Judge Knacks

Mortal Judge Knacks give you power over the truth and analysis, and enhance your ability to be just. Immortal Knacks bind you and others to powerful oaths and use the force of someone’s guilt against them. Judge Knacks are driven by the concepts of judgment and scrutiny.
Some Judge Knacks reference the Censured Complication. Censured: Any unresolved Complication is reduced from their Defense and the Difficulty for you to make investigation or intrigue rolls against them for the rest of the scene.

Judge Knacks Master

Judge Heroic

• Curse of Fragility

Pick a target in a combat situation and spend a Momentum. For the rest of the fight, all enemies attacking your target are considered to have the Brutal Tag.

• Divine Truths

By speaking plain and true, you empower what you say. Whenever you speak truly, you may add Enhancement equal to your Knack Skill to any Intrigue rolls to persuade or inform. At the Storyguide’s discretion, this Knack may fail to function when the character’s words are untrue — even if she believes them.

• Eye for an Eye

When you suffer an Injury, spend Momentum and inflict the same Injury on the target that attacked you. The target must have attacked you directly; you cannot reflect attacks that targeted someone else. If the target does not have the ability to take a similar Injury (having your arm bitten by a giant snake, for example), inflict an Injury of similar severity instead, such as a festering, envenomed bite mark. This also applies to Critical Hits inflicted.

• Final Judgement

People of the World trust in your ability to resolve conflicts fairly and without bias. When asked to mediate, with a successful Knack Skill roll all parties involved accept and abide by your decision. While the parties involved accept your judgement, this Knack does not prevent those on the losing side of the argument from harboring ill will toward you for siding against them.

• Honor in Duty

When you work to uphold the law, justice, or order for a higher power, whether as an agent of mortal society, divine right, or stranger authority, those attempting to directly interfere with your investigations or litigation suffer your Judge rating in Complication: Censured once per scene.

• Indisputable Analysis

You spend a moment observing the scene you wish to analyze and the player makes a Knack Skill roll. You then apply the successes on this roll as Enhancement to all rolls made to analyze and investigate the incident for the rest of the scene. These successes apply before you roll.

• Inescapable Judgement

Imbue for Scale when punishing the guilty on a massive scope (capturing every member of an international criminal enterprise, guillotining a cruel aristocracy, binding a Titan).

• Interlinking Roots (Ilhm Specific)

You trace relations and relationships through the community, determining where the people have come from and how they’ve come together. You can tell two individuals’ relationships, from familial to friendly, formal to intimate, at a glance, including any Bonds, Attitudes, or supernatural effects connecting them. If supernaturally concealed from you, you may gain +2 Enhancement on any Clash of Wills to discover that information.
LORD OF THE PRIMORDIAL WATERS, KEEPER OF THE ME
Aliases: Ea, Enkig, Nudimmud, Nissiku; 40
Callings: Creator, Lover, Trickster
Purviews: Artistry (Pottery, Sculpture), Beasts (Fish, Goat, Turtle), Fertility, Forge, Fortune, Prosperity, Stars, Water

• Lie Detector

Anyone of a Tier lower than you suffers +2 Complication to lie to you. If you are currently casing and they are somehow involved, they simply cannot lie to you at all. The Storyguide should also notify you when a lie has been told, though it does not automatically reveal the truth, and also reveals nebulous truth, such as “he has been convinced this is true” — which should always be a means for characters to pursue the person who manipulated the target in the first place.

• Lift the Veil

Lift the Veil allows you to see through disguises. By taking a moment’s concentration, you may see through any illusions or shapeshifting intended to deceive. Against a character of a higher Tier, this requires a Clash of Wills.

• No Innocents Were Harmed

Whether they mete out justice with fists, bullets, or hurricanes, a truly just Scion seeks to spare those undeserving of their wrath. Before engaging in an act of violence, you may spend a Momentum to declare your target and make a Knack Skill roll. Each Success on this roll increases the Scale of violence which you can engage in without harming anyone who is truly innocent, starting at Scale 0.

• Objection!

You mark a target, and anyone targeting them with an action gains +1 Enhancement to all rolls. This bonus applies before you roll. Gain access to the following Stunt, which you may apply to any of your attack actions:

• Terrify (any successes above Defense): After applying this Stunt, the target must make a Clash of Wills roll. On a failure, they must flee the fight or suffer +2 Difficulty to attack rolls until the fight is over.

• On the Case

When you investigate an event or scene, you are casing. While casing, gain +1 Enhancement to rolls to discern motives and search for clues, which applies before you roll. Casing lasts until the end of the session.

• Proper Penance

When a character confesses a wronging or failure to you, you may proscribe a course of action for them to atone or set things to right. Roll your Knack skill; your successes make a pool of Enhancement they may spend on rolls to follow your instructions for the rest of the session. If they choose to actively defy your judgment, they suffer +1 Difficulty on all their actions for the rest of the session instead.

• Quick Study

You sweep your eyes over a crime scene and collects clue almost immediately. Halve the time you would need to perform an investigation. Quarter it if you are also casing.

• Read the Room

When you observe a crowd or audience, you can ask the Storyguide for two options of how you could win them over. If you do one or the other, they automatically improve their Attitude toward you by 2 steps, and you intuit a useful clue about what else they want from you, what it would take to get them to do something, or some other piece of useful information about the group; if you act on it, you gain +1 Enhancement.

• The Truth Arises

When you engage in conversation (or other such interaction) with an alleged perpetrator of a crime, make a Knack Skill roll. On a success, if the target is guilty, he will leak a piece of information that connects him to his crime. Before expending effort on using this Knack, let the Storyguide know, and she should tell you if the target does not have any valuable information to leak — which in itself can be helpful in an investigation.

