See the Guardians of the Veil book for all fluff.
Doctrine
Parentage: Moros, Guardian of the Veil or Seers of the Throne (splinter Legacy)
Prerequisites: Fate 2, Investigation 2, and 2 dots between Brawl, Athletics and Firearms
Initiation: Devote yourself solely to the protection of a lesser Fate, protecting it through trials and travails until its destiny is fulfilled. Then work with your mentor to craft your soul in the image of the devotion, and self-sacrifice you have engaged in.
Magic:
Ruling: Fate
Yantras: Succeed on an Investigation test relevant to the spell (+2), engage in physical actions which protect your charge (+2), having suffered material harm not yet treated in the protection of your charge (+2), disregard other pleasures or benefits in the pursuit of your charge’s safety (+1, +2 if you suffer a Negative Condition or sacrifice a Positive Condition as a result of this).
Oblations: Guarding an object for the sole purpose of protecting it for a short period (such as holding a chair “for a friend”), standing stock still for a whole hour, spending some time maintaining or improving the integrity of a protected subject (such as reinforcing a door or building, or teaching a charge some rudimentary self-defense), developing contingencies for potential breaches in a hypothetical subject’s security.
Attainments:
First Attainment The Eternal Watch
Pre-Requisite: Initiation
A Rook’s watch must be eternal. The devotion they hold to a specific charge grants them an innate connection to it, and warns them at any point should they be in peril. After a ritual of devotion, the Rook gains a persistent Intimate sympathetic bond with a specified object or individual touched by destiny, and instantly becomes aware whenever it is placed in serious or mortal danger. This attainment lasts until the object fulfills its destiny, or the Rook dies, it cannot be cancelled prior to either of these events occurring, nor can it be repeating on any charge until this occurs. If any spell would seek to deceive the Rook’s watchfulness, then this will provoke a Clash of Wills with the Rook, which they will detect.
Many younger members of the Legacy question the usefulness of this primary attainment. Surely they would be present to protect their charge at all times? More elderly members, when they deign themselves to answer such questions, state merely that their Watch must be eternal, and the power of their souls cannot be vanquished. It is worth noting that this Attainment devotes a Votary to a single Destiny until it is fulfilled, with no potential for backing out. This is intentional. Any Votary who has second thoughts about their charge’s importance joined the wrong Legacy, or choose poorly.
Oaths Fulfilled, with an additional benefit of an automatic Intimate Sympathetic Connection. Reach into Advanced Duration, with an “automatically lasting” benefit in exchange for the inability to cancel it.
Optional Arcanum: Space 1
So long as the Votary maintains their watch, they are fully capable of discerning the location of their quarry.
This will provide a distance and direction to their charge, as well as the knowledge of whether they have
entered a different realm of existence (though perhaps not the precise one). The Rook can also spend an
instant action to gain the Informed condition with respect to their charge’s current location.
Locate Object, reach into Advanced Duration, and tracking outside the area, in exchange for the aforementioned lack of control, and single-target relationship.
Second Attainment: Soldier of Fortune
Pre-Requisite: Fate 2
Votaries are not mere watchers of Fate, through their devotion they are forced to take up arms in the
defense of their charges. To take forthright action to permit their inherent destiny to unfold, and protect it
from the predations of opportunists, especially those of other Mages. At any time, the Votary may spend a
Scene in a ritual to re-double their devotion to their charge, for the next day (or the next month at Fate 3)
they gain a Boon with a Potency equal to their dots in Fate, which may be used either to protect their
charge, or ensure that they meet their ordained destiny.
The nature of destiny is such that it attracts many powerful individuals who might seek to usurp it. As a result of this, the powerful pacts that Guardians have made with Fate grant this Attainment the ability to enhance their Spellcasting, strictly only for the aforementioned purposes. Throughout the history of the Legacy, many immoral Rooks have taken advantage of this book, purposefully placing their charges in harm’s way in order to reap the boons of their Legacy’s Attainment. While such actions do not vitiate the Legacy’s efficiency, other Legacy members who hear of such actions will be far, far less than impressed. Such a violation of the sacred, mystic trust is unbecoming of one who has devoted their lives to the protection of destiny.
Exceptional Luck, Reach into Advanced Duration, and 2 unaccounted for Reach to ensure it affects spellcasting. This is balanced however as it is strongly limited to apply only for a relatively short period, can only be utilized in relation to the protection or
Optional Arcanum: Space 2
The Votary’s understanding of their charge’s location has expanded to full awareness. With an Instant
Action, they may open a scrying window to their charge’s current location. This window lasts for mere
seconds, however through focus the Votary may expend Instant Actions to ensure it remains open. While
this option is not always utilized, due to the danger of risking the Veil when their charge is a Sleeper,
Votaries are capable of making this scrying window selectively two-way, such that their charge may hear and
understand them.
Furthermore, for the duration of the Attainment, the Mage can spend an Instant Action to gain access to his charge’s Sympathetic Connections for the remainder of the scene.
