#class abilities

Cleaver:

PITCHSKIN. Your skin bubbles and shifts into night-black tones as tar seeps through the pores. Gain the Sneak skill. The secretions from your skin are flammable and adhesive, acting as a sort of volatile glue you can exude at will.

Cleavers are vaguely (or explicitly) cannibalistic survivalists who vibe with the eldritch nature of the Heart, so naturally to sneak they secrete flammable tar from their pores to become permanently and literally pitch black and hard to see. And now you can give yourself flammable glue whenever you want it! Win-win!

Deadwalker:

DIRT UNDER THE FINGERNAILS. You dug your way out of your own grave. Gain the Warren domain. You can dig through earth and mud with your bare hands as though you had a shovel; your fingernails are always stained with a little soil, and you cannot clean it off.

Deadwalkers are thieves and infiltrators that have already died and are haunted by the personifications of their own deaths. Their abilities tend to be evocative of death and funerals, but I think I love this one the most. I did also consider LAST RITES, which lets you ask the spirit of a dead person one question as you perform their last rites, but the whole ‘you dug your way out of your grave so now you have mole claws’ just does it for me, I think.

Deep Apiarist:

APISAMBULATION. Your body sleeps while your mind, riddled with industrious bees, marches on. Gain access to the Delve skill. Once per session, while on a delve, you can opt to fall asleep and let the bees inside your body steer you. In this state, the bees speak for you and perform actions on your behalf – roleplay accordingly (the GM can use Fortune fallout to represent your inhuman pilots). Assuming you get a few hours’ rest and progress on the delve, refresh D6 from any of your resistances.

Deep Apiarists are living walking hives of eldritch bees, and nothing makes that more clear that this fantastic and horrifying/hilarious ability. Need a nap and some healing but you’ve got to stay on the move? Nap anyway, and let your body be piloted by your bees! Which sounds like a hilarious time for you and your entire party that absolutely will not have any bad consequences whatsoever.

Heretic:

SHARD OF THE TEMPLE DOOR. The great doors of the Moon Ascendant temple were smashed to pieces on the night of the purge. You carry a shard of the door, reminding you that your faith is eternal. Gain the Endure skill. Once per session, when you touch the shard to a closed door, it will not open for at least an hour (unless it is destroyed).

The Heretic and their abilities have a distinctly gothic sort of vibe, and I love them a lot. I was so tempted to go for LIAR’S BURDEN which lets you roll if you think someone’s lying to you and on a success your goddess deals d4 stress to them if they were lying as their mouth bleeds as if eating glass. Which, metal. But I love SHARD because it feels … You’re carrying a relic of the night your faith was purged, and it gives you strength, and the shattered temple doors still do their best to protect you. I love that.

Hound:

ROUND THE NEXT CORNER. You can find a place to shelter, smoke a roll-up and let things blow over. Gain the Delve skill. Once per delve, you find an out-of-the-way location where you can catch your breath and recuperate without fear of being discovered by your enemies. You can take your time and heal here without incurring a bane.

Hounds are a lot more practical and less … excitable than a lot of other classes. Their abilities do tend towards normal, practical solutions to problems. I like this one. The perpetual soldier’s instinct to just find a nice nook or cranny to hunch up for a bit and breathe.

Incarnadine:

EYES IN THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD. You’ve set up enough crooked deals to know when you’re about to be suckered into one. Gain the Discern skill. When you stand still and concentrate, you can quite literally see behind you as though you had eyes in the back of your head. Doing this for too long causes headaches and nausea.

Incarnadines are themed around debts, acquisitions and trade. I was tempted to go for RED MARKETEER, which gives you the Warren domain, but also makes your attacks Brutal if its against someone trying to steal from you, which I just find funny? But I went with EYES, because literal eyes in the back of your head that give you a headache if you use them too long is both hilarious and cool.

Junk Mage:

MARK OF HUNGER. You can taste the power slumbering in the City Beneath, and you want it more than anything. Gain the Delve skill. You can smell sources of magical power – the more potent and active, the more pungent the smell. Different types of magic have different scents: relics of the Moon Beneath have the aroma of wine and butter, necromancy smells like nujabian kafee and the occult technology of the Vermissian resembles malt and rich tannins.

I actually like a lot of the Junk Mage abilities, because a lot of them use things like tattoos or junk or relics to channel abilities, but I think my favourite is this one. Because Junk Mages are junkies. They crave magic and power, they crave the hit. So how they find magic? They can smell it. Extremely literally. And, since a lot of their abilities require destroying occult resources to power spells, being able to sniff out replacements is extremely handy.

Vermissian Knight:

SANGUINARY ARRAY. Your inefficient mortal heart is supplemented by a rig that extracts, filters and nourishes your vital fluids. One side effect of this is that your blood acts as an antenna for the scattershot electrical impulses of the Heart. Gain the Discern skill. If one of your senses becomes damaged or unusable, you can replace it with the weird echoes that shudder through your exposed blood – it’s not perfect, but it’ll do.

