Titan Calling - Tyrant

While Leaders represent those in power who care for and guide their people, Tyrants crave power for themselves. A Tyrant desires unquestioning servants, sycophants, and yes-men. They cannot abide criticism and spare little thought for those they’ve stepped on so long as they rise to the top. A Tyrant’s word is absolute, inviolable. Their edicts must be obeyed, on pain of punishment. Titans with the Tyrant Calling think only of themselves and their own selfish gain. While a Tyrant may make fair-weather friends, their selfishness quickly drives them from others’ good graces.

Knacks

• A Voice Like Doom: During intrigue play, whenever you try to Shift Attitude or Atmosphere during intrigue play to create feelings of fear or to Encourage Behavior to enforce obedience, you may choose to increase the Collateral pool by up to your Tyrant Calling in dice. For each die you add to the Collateral pool, add +1 Enhancement, which applies before you roll.



• Crushing Inquest: During information gathering play, you gain access to the following Stunt: Tyrant’s Weight (1-3 successes): For each success you spend, create an atmosphere of Fear for any social encounters with a rating equal to the successes spent for the rest of the session.



• Present Dread: You may spend Momentum to create the following Complication for anyone opposing or attacking you for a Scene: “Aura of Oppression” (+2): Failing to resolve this Complication creates an Attitude of fear for the character attempting the action towards the Scion who created it equal to the Complication’s unresolved rating.



• Ready Displeasure: Whenever someone who serves you or has sworn to follow you disobeys the spirit of your orders, you immediately know (though not what exactly they did or why they did it).



• Reward the Obedient: You may make a Knack skill roll against a target, opposed by their Integrity + Composure or Resolve or most relevant dice pool. On a success, create the condition “Tyrant’s Command” on them. Anytime a character suffering from the “Tyrant’s Command” condition disobeys you, you may end the Condition to instantly inflict one damage to the target. Otherwise, the Condition resolves after they’re away from your presence for at least a day.



• Tools of Tyranny: Intrigue actions or physical attacks made by your sworn subordinates (including followers or beasts) against targets with an Attitude of fear towards you or in an atmosphere of fear gain Enhancement +1. If you’re present, intrigue actions benefitting from this Knack resolve an additional Milestone on a success, while physical attacks gain the Brutal tag.



• Away From Me: Rebuke a target within the same scene as you, whether in a social encounter or in combat. If the target is of lower Tier, this Knack has no cost. If the target is the same or higher Tier, spend Momentum and make a Clash of Wills. If successful, the target must leave the same Field as you, thereby removing them from the scene.



• Die for Me: Once per session, make a Knack Skill roll. On any successes, demand a target of lower Tier become the subject of an attack or any other source of harm targeting you, instead. If this causes the subject to die, you may use this Knack a second time.



• Empowered by Sycophants: Gain Enhancement equal to the rating of your Followers or Creature present with you in the scene. This Enhancement may be applied to Encourage Behavior, Encourage Belief, or any Tyrant Knack Skill rolls, or any other rolls made to intimidate, coerce, or otherwise make demands not covered by these other restrictions.



• First and Foremost: At the start of a social interaction, you may use this Knack to declare yourself the focus of everyone’s attention. During the initial interactions, all Storyguide characters must target you first with their social actions. If they do not, they suffer -2 dice to any applicable rolls. If more than one character has this Knack, you must agree out of character who gets to be the focus for this scene.



• Great and Terrible: All things fear you. Spend Momentum. Until the start of your next turn (or action) characters who target you with actions cannot benefit from additional Enhancement unless this Enhancement comes from an innate magical source — such as a Boon or a Knack.



• In My Stead: Once per scene, you may promote a subordinate of lower Tier who you may then send to perform a social action in your place. For all intents and purposes, this character acts as you, using your applicable Skill and Attribute but not any other Enhancement or special effects from Knacks or Boons. If you fail this roll, you may choose to dispose of the subordinate — either arranging for their untimely death or destroying their social standing — and instead choose to succeed as though you had met the Difficulty exactly.


Iron-Fisted Order: During Initiative, no Storyguide character of lower Tier may act before you, and must take initiative slots after yours, regardless of the result of their roll. Only one of the players’ characters in the Band may benefit from this Knack at a time during a combat encounter.


• Pride Goes Before: You gain access to the following Stunt, which applies to any social action.
  • Inflated Ego (2s): In addition to any other social effects, you afflict the target with the “Hubris” Condition. While under the effects of the Condition, any Enhancement the target would benefit from removes successes, rather than adds them. If this would create negative successes, treat it as zero. When the target fails the roll, you gain Momentum as if you’d failed the roll instead, and the target must suffer whatever consequences came from their failure. If the target of this Knack is another player’s character, you must first obtain their consent out of character, and if the penalty would create negative successes, treat it as a botch for the purposes of generating Momentum. The target must still deal with the consequences of failure and cannot dodge them with any ability that might otherwise allow them to.



• Take the Fall: Once per scene, whenever you fail a social action or fail to buy off a social Complication, you may instead redirect the narrative fallout or the result of the complication to another character to whom you have a connection. This is typically in the form of a Bond, though the Storyguide may permit any other narrative connection — especially if the Tyrant was the target character’s leader, boss, or other such figure of authority. If targeting another player’s character, you must get their permission out of character first.


Terror at Hand: Spend Momentum. You tear the fear out of a target, and shape it into something real. Clear a target’s negative Attitude towards you and reset it to 0. Then, summon a weapon or armor shaped from the target’s emotions, using the attitude rating + Legend in points to spend on Tags. This item persists until the end of the session, but can be purchased as a Relic with a rating equal to the target’s original Attitude when the session ends.


