The Sight

The Sight 

For a wizard (or other practitioner), the third eye isn’t merely a metaphysical concept. It’s a very real thing, a part of his ability to look at the world and see what’s really there, gliding beneath the surface. In our world, perceived by our mundane senses, the supernatural can hide in plain sight, a shadow rippling beneath the ocean of reality—unseen, perhaps felt, but rarely fully revealed. With training, people can open their third eye—using what is called the Sight—and dip below to see full force what is really there, no matter what it is.

  There’s just one problem: the human mind isn’t all that good at handling what it sees when the third eye is open. What exactly does it see? Simply, the world—but at a level most of us are insulated from. When someone looks at the magical world with the Sight, the trickle of information the mind normally takes in via the other five senses suddenly becomes a great crashing wave drowning the third eye. The metaphorical and phantasmagorical become visual. Emotions and relationships shine like webs. Energy pulses. Dreams and nightmares boil into the air. The past, present, and future have a little hoedown right in front of you. It’s hard to make any sense of it.

  And these images get burned into the memory of the beholder—never forgotten, always vivid. This can be a problem (i.e., consequences). Worse, it can be pretty hard to shut your third eye once you’ve opened it—imagine trying to close a door against an invading tidal wave, and you’ll have some understanding of why this is the case.

<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">  <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">So why use the Sight at all? Well, some things simply cannot be perceived without it. Horrors that walk the mundane world with little more than a chill down someone’s spine may be seen clearly (though that’s always unpleasant). Other times, it’s the shortest path between mystery and truth—with a price, certainly, but if the stakes are high, it may be the only way to get a handle on what’s <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">really <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">going on. The effects of spells laid upon a victim can be seen as well as visions of the past and the future, the true nature of things, lingering psychic stains, troubled shades… Assuming, of course, that you can figure out how to make sense of what you’re seeing and avoid going mad in the process.

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<h3 class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">How It Works 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">When you open your third eye, you perceive everything about the world visually. Everything, all at once. This may give you strange and twisted versions of future possibilities, hint at past evils, reveal the presence of magical and psychic wounds, all sorts of ongoing glories and horrors, beneficent and malevolent spells and enchantments, and so on. However, the price for this arcane knowledge comes from exposing your mind to the Sight’s awesome force. The game procedure to open your third eye is as follows:


 * 1) <span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Take an action to open the Sight and get the description of what you’re Seeing.
 * 2) <span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Make an assessment action to try to learn about what you’re Seeing.
 * 3) <span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Defend against the mental strain of using the Sight.
 * 4) <span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Close the Sight (if you can) before you suffer too much of that strain.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Opening the third eye to use the Sight takes a full action, after which you may behold the target of your arcane curiosity. Once you begin using the Sight, you get at least some metaphorical expression of the truth of what you’re beholding. Someone who committed a murder might be Seen to have blood on his hands, ever-flowing, and staining his clothes—however, the blood might be symbolic of a different kind of guilt or regret. Or it could be the result of a spell convincing him that he has done something undefined but horrible—maybe he’s broken the Fourth Law and done it “for his own good…” So while the things seen might be true, what truth they represent can be interpreted (or misinterpreted) in a variety of ways. Perception does not equal comprehension.

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<h3 class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Understanding What You See 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">In game terms, using the Sight most closely resembles a mystical assessment action— you’re looking to discover something important about the target, which could manifest as an aspect or simply as a detail. After describing the metaphorical truth, the GM determines the intensity of what you behold. The intensity is a difficulty described using an adjective from the ladder.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">  <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">Most Sights significant enough to mention should be in the neighborhood of a Good intensity— by default, most things you focus on using the Sight are vibrantly beautiful or retchingly hideous in some way. You can make things a step or two easier by keeping your eyes focused intently on something small, effectively avoiding a look at the wider picture of your location—but that also means the information you get will be more limited. You could also widen the focus, taking in something bigger than you originally intended for more information— but expect the intensity to go up a step or two in response to that.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">  <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">Once the intensity is determined, you make a  Lore <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;"> roll against the intensity to make sense of what you’re Seeing—basically, to see if you succeed at the assessment. The more shifts you get, the more the GM can explain the metaphorical reality revealed through the Sight, providing additional aspects and/or details as per the normal guidelines for assessment<span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">. Any aspects you get will probably have a broad scope and require interpretation, rather than providing concrete specifics (for example, you’d see Hidden Guilt instead of Betrayed a Lover). If the Lore roll fails, you still get the general feel of the metaphor, but that’s it—no help in interpreting it or mechanical benefit from discovered aspects.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">After resolving your attempt to understand what you’re seeing, you must also resolve how well your mind is handling the strain. Having the Sight open starts a mental conflict  against the vision, which lasts as long as you have the Sight open or until you are taken out. Each exchange you have the Sight open, the GM makes a mental attack roll against you, using the intensity of what you’re Seeing as if it were a skill. You defend with Discipline. As with any conflict, you may suffer consequences or be taken out (where “taken out” may mean total collapse, insanity, heart attack…take your pick, as appropriate to the vision.).

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">After your first defense that succeeds, you may choose whether you want to close your third eye or keep it open to learn more (thus prolonging your contact—and conflict—with the vision). If you decide to keep it open, then you may make another Lore roll to understand the vision and you must continue for another exchange against it. Should your defense not succeed, however, your third eye will not close and you must continue for another exchange. Beholding something more intense than you bargained for may lock you into a deadly psychic struggle for the sanctity of your own mind with no easy escape!

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">While the Sight is active, you may take actions other than perception, but these actions will all face a block with strength equal to the intensity—unless they “cooperate” with the Sight in some way. For example, you might try to remove a nasty spell effect from a target with the Sight active, in which case the Sight acts kind of like a surgeon’s camera, allowing you to focus on what you need to work on (the spell) without facing the block. For unrelated actions, such as shooting a gun, driving a car, or drawing a picture, the Sight is more of a distraction than a helpful tool.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">  <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">In either case, when you take an action that is <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">not <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">just perception, you skip the Lore roll to understand what you’re Seeing—you’re too busy with whatever you’re doing to perceive anything more than a simple description.

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<h3 class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">'''<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The Sight Sucks! '''

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">So, you may be reading through this and wondering why anyone in his right mind would use the Sight, given its ability to shatter your mind into a thousand pieces if you look at the wrong thing for longer than a second. Setting aside questions of sanity, there’s still plenty of reason to use the Sight.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal;margin-left:24px;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">  <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">Foremost is the idea that the Sight lets you see something it would be <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">impossible <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">to see otherwise. That’s a <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">big deal <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">. Sure, you might end up finding some of the same information out via other means, over a longer period of time, but as with all elements of magic, it’s less about doing something you just plain couldn’t do under any circumstances eventually, and much more about getting at what you need to know <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">right now <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;">. It’s a short-cut. And like many a short-cut, sometimes it takes you through a bad part of town.

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