As beautiful and capricious as the sea that birthed her, Aphrodite is impossibly gorgeous no matter what disguise she puts on. Men and women fall in love with her in an epic way the moment they lay eyes on her. Aphrodite herself falls in love with equal fervor—only to come crashing out of love in an epic way a few months or occasionally years later.
Fickle, demanding, fascinated by intelligence yet never really seeing its use, Aphrodite keeps her attendants waiting on her, hand and foot, so that her every whim is supplied. Her indiscretions are always overlooked, laughed off or excused. Her paramours rarely get off so easily. When she vanishes suddenly, her former victims are usually left penniless and suicidal. In fact, finding her is merely a matter of tracking the string of failed relationships and ruined lovers she leaves behind.
Her Champions tend to follow one of two paths: Either they are genuinely loving and communicative with their partners, while providing inspiration and guidance to all their friends in matters of love and relationships; or they tend to leave a string of broken hearts and ruined people behind them. Usually incredibly beautiful themselves, they still have difficulty wielding that beauty in the presence of their goddess.
Devotion Attributes: Charisma, Manipulation, Composure
Devotion Abilities: Empathy, Etiquette, Leadership, Performance, Subterfuge
Devotion Basic Blessings: Center of Attention, Arrow of Eros, Subvert
Center of Attention
You get noticed, even in the busiest room. Your beauty and charisma draw the attention of others like moths to a flame. Even those who do not agree with your cause or your purposes will stop and listen, willing for a moment to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: None
System:
Expend 1 point of Gnosis and use a simple action. For the remainder of the scene, you seem larger than life, more impressive than usual, and everyone within conversational distance will pay attention to you and will feel a strong desire to be near you. Characters affected by Center of Attention are not compelled to like, trust, or stop attacking you, but they must pay attention to you. A target affected by Center of Attention is automatically considered to be focused on you, as per the Gaze and Focus rule. Characters may ignore all uses of Center of Attention for one hour, even if they come from multiple individuals, by spending a point of Willpower.
While your Center of Attention is active, you do not give others your Gaze and Focus when interacting with them, whether you are conversing with them, attacking them, or targeting them with powers. This immunity does not extend to supernatural means of gaining your Gaze and Focus, including gifts such as other uses of Center of Attention.
Arrow of Eros
The champion sees into another’s heart and charts the course of her desire. He touches her skin or hair, pulling her desires away with his caress for him to study and alter.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Wits + Empathy vs. Resolve + Willpower
System:
Expend a standard action and gaze at your target. The champion learns the subject’s most ardent desire, and any feelings connected to it. This desire can even be one the target is unaware of. If they desire, they may replace this desire with one of their choice. The target’s passion for the original desire, along with any feelings it engendered, turns toward the new desire for the scene.
Exceptional Success:
The champion instinctively knows of any obstacles between their target and their desire.
Subvert
Subvert pushes your victim to surrender to dark temptations that they might not normally indulge in under normal circumstances.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Manipulation + Subterfuge vs Composure + Willpower
System:
When you witness another character taking an action that indulges a desire or resisting the temptation to act on her desires, you can use your standard action, and make an opposed challenge to enact Subvert. If you succeed, the subject’s actions change, and she succumbs to her desires. Subvert influences all of a subject’s actions with varying degrees of subtlety. Should another opportunity arise to succumb to her desires, the victim must expend a point of Willpower to overcome this effect for five minutes. Subvert lasts for one hour.
Characters under the effect of your Subvert suffer a -2 penalty to resist your use of Addiction or Dependence.
Exceptional Success:
Your Subvert lasts for the rest of the night.
Devotion Intermediate Blessings: Addiction, Entrancement, Veil of Desire
Addiction
You have the power to trigger an uncontrollable hunger in your victim, creating a physical and psychological dependence that drives all of her thoughts and motivations. This addiction must have a specific focus, such as a sensation, substance, or specific action normally considered taboo.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Manipulation + Subterfuge vs Target's Composure + Willpower
System:
If you wish to addict a subject to a sensation, substance, or action, she must first encounter it. The Champion uses her standard action, and makes an opposed challenge to enact Addiction.