Vermissian Knights’ abilities are themed around their train-steel armour. Different abilities are different pieces of equipment you’ve installed on yours. And while I love a LOT of them, this one has to win prizes for being the weirdest? If your senses get damaged, the weird occult purification array that’s running your heart can function as a replacement in a pinch. By picking up eldritch vibes in your vicinity for you to steer by. Also, like. What does that look like? Someone tries to open your armour to help/hurt you and is like, what the fuck is this?

Witch:

RAMBLEWYRD. You are well-versed in exploring and surviving the places most connected to the Heart Itself; sometimes you do it for pleasure. Gain the Cursed domain. Once per session, when you are in an area with the Cursed domain, remove D6 stress from resistances of your choice.

Witches, as people blood-cursed by the Heart, have a lot of fun abilities, from healing spit to aura vision, but I think this one is my favourite, just for the … spite? Not spite, but close. Cursed areas are some of the most dangerous in an already just generally eldritch setting, and you’re not only fine in them, you feel actively better inside them. Actively, mechanically better. You walk into a cursed landmark, take a nice deep breath, and are like, ah, feels like home! I love that. I just vibe with that.

End Thoughts:

Cleaver:

BLOODBOUND BEAST. You are accompanied by a ragged cryptid that follows your commands – an ancient stone-browed stag, a razortoothed heartsblood hound or something stranger. You feed it your blood, and it fights for you. You gain the Bloodbound tag on all weapons as you and your companion work in concert.

The Cleaver has five major abilities to choose from, a support option that gives the party skills, a combat option that gives you a great big weapon, a hungry option that leans on the classes core ability to gain skills/domains by eating things, and a transformation option that lets you pay in stress to do more damage. And then there’s this option, which gives you a ragged companion, a strange, rough animal to follow you. If you want a pet, this is the ability for you, and it’s a Heart pet, so it’s weird and offputting and wonderful. One of the minor abilities you can get for this is FAITHFUL UNTIL THE END, which does exactly what it sounds like it does and allows your faithful pet to die in your stead, at which point you’re required to pick a different major ability and you can never take this one again. Which. If you want to smash your character’s heart to pieces? Could be a good narrative shout.

Deadwalker:

ECHOES. You can glimpse the remnants of what has come before. Roll Discern + Domain to witness ghostly recreations of the past in your current location. This will generally show the most interesting or dramatic thing that occurred within recent memory.

Deadwalkers again get five options to choose from, one that lets you hurl yourself into the shadow world faster, one that lets you push through the shadow world to the afterlives beyond, one that turns your death into a poltergeist that helps you out, and one that lets you sacrifice your protection to hit enemies harder. And then there’s this one, which gives you psychometry. And we all know from other games that I just really like psychometry? I like knowing things, I like sensing things, I like weird tools that let me see things I shouldn’t. Although, to be fair, the heaven-exploring option is also extremely tempting.

Deep Apiarist:

UNCHAOS. The Heart is a chaotic place, and you seek to undo that with ancient magic. Roll Mend+Occult to cast this spell. On a success, for the remainder of the situation, you or one nearby ally treats Risky actions as Standard actions (keep the highest rolled dice) as probability coalesces around you and crystallizes at your feet.

Deep Apiarists are about resetting reality. Their five options are one that makes their body inimical to the Heart, doing extra damage to Heart creatures, one that turns their body into a mind healing item for your party, one that takes any mind stress you have and inflicts it on your opponents via your core bee swarm, and one that gives you bonus dice if you roll 6s. And then there’s this. Which is you casting a spell to just make life a fuck tonne easier for you or a party member. You can also buff it to make it a small AOE, though people have to stay right beside you for it to work. But it’s … The reality-bending bees are out here doing the work with this one.

Heretic:

OATH OF SAGACITY. You have learned one of the secret names of Three-Fold Damnou, and when you speak it aloud your enemies are struck senseless by its power. The name of the Goddess functions as the following weapon: (Kill D6, Spread, Debilitating, Maddening, One-Shot).

The Heretics get five major abilities, linking to five of the six Damnic virtues of their faith, which I enjoy. The virtue they’re missing is Grace, and it’s an in-universe doctrinal question as to why that is. Your options are one that gives you and sometimes someone near you physical protection, one that turns you into a divine terminator that takes mind damage if they haven’t killed a worthy foe by the end of the session, one that lets you do more damage/get further if you take and succeed on riskier actions, and one that lets you mystically sense creatures in your vicinity. And you’d think, given the Deadwalker above, that I’d pick that last one. But I just enjoy the ‘knowledge man was not meant to know’ that’s inherent in knowing one of the secret names of a god and speaking it as a weapon.

Hound:

STARE DOWN. You have a reputation as a terrifying enforcer; just looking at some folk is enough to get them to throw down their weapons. Your gaze functions as a weapon (Kill D6, ranged). It only works when your target can see you and if they have the capacity to be scared of you – so criminals are fair game, but heartsblood predators aren’t. You can use this “weapon” in a haven or other landmark without causing a huge ruckus. Your gaze won’t kill people – it’s disheartening, and if you reduce an opponent’s resistance to 0 with it they surrender, try to bargain their way out or trip and incapacitate themselves whilst fleeing.

