’re not immune to the Delirium. Gifts such as Part the Veil and the Rending of the Veil rite have no effect on you. You do receive a +1 bonus on the Delirium chart and retain all memories of what you see, but the sight of a Garou in Crinos form still invokes some sort of instinctive, uncontrollable reaction in you. This may convince Garou you’re not really Kinfolk, reduce your likelihood of finding a Garou mate, or throw your heritage into question Ref: WW20 Ann, 383 Note: Per M20 Ann. pg 407, (It’s worth noting that mages and their hardy companions remain immune to lycanthropic Delirium. Although a werewolf should scare the hell out of any intelligent mage, the greater effects of panic and delusion described in Werewolf: the Apocalypse don’t count...(in regards to mages... unless you take this Flaw. |
| Vulnerability | 1 - 7 | Supernatural | Some perilous substance may spell your doom. Thanks to a paranormal weakness – a curse, a Paradox Flaw, a quirk of belief or cultural legends – you suffer extraordinary harm from that malignant material. Perhaps you shrivel up in sunlight, flee from the scent of roses, or melt when obnoxious farm girls throw water in your face. This substance isn’t generally fatal to most folks (Awakened or otherwise), but it’s potential death for you. Your vulnerability to this substance in question has two potential levels: • Weakening, which inflicts one aggravated health level on your character every turn she’s in contact with the substance; and… • Mortal peril, which inflicts three aggravated health levels for each turn she’s in contact with the substance. The value of this Flaw is based upon two factors: How common the fatal substance is, and how badly it affects you: • (2 points) You can be mortally wounded by contact with something that’s almost impossible to acquire (the sound of Pan’s pipes, a splinter from the True Cross), or weakened by a very rare substance (a chunk of moon rock, the tooth from an aged lion). • (3 points) Mortal injury from a very rare substance, or weakness caused by something that’s relatively scarce and not obviously harmful (saffron, grave dirt, a raven’s feathers). • (4 points) Mortal injury from something that’s relatively scarce, or weakness from a common substance (rainwater, silver, a baby’s cry). • (5 points) A common substance inflicts mortal injury on you. • (+1 point) You die instantly upon contact with the substance in question. • (+1 point) The mere presence of the substance means instant death to you. • (-1 point) The substance must first inflict damage on you through a typical injury (a stab wound, ingested poison, a silver bullet) before it can harm you. Damage from this Flaw cannot be soaked unless you’re wearing an appropriate type of armor to prevent exposure to that substance. (Being aggravated damage, it shouldn’t normally be soaked anyhow, but mages have ways of getting around such trivialities.) Your backstory should feature the reason for your potentially fatal vulnerability to this substance. That vulnerability ought to be tied into your magickal focus, too – an Alpha Male tycoon isn’t likely to burn upon contact with holy water, although it might be fun to fling a few dashes of the stuff around Wall Street and find out for sure! (That would certainly explain a few things.) Ref: M20 BOS, 86 | |
| Ward | 3 | General | Social | "Mages rarely move through life alone. And when certain companions – lovers, children, partners, parents, close friends, even employers – depend upon you, that lack of loneliness can become a liability. This Flaw represents a character, or a group of characters, who require constant attention on your part. Your life is a hazard to them, and their needs often provide hazards for you as well. Wards tend to get in trouble, require rescuing, and go digging into aspects of your life you’d prefer they left alone. Is it love that binds you to your ward? Duty? An oath? Family obligations? A job like bodyguarding, teaching or medicine? Regardless of the reason, each ward is an essential part of your life. Their life is your priority. Although Ward characters may have a useful skill or two, such folks are unAwakened people, not mages, Night-Folk, familiars, or other powerful entities. That said, you could take a Ward Flaw to reflect a special bond with a Retainer, a Cult member, or one of your Spies. Merits like Supportive Family or True Love (and Flaws like Family Issues) go well with the Ward Trait. Wards don’t have to be human, either – your dog, your cat, your horse… an animal who depends upon you could be a ward as well. You can take this Flaw more than once, to reflect several dependent characters. Yeah, there are reasons that mages tend to avoid having big families! Obviously, each ward is a Storyteller character, with all the agendas and complications that situation entails. This person might not count as a Sleeper witness with regards to your magick… but if you’ve been keeping that person in the dark with regards to your true life and nature, they could still count as a witness for at least their first experience with your sort of “reality.” Ref: M20 BOS, 65 |
| Weak Spot | 3 | Companions Only | Physical | Thanks to an injury, a curse, or some other handicap, you've got a vulnerable spot. Attacks that strike that area inflict extra damage and might also incompacitate you. A successful strike on your weak spot inflicts two unsoakable health levels of aggrivated damage, if that damage would have been aggrivated to begin with, it inflicts two more health levels' worth of damage than it would have if the attack had hit you elsewhere. Weak spots liek this tend to be hard to spot and harder to exploit. To realize ti exists, your opponent must first successfully roll Perception or Intelligence (Whichever is higher) + an Ability that might help them recognize your weak spot for what it is. A physical weak spot might involve Medicine (or biology or ST choice); a mechanical one,Technology or Hypertech; a metaphysical one, Lore, Occult, or a suitable Esoterica discipline. The roll's difficulty is 8, but it might go higher under especially difficult conditions (darkness, heavy rain, obscuring smoke, and so forth). Spotting the weap spot is easier than hitting the weak spot. A targeted shot at your vital area add _4 to the attacker's difficulty when trying to strike it. *Optional Rule, the ST might declare that a random, untargetted attack that scores 6 successes or more when trying to hit you automatically inflicts the damage associated with your weak spot. If your weak spot is definied as a flimsy joint, automatic shut-down system, or other liability, the ST may replace the aggravated damage with an appropriate condition: Your leg dislocates, your systems deactivate, your cybernetic limb stops working, etc. However, this condition lasts until you manage to get it fixed, turned back on by a third party, and so forth. |
| Wild Talent | 4 | General | Social | Available as both merit and flaw. See complete write-up under merits. |
| Witch-Hunted | 4 | General | Social | The Masses want you dead. You’ve been exposed for what you are and can do, and so various unAwakened parties have decided to take you out like the abomination you’ve become. These hunters could be law-enforcement authorities, religious groups, fanatical sects, furious mobs, imbued hunters, pawns of the Night-Folk… whoever they might be, these people offer a significant threat to your existence, possessing the power to end you and the dedication to back it up. Your Arts alone cannot stop them, and a painful showdown (or three) is sadly inevitable. Ref: M20 BOS, 66 |
Books: M20th Anniversary (M20 Ann) M20th Book of Secrets (M20 BOS) M20th Gods & Monsters (M20 G&M)
Werewolf 20th Anniversary (WW20 Ann)