If you succeed, the victim gains one Compulsion or Obsession derangement for the rest of the night, then gain an immediate Derangement trait in that derangement. You determine that derangement’s trigger, based on your manner of temptation. If a character is subjected to a second use of this power, the new effects overwrite the older application.
No individual can become addicted to something that causes damage through the use of this power.
Exceptional Success:
The Addiction inflicted by this power lasts for two game sessions.
Entrancement
A gentle smile can sway the hardest heart. You are the highlight of the gathering, a star in a cloudy sky, the sole recipient of attention. Few others can match your beauty and poise, and those who are lucky enough to gain your attention will do anything to keep it.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Charisma + Leadership vs. Target's Composure + Willpower
System:
Expend a Standard Action, and make an opposed challenge against your target. If successful, you bend your target’s emotions and capture her heart. She becomes immediately receptive to you, rationalizing any disdain or negative feelings she had for you before you used this power. While the target is not your slave and will not blindly obey your commands, the subject admires you greatly and is willing to work toward your goals, within reason.
Both during the effects and after this power fades, the subject will rationalize the effect of Entrancement. Those who already felt positively toward you will simply remember that you were particularly alluring; those who moderately disliked you will begrudgingly blame the brief change of heart on your incredible persuasive skills. Only an individual who actively reviled you and wished you harm will clearly see that her actions were manipulated. Others, watching the Entranced individual, may see more clearly that she is under the sway of your emotional control — but it will be difficult to convince the Entranced individual that such is true.
Entranced characters cannot bring themselves to harm you, physically or politically, and will generally be as nice to you as reasonably possible. Entrancement is not mind control, and characters you’ve Entranced are not obligated to follow your instructions to the letter. They will generally try to make you happy, and they will take your side in arguments or conflicts, so long as they are not put in danger by doing so. An Entranced character will not risk her life to defend you, but she will lend assistance as long as the situation isn’t dangerous.
If you attack someone you’ve Entranced, this power’s effect ends immediately.
Exceptional Success:
If you achieve an exceptional success, the target of your Entrancement suffers a -3 penalty to resist or overcome your other Social-Based Gifts or powers for the duration of this effect.
Veil of Desire
The champion of Aphrodite is able to cloak themselves in the dreams of their victim, able to become what they truly desire.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Charisma + Subterfuge vs. Target's Composure + Willpower
System:
Expend a standard action to make an opposed challenge against your target. If successful, they look like whomever their target most wants to see for the remainder of the scene. They can also appear as someone the target doesn’t know but desires to see, such as a dashing stranger. This transformation is obvious if done directly in front of the target, as such it is recommended that this power be used before the target can see you.
If the Chosen wants, they can use this Blessing on a group and choose one person as the target transforming into a person of their desires. All observers see them as the same person. If other characters wish to pierce this illusion they may do so by using a gift that allows for piercing illusions (such as wolf senses). The Chosen may oppose this piercing using either the normal defense pool, or their Composure + Subterfuge if they prefer.
Convincing interaction may require a successful Social test if the champion acts out of character for the person they appear to be. They gains a Wild Card bonus on such tests equal to their Subterfuge.
Exceptional Success:
The deception lasts until the next dawn.
Devotion Advanced Blessings: Dependence, Majesty, Passion's Crown
Dependence
You are the ultimate addiction. With your cult of personality and thorough devotion to Aphrodite, you can force your victims to become obsessed with being in your presence.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Manipulation + Subterfuge vs Composure + Willpower
System:
You must engage your target in conversation and talk to her for at least one minute to activate this power. After meeting this prerequisite use your standard action, and make an opposed challenge to enact Dependence. If you succeed, the victim’s psyche becomes bonded to your own for the rest of the night, as she suffers from the Obsession derangement.
