Eldritch Powers are a second form of advancement, and represent a character’s true nature. The GM has more on this, but for now, let’s look at what you can do with Powers.
Picking Powers, and Theme
Each of your Powers should fit a common theme, or create one. If you see yourself as kind of a vampire, then things like Mesmerism, Shroud, Unearthly Might and various forms of Shapeshift can easily be imagined to fit. The Powers listed here are just examples. Each should either grant an immediate, massive effect or an ongoing effect that lasts on all rolls for a Scene. They an be combat effects but honestly, they are the least interesting Powers (and perhaps the least effective, considering how the system works).
You will encounter Eldritch NPCs with Powers. The GM has rules for how to adjudicate those – they don’t necessarily work the same as PC Powers.
But always, for any group of Powers, try to fit a common theme, or create a theme that fits your Powers.
Using Powers
A Power cannot be used in every situation. Define something that fits the kind of creature you are becoming, detail how you imagine it being used, and the GM will work with you to get something that fits the game.
A power should have a devasting effect on one thing, granting immediate Legendary success, or has an ongoing effect over the scene which allows a bonus on every roll where it might apply.
You might suggest another effect, and the GM might allow it. Remember there is a very strict limit in how often these can be used, so they can (and should) be very powerful. They cannot instantly kill or remove from play another Eldritch character, though. They rae meant to grant options, and change the dirceton of play, but they are not easy “I win” buttons.
Steampunk and Wizardry
Many powers can be described as based on technology or magical in nature. Choosing either of these (or indeed, demonic, angelic, undead, and so on) is a special effect that may or may not affect the power. It’s part of the theme. All powers should share the same theme. Later on, some descriptions of theme – and their strengths and weaknesses – will be posted.
d66 Eldritch Power Table
While the range of possible powers is endless, it’s handy to see some example powers, so here is a d66 roll you can use when not sure what to take (or, more likely, the GM can use for their Eldritch NPCs).
| d66 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| 1 | Artefact | Call Beyond | Gaze | Petrify | Size | Unearthly Might |
| 2 | Augury | Delightenment | Glamour | Place of Power | Spawn | Unnatural Attacks |
| 3 | Aura | Earth Works | Green Thumb | Primal Urge | Special Attack | Waterworks |
| 4 | Beast Control | Eldritch Mark | Immunity | Shadow | Spirit Guide | Whispers from the Past |
| 5 | Bedevil | Eruption | Mesmerism | Shapeshift | Toughness | Wish |
| 6 | Bestow Charm | Flight | Nightmare | Shroud | Transmute | Advanced Power |
Eldritch Power Listing
The powers are listed in alphabetical order. There are just sao many, it was the best way. A character can learn any power at any level. The very few exceptions will be noted..
1. Artefact
An object with power. The object might be a straightforward product of Mad Science (like a jetpack or ray gun), but it’s more common for it to be a strange object of unknown origin with a mysterious power.
Create a single evocative concept, like power suit, fire, plants, pathfinding, then when you invoke the Power, it should be vaguely justifiable as fitting that concept.
The GM can Compel an artefact to create effects or even refuse to use its powers. You can always refuse a Compel.
Edgar has a sword covered with lightning runes. While sneaking up on a camp in stormy weather, the GM offers a compel: lightning arcs from the heavens to his sword. It glows, absorbing energy, and Edgar is briefly illuminated from the camp. Edgar accepts the compel and fate points.
2. Augury
Declare you foresaw these events (maybe in a séance or vision), and describe how you are ready for them.
Choose to either roll back one event and undo it, or describe how it happened anyway but you avoid it.
Marlowe the Magnificent and Rowan the Spiritual Thief are breaking into a treasure chamber, and trigger a trap.
Rowan declares she foresaw this, and warns Marlowe about the trap. The players might choose to bypass the room and completely avoid the trap, or go in ready and prepared for the trap.
3. Aura
Choose an effect from other powers – all those in an area round you are affected by it when you activate it.
