You need to focus on you. Forget all those covenants, orders, krewes, and courts. Hell, forget about the other members of the False for a moment. Sure, it’s great to hang out with people that understand your problems, but what have they done for you lately? When you get right down to it, being part of the supernatural community has significant downsides. All those tribes, families, and guilds don’t help a whole lot when you still can’t go out in the sunlight or cast magic without reality smacking you in the face.
But the Contagion can help.
Trying to walk through a raging fire? Just do it. Want to maybe not deal with your glitch the next time you take your demonic form? Don’t. Tired of having your ghost-slash-spirit yammering in your ear? Tell them to fuck off. All you need to give up is a little bit of yourself to the Contagion. And let’s face it, you’ve probably done worse in your life.
A vampire bites her tongue and dabs a bit of his blood behind his ear before stepping out to see the sunrise. A mage pulls out a razor blade and cuts into her arm before letting loose with a lightning bolt. A werewolf punches a mirror and pulls the silvered glass from his fist.
System: A member of the False who sacrifices her leftmost Health box can ignore the effects of a specific supernatural weakness (depending on their edge) for one scene. The False knows when Purge Weakness is about to expire, and has a reasonable chance to leave the scene before it does. The Storyteller can decide that the False is unable to leave the scene for various reasons (such as if the False is captured, unconscious, or restrained in some way). The lost Health box is only recoverable if the character acquires a Contagion-related Condition. The box returns, with the Contagion plugging the gap.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Requirement: Injure yourself for one point of permanent lethal damage
Dice Pool: None Action: Instant Duration: One scene
Edges
Beasts: The Beast can negate one of their Anathema. For one scene, the character acts as if the Anathema simply doesn’t exist.
Changelings: The touch of iron no longer causes ill effects for the changeling for a scene — iron acts like any other metal to the changeling for the duration.
Demons: The demon can hide or ignore the effects of one permanent glitch. For the duration of a scene, the demon acts as if the glitch isn’t present.
Deviants: The Deviant can ignore up to five dots’ worth of Scars for one scene.
Hunters: The hunter can ignore one of her non-Contagion-linked Conditions for one scene.
Mages: A mage removes three dice from all her Paradox pools for one scene.
Mummies: A mummy can act as if they possess two additional dots of Sekhem (up to a maximum of ten) for one scene.
Prometheans: The Promethean can ignore her Torment. For one scene, the character treats her Torment as if it doesn’t exist.
Sin-Eaters: A Sin-Eater can ignore their geist for one scene. The Sin-Eater can still call on his powers, but the geist is unable to influence his actions until the scene is resolved.
Vampires: Vampires can ignore damage and all negative effects from sunlight for one scene.
Werewolves: The touch of silver no longer causes pain to a werewolf for the duration of a scene, and an attack from a silver weapon does not automatically cause aggravated
damage. Instead, it causes whatever damage the weapon would inflict to a non-werewolf character.
Specializations
The Crucible Initiative: The Fire-Bearers seek to protect themselves and their allies as much as possible, in order to prevent the spread of the Contagion. As such, they can lost a second Health box and touch another character to reduce their weakness (as per the appropriate edge) for a scene.
The Machiavelli Gambit: Those of the Machiavelli Gambit are about themselves. Sure, the other False put a nice face on it, making it seem like it’s about something bigger, but these False know it’s all about saving their own skins. As such, they can permanently lose a Health box to have the effects of Purge Weakness for an entire chapter. This damage can never be healed, even if taking on a Contagion Condition.
Naglfar’s Army: The Antediluvians know the world is going to end due to the Contagion. So why not make it last as long as possible at someone else’s expense? If one member of Naglfar’s Army gives an opponent an aggravated wound and then drinks a cup of their blood, the Antediluvian can activate Purge Weakness without losing a Health box themselves. (It still requires them to spend a point of Willpower, however.)