Code of Truth

Requires: Truth ideal

If you choose this Code as a starting hero, you know ✪ Code of Truth and its spells. Otherwise, you can learn ✪ Code of Truth with XP—so long as you have the Truth ideal.

✪ Code of Truth

✦ Will This ability grants two spells: 𐎺 Forbid Falsehood and 𐎺Speak True.

𐎺Forbid Falsehood | SOULSIGHT 1

Roll Compel to magically prevent the target of your Soulgaze to speak with deception. If the character has the Truth ideal, you automatically succeed. ✦ Success: As long as you have soulsight over the character, they cannot lie (or use the Deceive action). If the character spouts baseless speculation or empty puffery—not quite lies, but not based on fact—you know what they say is baseless, and the character knows you know. ⬖ Struggle: The character can take -1 spirit to rebuff your magic.ⓧ Failure: No effect.Note that this spell doesn’t compel the target to speak. It only prevents them from lying if they do speak.

𐎺Speak True | SOULSIGHT 4

Roll Compel to magically adjure the target of your Soulgaze to answer one question truthfully. ✦ Success: The character answers your question truthfully and to the best of their knowledge. Alternatively, they can take -1 awareness to answer discreetly by communicating the answer directly into your mind, as with the Commune spell. ⬖ Struggle: The character(s) can take -1 spirit to rebuff your magic.ⓧ Failure: No effect.Forcing a character to reveal a secret with this spell almost certainly causes them to become hostile to you.

Abilities to Learn

.5xp new ability | 10xp with attribute increase

You must know ✪ Code of Truth before learning the abilities in this section.

✪ Rebuke Lies

✦✧ Will Gain +1 max Awareness. All attempts to Deceive you suffer a penalty equal to your Will. If a character fails to deceive you, you can immediately Soulgaze them as a free action, adding your Will to the roll.

✪ Greater Falsehood Forbiddance

✦✦✧ Will Take -2 spirit to cast the 𐎺Forbid Falsehood spell on a group of characters directly. You don’t need to first use Soulgaze or expend any soulsight. The characters all must be able to see and hear you.

✪ No Truth Without Order

✧ Intellect Your experience has led you to conclude that Truth is inadequate without Order to preserve its facts and premises. When you learn this ability, you also learn the ✪ Code of Order ability and its spells. You can subsequently learn other abilities from the Code of Order. (You don't gain the Order ideal, however.)

✪ See Echoes

✦✧ Intellect Gain +1 max Spirit. You have come to understand that echoes of souls exist within the souls of others who encounter them as memories. By carefully paying attention to the distinctive shapes of souls, you’ve learned to recognize these echo-memories within other souls instantly.When you ✪ Soulgaze a character, you know if that character has interacted with, seen, or heard of any other character you’ve used Soulgaze on. You know the regard the character has for the soul whose echo you see in their memory. If the two characters have or had a relationship, you know its general nature.For example, if you've Soulgazed an imperial panjandrum, and later Soulgaze a Kananite balloon trader, you know that the trader has met the panjandrum several times—and that she feigns deference to their authority, secretly despises them, and thinks they are a pompous fool.

✪ Discover Lore

✦✦✧ Intellect Long have you meditated on the knowledge once contained in the souls that now flow through the undifferentiated Rephaim. At last, like a bolt from the blue, you’ve distilled the patterns of that lost knowledge from the Rephaim’s entropy. When you learn this ability, you learn two types of lore from any origin, along with their starting abilities. You gain any languages and literacy granted by the lore.However, you must meet both lore types’ minimum attribute requirements to learn them this way. For example, to learn The Spear with this ability, you must have Strength 1. Also, you don’t gain any starting belongings granted by the lore, which may limit the utility of some lore types. Learning The Spear doesn’t magically cause a spear to appear in your hands. Learning Ancient Cylinder with this ability would be useless, unless or until you find such an artifact.

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