Opponents may find ways to avoid the Aura once they know about it, but you don’t spend Power until it I activated.
If people are working around it, it is still a factor, even if you dot explicitly trigger it.
You can narrate it affecting minor things (not characters), without spending Power – but the GM can also Compel this effect.
4. Beast Control
You have control over animals, possibly a specific kind of animal.
Describe how animals solve one problem for you – they don’t have to be present before you spend the point.
You want to escape a scene, and a flight of bats or locusts swarms in to cover you.
A guard and his dog block your entry, and you pass as the guard’s dog turns on him.
5. Bedevil
Your power harasses a target. It may be a curse, summoned spirit, injury, whatever fits your power. Once initiated, you may or may not have the power to stop it.
Madame Var is a medium, and summons an opponent’s former victim to haunt them.
The sorcerer Marius casts a spell on his victim, who now suffers nightmares.
The victim suffers a compel or invocation penalty every Scene till the power expires.
6. Bestow Charm
You can enhance someone else in some way – typically granting a bonus on each relevant roll till the benefit expires (up to the end of the Scene).
You can instead create a specific effect.
Araff, a zealot whose powers come from a Guardian, is about to face a Gorgon with a petrifying gaze. Araff prays for help, and so the first on his team to be petrified will be immune to that effect.
The nature of the benefits gained are strongly influenced by your nature.
7. Call Beyond
You can move somewhere it is impossible to reach. Save someone from a burning building, appear inside a locked room, cross a chasm.
Either you have a power that explains how you do this (becoming immaterial, teleporting, etc.), or it just happens and everyone is conveniently misdirected and never sees exactly how (so you can explain the power’s nature later).
8. Delightenment
A very system-based mechanical power, and might need serious revision.
You can transform into a number of very different forms equal to your Eldritch rank, and they are different characters.
You have the same number of Ability ranks in each form, but can assign them completely differently. This usually involves a physical and mental change, where you become another specific human Jekyll & Hyde-style, or maybe you are possessed by a spiritual or demonic entity. You might have different aspects.
If you have more than one Power, the alternative form can have different powers (but it always has this one).
The GM can Compel involuntary changes, or to have the change last longer than intended, or to carry out its own agenda.
9. Earthworks
You have a Power over earth, stone, and its products like metal. You can use this is a minor way with Eldritch rolls, but actions which can affect another Eldritch character will need a Power point.
See Green Thumb (see below) for ideas.
10. Eldritch Mark
Spend this Power to place a Eldritch Mark on someone or something. For the rest of the Chapter, you have a connection to the target, and always know where they are and what they are doing. You might be able to reach through the connection and know what they are thinking.
You might be able to temporarily work through them, use other Powers, etc.
Make sure you describe what power this Eldritch Mark is based on.
11. Eruption
You can unleash an eruption of Power that affects a room sized area, affecting all in that area with a normal attack.
The attack might continue until the source of the eruption is dealt with, and sometimes the eruption might spread.
The eruption depends on your nature. For a demon or elemental, it might be fire. For a mummy it might be a swarm of locusts. For a psychic character it might be a psychic attack, causing brains to explode. For a sorcerer, it might be a spell.
This is not a single-target effect, though you could try to cast it on a single thing with an Eldritch roll.
12. Flight
You can fly, growing horrifying wings. In this form, you might resemble a demon, angel, dragon, or something stranger. The form is always very obvious, and can cause troublesome reactions.
You gain use Flight for the rest of the Scene, though specific actions may need a Daring or Eldritch roll, and the GM may decide the power is ended. But it is a Power – you should at least get a significant instant benefit from it.
13. Gaze
Choose another power and give it a specific effect. If appropriate base it on another interaction, like tough.
Medusa took Earthworks: Turn to stone, and Midas took Earthworks: turn everything I touch to Gold.
Then decide if the power needs activation (costing Power) or is a continuous effect (reduces Power by 1 constantly, and is a frequent source of Compels!).