Hounds are so practical. I actually really, really like them? And they have a bit of a wild west vigilante vibe as well. Of their five options, one lets them mark people as criminals which gives them advantages against them, one kind of possesses them with the spirit of trench warfare which gives them better unarmed and bonuses to close quarters, one gives them a Pumpkin Scissors-style berserker state where the more damaged they are the more damage they’re doing back, one gives them the ability to prep for a situation granting themselves and the party a choice of several benefits (and can be buffed), which was extremely tempting. But then there was this. Which is the ability to Clint Eastwood stare somebody into submission. Your stare does actual damage to people. And yes, you can buff it with a minor ability so that it works just fine on heartsblood predators. And, like. I mean you’ve got to pick that, right?

Incarnadine:

KARMIC LEDGER. Once you know what’s keeping someone awake at night, it’s much easier to take advantage of them. Roll Discern+Haven to cast this spell on a target you can see and hear. On a success, you determine their deepest karmic debt: the greatest thing that they’ve taken from someone else (money, valuables, freedom, a son, etc). When you act on this information, roll with mastery.

Incarnadines are about debts and deals and backstabbing, and their abilities reflect that. Sometimes quite literally. They get six potential options. One that lets you literally backstab people for bonuses, one support option that lets you pray to the god of debt to help someone else out, one that helps with NPC interactions that compels them to want something, one that lets you add a haven to your god’s network and get bonuses for it, one tempting one that lets you channel an incarnation of your god to do continuous minor damage to any enemy that can see you, and this one. Which is … I feel like if you’re going to worship a god of debt, it should let you see the biggest debt someone owes? And not in the sense of something they borrowed, but in the sense of something they’ve stolen. Their biggest karmic debt. If you worship a god of ledgers, you should be able to read the books.

Junk Mage:

KISS OF THE DROWNED QUEEN. You have glimpsed the sunken Court of the Drowned Queen, where she slumbers and awaits the resurgence of her line. With a touch, you can conjure salt water in the lungs of those who oppose you. This spell functions as the following weapon: (Kill D6, Piercing.) If the target is at least shin-deep in water, it inflicts D8 damage.

Right. So. The Junk Mage’s major abilities are spells they’ve gotten that call on major powers. There’s four big powers that they draw on: The Red King, The Sky Court, The Drowned Queen, and the Stone Chorus. They have six options, two each for the Red King and the Sky Court, one each for the other two. The Sky Court lets you either induce an orgy and/or the purge, or it gives you hyper adhd for a while. The Red King lets you either smell money and desire, or set things (and people) on fire. The Stone Chorus gives you and your party access to a temple mid-travel to be safe in, which is tempting. But I just like the Drowned Queen. Of the two damage spells, I want the one that drowns people on land. You know?

Vermissian Knight:

AETHERIC FIELD. Your armour buzzes with static that makes your hair stand on end; this discharge can keep you safe from the body-warping effects of the Vermissian. Once per session, activate this power. You gain +3 Echo protection until the end of the current situation.

The Vermissian Knights are very tanky, and their options are quite similar to the Cleaver’s, now that I look at them. Again, five options. One that gives them a great big monster-killing weapon (and a buff that lets them summon the monster in question), one that lets them push their armour to the limits, paying in stress to do more, one that lets them protect their allies, one that lets them pay in stress to do more exploring, and this one. I don’t know if its just the techological vibe, but I enjoy using your armour to create a protective electrical field that wards off weird damage. You can also buff it to create an aoe, and make it rechargeable. I like wards, as a concept. I enjoy this.

Witch:

LAIR. You adopt or create a predatory building and claim it as your own; it still eats people, but it doesn’t eat you. The building in question is no larger than a small shop or study. Inside, the shadows crawl and scurry, the walls creak and whisper and a maddening heart‐beat thuds at the back of your consciousness – perfect for you, but unsettling for anyone else. Any non-witch who enters your lair must roll Resist+Occult and mark D6 stress to Echo on a failure or D4 stress to Echo on a partial success. When you are in a landmark, roll Mend+Occult to summon your lair. On a success, it’s always been here, as far as anyone knows. Your lair acts as a bond (p. 98) – if it suffers fallout, it’s either eaten someone who’ll be missed or been damaged by suspicious locals.

… Witches are weird magic werewolf people, which is a great standing start for fun abilities. They have six options, and they’re all pretty much delightfully weird. One that lets them make the area around them more occult, automatically letting them aid a domain dice to almost everything, one that lets them see omens of what’s to come in a mirror (which lets them warp reality more than see the future), one that lets them attack people using blood as a vector, one that gives them a weird pet that they can channel damage into rather than taking it themselves, one that improves their werewolf form, and then this one. Which just … gives them a cool sentient hungry shop that follows them around and can act as their base in locations? I just. I feel like if you have the option, you should always choose to have your own predatory tea shop following you around?

End Thoughts: