[FOCI]
Worlds Numberless and Strange
Spying, fighting in secret skirmishes, and assassination are the tasks you’ve mastered in a secret school for assassins that everyone says doesn’t exist. If you ever betrayed the trust of that school by publicly divulging the truth of its existence or the names of your instructors or fellow students, you’d become a target of assassination yourself. Once you were disappeared, your accusations would be made to look like the ravings of a lunatic. You’ve seen it happen before. In fact, your graduation test was to take care of a former graduate of your school. Some call you an assassin. Regardless, you maintain a secret life, because to reveal your true skills could mean your death.
You typically wear dark clothing that includes split-toed tabi boots and socks, a jacket with pockets for hidden weapons, and (when you are on a mission) a mask. You might have a change of clothing for when you’re not on a mission, but it’s probably just as dark and good for hiding.
Anyone could be invited to a hidden school to train as an assassin, though the preponderance of those asked are vectors.
You can tell other PCs the truth of your craft, but only if you swear them to secrecy first. If you don’t trust them, it might be better to hide the truth.
If this is your starting focus, choose one of the following connections.
Dark clothing and mask, handful of smoke pellets, 20 doses of home-brewed poison, blowgun, light sword (wakizashi), one light weapon of your choice, and 20 gold coins.
You’re a quick learner. You gain a +1 bonus to similar actions involving the same task (such as making attacks against the same foe or climbing the same building).
You can take another action immediately.
You can attempt to hide even if under direct observation by distracting observers (by throwing a rock, detonating a smoke pellet, throwing your voice, or using some other technique) and then sinking behind cover or into shadow. This is a Speed-based task in which you are trained, and the difficulty is equal to the level of the highest-level unallied observer watching you.
You are practiced using blowguns, knives, crossbows, and other light weapons that you can easily fold up and conceal about your body.
You always have a ready supply of mild poison, with which you can coat a weapon tip or blade as part of an attack. The poison inflicts 1 additional point of damage when you hit with the coated weapon. If you acquire more potent poison or one that has a different effect, you can substitute it for the milder poison until it’s used up.
If a creature that you can see has a special weakness, such as a vulnerability to fire, a negative modification to perception, or so on, you know it. (Ask and the GM will tell you.) If you also have the ability Find the Flaw, then even if you can’t detect a given creature’s specific weakness, the difficulty of the first attack you make against it in a given conflict is reduced by one step.
If you attack a creature that wasn’t previously aware of your presence, you deal 5 additional points of damage. If you have another ability that deals extra damage from a surprise attack, add the points together.
You are trained in all defense tasks.
You can move up to 300 feet (91 m) as your action by sliding along the skin of a recursion. This is a difficulty 2 Speed-based task. To observers, you seem to disappear from one location and instantaneously appear in another location farther away (if they see you at all). You can attempt to step into locations you can’t directly see, such as a presumed shadow behind a locked door or inside a blocked cave. However, doing so increases the difficulty by one step, and possibly more if the area you are attempting to step into is protected in some fashion or warded against translation (which affects this ability as if you were translating into the location).
GM Intrusions: You aren’t actually hidden. You accidentally poison yourself. A rival assassin attacks at just the wrong time. A poisoned dart strikes your ally by accident.