Judge Immortal

•• A House of Law

Your chambers or places of judgement are beacons of light and order across the land. Imbue Legend to consecrate a courthouse, hall of judgement, law library, or similar place of jurisprudence. Those attempting investigative actions (in Procedural scenes or otherwise) to determine the truth within its walls benefit from additional Scale. This may create a Realm Condition that reduces the cost for Fortune, Order, or Sun Divine Rule actions taken through it by 1.

•• Bound by Oath

When someone swears an oath to you to perform a task of your choosing, you bind it with your choice of swearing ceremony. As long as they work towards the sworn oath, they gain +1 Enhancement to all rolls until the task is complete. This bonus applies before the roll. If the target breaks your oath, the next roll they would make botches automatically.

•• Divine Mercy

When someone has been unfairly punished or given an excessive sentence, you may Imbue for Scale to release them. This may involve sundering chains, burning a slave labor camp to the ground, or pulling someone out of a tormenting afterlife (to place them in a more benevolent Underworld realm; this Knack alone cannot undo a death sentence). Doing so is seen as a law- ful act in the eyes of any Boons or Knacks that make that distinction.

•• I Am the Law

When you reshape laws or challenge the structure of society on a wide Scale (rewriting a country’s constitution, smashing the patriarchy), imbue a point of Legend, rather than spending, to invoke your legendary Title as a Feat of Scale.

•• Name the Executioner

If you declare someone guilty of a transgression, you may proclaim a single ally as the executioner of their punishment. Once per session, you may Imbue for Scale to modify a single roll made by the executioner to punish the transgressor. This does not stack with any other supernatural sources of Scale.

•• Oathbinder

You can sanctify oaths with the force of your divinity. Any character of a lower Tier attempting to break such an oath cannot do so, and others must make a Clash of Wills against you. You know immediately if such an oath is successfully broken.

•• Pardon and Parole

When a character offers recompense for their deeds in good faith to you and promises to amend their behavior, you may grant them pardon. As long as they keep the promises they make to you, the World recognizes their changed nature and prevents further persecution from any who acknowledge your judgement or who are lower Tier characters. This may include avoiding legal consequences, removing negative Attitudes towards them, and allowing relevant Fatebindings to resolve peacefully (such as a NEMESIS becoming a Balm). If they break their word to you or return to their perfidious ways, this effect ends, and you immediately know.

•• Pronounce Guilt

You declare a target is guilty of a crime, and it becomes true. The target need not actually be guilty or even associated with the crime, but the moment you declare their guilt, all the evidence lines up.

•• Read the Ib (Netjer-Specific)

The heart is the record of all deeds, good or ill. By simply looking at any being of Lower Tier, you literally see their beating heart in their chest, and can assess their most severe, recent unjust act. Beings of equal or greater Tier require one Momentum and a Clash of Wills.

•• Righteous Petitions

You may provide supernatural aid or supply to a character embarking on a quest, an errand for a higher power, or in pursuit of a worthy Ideal. Pick a Birthright of value up to your Judge rating; they gain access to it until they succeed at or abandon their goal, or the end of the arc. You may have no more benefits present in play than your Legend at any one time.

•• Terror of the Guilty

Anyone guilty of a wrongdoing of your choosing who is of lower Tier than you can- not bear to be in your presence and will flee in panic and terror or break down weeping and confessing. To apply this to anyone of the same Tier or higher, spend Momentum and win a Clash of Wills.

•• The Good and Bad Places

Whenever you or your bandmates take the life of any being of Lower Tier, you may declare the Underworld to which that Shade is sent. Beings of equal or greater Tier require a Clash of Wills. The Shade must still undergo any necessary afterlife trials, and the ruler of that realm has final say over the soul’s specific placement, but they will take your judgement into account. If they vehemently disagree with your assessment, they will likely let you know out of professional courtesy.

•• The Pain of Dishonesty

Spend Momentum and anyone who lies directly to you suffers 1 Health damage or a −1 Injury Condition of your choosing. You choose whether or not to inflict the damage, automatically alerting you of the lie (though it does not automatically reveal the truth). You also know the severity of the lie, and therefore can choose not to harm someone who is lying to preserve someone’s feelings as opposed to lying to obstruct a criminal investigation.

•• The Price of Perfidy

Characters who have seriously breached the law or their honor suffer distraction and shame in your presence, suffering Complication: Censured (p. xx) to their actions equal to your Judge rating once per scene. Characters who have lied, committed petty crimes, or broken simple promises suffer if they erred in the same scene, while those who have committed serious crimes, broken oaths, or committed dire betrayal suffer unless they’ve somehow atoned for their deeds.

•• The Proper Forms (Shén-Specific)

You can instantly sense whether someone has acted without following proper bureaucratic procedures (such as driving without a license or leaving Diyu without the permission of the royal judges). If they are of lower Tier, you can command them to immediately make steps to rectify this error.

•• The Stench of Betrayal

You are always aware when someone in your presence holds a negative or inappropriate Attitude toward a superior, ally, or subordinate. You automatically know the Attitude in question for lower Tier characters, and gain your Judge rating in Enhancement for attempts to try and discover it for other characters through intrigue actions.

•• Universal Inspection

You can find dust motes hidden amongst thistle if it will reveal the truth. When performing an investigation or search on an enormous Scale, such as finding a lost ring hidden in a crow’s nest within a city or a smudged footprint in a muddied factory field, imbue a point of Legend, rather than spending it, to invoke your Legendary Title as a Feat of Scale.

•• Voice of Law

Spend Momentum and name an action you wish to outlaw for the scene. Characters attempting to disobey it must always roll, even if it would normally be an unrolled action (i.e., “No one may open that door!”). Attempts to disobey suffer your Legend in additional Difficulty, and those who succeed at disobeying suffer Complication: Censured equal to your judge rating.

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