[FOCI]
High Noon at Midnight
How long have you been haunting the card tables? Seems like a lifetime. You probably played your first hand of poker before you could even read words. People, though, were much easier to understand. You could always read other folks’ tells, whether that’s squinting, tapping, stammering, pulling at their earlobe, or any of a thousand other ways you know when to call their bluffs. Which is not to say you haven’t walked away from the table in the hole. But you’ve always been able to make it up later. So far, anyway. Lately, you’ve been having weird dreams of loss and void. Is Lady Luck fixin’ to turn her back on you? You hope not, because there ain’t nothing in the world keeping you from gambling it all away.
A deck of especially fine playing cards.
Your next gambling, wagering, or similar task is eased.
You win a wager.
You are trained in a table game in which you are not already trained. Choose from the following: poker, twenty-one, farro, craps, blackjack, roulette, baccarat, or another game where gambling on the outcome is part of play.
You are trained in two skills in which you are not already trained. Choose two of the following: deceiving, persuading, public speaking, seeing through deception, or intimidation. You can select this ability multiple times. Each time you select it, you must choose two different skills.
Maybe Lady Luck’s watching over you and keeping you from harm, or maybe you’re just damn lucky. When you would otherwise descend a step on the damage track, make an Intellect defense roll against the level of the foe or effect. If you succeed, you do not descend that step. If the step was because you fell to 0 points in a Pool, you are still at 0 points; you just don’t suffer the negative effects of being impaired or debilitated. If you would otherwise descend the final step on the damage track to death, a successful defense roll keeps you at 1 point in one Pool, and you remain debilitated.
Ability Choice: Choose either Call Their Bluff or Card Genius as your tier 3 ability.
Are they bluffing or can they back up their claim? It doesn’t really matter when you fix your stare on a target within long range. If your Intellect attack succeeds, the target suffers 2 points of ambient damage each round for one minute or until the target can throw off the effect (PC targets suffer Intellect damage). If you use your action on a subsequent round to fully concentrate on the target, their attempts to throw off the effect are hindered and they take 4 points of ambient damage that round.
Action to initiate.
The more you gamble, the sharper your mind becomes. You gain +5 to your Intellect Pool.
If you win a hand of cards or other wager, or if you succeed on an Intellect defense roll to resist a foe’s attack, you gain an action. You can use it immediately even if you have already taken a turn in the round. You can use this ability once per round.
It used to be easier to be lucky all the time. Now, it takes a toll. When you roll a 1, you can reroll. If you reroll and roll a 1, 2, or 3, you must reroll again, this time expending a level of Effort plus the base Pool cost to activate this ability (5 Intellect points). If you roll a 1–5 on the second reroll, you must reroll again, expending a level of Effort and spending the base cost again (5 Intellect points), too. This progression of forced rerolls coupled with an increasing failure range continues until you roll higher than the failure range or you run out of Intellect points. (If the target number you roll is below the failure range, you might succeed on the task, but the forced-rerolling continues.)
Ability Choice: Choose either Fate Breaker or Gambling God as your tier 6 ability.
Something beyonds your ken takes an interest in you. If you fail on a task (including an attack or a defense), you can change the die result to a natural 20. (That still might not be enough to succeed if the difficulty is higher than 6.) This ability doesn’t work if you roll a natural 1 for an attempted task, unless you reroll using Consequences of Luck and obtain a result that isn’t in the failure range. Once you use this ability, it is not available again until after you make a ten-hour recovery roll.
Any time you use Effort on an Intellect action, add one of the following enhancements to the action (your choice):
• Free level of Effort
• Automatic minor effect
GM Intrusions: You misplace your card deck. Someone accuses you of cheating. The loser of a wager challenges you to a showdown.