A bonded victim feels no particular affection toward you. However, she is psychologically addicted to your presence. For the duration of this power, she suffers a -2 penalty to all test pools when you are not present. Additionally, you gain a +5 wild card bonus in Social test pools against your victim for the duration of this power.
Penalties from this power do not subtract from defensive test pools.
The victim cannot attempt to harm you while this power is active.
Exceptional Success:
The duration of Dependence extends to two game sessions.
Majesty
You have mastered the ability to channel your emotions, focusing its rage into a dark, regal bearing that seems almost palpable. The force of your personality causes meeker hearts to quail, and fearful individuals to bow or grovel before you as you demand their respect. Hearts break and even the most stalwart tremble as you pass, overwhelmed by the authority and sovereignty of your countenance. You take on the aspect and mien of ancient rulers, expressed however is appropriate — be it through intimidation and command, worshipful subservience, sexual magnetism, or purity and grace.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Special, See Below.
System:
Spend a standard action to activate Majesty. For the next hour, you appear to be the apotheosis of your character’s best nature – astonishingly beautiful, terrifyingly evil, regal beyond reproach, or otherwise – as reflects your character’s personality. The feeling of a character’s Majesty can vary, depending upon the user’s personality and current mood.
Majesty manifests as a domineering emotional presence, amplifying your character’s nature. While this power is active, others cannot show you disrespect, and while they may disagree with you, they must do so with utmost courtesy.
Anyone who wishes to attack or be rude to your character must make an opposed challenge, using her Composure + Willpower versus your Charisma + Leadership. If the aggressor fails this challenge, she cannot make another attempt against your Majesty for at least 10 minutes. She becomes trapped in the effects of your Majesty and will continue to treat you with respect and courtesy even if she leaves your locale. After 10 minutes have passed, the aggressor may again attempt to break your Majesty. This effect also applies to powers that don’t directly target the Majesty user, but instead target the area encompassing the Majesty user. If a character wishes to engulf a room in fire and one of the characters in the radius has Majesty active, the aggressor must test against that Majesty to do so.
If you attack an individual affected by your Majesty, or if you use a power on such an individual, your Majesty immediately breaks for that person. She is rendered immune to your Majesty for the next hour and can treat you as she would normally, even attacking you, as she sees fit. This breaking of Majesty only affects the specific individual; others in the area who are affected by your Majesty are not freed simply by witnessing your aggression toward their friend.
During a mass combat scene, if you use the assist defender tactic to force someone to attack you instead of their intended victim, your Majesty automatically breaks for that attacker, as you have acted aggressively towards her. If you attack a character who is aided by the assist defender tactic, your Majesty is broken for both the new target and the original target, unless you choose to forgo your attack when the other players declare their use of the assist defender tactic.
While your Majesty is active, you ignore the Majesty of other characters.
Passion's Crown
The champion pushes his target to pursue their greatest desires with the boundless energy of Aphrodite. They create a crown of flowers and ivy from nothing, weaving passion and luck into each petal.
Cost: 1 Gnosis
Test Pool: Manipulation + Performance vs. Target's Composure + Willpower
System:
Expend a standard action to make an opposed challenge against your target. If successful, the champion presents the wreath as a gift to their target, who accepts it and puts it on. It immediately vanishes from sight, but the effects last for one full lunar cycle.
The target suffers a -2 penalty on any Composure or Resolve tests to resist temptation. As well, the character who gave them the wreath gets a +5 Bonus to confirm Exceptional Successes when making any tests to tempt the target.
Once per scene for the next full lunar cycle, whenever the champion successfully tempts the target into doing something, the chosen of Aphrodite regains a point of Willpower. The chosen of Aphrodite may have up to their Performance Rating in designated targets from whom to gain Willpower at a time.
Exceptional Success:
The target also gains a +2 bonus on tests related to pursuing her current greatest desire, but suffers a -2 penalty on all other non-defensive tests.