• Total Authority: Trivial targets in a procedural scene instantly recognize you as a figure of authority and are compelled to approach and provide useful information relevant to your investigation. This counts as though you had purchased the Extra Clue or Interpretation stunts a number of times equal to your Tyrant Calling.

Immortal Knacks

• Absolute Terror: The dread you inspire warps attempts to oppose or harm you. Foes attacking or opposing you suffer any Attitudes of fear they possess towards you as additional Difficulty on their rolls, while foes opposing you with inanimate objects that should happen to fear you must overcome their weapon’s Attitude as Complication or be disarmed.



• Faceless Legions: Make a Knack roll. On a success, you gain followers equal to your Tyrant rating for the remainder of the session, your personal gravity drawing weak-willed humans and lesser supernatural beings to your service. If they fail a roll, you may dismiss them, make an example of them, or disdainfully abandon them. If you do, you lose access to Faceless Legions for the rest of the session, but you gain your Tyrant dots in Enhancement to succeed at whatever they failed at. You may not have more than one group of followers collected by Faceless Legions bound to you at once.



• Haughty Summons: You may call a character sworn to your service or a Birthright similarly attached to you to your side in a frightful wind. Spend Momentum: If they could plausibly come to your side in a scene, they arrive immediately; a day, they arrive at the end of the Scene, any longer, they arrive at the next dawn or dusk. If supernaturally kept from meeting your call, you may Clash of Wills against whatever force holds them in durance. Birthrights need not be capable of their own conveyance normally to respond to the summons; players’ characters must always give consent to be affected by this power.



• Solipsistic Disdain: Once per scene, you may spend Momentum to ignore an attack against your person, refusing to acknowledge its existence and becoming utterly unaffected by any of its effects. If this was in response to an ambush or surprise attack, you may use this Knack without spending Momentum and may use it one more time during the Scene.



• Squirming Masses: When attempting to inflict fear or coerce obedience on a huge Scale, such as cowing an army or demanding the labor of an entire country, imbue, rather than spend, a point of Legend to invoke your Legendary Title as a Feat of Scale.



• The Fear: The fear and terror you cause is absolute, even affecting targets that would normally be unable to feel fear such as unintelligent constructs or inanimate objects. Trivial opponents are unable to target you with physical attacks or other actions to hinder you, barring outside supernatural means, and you may inflict Attitudes of fear or similar emotions on normally invalid targets, such as “fearless skeleton warriors” or “that wall.” Lower Tier foes must succeed at an Integrity + Composure or Resolve or most relevant dice pool rollto affect you, which counts as a normal action in action-adventure play. Foes protected against fear by supernatural means may make a Clash of Wills roll to oppose your ability to create dread.



• Wicked Industry: When crafting, you may always count “the toil of desperate servants” and “dire plots planned in darkness” as Milestones.



• I Am Absolute: Spend Momentum. You command a target to take a social, combat, or procedural action (which may not be self-detrimental), which they cannot refuse. If the target is the same Tier or higher, this costs another Momentum. They roll the action as normal, and may apply any special abilities or powers they have, though they can choose not to. If the target is a God, Titan, or other being of equal power, they may make a demand of you in return (unless you are also of the same Tier). In this case, they may harbor resentment, resulting in story consequences of the Storyguide’s choice. This cannot be used on another player’s character without their out of character consent.



• Petty Tyrant: While in your place of power (a hideout, your corporation’s headquarters, your army’s base camp, etc.), you may establish up to your Tyrant Calling in arbitrary rules, which you may change or adjust at the start of any scene. Any Storyguide character who doesn’t follow your rules gains a -2 Complication of “Rulebreaker” to all actions while within your domain. If a target refuses or is unable to buy off the Complication, you may forcibly eject them from your seat of power. Other players’ characters are not required to obey your petty edicts. This Knack applies even if you have tricked an enemy into breaking your rules.



• Selfish Demand: Once per session, you may make a demand of a target of lesser Tier, which they must comply with. They perform this action as though they’d succeeded with a number of successes equal to your Tyrant Calling, which they must spend on Stunts if applicable. You cannot demand a target to do anything self-harmful, or anything they physically could not do. For example, you could not demand that a security guard walk into traffic, drink bleach, or jump off a building or do things they simply could not, such as fly or lift a car over their head. You could demand the same guard to grant you access to secured places or deliver a scathing message to their employer, and so on.



• Solipsistic Disdain: Once per scene, you may spend Momentum to ignore an attack against your person, refusing to acknowledge its existence and becoming utterly unaffected by any of its effects. If this was in response to an ambush or surprise attack, you may use this Knack without spending Momentum and may use it one more time during the Scene.



• Squirming Masses: When attempting to inflict fear or coerce obedience on a huge Scale, such as cowing an army or demanding the labor of an entire country, imbue, rather than spend, a point of Legend to invoke your Legendary Title as a Feat of Scale

Skills: Empathy, Leadership, Persuasion

Example Keywords: stern, unforgiving, absolute, selfish

Fatebinding Roles: Apprentice, Rival, Worshipper/Unrequited Paramour



Failure Deeds: Treat your lessers with compassion, compromise your goals for someone else, allow one of your edicts to be broken

Adoption Deeds: Coerce an enemy of equal power into your service, intimidate a large group into obeying you, seize vast political power unjustly