Scrying, Instant Casting, and Sensory/Sympathetic. The Mage’s devotion is the Yantra. Not really how it works, but fuck it. It only works on a specific target, so that balances out the Sensory/Sympathy to my eyes.
Third Attainment: Doctoring Fate
Pre-Requisite: Fate 3
The Votary’s protection of his ward is such that he can exercise his powers to smooth out the process of
their Fate, to ensure the least troublesome progress towards its ultimate destiny. The Mage’s ward is
protected against all supernatural attempts to manipulate their fate, including the works of Changelings, the
Gentry, other Mages, or even the arcane machinations of the God-Machine. All passive manipulations are
automatically overcome, however direct manipulations will provoke a Clash of Wills with the Rook, with the
full benefits for an Indefinite duration ability.
Furthermore, at this level of proficiency, the Mage’s own construction of Imagos automatically adapts to protect his charge. Unless he specifically attempts to do so, the Mage’s spells and attainments will automatically exclude their charge as a subject or individual affected by their spellcasting. Fireballs will flare around them, mind affecting spells exclude them from their purview. However spells which affect the subject as a side effect of manipulating some other factor, will still operate, so be careful with Gravity Manipulation.
Warding Gesture, with reach into Advanced Duration and the +2 AoE protection. Balanced because you can ONLY use it on your charge. Plus this is the 3rd attainment.
Optional Arcanum: Space 3
The Aeon of Fate, Medraut states that all kingdoms eventually fall from within, the downfall of good
intentions. It is those closest to one that are the most likely to cause their downfall. A Rook is well prepared
for this however, whenever the Rook undertakes an action against an individual who is a Strong or Intimate
Sympathetic Connection of theirs then they gain the 8-Again trick on any non-Spellcasting test. Given that
through Soldier of Fortune, the Rook can gain access to his charge’s Sympathies, this is of significant use in
going about their work.
Perfect Sympathy, Reach into Advanced Duration
Fourth Attainment: Fate Defends Itself
Pre-Requisite: Fate 4
When someone threatens a Votary’s charge, the Rook’s proficiency over Fate allows them to draw upon the
most distant strings of Fate, entangling them with their foe and allowing Fate itself to protect its own
destiny. With an Instant Action, the Votary can sharply affect the nature of Fate in roughly a large room’s
worth of space around them, causing a single non-supernatural, but extremely improbably event to occur,
such as temporary blindness, reducing a subject’s next action to a chance die, or causing a car to crash into
someone. This charge may be occasioned within a number of rounds equal to their dots in Fate.
Chaos Mastery, Instant Action, ‘thrown’ into the area around you. Potency is 1. But that’s enough for a single action Attainment.
Optional Arcanum: Space 4
A moment is all it takes for a situation to change, so a moment is usually all a Rook can spare. As an Instant
Action, the Mage can teleport themselves to the location of their charge, no matter where they are in the
world, or in any other world. They appear in the nearest possible amount of unfilled space, and correctly
orientated. This will not however tell them exactly where their charge is, or what awaits them. Such
possibilities are the luxury of those with time.
Fifth Attainment: Quicken the Path of Destiny
Pre-Requisite: Fate 5
True Masters of the Legacy are granted a luxury that many of their less initiated brethren have occasionally
dreamed of. The opportunity to see Destiny fulfilled at their own pace. As an Instant Action, the Mage may
instill within his charge a blessing such that his destiny is empowered and strengthened. One per day until
this Destiny is resolved, the subject will be granted an opportunity to progress towards the fulfilment of their
destiny. A man destined to beget a great leader will encounter his destined partner, a firearm destined to
slay a tyrannical despot will find its way closer and closer to its target, and so forth.
Such an action is not taken lightly, for such actions upset the grand scheme of destiny, hurrying the subject to their eventual fate. Fate is rarely so kind as to continue to bless an individual after their purpose is fulfilled. Regardless, those Votaries who have progressed to his highest level of initiation find themselves in an opportune position to strengthen the grand scheme of Fate by granting fewer and fewer opportunities for those who would seek to usurp it to eventually succeed.
Strings of Fate, Reach into 1-day
Optional Arcanum: Space 5
While the empowerment of Fate can quicken the path of destiny, more mundane threats can continue to
beset a charge. When the Rook activates this attainment, he can additionally seek to shelter his ward’s
Sympathy from unhelpful connections. For the duration of the Attainment, the subject will not forge any
new Sympathies which are not destined to result as a part of fulfilling his Destiny. The man destined to find
True Love will never sense a connection to anyone but that one person, the psychopathic murderer who will
see Fate’s justice done on an ancient Vampire will find no succor any anything else. Any attempt to
manipulate the subject’s Sympathy is contested by a Clash of Wills, and any inspection of their sympathetic
connections with Mage sight adds 3 dots to its Opacity, in addition to the effects of stacking spells.
Forge no Chains. Advanced Duration.