With a constant power, you can use it to attack with as easily as others might use a sword or revolver, but might spend a lot of effort on avoiding people. This is rarely appropriate for PCs.
With a power you need to activate, once it is activated you can use it freely for the rest of the Scene and it might have a massive impact on its first use against people who don’t know about it. But you might need to stop it, and then can’t use it again until it is re-activated.
14. Glamour
Take a little time to create an illusion – gold coins, a person, a druid’s grove, a ballroom with dancers. The possible size of the glamour depends on the roll. Fair: handheld; Good: trunk, Great: person, Superb: vehicle; Spectacular: House; Astonishing: Palace. Legendary: city. You don’t have to create a full-size Glamour.
This Power is meant for roleplaying more than fighting. It can create a justification for certain actions. If you create a handful of gold, you can trade or buy with it. If creating a bridge, you can cross it.
The Glamour is physically real. Whether people disbelieve it or not, it’s there.
The Glamour expires, usually on the next sunrise. You might choose a different expiration, when the Power is triggered.
You may be good at creating Glamours of a certain kind, and not at others.
15. Green Thumb
Make the natural world act according to your will, and reshape it in limited ways. A forest may block pursuers while letting you through, the vines on the palace wall lift you up, tree roots burst through the castle floor to entangle opponents.
Look at Glamour for the maximum size of area affected. If you want to attack with the Power, take Eruption to simulate attacking vines or plants.
There must be non-sentient living matter– but as a Victorian world there usually is.
16. Immunity
Choose a substance or attack- acid, fire, gun fire, edged weapons, etc. When facing this attack, you can activate immunity (either on Stress or a Condition). Expend a power point, and for the rest of the entire chapter you take no damage from this attack.
You might delay the activation of this power to look like you are being hurt.
As with Gaze, this can be taken as a Constant effect (for -1 permanent Power). There are no limits – it affects that form no matter how massive. It may appear to kill you (giving you the chance to escape) – spend Power for a Concession.
17. Mesmerism
Implant a suggestion or command in an NPC that becomes a part of their belief system for the rest of the Chapter.
How this is done depends on your nature, and may involve a fade-to-black.
If the NPC is a recurring character, you can re-ignite an old effect with no roll.
If their behaviour is very alien to them, they know they were under external influence. Otherwise, they aren’t.
Eldritch NPCs are only affected for a Scene, or a Turn if it’s a conflict action. You might need to overcome them with an Eldritch roll, but if you fail, they can’t be affected by this power again but no Power is spent.
18. Nightmare
You are Inhuman, and your true form causes horror and nightmares.
Maybe your true form is a demon, angel, or something worse. Maybe there is something different about your nature (like the removable skin of a selkie).
Activate this to reveal your true form and cause humans to recoil in terror, which allows you to act freely for a turn.
A villain is attempting to capture Sirian. As the mad scientist and his minions corner Sirian, she is angered and shows her true form. As the mob recoils in horror, she makes her escape.
You can inflict nightmares on a target who may or may not remember them, but fears you. You can decide the target senses your nature but you didn’t consciously choose to inflict this on them.
There must be a situation where your true form can be discovered or triggered.
19. Petrify
Use this power to render one target both untouchable and irrelevant for the rest of a Scene.
You might turn them to stone, have vines entangle them and carry them away, fill them with visions that cause them to run fleeing form the scene. Exactly how it works depends on your scene, but the goal is to remove a specific character from a specific conflict, often in a showy way.
20. Place of Power
There are places and paths of Power in the world. You can sense them, harness them, and even travel them.
If the GM has created a place of power in the area, you detect it and create a link to it. Otherwise, you (the player) create one.
You are drawn to places of power, so it is no surprise that you keep finding them.
Each Place of Power has magic it is good for – you can perform that for free once, either immediately or at a later time (but you must be physically at the location).
A portal of some sort is common, but the GM may have defined a different power and you can suggest a supernatural effect for those Places of Power you “discover”.
After you define a place of power, it continues to exist and Eldritch NPCs might discover and exploit it…
Common use of this Power is to create Shelters – places you can escape to (from that location) that are unaffected by any other action or Power.
You might define the power’s nature, but saying it is based on Ley Lines is fine.
21. Primal Urge
You have the heart of a beast, and strong passions rage inside you. These emotions are too much to contain – those around you are swept up in an emotion you feel.
Spend this Power to affect everyone in the area with an emotion of your choice.
The dock workers are being pressured to load a ship up with cannon and explosive, but Valerie doesn’t like what they will be used for. She gets on her soapbox and rages against the dock owners, and the workers are filled with fury. Soon a riot is underway.
With Leadership, harness and control the emotion – direct enraged dock workers against a chosen target, for example. Otherwise, you choose the emotion but the GM chooses how it is expressed.
You can instead declare you are overcome by a specific emotion, to your advantage.
The banshee fills the party with fear, but this enrages Valerie – her anger overcomes the fear and she acts normally.
22. Shadow
Activate this Power to change the ambient lighting in an area. Despite the name you can make it bright, but gloomy and shadowy is far more common.
The change can be instant, but might be described for narrative effect as slowly becoming more gloomy.
As with Glamour, you might state an end-point, longer than a Scene, but whenever you do there must be a source for the light or shadows that people can act against and destroy – it has Stress equal to your Eldritch Rank, might be guarded but if destroyed the illumination that item provides is gone.
23. Shapeshift
You can change shape, adopting a bestial form. You might be able to take multiple forms (a number equal to your rank), but none of them are human.
The bestial form is at least as heavy as a human, so can’t be too small, and is part-human, part-beast. It is unnatural.
Once activated, you can use this power’s benefits until you change back – you also lose the ability to do things it can’t do.
The form might grant a number of “things” (like running on all fours, attacking with claws, tracking by scene, etc.) equal to your Rank.
You can’t shift into a form capable of flight unless you have that power too.
The GM can offer Compels for involuntary changes. Maybe you always transform at the full moon, or sometimes if injured…
24. Shroud
Perform an impossible act of skulduggery – any action covered by the Shenanigans skill succeeds, no matter how unlikely.
Councillor Tovin is reading evidence against the Vampire Elderen, who sneaks into the Councillor’s Chamber and steals the documents as he is reading them. Tovin doesn’t notice Elderen and forgets what those documents ever existed.
You can’t use this power to undo already-defined facts. If Tovin read those files earlier, it is too late to make him forget them – but you can still steal them.
25. Size
Use this power to grow very big (bear to mastodon-sized) or very small (like a rate or flea) – one or the other, not both.
This might be combined with Shapeshift, especially if you want to look like more natural examples of the form you take.
Use your imagination for the things you can do in the new form. It lasts as long as Shapeshift.
26. Spawn
You can create new copies of a being, whether by duplicating yourself, summoning from another realm, or just summoning creatures under your power from this realm.
They usually last for the Scene, and exactly what they can do depends on conversation with the GM (and for some creatures, it is appropriate for them to be permanent, or to last until dispelled).
The spawn always does the same thing.
If you summon a creature beyond your power level, you do not control it.
27. Special Attack
You can make a melee or short-ranged attack with an unusual substance – acid, fire, cold, etc. Describe what it is, and it lasts the rest of the scene.
28. Spirit Guide
You can gain information hidden from you. Maybe you speak to the dead in a séance, or meditate to expand senses, or look at the world from the astral plane.
Whatever the origin of the power, you can spend some time, perform a ritual and gain information on a specific subject that you have no way to perceive. Make a roll, and ask questions. You gain one ‘fact’ per Impact. All answers must be on the same topic, but aren’t limited to yes/no; they can be a short descriptive sentence.
The GM decides what exactly constitutes a ‘fact’. If describing it takes more one verb and noun, it’s more than one fact.
You only gain answers about something that could have been witnessed (even if there was no witness). Questions about abstract concepts or the future have no honest answer, and you can ask again.
29. Toughness
You are unnaturally tough, and can avoid harm in some defined way. Maybe you have strong armour plates, maybe you are killed and come back.
The first time you suffer a Condition, spend one power and activate this power – it works how defined and neutralises that Condition.
Remember, you can’t usually use a power more than once in a Scene.
Conner is duelling with an enemy and realises he will probably lose this fight. So, he spends the power to describe how his opponent runs him through, and he drops dead. An hour or so later, he wakes up…
Exactly how this works various with your nature. One character might be chopped up and slowly reassemble; another might fade out of existence and reappear later.
30. Transmute
At a base level, choose two materials, and you can change one to the other. Describe on what principle this works.
You can target opponents with this (e.g. Flesh to Stone), but it is only activated against knowing targets when inflicting a Condition. Spend a Power point.
It then persists for the rest of the Scene, but once people know about it, they may find ways toc avoid or neutralise it.
If you have another elemental control Power (like Earthworks, Greenthumb, or Water-works), you might be capable of more flexible transformations. You have total control over a given element (though a significant effect costs Power).
31. Unearthly Might
You have superhuman strength, at least sometimes, and can perform a mighty deed befitting Silver Age Superman. Lift a car and hurl it to attack a group, break chains restraining you, wrestle a hydra, tear the portcullis in two, punch a hole in the wall, and so on.
What more needs to be said?
32. Unnatural Weapons
You can attack in melee without another weapon, and either kill a target in as gruesome a way you desire, or maintain these weapons or the rest of the conflict.
You can grow personal weapons, such as teeth, claws, spines, etc., You are never unarmed, as long as you don’t mind people seeing that you are inhuman.
If you also have Shapeshift, you might be capable of more dramatic shapeshifting like a true lycanthrope. Your weapons tear through metal, and do more than natural or personal weapons should.
33. Waterworks
You have power over the element of water. At first glance, this may look simply like enhanced swimming – you can move through water like a shark, and can breathe water with no problem. These are free actions.
But it is much more than that – you can make water do your bidding. Purify a room or well-full of water, drown a person by making water pool in their lungs, and so on.
This is like Green Thumb or Earthworks, but for Water.
A power activation can grant significant, instant effects, or effects that last for a Scene. This depends on what you imagine and how the GM adjudicates.
34. Whispers from the Past
You have some spooky way of gaining information about things that have already happened. You might talk to corpses, talk to animals, sense things about objects with history, and so on.
Choose what your power is based on. When activating it, the GM gives you some baseline information, and you can then ask a number of yes/no questions equal to your Rank. You only get answers based on things the target could possibly know, and any “don’t know” answers don’t count against your questions.
The questions must all be asked in the same few moments. A later time requires a new activation of the power.
35. Wish
You can use this Power to do anything, at least anything the GM agrees can be done with a Power. Your Eldritch Rank is very important here.
This power should not be used for attacks, but for things like creating new lakes or splitting the continents.
Exactly what it can do depends on your power theme and should be very narrative in nature. It probably must be performed at a place of power, though you can create more minor, personal effects without one.
The GM rules will go into more detail on this one, since it’s the pinnacle of Power.
36. Advanced Power
You have made an advanced study of your power, which grants two benefits.
When making Uncanny Ability rolls about your specific power, you can use your Eldritch Rank if higher.
Additionally, spend this Power to use any other Power you already possess. This allows you to use some powers a second time in the same scene.
At the GM’s discretion, the GM might allow you to spend this Power to do things not covered by your existing Powers, but which do fit your theme.
Using Powers
If it’s something that can be resolved with a single roll, you succeed with a Legendary succeed.
f it’s something that is resolved with multiple rolls, you get the Power Bonus on every roll that relates to this power use for this Scene. It doesn’t guarantee success (but makes it a lot more likely) and lasts over multiple rolls.
